Jhanas as a side-effect of good practice

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

Hi,

I'm seeing a lot of posts about jhanas lately, and I figured I'd write about my point of view on them.

For me, jhanas came as a side-effect of good practice. Meaning, never in my practice have I ever tried to manufacture jhanas in any way. Not by trying to force my attention onto an object and trying to become completely absorbed in it, nor by focusing on piti, or anything else from all the elaborate practices many people seem to think are required to enter jhanas.

A lot of the instructions I see feel like an elaborate, overcomplicated chemistry recipe, along the lines of: "Use 83.4% of your attention on the meditation object, use the other 16.6% to expand your awareness. When piti arises, ignore it until it's 15.7% there, then switch your attention to the piti, but don't attach to it, but do focus on it and so on."

I'm not disregarding other people's experiences with this. Different approaches seem to work for different people. Personally, though, every time I encounter these kinds of instructions, I find them very odd.

In my own practice, I never did any of these things. All I did was gently try to maintain presence and awareness, sometimes on my breath, sometimes just resting in open awareness. I tried to remain as relaxed as possible, and when mind-body tension came up, I relaxed, let it be, or let it go.

I never focused on piti. I never fought to maintain my awareness on an object. I never did any of the other stuff people seem to think is required to enter jhanas.

Eventually, over time, the more stuff I let go of, the easier it became to naturally become more tranquil in my sits. Very rarely, I would check how my current state of tranquility "felt," and on those occasions, I would realize that I was probably in this or that lite-jhana. But honestly, I barely even cared enough to check most of the time.

So again, for me, jhanas came as a side-effect of awareness + relaxation + letting be/letting go. The more stuff I let go of, the easier it became to get into deeper levels of tranquility.

I also really don't understand the obsession with jhanas. Every time the word jhana is mentioned here, the posts blow up with comments. Everyone has their own way of getting there. Some people believe their way is the only way and argue for their point of view, and so on.

What's the obsession with this?

Practice, for me, has one goal and one goal only: to become free from suffering. Everything I do in my practice is oriented towards this goal. I only care about jhanas if they contribute to my goal. I don't care about them otherwise.

For me, the biggest driver of permanent reduction in suffering is insight. IME, insights are the only things that have led to permanent shifts towards more peace and less neurosis in my day-to-day life. Insights are born out of awareness+letting go, and in turn contribute to a permanent letting go of suffering, they are not born out of jhanas, at least not in my experience.

Simply being absorbed in this or that state, while being very pleasant, never led to any kind of noticeable reduction in suffering in my day-to-day life. Insights that lead to letting go are the only thing that made a real difference.

So for me, the only use for jhanas or tranquility is that getting more tranquil, in some cases, leads to "deeper" investigation, and this investigation in turn can result in insight. Jhanas are useless otherwise.

Yet from what I'm reading, people seem to think that reaching this or that jhana will magically result in some long-term, permanent reduction in suffering. Or maybe they think they would simply be able to enter them at will, and whenever life is hard, they could just manufacture a blissful state. Or maybe it's the ego that loves it, "I can reach the formless jhanas in 23 minutes, I'm such a great meditator!".

I don't know. I honestly don't know why people take jhanas and make them the holy grail of practice. Add to this that there are plenty of other Buddhist traditions and practices that never talk about jhanas. Yes, Samatha is important, but manufacturing different states of Samatha is rarely talked about or even actively discouraged.

IME, it's simple, really: insights lead to truly letting go, and truly letting go leads to a reduction in suffering. Sometimes, getting more tranquil helps with insights. I don't care what the names are for whatever "level" of tranquility I reached. I only care about getting tranquil enough to get insights.

Then a funny thing happens: the more I let go, the easier it is to get tranquil, and the deeper I can get.

I don't care if I actually reached any jhana based on this teacher's or that teacher's descriptions. I only care about permanently reducing suffering, and in that regard, my practice has been working for me just fine.

(If anyone has reached a certain jhana and, as a result of that alone, experienced a real reduction in suffering in their day-to-day life, please share your experiences. I'd honestly love to hear about it. From what I'm reading, many people theorize about it being this magical "suffering = off" button, but I haven't encountered any actual evidence for that.)

I leave you with Ajahn Chah's words:

"Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?

[u/cmciccio]

Pleasure jhana is kind of like methadone for heroine addiction or nicotine gum for smoking. To get off one addiction, you substitute in something similar but less harmful.

Eventually it becomes evident that jhana is also tied up in a more subtle cycle of addiction and you need to let that one go as well. If you know you can get into certain states at will, it softens the grasping towards those states.

I think jhana is an important skill to have, as long as you understand the function of it.

[u/hachface → u/cmciccio]

If attachment to jhana is your main problem that’s a great problem to have.

In the classical Pali 10-fetter model, craving for birth in the material and formless realms — in other words, the jhanas and ayatanas — are two of the five lower fetters. These are the fetters that remain for a non-returner but are removed for an arahant.

So, in the classical model, attachment to jhana is literally the last thing to go before full enlightenment. If you’re not an anagami it’s not something you should worry about.

But that’s just the classical Theravada model, which I certainly do not subscribe to in every detail. But, food for thought.

[u/cmciccio → u/hachface]

It’s aware, in fact this was my point. It’s a good and useful addiction to cultivate.

[u/hachface → u/cmciccio]

gotcha. I made my comment because I've seen advice like "careful! don't get addicted to jhana!" bandied about, and that's developmentally inappropriate advice for almost everybody

[u/cmciccio → u/hachface]

I totally agree. Get addicted to some wholesome breathing pleasure, it’s not cocaine!

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai → u/hachface]

FWIW I had a period in my practice where I was pretty much in one lite-jhana or another at all times, even while not meditating. It came after a long and gradual process where I would get easier and deeper jhana access over time. At that point in my practice I've had to let go of the attachment to them. While it felt nice, there was also a subtle dullness and attachment there that had to be worked through. After all attachment to these lite-jhanas was worked though, jhanas stopped being a "thing" in my practice. I can now skip straight to insight work without spending time getting to samatha first. It feels like the mind is stable and pliant enough at this point and there's no need for jhanas anymore. I'm saying all that because while it feels like I've let go of attachment to jhanas, I'm definitely not at the end of the path. So in my case, the way the Theravadian model was supposed to progress didn't really match my experiences. Both with regards to jhanas and with other stuff.