I didn’t say anything about “subtle hindrances”.
Do you meditate?
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I know this was addressed to Venerable Brahmali, and I’m sure he has some wise things to say, but I hope you all don’t mind me jumping in as well. 
(
Ajahn)
Hi DB,
I say you’re right with this presupposition. The mind also needs to stop to be able to understand that it suffering. But the easiest (and I think only) way to see how the mind can stop, is to have the five senses cease first, and being left only with the mind. Otherwise it’s like trying to extinguish six fires at the same time, burning all around you.
Also, there is more to abandoning the five senses than just seeing that they are suffering. It also lets you understand how the mind is suffering. If one has never directly looked inside the mind (by which I mean experienced a jhana), one can’t really know how it works, how it too depends on contact (phassa). Because the mind too is created (saṅkhata) and produced—as are the jhanas—and the way to see this is not by focusing on the body, but by focusing on the mind, seeing for example how its awareness depends on its object. You can’t do this (I think) if you have 6 types of contact going on at the same time.
But that’s not really the main thing, even, because in this thread we’ve mainly been discussing one aspect of the jhānas—the absence of the five senses—but there is another thing: the absence of the unskillful qualities. And in my opinion, from what I’ve heard and read, the non-absorption jhāna underestimates these too. And that is actually the most dangerous part of misunderstanding samādhi. People may think they have abandoned the hindrances, but they are much more subtle than they might assume.
In MN128 we see some indication of this too. The Buddha tells Anuruddha & friends that his nimittas disappeared when he was a Bodhisattva, and only then, after the nimitttas fell apart, he realized that there were still hindrances present. This is because the nimitta is a reflection of the mind. If it is dull, it means the mind is dull; if it is moving, it means the mind is moving; and so forth. It’s like looking in a mirror. I don’t see how you could really understand the hindrances without such experiences, without looking directly at a reflection of the mind, which is where the hindrances are hiding. The hindrances aren’t hiding in the body, is what I’m saying.
And without abandoning the hindrances, it’s impossible to see reality. For example, the sense of self (or “conceit”) I would put under unskillful qualities. The sense of self disappears when attaining the jhanas. Inside of the jhanas you (temporarily) have the exact same mind the Buddha and all other enlightened ones had when they were in jhana. See in the suttas that when the Buddha describes his jhāna experiences as an enlightened being, he uses the exact same words as before his enlightenment. There’s no difference in the description, because they are the exact same (temporarily). Now, with such a true self-less experience you can start to understand what enlightenment is about. (And it won’t be what you think it is! That’s the problem of delusion, it also deludes our ideas about awakening.) This is also why the jhanas I think are called the “sukha of awakening”: even if you’re not enlightened, if you experience them, it’s like you’re temporarily awakened. You experience the exact same happiness as the awakened ones in jhana.
That’s why I care so much people have a proper idea of the jhanas. They’re missing out otherwise!
However, actually, whenever these types of questions come up I like to remember people that they might be coming from an unhelpful mindset. Because our question shouldn’t be, “how much suffering can I still experience before insight?” or “how shallow can my meditation be?”, but instead “how much can I let go of?” Because the path is not really about the experience of jhana itself, it’s about letting go.
So pragmatically also, just aim at letting go. Jhanas and deep insights come from the exact same mindset, namely that of letting go. Before jhana and before stream entry your mind does the same thing, which is letting go of the self. But to enter jhana, you also let go of 5 senses; to become a stream enterer, you let go of all 6.
But trying to skip straight to letting go of all 6 senses at once, is like trying to lift 100kg before you can lift 20kg.
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He is an Abhidhammika so yes, but he also says that based on the suttas alone they sound more like the body is still experienced (and so non-absorbed Jhana). It’s because of the Abhidhamma and commentaries then that he thinks they are absorbed.
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Do we need to actually shut off the senses to understand arising and ceasing? In the Jhanas I have in mind one sees the conditionality between body, feelings, mental states and dhammas and so can see arising and ceasing since the gross body becomes the subtle body of the rupa realm. One can see how the body is bound up with perception and mind, and so is empty, when it starts it take on the form of Brahama etc, by becoming a subtle body like in the Dhyana sutra I posted above
“the four elements of the Desire Realm spread fully all over the body, which is soft, harmonious, gentle, and joyful signs, and the mind leaves bad desire and unwholesome deed, then the samādhi of single-minded thought can cause one having joy and happiness.183 Forms created in the Form Realm have the feature of bright light. Hence, the cultivator sees the wonderful and bright light emitting from the body internally and externally”
That said do we need to see things directly ceasing in order to understand arising and ceasing? I take the “seeing” here to be more in the sense of “I see your argument” rather than “directly seen”, although that can occur with it too.
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Ok I don’t know where u have read about that …
But as we know piti and sukh are two jhana factor which are present in first jhana till the 3rd jhana …and there presence remove pain …
The truth is first pain vanish …body becomes light and tranquility feeling generated then a person enters in jhana. .it’s happens suddenly…
Sometimes u do not enter in jhana but pain just vanishes
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Very interesting, Venerable!
You seem to be saying that to attain liberation, after suppressing the 5 senses, one must necessarily also suppress the mind.
Yet SN 12.70 says that to attain liberation, there’s no need to reach meditative states higher than the 4 rupajhana.
How do you reconcile your point of view with this sutta?
Two other things you said particularly struck me: 1/ a mirror of the mind (such as nimitta) is needed to understand obstacles; 2/ during jhana, we temporarily experience awakening.
Here’s what I have to say about 1/.
It’s true that nimitta sounds very interesting. I’m not allowed to talk about my practice on this site, but in my practice (Pa-Auk), I did indeed experience some kind of mental creations that mentally reflected and replicated my breathing, even merged with it.
And it’s true that the obstacles can be extremely subtle. But I don’t know if that makes nimittas necessary. In any case, personally, I find it hard to see in the suttas.
I have the impression that with the Buddha, cultivating attention to our various types of perception is already a kind of scan of our mind, and therefore notably a scan for impurities, unsuitable, destabilizing states (i.e. notably an obstacle scanner). In the suttas, I don’t get the impression that it’s necessary to go through an intermediary such as a “mirror” (like nimitta).
So, according to my understanding of the suttas, I think that to understand the extreme subtlety of certain obstacles, you need to practice the 4 mindfulnesses a lot, and practice them regularly, because by developing and cultivating them, you’ll develop the 7 factors of awakening, and by perfecting these factors, you’ll understand the obstacles to liberation much better, and thus achieve liberation (that’s what I understand from MN 118). This happens little by little, progressively. With perseverance, our mind’s attention sharpens and better perceives the truth of phenomena, including extremely subtle obstacles.
Below, here’s what I have to say about 2/.
Wow, jhāna is a temporary experience of Enlightenment?! Interestingly, this overturns the vision I have of jhana, because I thought that a non-awakened person in senseless jhana still subtly possesses the illusion of Self! Now that I think about it, it’s true that I would have said that the senseless jhana of an awakened person is far superior to the senseless jhana of a non-awakened person, because the non-awakened person would by definition always subtly have dukkha in his jhana, unlike the awakened person. But you tell me something else; very interesting, thank you Bhante!!!
But I find it hard to understand how it is logically possible to experience (temporarily) Enlightenment, without being awakened. I feel like there’s a logical incompatibility. Perhaps you mean that whoever attains jhana is necessarily temporarily awakened AND temporarily experiences enlightenment?
You are very inspiring Venerable, thank you again.
The photo is funny ahah!
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Thank you very much for this valuable information. I was very curious to know, because psychologically, I give great authority to Venerable Bodhi.
I also wanted to say that I often find your posts very interesting and skillfully raising important points, thank you!
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Yes he is a great monk. You’re welcome and thank you.
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I don’t know who you are replying to, but thought I would reply. In Jhana there is no mental or physical pain, but pain can arise again during the 1st Jhana due to prolonged intentional thoughts (of contentment, loving-kindness etc).
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Ok venerable friend…
I thought once you enter in jahan …till it ends there should be only those 5 khana factors…
If we experiencing pain …that mean jhana is breaking…
Loving kindness based jhana is where you continuously apply throughts…vitakka and vichara …so it is 1st jhana …
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I wouldn’t call it “suppress”, but I get the idea.
Well, what stream winners “experience” when they enter the path doesn’t really fit into the samādhi structure. Just like enlightenment isn’t a meditative state, stream entry also isn’t a meditative state.
Stream winners know what nibbāna is (nibbāna in the sense of the cessation of existence, the cessation of the six senses):
“Friend, though I have clearly seen as it really is with correct wisdom, ‘Nibbāna is the cessation of existence,’ I am not an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed. Suppose, friend, there was a well along a desert road, but it had neither a rope nor a bucket. Then a man would come along, oppressed and afflicted by the heat, tired, parched, and thirsty. He would look down into the well and the knowledge would occur to him, ‘There is water,’ but he would not be able to make bodily contact with it. So too, friend, though I have clearly seen as it really is with correct wisdom, ‘Nibbāna is the cessation of existence,’ I am not an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed.” (SN12.68)
Now this “Nibbāna is the cessation of existence” is talking about the permanent cessation of existence, which includes the cessation of all 6 consciousnesses. Stream winners haven’t reached that yet. But they have seen all consciousness cease temporarily. And they also know with absolute certainty that it will cease permanently one day soon (soon in the scope of saṃsāra). This is what the looking down in the well represents, seeing the cool water down below.
