Vitakka vicāra (Jhana-factors)

[mikenz66]

Hi Frank, ,

@frankk

here’s one of the things that makes visuddhimagga “jhana” so incoherent. if you can resolve to enter the frozen samadhi where you can’t investigate, can’t think, can’t do anything until you emerge from that frozen samadhi at a predetermined time, then how are the 5 hindrances threatening to knock you out of first jhana? …

I don’t know how to answer that, but I would point out that various teachers with an interest in EBT also define Jhana as a very deep samadhi. I gave a quote from Ajahn Brahm in the post below. I don’t have quotes from Ven Analayo to hand, but he discussed this in his lectures on the Madhyama-āgama and Pali Parallels: http://agamaresearch.ddbc.edu.tw/teaching.

"Sutta" and "Visuddhimagga" jhanas

It is quite common to see the mention of “sutta jhanas” that are less absorbed than “Visuddhimagga jhanas”: I find this a little confusing, since there are a number of people who swear by the Early Buddhist Texts who interpret the jhana passages in the suttas as indicating a highly absorbed state (E.g. Vens. Brahm, Sujato, Bramali, Analayo). It’s not clear to me what is different between a “Visuddhimagga jhana” and the jhanas taught by, for example, Ajahn Brahm: Another feature of j…