Early Buddhist Meditation

The Four Jhanas as the Actualization of Insight

Keren Arbel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317383987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhismus

This book offers a new interpretation of the relationship between 'insight practice' ( satipatthana ) and the attainment of the four jhànas (i.e., right samàdhi ), a key problem in the study of Buddhist meditation. The author challenges the traditional Buddhist understanding of the four jhànas as states of absorption, and shows how these states are the actualization and embodiment of insight ( vipassanà ). It proposes that the four jhànas and what we call ' vipassanà' are integral dimensions of a single process that leads to awakening.

Current literature on the phenomenology of the four jhànas and their relationship with the 'practice of insight' has mostly repeated traditional Theravàda interpretations. No one to date has offered a comprehensive analysis of the fourfold jhàna model independently from traditional interpretations. This book offers such an analysis. It presents a model which speaks in the Nikàyas' distinct voice. It demonstrates that the distinction between the 'practice of serenity' ( samatha-bhàvanà ) and the 'practice of insight' ( vipassanà - bhàvanà ) – a fundamental distinction in Buddhist meditation theory – is not applicable to early Buddhist understanding of the meditative path. It seeks to show that the common interpretation of the jhànas as 'altered states of consciousness', absorptions that do not reveal anything about the nature of phenomena, is incompatible with the teachings of the Pàli Nikàyas.

By carefully analyzing the descriptions of the four jhànas in the early Buddhist texts in Pàli, their contexts, associations and meanings within the conceptual framework of early Buddhism, the relationship between this central element in the Buddhist path and 'insight meditation' becomes revealed in all its power.

Early Buddhist Meditation will be of interest to scholars of Buddhist studies, Asian philosophies and religions, as well as Buddhist practitioners with a serious interest in the process of insight meditation.

1
The Fourfold Jhāna Model

Buddhist or not?

Prior to his awakening, the unawakened Bodhisatta was an ascetic wanderer (samaṇa).¹ He was one among others in ancient India who decided to leave home for homelessness in search of liberation (mokṣa) from dukkha (duḥkha) and the round of saṃsāra. These ascetic wanderers were part of a spiritual milieu that we now define as the ‘forest traditions’: spiritual seekers who left society for the life of mendicants, formulating various metaphysical theories and practicing different types of ascetic and contemplative practices.² The spiritual journey of the young Siddhattha Gotama within this setting appears in various places in the Pāli Nikāyas. According to these texts, he had practiced diverse practices with other samaṇas and under recognized teachers of his time.³ However, after his awakening, the ‘awakened one’ (Buddha), formulated a unique path (Dhamma) denouncing various theories,⁴ perceptions and practices prevalent among other samaṇas⁵ and brāhmaṇas. ⁶ The language of the Buddha’s teaching as presented in the Nikāyas was not foreign to his spiritual companions as evidenced by his use of known terms and accepted theoretical framework. However, by virtue of its conceptual content and practical instructions, in many cases innovative, it did herald a different approach to the spiritual quest.

This setting, in which the Buddha’s teaching was formulated and taught, has prompted scholars to try and determine what elements derive from innovations in the Buddha’s teaching and what elements were borrowed from non-Buddhist traditions.⁷ The interpretation of various concepts and practices in the Pāli Nikāyas was often influenced by these preconceptions about what is ‘really’ Buddhist and what is not. This was done especially with reference to Buddhist meditation theory. In particular, the existence of two ostensible types of meditation, namely, samatha (i.e., the jhānas, the arūpa samāpattis and saññāvedayitanirodha) and vipassanā (the practice of satipaṭṭhāna) evoked an apparent difficulty in their interpretation in the Buddhist path of awakening. As a result, in the Theravāda commentarial tradition,⁸ in the study of early Buddhism,⁹ and in modern Theravāda meditational circles, the supposition that the jhānas are a borrowed element from Indian contemplative traditions,¹⁰ while vipassanā is the only unique liberating technique which is distinctively Buddhist, became a predominant view. In other words, the jhānas were perceived as attainments which do not lead to liberation, on the assumption that they are not part of the unique teaching of the Buddha.¹¹

Writing on the subject of the jhānas, Walpola Rāhula gives a clear presentation of modern Theravāda perception on this issue: ‘[A]ll these mystic states, according to the Buddha have nothing to do with Reality, Truth, Nirvana.’ Rāhula further proclaimed that samatha meditation existed before the Buddha, and that it should not be considered as a practice leading to liberation.¹² Robert Gimello, for example, has also stated in his article ‘Mysticism and Meditation’ that ‘it is especially to be emphasized that samādhi and its associated experiences are not themselves revelatory of the truth of things, nor are they sufficient unto liberation from suffering’.¹³ As Sarbacker has correctly pointed out in his book Samādhi: The Numinous and the Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga, vipassanā and samatha have been a subject of considerable controversy in Buddhist studies, ‘where there has been difficulty understanding why such an important part of Buddhist meditation theory (samatha) has become not only a marginal practice but one that might even receive ridicule by some practitioners’.¹⁴

This issue has been approached in various ways by different scholars. Paul Griffiths, for example, presented a theory that attempts to resolve the difficulty, in his view, of integrating vipassanā and samatha meditation. Griffiths claimed that samatha meditation has a different aim from that of vipassanā meditation.¹⁵ According to Griffiths, the attempt to reconcile the two methods of meditation and to integrate them into a single process of liberation is particularly difficult.¹⁶ La Valleé Poussin has maintained that trance (dhyāna) in Brahmanism ‘is the necessary path to the merging of the individual self into the universal self’,¹⁷ and that ‘Buddhist trances were practiced by non-Buddhists, and scholars agree that Buddhists did actually borrow from the common store of mystical devises’.¹⁸ La Valleé Poussin does distinguish between trance that does not have the right aim and trance that does, and he reminds that ‘Śākyamuni obtained “enlightenment” by the practice of trance’.¹⁹ However, La Valleé Poussin also states that ‘trance, like asceticism, is not an essential part of the Path’.²⁰

In his book Tranquillity & Insight: An Introduction to the Oldest Form of Buddhist Meditation, Amadeo Solé-Leris presents a common view in modern Theravāda regarding the role of samatha meditation in the Buddhist path. He states that tranquillity meditation

[I]s not essentially different from the techniques used in other meditative traditions… These were the techniques (except, of course, for the attainment of cessation) to which Gotama the prince turned after abandoning his royal home. He tried them out and found them incapable of producing the definitive enlightenment he sought… This is why he left the two Yoga teachers with whom he had been practising and struck out on his own. The result of his endeavours was vipassanā, insight meditation, which, as I said before is distinctively Buddhist Meditation.²¹

The preceding references are only a few examples of the view concerning the secondary and superfluous role of the jhānas in the path of liberation. I will not pursue this here since the interpretation of how the jhānas can be seen as an integral and intrinsic part of the Buddhist path to awakening will be addressed in subsequent chapters. Rather, I attempt to rethink the premise that the jhānas are a borrowed element from non-Buddhist sources. This will be done by searching for the origin of the fourfold jhāna model in early non-Buddhist texts (i.e., the model of four successive states that are referred to in the Pāli Nikāyas as the first, second, third and fourth jhānas).²² I will first show that the jhānas – as a distinct model of four successive states – cannot be found in any known early non-Buddhist texts. Second, I will trace references of the term jhāna/dhyāna in earlier non-Buddhist sources and examine their meaning and use. Third, I will argue that even though the term dhyāna appears in early Jain texts, it alludes to a different attainment when compared to depictions of the jhānas in the Pāli Nikāyas. Finally, I will discuss the occurrences of the term jhāna in the Pāli Nikāyas in contexts of which non-Buddhist practices are described. This will illustrate that the fourfold jhāna model is never associated in the Nikāyas with non-Buddhist practices as opposed to many other practices and attainments.

I Searching for the origin of the jhānas

It is evident that the search for ‘origin’ faces serious difficulties. First, we do not have evidence from all the relevant sources from which the Buddha might have borrowed his ‘spiritual techniques’. It is reasonable to assume that early Indian contemplative settings were richer and more varied than textual evidence reveals. It is certain that some early Indian oral meditation traditions were lost in the course of time. However, this should not detract from exploring this issue, using the sources available, both within and without the Buddhist tradition. There are quite a few textual sources that record rich contemplative environments. Though not without limitations, I believe this endeavour is important and significant given that it refers to a central and recurrent element in early Buddhist awakening vision. This element has evoked much debate. Moreover, in many ways, it has determined the way Theravāda Buddhists perceived the practice and goal of the spiritual path.

A second obstacle in the search for the origin of the jhānas is the existence of non-Buddhist texts that depict similar states, or better put, describe what looks similar; such examples are found in Jaina materials, the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali and some later Upaniṣads (e.g., Maitrī Upaniṣad). This poses the question of who borrowed from whom. It is almost certain that bilateral influence was at play in the early Indian contemplative scene. While the exact mode this reciprocal influence operated remains speculative, I hope to show that it is reasonable to argue that the fourfold jhāna model was originally Buddhist, despite the fact that the term itself was borrowed from earlier traditions. In other words, I wish to make clear that the theory which considers the fourfold jhāna model to be an adopted element from non-Buddhist ...