I think there are 2 evidences where jhana is not needed to attain nibbana
The vinaya story where a lay person gained arahantship without prior jhana
The visuddhimagga momentary concentration
No 1 Can be refuted either by refuting the source or by claiming that he might gain jhana in his past life but the lay person enjoyed 5 sense stimulation before he gainet arahantship so even if he attained jhana in his past life he losed it in current life so in the end he still didn’t have jhana yet still be able to gain arahantship, we can’t argue that he didn’t lose jhana because if he didn’t lose jhana he would not want the 5 senses pleasures
No 2 Can be refuted by claiming it’s not a reliable source but we know that the so called ebts can’t explain everything too including how to attain buddhahood
Yes, to develop first jhana you first need to develop metta which turns into sukha/piti and it’s very logical, you do not need jhana to develop metta as metta leads to jhana. It’s logical. This has some good points but this is simple logic. Also what about Susima sutta, they had not recollected any past lives so they didn’t attain 4th jhana. It’s seems that Thito missing certain aspect (niramisa sukha) and takes is at jhana, but overall beside confusion what is what he makes good points, it’s just in wrong direction.
From a practical point of view. What does it matter? If you cultivate the entire eightfold path then you should sooner or later get Jhana and Nibbana. However, if Jhana is in fact required and you decide that it’s not, then all your efforts will be wasted. Why take this risk?
“What is the cause, Master Gotama, what is the reason why, though extinguishment is present, the path leading to extinguishment is present, and Master Gotama is present to encourage them, still some succeed while others fail?”
“Well then, brahmin, I’ll ask you about this in return, and you can answer as you like. What do you think, brahmin? Are you skilled in the road to Rājagaha?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What do you think, brahmin? Suppose a person was to come along who wanted to go to Rājagaha. He’d approach you and say: ‘Sir, I wish to go to Rājagaha. Please point out the road to Rājagaha.’ Then you’d say to them: ‘Here, mister, this road goes to Rājagaha. Go along it for a while, and you’ll see a certain village. Go along a while further, and you’ll see a certain town. Go along a while further and you’ll see Rājagaha with its delightful parks, woods, meadows, and lotus ponds.’ Instructed like this by you, they might still take the wrong road, heading west. But a second person might come with the same question and receive the same instructions. Instructed by you, they might safely arrive at Rājagaha. What is the cause, brahmin, what is the reason why, though Rājagaha is present, the path leading to Rājagaha is present, and you are there to encourage them, one person takes the wrong path and heads west, while another arrives safely at Rājagaha?”
“What can I do about that, Master Gotama? I am the one who shows the way.”
“In the same way, though extinguishment is present, the path leading to extinguishment is present, and I am present to encourage them, still some of my disciples, instructed and advised like this, achieve the ultimate goal, extinguishment, while some of them fail. What can I do about that, brahmin? The Realized One is the one who shows the way.”
I came back and did some research, it may be useful for you as you are keeping the view that jhana is needed for Nibbana. (I’m not being anti jhana because I think if one is able to enter jhana and contemplate Dhamma its good and should be part of "trying out).
No need for jhana in suttas:
“Mendicants, conditions are impermanent. Conditions are unstable. Conditions are unreliable. This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.”
AN 7.66
“Mendicants, when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated it eliminates all desire for sensual pleasures, for rebirth in the realm of luminous form, and for rebirth in a future life. It eliminates all ignorance and eradicates all conceit ‘I am’.
SN 22.102
"First, take a person who meditates observing impermanence in the eye. They perceive impermanence and experience impermanence. Constantly, continually, and without interruption, they apply the mind and fathom with wisdom. They realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements. "
AN 7.95
Beside Susima Sutta there is also Venerable Cakkhupala seems to attain Nibbana without any jhana.
