Totally agree with you.
With Metta
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With great respect, I think you are missing the point of what I am saying. I am not attacking the development and attainment of wholesome states through traditional Buddhist methods. I am comparing and contrasting the jhana state and other states that have a great deal of similarity. I have read many times in modern Buddhist literature of people seeking these jhana states but give up because of the work it involves. The jhana seekers, addicted to experience only.
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So you disagree with Ven buddhaghosa that bare-insight-workers can attain non returner and even arahantship fruit, don’t you ?
Why do you assume forest meditator like ledi sayadaw who even have been seen flying during his meditation still didn’t have jhana ?
Have you seen or heard or read that ajahn brahm flying during one of his meditation or not ?
Have ajahn brahm meditated in forest for months or years ?
How do you know that ajahn brahm have attained jhana ?
I know Ven ledi have attained jhana because he left a private note which was discovered in his hut shortly after he died saying he have attained all jhanas up to the 4th
On the contrary, I think it sounds a lot like the Jhānic mind. In the Suttas, the Buddha usually describes the mind in Jhāna as “pliant” and “malleable”. One then directs this pliant mind to the three knowledges and the destruction of the fetters.
However, of course LSD is categorically not Jhāna. I’ve never consumed LSD, but I assume that the experience is outside one’s volitional control. And anybody can take LSD, but to reach Jhāna one must have first developed generosity, virtue, renunciation, abandoned the hindrances, etc, which I assume a lot of people taking LSD have not developed.
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I suppose we should be careful here as well. We say it’s “how the brain reacts to LSD” (or jhana, etc). But that’s just shorthand for: it’s how the fMRI scanner reacts to how the oxygen in the blood stream reacts to how the brain reacts to an individual being given LSD under certain circumstances.
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Yes, that too. Maybe the mechanism in the brain is similar, but one experience allows the individual to trip balls, and the other one gives insight into the true nature of reality.
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He was a forest monk before his teacher Ajahn Chah sent him to Australia to help spread Buddhism to the West, and he did a six month solitary retreat about 10 years ago.
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It could also be the case that conscious experience genuinely isn’t reducible to brain states, in the same way that chemistry isn’t applied physics, biology isn’t applied chemistry, psychology isn’t applied biology, etc. 
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Let me start off broadly by saying, that as far as I’m aware there is still vigorous debate on why we have to sleep, which is a change in our consciousness. In this change of consciousness people often have a hard time articulating what they experience in sleep. Considering this is a very common phenomena that has been studied for thousands of years by various methods I think it proves how slippery our ability to explain conscious experience and changes of consciousness is. I’m also not aware of any solid agreement on what consciousness is. It might be possible to prove these things, but at the current state of science it doesn’t seem much better than speculation in light of the replication crisis in psychology.
My point is that jhana is part of the process of consciousnesses ceasing, and we aren’t able to precisely describe what consciousness is to each other or define it clearly scientifically. We can barely describe a common change of consciousness to each other (using sleep as the example)! So explaining how and what jhana is, a change in conscious experience that takes training, should be handled extremely delicately and any hardline stance on the matter isn’t helpful for either side of the discussion.
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If consciousness ceases during jhana then how do you know you are in jhana, you could just be asleep or you become unconscious. Consciousness is passive and merely reflects.
By extension jhana is an alignment of wholesome mental factors seen in conscious reflection. No consciousness no jhana.
Just thinking.
With Metta
I would like to emphasize that I was talking about the consciousnesses, these are essentially the grasping aspects of our eyes, ears, nose, hearing, touch, and mental that make us aware or conscious. The cessation of all five of these aspects is part of nibanna since these five consciousness are tied name-and-form (namarupa). If you can sever even parts of these, lets say you sever your contact with the five senses and only leave you mind and mind-conscious functioning.
The first jhana is typically described as “rapture and bliss born of seclusion [from the five senses]” (i.e. SN 45.8) and the first jhana is also explained in this way in AN 5.176 because this sutta says that the pain and sadness connect with sensual pleasures aren’t there, and the even the pleasures and happiness of sensual pleasures aren’t in “the rapture of seclusion”. Anything associated with the senses are not connected while in jhanas. So removing parts of the our consciousnesses as an experience of jhana provides some insight into their impermanence.
But you cannot have nibanna without consciousnesses ceasing. This includes the mind-consciousness. That’s the trickiest to get rid of because it’ll follow you all the way up to the realm of neither perception or non-perception (i.e. DN 1, DN15, etc.). The mind-consciousness can cease in the deepest jhanas. This argument is made against Mahavira by the anagami Citta the Householder in SN 41.8. The reason you’ll know it ceased is because you’ll either see it stop functioning (as with the rest of the five sense in the earlier jhana stages) or you’ll see if come back (your awareness of you mind faculties will reconnect). You definitely would not be unconscious in the medical sense though. Here is a fun article about a dead monk who remained conscious for your enjoyment to emphasis the strangeness of consciousness medically.
I don’t imagine it’s possible to describe the sensations or experiences clearly and that’s why they aren’t described in the suttas. It’s best to find a meditation master to discuss it personally, but it might not be satisfying as an intellectual discussion.
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Malleability and pliancy is at one end of that range. The LSD effects (have never personally taken LSD or anything similar either ) sound more like the mind literally jumping or wandering around. Of course, sometimes the vicāra of first jhana is translated as roaming or wandering so maybe there is more wriggle room there, but the ekaggata (one-pointedness) of jhana 2 and above (or in a few suttas for jhana 1) would probably rule out going too far along this range.
Experience being more focused on less filtered sensory input would completely go against some understandings of jhana (though not all). That’s the issue with figuring out what jhana really is. There’s a lot that occurs with reasonable frequency across the Nikayas. If one, for example, just considers all characteristics that occur in, say, at least 4 different suttas in different Nikayas or in frequently occurring pericopes, one gets a reasonably consistent picture (though not entirely, e.g. there do appear to be different traditions regarding the exact relationship between the four jhanas and the immaterial attainments and the path in different places in the Nikayas), but one that is vague in many details .
The finer details tend to turn on characteristics perhaps only found in one or two suttas (often seemingly conflicting with a small number of other different suttas), e.g. the Sandha sutta. If one runs with that one sutta and its implications, then can get a rather different picture than if one does not. One possible implication of that sutta is the discounting of the importance of the immaterial attainments. Of course, that runs up against other suttas that categorize arahants into being “liberated by wisdom” or “liberated in both ways” and where they seem like rather important states! 
And I’m not saying one or other of these stances is right or wrong, just that different suttas like this seem to lean in different ways on some of these issues.
OK, poorly phrased. I’m open to various ideas of the relationship between mind and brain etc.! 
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Going back to these interesting questions, I asked my neuroscientist friend about what is the consensus on the origin of consciousness, and she said there is none. Once again, it seems like the Buddha was onto something. Consciousness can’t be located in any one particular region of the brain and, according to her, we simply don’t understand very well what it is about our particular brain structure that makes consciousness arise.
So, all of this is just to say that effectively, when one looks at the aggregates in detail, one concludes that none of them are “the self.” So just to be clear on what my thoughts are, even though the neuroscience is really interesting, I don’t think one can trivialize the spiritual experiences we have as the mere result of bodily functions, and we are very lucky indeed that we have the capacity to walk the path.
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Greetings friends
Just for another perspective on the matter 
Speculation and intellectual proliferation can be the enemies of Jhana.
IMHO what works best is if you restrict the intellectual conceptions and expectations of what it will be like, to the bare necessity. I think this is why the Buddha purposefully left the instructions/descriptions quite vague Jhana too is a conditioned state, so care must be taken to set up the right conditions leading to it, very carefully. Better to have no expectations, rather than those that will be a hindrance.
There has been talk of how Jhana is about letting go. One of the most important things that is let go of, is the intellectual thinking mind. The less of this clutter one brings into the equation the more success one will have. The intellect is not necessary and might even be seen as a hindrance - one has to move beyond the intellect, and access a different type of consciousness.
