As I mentioned in my post, the first section is on Pre-Buddhist absorption. I think every paragraph in that section would be relevant, as that is the topic of the section. I thought it best not to post a long wall of text.
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I have asked this very same question before on Dhamma Wheel and the general consensus, both by myself and others, was:
What makes a factor of the noble eightfold path right? It’s right view. That’s why right view is the first factor of the noble eighfold path.
The practice of virtue already existed before the Buddha like for example some ascetics who did not harm anyone or anything… however they did not attain Nibbana because they held wrong view towards the practice of virtue thinking that it alone would purify and save them.
The practice of the 8 Jhanas was already present before the Buddha. Some of the Bodhisatta’s Samana teachers like for example Alara and Uddaka mastered them all the way up to the seventh and eight… however they did not attain Nibbana because they held wrong view towards these attainments thinking these experiences were the ultimate release.
The great discovery of the Buddha was right view, namely the four noble truths.
Through right view, if one practices virtue they will be right action, right livelihood, right speech instead of wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong speech. If one practices concentration it will be right concentration instead of wrong concentration.
If one practices the noble eightfold path rightly if will lead to right knowledge and right release, namely Nibbana.
I hope this answered your question. I may be biased towards the interpretation of the Orthodox Theravada but that’s the approach I’m most comfortable to answer with.
With Metta
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Are the 8 (or 9) jhanas shown in EBTs also found in other Indian religious traditions/texts?
It seems to me the entire structure and content of the jhana system are found in Buddhist texts only.
Hi @SilaSamadhi8, did anyone there provide evidence for this claim? It would seem that it is not very easy to do
See my earlier post:
For more info on this topic you can check out Polak’s Reexamining jhanas but the short answer appears to be ‘no’.
Firstly, Ven. Anālayo’s reliance on the Chinese Agama was not convincing to me. But worse was reliance in MN 79. My personal impression of MN 79 is Sakuludāyī & his disciples (who make a dreadful racket) were not familiar with jhana. I stopped my reading there.
Can’t you apply this line of reasoning to disqualify any sutta? Any form of textual evidence therefore will never be good enough. Which is fine if you treated every Buddhist idea equally with “it could be that it’s not true and wasn’t recited/reported/remembered properly”, but then it goes without saying and there’s no longer any value in singling out one concept.
Basically there’s only two outcomes I can think of for the goal of your endeavor
- Either the jhanas didn’t exist before the Buddha, and therefore everyone in ancient India/Nepal with jhana copied Gotama after his awakening, but did so incorrectly.
- Or the jhanas did exist before Gotama
My first question is what difference does it make, would your practice change at all? Like any experience one has, if one is attached to it and identifies with it, then they are misapprehending it. So practically speaking, I don’t see how this changes anything.
Second, how common were the jhanas in general, regardless of who introduced it? I think that question should be answered first before determining who introduced jhanas. If only a handful of ascetics had jhanas, then it would be more plausible that the Buddha introduced it, but if nearly every ascetic had it, then it wouldn’t, so scale and quantity are relevant.
Third, is it possible the Buddha redefined the term jhana to fit his model of overcoming the 5 hindrances, rather than the hindu/vedic model of focusing on a kasina until absorption happens. So it could be that a different type of jhanas existed before the Buddha, and he borrowed the general term and adapted it to the noble eightfold path. It wouldn’t be the first time I heard of the Buddha borrowing previous concepts and adapting it to his ideological system. To me, it would seem more likely that the Buddha borrowed the idea of jhana from the mainstream ideology at the time, and changed it to fit his unique and extremely subtle and hard to see (according to him) ideology.
You can accept it as evidence if that’s good enough for you.
But to your larger point, indeed we have to work with large amounts of uncertainty, and that’s often perceived as uncomfortable. Yet we can establish hierarchies of evidence by evaluating the assumptions that must be made in order to accept each piece of evidence.
For example establishing from the texts we have that the Buddha did exist would probably require less assumptions than establishing (from the DN) that in the past humans used to live 10,000 years or so.
The Theravada world is in desperate need to understand properly what the jhanas are. It seems to have misconstrued them since a very early age, possibly starting with forgetting that they once were exclusively Buddhist.
This is important because it has bearing on understanding which way of practice was the one recommended by the Buddha.
Is there evidence for this though? I am looking for things that could be established beyond personal opinion.
Couldn’t agree more.