Also Silavant Sutta shows the same logic
I think it is a stretch to say that the Upakkilesa Sutta is discussing first jhana, the bulk of the discussion around meditative attainments is focused on the perception of light and visions of forms, and stabilising these, neither of which, to my knowledge are ever mentioned as specifically related to any particular Jhana.
After a lengthy (and as far as I know unique) description of various mental hindrances which have been preventing the stable production of limitless light and limitless visions of forms, the Buddha then says;
Now let me develop immersion in three ways.’ Handa dānāhaṁ tividhena samādhiṁ bhāvemī’ti. Variant: bhāvemī’ti
I developed immersion while placing the mind and keeping it connected; without placing the mind, but just keeping it connected; without placing the mind or keeping it connected; with rapture; without rapture; with pleasure; with equanimity. So kho ahaṁ, anuruddhā, savitakkampi savicāraṁ samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, avitakkampi vicāramattaṁ samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, avitakkampi avicāraṁ samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, sappītikampi samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, nippītikampi samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, sātasahagatampi samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ, upekkhāsahagatampi samādhiṁ bhāvesiṁ.
This clearly refers to all 4 jhanas, not just the first, and is the only time anything like the standard formula for jhana is mentioned in the sutta.
I think it is fascinating that the description of meditation in this sutta clearly states that there are (what we would call today) total and profound visual hallucinations involved and yet this is never mentioned these days as part of the practice.
Anyway, my point is that this sutta barely mentions jhana at all, and when it does it clearly mentions all 4 jhanas (i.s with thinking, without thinking, without rapture, without pleasure) it also has a late sounding distinction treating vitakka and vicara as separate factors, and most of it is about something that neither the jhana warriors nor the dry insight fighters ever talk about these days, that is that these monks were routinely having deeply immersive hallucinatory visions the contents of which we seem to know absolutely nothing about.
That Analayo relies on this sutta to talk about first jhana is a wonderful example of why we should carefully read the sources of even the most eminent and respected monastics before we take what they claim seriously, in this case there is nothing in the sutta that backs up Analayo’s claim that it was the first jhana that the buddha or the 3 monastics where struggling with, rather that the mental hindrances where preventing some kind of meditative attainment that involved “limitless visions of light and forms”.
Finally since I know you are weary of all this nonsense I thought I would close with a quote from the same sutta where the Buddha says:
Dolts pretending to be astute, Parimuṭṭhā paṇḍitābhāsā,
they talk, their words right out of bounds. vācāgocarabhāṇino;
They blab at will, their mouths agape, Yāvicchanti mukhāyāmaṁ,
and no-one knows what leads them on. yena nītā na taṁ vidū.
Nibbana is the unconditioned. That doesn’t mean you don’t need jhana to get there. Jhana is still conditioned and therefore not good enough, but each jhana is a gradual turning off of activities and therefore less conditioning and less suffering than the one before it. It’s like walking to the end of a thinning path on a cliff until there is nothing left and then you have to have faith that the next step will be fine, even though there is no ground underneath.
I would not agree with that, you put jhana in the same line as Nibbana, but there is no jhana in eightfold Path, jhana is good (as Buddha said) and it’s good if you can attain it and practice it in relation to Nibbana but jhana may be practiced just for the experience of itself as state of liberation (as Buddha practice before he became Buddha). Jhana is not needed per se for Nibbana as seeing Paticca Samupadda is what make you attain Nibbana and you can see it either with jhana or without jhana (directly understanding with pre-jhanic pure, relaxed mind)
That’s a commentary interpretation. In EBT Right View precedes everything else so there is no “insight applied in jhana”. In EBT, jhana means a state without the 5 hindrances and thus one sees things as they are. In EBT, there is no wrong jhana as the Buddha didn’t teach wrong jhana, he taught samma samadhi. It’s only later on in the commentaries where people started making jhana optional by implying that the Buddha taught a wrong jhana and something else is needed.