I have found that the more theoretical knowledge one brings to the cushion, the more it interferes with the process… As a number of eminent teachers have said - view it like an exploration. Enjoy exploring how mind operates. This is the only way to really see for oneself… if one is a slave to a ‘template’ then you miss all of this, and all that is looked for is compliance to expectation. ticking off the ‘ticky box’…
Let go and be surprised Explore! Go on an adventure into mind 
Don’t be so serious - have fun!
After having some fun and getting to know the new ‘landscape’, then there is ample time for dhamma reflection. Then one can realise that it is not the state/experience of Jhana that provides the answers, like - 'hey, this is the meaning of x,y,z… ’ but rather it is perceiving the mechanisms and processes of Mind, that are fundamentally different to our usual experience of consciousness - it is not so much ‘what’ is seen, but ultimately seeing the mechanism in operation - ‘how’ Mind works - how our ‘reality’ is constructed. The absolute conditionality of everything. The further one moves through the Jhanas, the more is relinquished, all the way up to cessation - where all conditions cease…
A simile I use is that of an optometrist ground lens, in a pair of glasses. Ultimately, it is not the object that is seen through the lens (which is ground/conditioned in a specific way) that is important, but seeing the lens itself, and then fully understanding how that lens colours/conditions what we see. How any lens, ground and conditioned in infinite ways, is what constructs our current reality. Jhana enables seeing that lens from a different perspective - as it requires the removal/absence of the things that hinder a clear view - sensory impingements, delusion, defilements etc… - Right up to Nama itself.
In my opinion, focusing on the object (that is seen through the lens) is the wrong place to direct attention - rather it should be on the processes at work. In this way one can move beyond being subject to conditioning. Jhana is a means to this end. It enables seeing the ‘eggshell’ that is our mundane conditioned reality, and enables breaking through that shell > seeing the lens, is required for removing the lens…
‘those who see Dependent origination/cessation, see the Dhamma’
Just another angle from which to view things
With much metta
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I think you’re reading from the anti Jhana sources. Jhanas leads to awakening. It’s the cumulation of the noble 8fold path, which is the only way to enlightenment. So don’t be too influenced by those anti-Jhana sources. Listen more to Ajahn Brahm.
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Yes, suttas clearly says need jhanas for non returners onwards. (don’t ask me to cite, can be easily found).
Ajahn Brahm said those who had jhanas wouldn’t discourage or put down Jhanas.
Ajahn Brahm was in Thailand for 9 years under ajahn Chah, then went to Australia. So yes, he meditated in forest for years.
Monks cannot reveal supernormal powers to unordained persons.
Just listen to Ajahn Brahm’s meditation retreat, and practise it to know if Ajahn Brahm got Jhanas.
In his words, Ajahn Brahm cannot enter into Jhanas, Ajahn Brahm needs to disappear, then Jhana happens.
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That’s obvious of course through jhana you can attain enlightenment I don’t think Ven buddhaghosa disagreed with the buddha
But by jhana do you mean all the 5 factors need to be present or not ?
Do you think that unification of mind alone without other 4 jhana factors can’t be called right concentration or not ?
That’s not intentional, a villager saw Ven ledi flying just one meter above the ground, I think he focused too much on his jhana pleasures thus unaware of the surrounding
So he claimed he attained jhana, didn’t he ?
That matches my development in some ways - but then rather than staying ‘purposefully vague’ about jhana, wouldn’t it be better teaching to focus in exactly that? (i.e. letting go of thinking, overcome intellectual proliferation, etc). Because intellectual overthinking seems like a whole set of problems that cannot be solved by a well-meant ‘just be curious’.
Actually, J. Krishnamurti tried to show a lot of the mechanics of how part of the thinking/learning mind is an obstacle and how curiousity is eseential. He didn’t seem to have succeeded; people didn’t get it.
In other words, if that’s such an essential condiion for jhana to work or to happen, then it should have been an essential part of jhana-teaching. Do you have an idea of why it is not?
Yes, Need all 5 factors to be called right stillness, jhanas. Anyway, I don’t see the point of bringing discussion to this area. And this point has been rehearsed too many times in Jhana debates. Go practice in peace.
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