Jhanas are needed for non-returner at least.
From MN 64: SuttaCentral
“There is a path, Ānanda, a way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters; that anyone, without relying on that path, on that way, shall know or see or abandon the five lower fetters—this is not possible. Just as when there is a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, it is not possible that anyone shall cut out its heartwood without cutting through its bark and sapwood, so too, there is a path…this is not possible.
“There is a path, Ānanda, a way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters; that someone, by relying on that path, on that way, shall know and see and abandon the five lower fetters—this is possible. Just as, when there is a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, it is possible that someone shall cut out its heartwood by cutting through its bark and sapwood, so too, there is a path…this is possible.
“Suppose, Ānanda, the river Ganges were full of water right up to the brim so that crows could drink from it, and then a feeble man came thinking: ‘By swimming across the stream with my arms, I shall get safely across to the further shore of this river Ganges’; yet he would not be able to get safely across. So too, when the Dhamma is being taught to someone for the cessation of personality, if his mind does not enter into it and acquire confidence, steadiness, and resolution, then he can be regarded as like the feeble man.
“Suppose, Ānanda, the river Ganges were full of water right up to the brim so that crows could drink from it, and then a strong man came thinking: ‘By swimming across the stream with my arms, I shall get safely across to the further shore of this river Ganges’; and he would be able to get safely across. So too, when the Dhamma is being taught to someone for the cessation of personality, if his mind enters into it and acquires confidence, steadiness, and resolution, then he can be regarded as like the strong man.
“And what, Ānanda, is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters? Here, with seclusion from the acquisitions, with the abandoning of unwholesome states, with the complete tranquillization of bodily inertia, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.
“Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’ If he is steady in that, he attains the destruction of the taints. But if he does not attain the destruction of the taints because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes and there attain final Nibbāna without ever returning from that world. This is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters.
“Again, with the stilling of applied and sustained thought, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the second jhāna…Again, with the fading away as well of rapture, a bhikkhu…enters upon and abides in the third jhāna…Again,a with the abandoning of pleasure and pain…a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the fourth jhāna, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.
“Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent…as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element…This is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters.