Namo Sugata.
Ariyaratna Sir has given a superb homework.
In one of the jataka Tales, when Buddha was still a Bodhisattva in previous births, He used to camp every year , at a Kings Garden for one of the seasons (at the Kings request).
He used to come out of his seclusion , when the season started, and used to camp there, to address laymen, philosophers and so on, till the season was completed, and then he used go back to his seclusion in the Mountains. He was well equipped with iddhis, super human powers and so on.
During one visit, when the King was away on war, the queen had to serve the Bodhisattwa. At one in-appropriate moment, the Bodhisattwa sees her beauty inadvertently, and gets mentally disturbed. He immediately retreats to his Hut.
When the King comes back, he sees the Bodisattwa lying down, sick. Alarmed the King rolls him over this side and that side to see if there are any wounds. To the king, the Bodhisattwa replies “King I have been wounded by the arrow of Sensual Desire”.
Saying so , the Bodhisattwa gets back into his Meditation Posture , and there and there itself , puts an end to the defilement which has arisen and blessing the King and Queen, flies back to the Mountains.
Sir(s) , the story also says when such great mountains are moved by winds of desire and simply get rolled over, how much more so, in the case of common minds like ours? – The Jataka itself gives a simile: just like old leaves which have already fallen down from the trees – they simply get blown away!
Jhana Helps , me thinks , to enable us not to get blown or flown away.
Jhana which helps us to “fly away” ( super human power in this sense) is not the Jhana which our Lord taught,
But rather the Jhana which gives one the real super power of “not getting flown/blown away” , till magga is reached , is what was taught by Sugata. Samma sati and samma Samadhi.
regards Sir(s). Pls correct/improve