Hmm, I tried to phrase it non-absolutely by saying “in my opinion”, “I think”, and “I don’t see how”, but I think something still got lost. I wasn’t trying to say that the suttas indicate that nimittas are necessary, just that I personally don’t see how non-absorption jhanas lead to abandoning the hindrances fully.
I said earlier that I don’t have the power to know the minds of all beings. So whether everybody in the whole world in all of time needs nimittas (or jhanas) to become enlightened, I can not know with 100% certainty. I just gave my point of view on the matter. What I’m saying is, I fail to see how someone would really understand the hindrances by focusing on the body instead of the mind. And I explained how the abandonment of hindrances works in light of the non-body (or “absorption”) jhanas, and in light of MN128.
I did so because people were discussing the different approaches to insight based on the different approaches to jhānas, to see which makes more sense to them. I wasn’t trying to argue that the suttas say nimittas are absolutely necessary, just that I personally can’t see how one would abandon the hindrances without looking at the mind directly.
However, I would like to add that the nimittas were apparently necessary for the bodhisattva in MN128, and they resulted in his awakening. That should give us something to think about! Is it wise to assume we may be able get by with less deep meditation than the Buddha? 
I for one don’t think so.
Similar when people wonder whether the jhānas are necessary. Well, they were necessary for the Buddha! So I’m not going to assume I can do without, that I’m somehow more penetrative with insight than the Buddha.
Wait, no :). There’s another miscommunication between us here. And that’s my fault, because the difference is a single word. I said jhana is “LIKE you’re temporarily awakened”, not that it “IS temporary awakening”. It’s impossible to be temporarily awakened, because awakening is by definition permanent, since it is the permanent ending of the defilements.
I instead tried to say that the unenlightened mind in jhāna experiences the same thing as an enlightened mind in jhana. If you were able to take a picture of your mind in jhana and a picture of an arahants mind in jhana, you can’t tell the difference between the two. But that doesn’t make jhāna a type of awakening. I hope you get the difference now.
Think of it like this. You aren’t always angry, I assume? 
So sometimes anger has disappeared for you. For the Buddha anger has disappeared too. So when it comes to anger, your mind is similar to the Buddha’s at times. (Note: this analogy only goes so far.) The difference is, you still have the ability to become angry again; the Buddha doesn’t. This is why the suttas speak of “underlying tendencies”. You may not always be angry, but you still have a tendency to become angry. The Buddha doesn’t have such tendencies anymore. And just because you have a tendency to be angry, doesn’t mean you are always angry.
Now, when it comes to the jhanas, add to anger also the other unskillful states of mind, including the sense of self. For the Buddha they are gone forever; for the unenlightened one in jhāna they are gone only temporarily. That doesn’t make jhana a “temporary awakening”. It’s just a temporary absence of defilements. The tendency for self-identification is still not destroyed, but self-identification has disappeared temporarily. 
It takes insight to break these defilements permanently, to let go of self view permanently. Some people may attain jhānas and don’t learn much from those experience, they don’t become stream winners. They may even think they are enlightened already, or that they experienced nibbāna! However, if you’re wiser than that, you will contemplate those jhāna experiences after you come out and realize what major defilement was absent but which is now present again. And that is “you”: the sense of self.
To attain jhanas “you” have to cease, and it’s the same for awakening. That’s why it’s impossible to conceive of what these things are like from a sense of self.
The Buddha has spoken of not identifying even with the attainment of the first absorption. For whatever they imagine it is, it turns out to be something else. (MN113)
Brilliant, I love suttas. 
The jhanas are still dukkha after enlightenment as well. That’s because the only real happiness is the cessation of existence, all else is suffering in comparison. In AN9.34 that I linked earlier they are said to be “afflictions” compared to the absence of all consciousness, "when nothing is felt (or ‘experienced’).
I’m happy you say that, because it means some of the immense inspiration and joy I feel around this topic somehow finds its way to you even through text. That’s all thanks to the Buddha, I’m just the messenger, lol. 
And it’s that inspiration is what made me stuck around here for longer than I wanted. So I’m leaving now! 
Thank you and all others for the nice discussion. I enjoyed it. Maybe there will be other opportunities in the future.
Sukhi hotu, nibbana-paccayo hotu. 
(May you all be happy, may this [your contribution in this discussion] be for the attainment of nibbāna.)
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Thank you very much Venerable.
May all beings quickly realize the Causeless.
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I think there’s a quote where the Buddha compares awakening to an amputated man, and asks if the man is aware that his hands are amputated all of the time, or only when he refers to his “stubs”. The answer, of course, is that he’s amputated “all the time” but doesn’t realize it on any given occasion unless he looks down at his “stubs”.
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The way I see it when one enters a non-absorbed Jhāna, of the kind I have in mind, then, if there is wisdom, there is insight into
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The drawbacks of sensual pleasures, since there is a rapture and ease more refined apart from them.
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Impermanence of the aggregates, by seeing how the refined state & its mental components and the refined subtle body is dependent upon intentions.
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The emptiness of dhammas, since these states stand in relation to each other due to differing conditions. The old coarse body falls away and a new subtle body emerges, being completely bound up with one’s mind and perception.
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That’s definitely a good reason. 
Yay!
This is a good point! It is still the case, however, that getting completely out of something is a more direct way of getting insight into it. We need to distinguish between what is possible and what is likely to be the most effective.
Sense impressions are always moving and changing. They are never still for long. This means that true stillness can only be achieved by abandoning the senses. You will notice this in your meditation. The joy and the stillness is proportional to the degree to which you have given up the senses.
This is an important point. The path is gradual and so jhāna naturally comes before stream-entry. In other words, you abandon the five senses before you abandon all six. (Streamentry is abandoning the mind because you see it as dukkha. You give up craving for it, at least temporarily.)
It is extremely helpful!
To fully see the argument you need direct insight.
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Ajahn
Not to argue or discuss more (I’m departing 
), but just to clarify, since it seems perhaps I was misunderstood: I meant all six senses are let go (or abandoned) by the stream winner in the same sense that the five senses are abandoned in jhāna, i.e. they momentarily stop functioning as a result of letting them go. That is the way to understand all suffering, because it’s seeing the opposite of suffering, nibbāna (the water in the well). And the only way to see impermanence of things is to have them cease.
And it’s also the way to understand non self even more deeply than the abandoning of identification in the jhānas:
If someone said the mind is one’s self, then that is not tenable. The arising and vanishing of the mind is seen, and from that it follows that one’s self would arise and vanish. So it is not tenable to say that the mind is one’s self. And so the mind is without a self. (MN 148)
I mean, people may disagree with this, but just to make sure my position was clear to everybody.
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Well, now I need to quote you:
I’m not sure how we even got here.
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If that is true, then the Buddha didn’t have true stillness when he’s walking.
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Does stillness of the mind mean frozen and locked into place on one thing, or does it mean a mind which isn’t reacting to sense experience with lust, aversion etc? There are two different views of this being presented here. It seems to me that in the 1st Jhana there is stillness because the mind isn’t chasing sensual pleasures nor becoming adverse, due to the strength of mindfulness and effort in repelling the hindrances. There isn’t complete composure however due to V&V as they are disturbing the mind now. When that is stilled, there is a more refined composure of the mind. Then rapture is a disturbance, and so on.
How could it possibly be otherwise, Aggivessana? Prince Jayasena dwells in the midst of sensual pleasures, enjoying them, consumed by thoughts of them, burning with fever for them, and eagerly seeking more. It’s simply impossible for him to know or see or realize what can only be known, seen, and realized by renunciation…
They give up these five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom. Then they meditate observing an aspect of the body—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world.
They meditate observing an aspect of feelings … mind … principles—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world. It’s like when the elephant trainer dug a large post into the earth and tethered the elephant to it by the neck, so as to subdue its wild behaviors, its wild memories and thoughts, and its wild stress, weariness, and fever, and to make it happy to be within a village, and instill behaviors congenial to humans. In the same way, a noble disciple has these four kinds of mindfulness meditation as tethers for the mind so as to subdue behaviors of the lay life, memories and thoughts of the lay life, the stress, weariness, and fever of the lay life, to discover the system, and to realize extinguishment.
MN 125
“First, take someone who lives mixed up with sensual pleasures and unskillful qualities. After some time they hear the teaching of the noble ones, rationally apply the mind to how it applies to them, and practice accordingly. They live aloof from sensual pleasures and unskillful qualities. That gives rise to pleasure, and more than pleasure, happiness, like the joy that’s born from gladness. This is the first opportunity for achieving happiness.”
DN 18
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For example here we have a stillness of the mind whilst being physically assaulted
“Now, if others attack that bhikkhu in ways that are unwished for, undesired, and disagreeable, by contact with fists, clods, sticks, or knives, he understands thus: ‘This body is of such a nature that contact with fists, clods, sticks, and knives assail it. But this has been said by the Blessed One in his “advice on the simile of the saw”: “Bhikkhus, even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would not be carrying out my teaching.” So tireless energy shall be aroused in me and unremitting mindfulness established, my body shall be tranquil and untroubled, my mind concentrated and unified. And now let contact with fists, clods, sticks, and knives assail this body; for this teaching of the Buddhas is being practised by me.’ - MN 28
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