Obviously it’s not possible to assess whether the states of meditation that ancient people describe were really the same thing or no. It’s hard enough to do that if you’re talking to someone face to face.
But the suttas, and all the Buddhist traditions, assume that jhanas were practiced long before the Buddha, a fact that the Brahmanical tradition is in agreement with. Since basically the entire Indic/Buddhist tradition for 2500 years has been in agreement that pre-Buddhist yogis were practicing meditations that were pretty much comparable to what the Buddha called jhana, you’d need strong arguments against it, but alas such do not exist.
It is true that the Suttas typically depict the brahmanical culture of its time as being degenerate, and having fallen away from the meditative mastery of ancient days. But this is a generalization and there are plenty of exceptions, eg. the 16 brahmans of the Parayanavagga.
This is true, but it’s also true that even the Suttas frequently refer to the same states of meditation by different terms. Why would we expect that other metaphysical systems would use the same language just because it is significant to us?
I think that the systematic description of meditation states in psychological terms was, indeed, an innovation by the Buddha. And I think to argue that he “discovered” jhana is to elide the significance of his actual discovery, to whit: these meditation states of purity and bliss, which you assumed to be oneness with God, turn out to be susceptible to psychological analysis, and to consist of the same kinds of qualities that are found in everyday consciousness, merely developed and purified. See, when you say “I am that”, we talk about the same experience in terms of the presence or absence or ordinary everyday psychological factors.
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Polak in his book says that there are only 2 suttas that ascribe jhanas to non-Buddhists: DN 1 and AN 4.123. He then goes on to argue that both are late fabrications tainted by the beliefs of their composers. Was he wrong about this? Are there other suttas ascribing jhana practice to non-Buddhists?
He also explains why the Buddhist tradition may have long been wrong in assuming that the jhanas predated the Buddha. The Buddhists traditions are shown to be wrong on many fundamental topics (he shows for example the discrepancy between highly revered Theravada teachers telling people not to practice jhana and the suttas telling us to practice them a great many times), and personally I wouldn’t accept any conclusion based solely on their questionable authority, all the more that whoever has sought to make that view a certainty surely wasn’t around before the Buddha and was merely giving their personal opinion.
Again this is an argument of authority, coming from even more questionable authorities.
What evidence can all these people produce to show that this is anything more than their personal opinion?
If this is true then how to explain MN 100 and SN 41.8? (see my earlier post). And what about SN 2.7?
I agree, there are only a few indications, but arguments in favor of it are merely arguments of authority, or we have first to reject the textual analysis on DN 1 and AN 4.123.
Polak shows that we find strong evidence of Buddhist influence in some rare texts in the Upanishads, since maybe 4 or 5 typical Buddhist terms are used together in the same short passage to describe meditation, but it is apparent that their meaning has been changed to fit long standing Hindu practice.
So overall I do not find it easy to state that the question has such a clear cut answer. Personally I would consider that I need to do due diligence to the question (and this discussion is an effort into that direction) before voicing any definitive one-sided opinion on it. I will probably never actually get to that and that’s fine, but most of us need to work towards better acceptance of the cognitive discomfort that uncertainty brings.
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Maybe he just found in his youth experience the acknowledgement and trust that the body and mind can be extremely peaceful and unburdened.
I do not believe that such moments are typically buddhist but belong to our collective human experience. I also do not believe that one must be at least this or that to have such experiences. Or, even be a buddhist.
Sometimes there are just moments, like in Buddha’s youth, one tasted or touches a very refined cooled state. And at other moments one lives in hell again. That is normal human experience, i think, at least for me 
I am quit sure people all over the world experience jhana’s. Maybe it is connected to awaking in the sense that peace, unburdeness, is not only a phantasy but tasted at those moments.
Maybe unique about Dhamma is that Buddha started to realise that defilements cannot only be temporary supressed (mundana jhana) but also eradicated (aryia jhana). Only that is the noble path.
Surpressing defilements by applying volition and concentration can never ever be right concentration of the noble path.
Hi Ven Silence, hi others, 
I think there’s two separate questions being discussed here:
- Did the Buddha discover jhanas for himself?
- Did others practice the jhanas?
Because both could be true. The Buddha could have discovered on his own something that others were also practicing.
All we have is texts. But if there were some time machine to proof without a doubt that others practiced jhanas, that still does not say the Buddha learned it from them. I’m not saying this is true, to be clear. But to simplify the question may make it easier to answer.