In EBT, the Buddha explicitly states that supermundane right view is dependent origination and dependently originated phenomena. Dependently Originated Phenomena means seeing anicca, dukkha, anatta, also known as “the drawbacks”. There is a sutta where the Buddha shows “wrong jhana” and he says this person is later reborn in hell, but someone who has supermundane right view sees the 3 characteristics and the drawbacks, thus he has Samma (Right) Concentration, and not merely concentration without the Samma. I bolded the drawbacks below. Thus, someone with supermundane right view, an ariya, cannot do wrong jhana and cannot be reborn in the lower planes.
As for the suttas:
There is a path and a practice for giving up the five lower fetters. It’s not possible to know or see or give up the five lower fetters without relying on that path and that practice.
…
And what, Ānanda, is the path and the practice for giving up the five lower fetters? It’s when a mendicant—due to the seclusion from attachments, the giving up of unskillful qualities, and the complete settling of physical discomfort—quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self. They turn their mind away from those things, and apply it to the deathless element: ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, cessation, extinguishment.’ Abiding in that they attain the ending of defilements. If they don’t attain the ending of defilements, with the ending of the five lower fetters they’re reborn spontaneously, because of their passion and love for that meditation. They are extinguished there, and are not liable to return from that world. This is the path and the practice for giving up the five lower fetters.
mn 64
Another sutta
“Mendicants, it’s totally impossible that a mendicant who enjoys company and groups, who loves them and likes to enjoy them, should take pleasure in being alone in seclusion. Without taking pleasure in being alone in seclusion, it’s impossible to learn the patterns of the mind. Without learning the patterns of the mind, it’s impossible to fulfill right view. Without fulfilling right view, it’s impossible to fulfill right immersion. Without fulfilling right immersion, it’s impossible to give up the fetters. Without giving up the fetters, it’s impossible to realize extinguishment.
It’s exactly as Thito says but the only misunderstanding is that taking jhana as factor for Nibbana. It’s great that finally, people catching up on EBT, leaving behind made up theravada
Thanks. Yes, that bold text in MN64 is exactly what i meant. I read the texts like this: Just abiding in jhana does not lead to Nibbana or uprooting of defilements. They are only supressed temporary in jhana. To make jhana a vehicle to Nibbana, one has, - just as in ordinaire states-, to contemplate all formations in jhana as anicca, dukkha and anatta. One has to apply the wisdom faculty, and see or understand all phenomena in those states as anicca, dukkha and anatta and also these constructed states itself. That is what i called: applying insight while in jhana. Seeing phenomena in jhana with insight.
I do doubt this. Asmi mana is still active, i belief. There is a an observer and the observed, a subject and object in jhana. Jhana is, i belief, not a totally purified state, without any defilements. Seeing things from the perspective of Me-who-sees, is not seeing things as they are but seeing things trough a lens of asmi mana, a lens of ego-conceit or notion of self. It never ever breaks totally with avijja. That’s why i belief they are mundane states and still part of samsara.
You are right to the point of Asmi mana, asmi mana is not hindrance but fetter, to cut off fetters one need to get of rid of hindrances first but it does not result in jhana. So you mistaking here nivaranas for asavas
Once again, the Buddha didn’t teach wrong jhana, hence Supermundane Right View is the forerunner in the path. According to EBT, one who has Supermundane right view cannot “just abide in jhana without insight” as you mentioned. Only one with wrong view (puthujanna) can abide in a jhana that doesn’t lead to nibbana because they see the jhana as caused by a self or another like a god, and are attached to it. It’s only later in the commentaries that this notion arose which you are referring to.
-Do i understand you correct when i think you say: a person without supramundane right view can also enter jhana but this you call wrong jhana’s? This was not the jhana Buddha taught? He only taught jhana with supramundane right view?
-Aren’t there sutta’s that teach that rupa and arupa raga (craving for jhana’s) are still present until arahanthood? A craving also nobles still have? Is there no attachement at all to jhana for nobles?
