Jhāna: The Buddha's discovery or not?
May. 28th, 2023 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cattasallaOne point of disagreement that has not been settled is whether or not jhāna started with the Buddha or was the Buddha tapping into a pre-existing tradition. We know that the Yoga Sutras, which came centuries after the Buddha, discuss the jhānas in terms similar to the Abhidhamma understanding of them. And we know from the suttas that the Buddha learned the two highest formless bases from others while on his quest to end dukkha.
The assumption is made that because he learned the formless bases, that must mean he also learned the "form" jhānas. The assumption is that one cannot enter the formless bases without having entered the "lower" jhānas. I think part of the reasoning for this is that the formless bases are considered jhānas in the Abhidhamma. But, to the best of my knowledge, they are never referred to as jhāna in the suttas. They are called things like "bases" and "attainments", and the assumption is just made that this is equivalent to jhāna. To the best of my knowledge, though, the four jhānas are never referred to as "bases"...although I haven't done a thorough inspection and this would be trivial to counter simply by finding such a reference!
However, I would argue--not based on experience, mind you! but purely theoretical--that the formless attainments do not require the jhānas as prelude. They are not always put together in the suttas. And in Compassion and Emptiness by Bhante Analayo, the formless attainments are connected to the brahmavihāras. He gives methods by which they can be directly entered through the brahmavihāras. Nowhere do I recall him saying that the four jhānas are necessary. Maybe it's implied that one has reached jhāna via the brahmavihāras, but that's not made explicit.
Further, when the Buddha first recalls the jhāna and considers them as a potential method for ending dukkha, he does not recall his previous experience with his prior teachers of the formless bases. He recalls a moment in childhood. If he had learned the jhāna while on his noble quest, why would he not have talked about remembering it in that context?
As far as Patanjali mentioning the jhānas (or dhyānas in Sanskrit), it seems to me equally possible that the yogic tradition was deeply influenced by the Buddhist methods as it is that there was a pre-existing teaching of jhāna that the Buddha also tapped into. And the more I think about it (and I'd need to re-read the Yoga Sūtras, it's been a few years), the more I consider that in Patanjali the jhāna are discussed in terms of five factors, which is not from the suttas but an Abhidhamma analysis.
This, of course, hinges on the idea that the suttas are an accurate representation of the Buddha's teaching. There was no stenographer following him around, of course, although tradition holds that Ānanda had memorized all of the suttas in their current form. However, it is more likely that they were composed, edited, compiled, and collated over a few centuries before being closed. Indeed, I think Bhante Sujato has demonstrated quite convincingly that at least some suttas were still in "draft" form when the schools split from each othe, in A History of Mindfulness.
So while I cannot take an unequivocal stance on this without further evidence, evidence that might be impossible to get, I do lean towards the four jhānas being discovering of the Buddha and not coming from the pre-existing yogic tradition.
The assumption is made that because he learned the formless bases, that must mean he also learned the "form" jhānas. The assumption is that one cannot enter the formless bases without having entered the "lower" jhānas. I think part of the reasoning for this is that the formless bases are considered jhānas in the Abhidhamma. But, to the best of my knowledge, they are never referred to as jhāna in the suttas. They are called things like "bases" and "attainments", and the assumption is just made that this is equivalent to jhāna. To the best of my knowledge, though, the four jhānas are never referred to as "bases"...although I haven't done a thorough inspection and this would be trivial to counter simply by finding such a reference!
However, I would argue--not based on experience, mind you! but purely theoretical--that the formless attainments do not require the jhānas as prelude. They are not always put together in the suttas. And in Compassion and Emptiness by Bhante Analayo, the formless attainments are connected to the brahmavihāras. He gives methods by which they can be directly entered through the brahmavihāras. Nowhere do I recall him saying that the four jhānas are necessary. Maybe it's implied that one has reached jhāna via the brahmavihāras, but that's not made explicit.
Further, when the Buddha first recalls the jhāna and considers them as a potential method for ending dukkha, he does not recall his previous experience with his prior teachers of the formless bases. He recalls a moment in childhood. If he had learned the jhāna while on his noble quest, why would he not have talked about remembering it in that context?
As far as Patanjali mentioning the jhānas (or dhyānas in Sanskrit), it seems to me equally possible that the yogic tradition was deeply influenced by the Buddhist methods as it is that there was a pre-existing teaching of jhāna that the Buddha also tapped into. And the more I think about it (and I'd need to re-read the Yoga Sūtras, it's been a few years), the more I consider that in Patanjali the jhāna are discussed in terms of five factors, which is not from the suttas but an Abhidhamma analysis.
This, of course, hinges on the idea that the suttas are an accurate representation of the Buddha's teaching. There was no stenographer following him around, of course, although tradition holds that Ānanda had memorized all of the suttas in their current form. However, it is more likely that they were composed, edited, compiled, and collated over a few centuries before being closed. Indeed, I think Bhante Sujato has demonstrated quite convincingly that at least some suttas were still in "draft" form when the schools split from each othe, in A History of Mindfulness.
So while I cannot take an unequivocal stance on this without further evidence, evidence that might be impossible to get, I do lean towards the four jhānas being discovering of the Buddha and not coming from the pre-existing yogic tradition.