I think the Buddha discovered them for himself as I explained here. But perhaps there were others who practiced them as well. The Buddha could have met them later.
Either way, just to make clear, I also think it does not really matter much.
This I think questions so many suttas that one would be putting pretty much the authenticity of the entire canon and parallels in question. The arupas are very well integrated in many texts, not just an added block of text here and there. See the Anguttara nines, for example.
Well, Thich Nhat Hahn argued the four jhanas were also additions, coming from Hinduism, so it could be worse. 
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This is a misleading comparison. The vipassana-only movement is a modern trend which originated in 20th century Myanmar and has been influential only since then. The idea that people before the Buddha practiced jhana is accepted in all Buddhist traditions for 2500 years. Obviously they can be wrong, but there needs to be evidence.
(A better comparison would be the idea of the bodhisattva, but I digress.)
Yes, on both counts. I’ve already given examples, but the Parayanavagga and the account of the Buddha’s early practice are two. Another would be the Agganna Sutta:
These beings build leaf huts in a wilderness region where they meditate (jhāyanti) pure and bright, without lighting cooking fires or digging the soil. They come down in the morning for breakfast and in the evening for supper to the village, town, or royal capital seeking a meal.
Note that, while we cannot say exactly what meditation state a person is attaining, we can say that the Buddha gave a strong emphasis that to support jhana you need to practice a renunciant lifestyle, which is exactly what is described here.
Likewise, in DN 17 King Sudassana entered the four jhanas:
Then he entered the great foyer and sat on the golden couch. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, he entered and remained in the first absorption, …
And of course there is what is probably the most influential detail, which is that rebirth in the brahma and higher realms requires jhana, and given that many of those gods are depicted as being not Buddhists, it seems clear the assumption was that they had practiced jhana in the past.
See, here’s the thing. You can pick apart any detail you like. But if you listen to what the texts are saying, on the somewhat rare occasions when they do discuss the meditation of the “best of” pre-Buddhist meditators, it is basically always described in terms are jhana, or that sound similar to jhana, or which describe a lifestyle conducive to jhana. It seems to me the natural conclusion is that folks before the Buddha were in fact, practicing jhana, even if it was rare. There seems zero historical, doctrinal, or textual reason to think otherwise.
The texts are the evidence.
I have discussed these many times, and I suspect that if you are not satisfied with my explanations, there is little I can do to change your mind.
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I don’t think that follows.
If it were the case that there were no evidence of pre-Buddhists attaining jhāna or engaging in practices likely to lead to jhāna, then we could say that the proposition, “There was jhāna practice before the Buddha” is unevidenced. We couldn’t say that it was disproven, for there would still remain the possibility of pre-Buddhist jhāna-attainers who left no traces of themselves.
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They (pre-Buddhists or non-Buddhists) may practice different jhanas that are not entirely the same as the Buddha’s jhanas indicated in the EBTs. Cf.:
Page 122 from The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism Choong Mun-keat 2000.pdf (73.2 KB)
According to the above-mentioned SA/SN texts, jhanas (or all the 9 jhanas) are the results of mental projection (i.e. sankharas).
Only the cessation of raga-dosa-moha is the reality: the cessation of dukkha (nibbana/nirvana).
Thus, the entire structure and content of the Buddhist [9] jhana system are found only in Buddhist texts.
The future Buddha while a child or a teenager (age not mentioned in MN100) experienced jhāna (I believe it was only the 1st jhāna) while sitting under the shade of a tree while his father was working in the field.
This experience came to him without any specific meditative pratice: he only had, without knowing it at the time, temporarily abandoned the five hindrances which is the condition for entering jhāna.
It’s only as an adult after having tried different things such as the samapattis with his two teachers then ascetic practices similar to the Jain’s practices and noticing that none of that was removing his dukkha that he asked himself: is there another path to nibbāna and remembering his jhāna experience, realised that indeed jhāna was part of the Path.
As result we cannot say that he discovered jhāna which can happen to anyone who is lucky, like he was, to abandon the five hindrances, temporarily or better permanently.
What is not said in MN is that after this realisation the future Buddha had to work on abandoning for good the five hindrances so he could enter jhāna easily. He also had to discover that there were four jhānas and their role on the Path.
jhāna is a natural thing that can happens to anyone.
What the Buddha discovered is the role of the jhānas on the Path. The two roles are:
- realising that in the 1st three jhānas one experiences a physical pleasure (sukkha) which is greater and more lasting than the pleasure one experiences through the five senses and that this pleasure is naturally produced by the mind without the need of external stimuli as in the case of the pleasure of the five senses, also one cannot become addicted to the jhāna pleasure as there is no potentially addictive substance involved, then one realises that they have in themselves a inexhaustible source of pleasure that they can tap into any time once they have abandoned the five hindrances; this is very important for abandoning cravings associated with the five senses;
- dwelling in the various jhānas will eventually remove the latent tendencies; this removal is the last step towards nibbāna. The Buddha, as far as I know by studying the suttas, does not offer other tools to do that.
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Bhante it seems that we actually agree that we can’t know for sure. That’s all I really want to establish.
The difference may only be that if they can be wrong and we can’t know for sure, I choose to remain agnostic on the matter.
Feeling (vedana) indicated in the Vedana Samyutta of SN and its SA counterpart is closely related to the development of the nine progressive stages of meditation (similar to the so-called mystical experience).
"I remember that, being seated in the cool shade of a jambul tree, while my father the Sakyan was at work, I dwelled secluded from sensuality and secluded from unwholesome states, with application and sustaining, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, having attained the first absorption.
MN 36
I remember that, accompanying my father, the Śākyan Śuddhodana, at his work and while being seated in the shadow of a Jambul tree, I dwelled secluded from sensuality and secluded from bad and unwholesome states, with application and sustaining, with joy and happinessborn of seclusion, having attained the first absorption.
(Liu 2010, p. 222)
Furthermore, I remember that a long time ago I saw farmers resting in their fields. I approached the base of a Jambul tree and sat down cross-legged. Secluded from sensuality and secluded from bad and unwholesome states, with [directed] awareness and [sustained] contemplation, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, I attained and dwelled in the accomplishment of the first absorption.
(MĀ 117 this discourse is not a parallel to MN 36, but rather to AN 3.38, orAN 3.39 in the alternative count by Bodhi 2012).
It is noteworthy that in all versions the Buddha-to-be qualifies his experience as the “first” absorption, even though at that time he would hardly have known that this is the first in a series of four levels of absorption. As in the case of the passages on reaching Nirvana here and now, discussed above, it seems fair to assume that the standard description has been applied here in order to convey that the experience the Buddha had in his youth was of the same type as the first in the standard depiction of four levels of absorption regularly mentioned in the discourses.
In the case of those who proclaimed the first absorption to be equivalent to reaching Nirvana here and now, the very fact that they considered this experience to be the final goal implies that they were not aware of higher levels of absorption. Without such awareness, however, it hardly makes sense for them to qualify their experience as the “first” absorption. Hence, it can safely be assumed that the employment of these analytical descriptions reflects the understanding of the reciters when the discourse was delivered, rather than the understanding of those who had these experiences in the first place.
In the account of the future Buddha’s progress to awakening, this recollection forms a turning point. Recalling what he had experienced before he had gone forth and engaged in various practices, which had failed to lead him to awakening, helped him to change perspective. The resultant change of perspective is based on the realization that the wholesome type of happiness experienced during absorption need not be shunned, as it can support progress to awakening.”
Analayo
BriefHistoryBuddhistAbsorption.pdf (475.0 KB)
Thanks to @Khemarato.bhikkhu for the link.
I don’t know what the truth is but I believe that we should not be afraid of questioning everything, and that we should not let cognitive dissonance dissuade us from considering real possibilities.
I think it is possible that the texts may have been corrupted even to such an extent, for the very simple reason that we can’t prove otherwise.
There’s a distinction to be made between reasonable faith and blind faith (by which I mean any instance of considering something to be true because it saves us some cognitive dissonance, while that same thing may still turn out to be false), and we should be very careful when we take anything on faith.
We must never stop questioning our assumptions
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Exactly. The whole purpose of this passage is to show that jhana is simply a natural state of mind, free of metaphysics.
I’ve heard so many stories of people with similar experiences. A hunter who, waiting for a deer, went into deep meditation. A young man, returning from a blissful meeting with friends, so happy and content, he went into stillness and nearly drove his car off the road. A man who, frustrated with getting no teachings on meditation, just sat in a noisy hall full of mosquitoes and went “deep inside”. Were all of these, or any one them, “jhana”? Who can say? But in each case, they were a profound and transformative experience that propelled people to change their life and seek freedom. That’s what matters, not whether a specific state fits the exact category that we have an idea about.
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