Beloved friend Saurabh@2110
Peace to you and all the dear humans here in 2026.
Very thankful for your expressing gratitude for the humble post this brother shared. Please forgive me if anything came out unclearly.
Jhanas are of great importance. The holy Buddha even said that it’s impossible to overcome sensual stimulation without them. They even make a part of the noble path. The eighth factor: right samadhi (concentration). What I simply wanted to suggest was that attachment to them is unworthy. Accepting continued becoming which is dukkha, just for the sake of jhanas, is a wrong view. It would be just like a person wanting to become a monk, but unable to in this life, now doesn’t want to become a sakadagami because then he would not be born as a person again, and thus he cannot become a monk. This is an extremely wrong view.
How exactly the jhanas help in gaining insight, this brother cannot tell. With much gratitude I can admit to being able to get into the first jhana but no higher. The venerable Lal has shared before that he can reach the third one, so perhaps he can tell you more.
We must be careful of clinging to certain words. The book that made me turn to the Dhamma was Handbook for Mankind, by Bhikkhu Buddhadasa. The definition he gave for Dhamma was simply to see things as they are. Just to have certain concepts, and now playing around with them in your mind, this is not to see things as they are. This is just information which will be lost when the body dies. To use a comparison:
Let’s look at a math problem,
4 x 19 + 8 x 3
If we answer,
= 76 + 24
= 100
Then no points for us.
If we answer,
= 4 x 19 + 4 x 6
= 4 x 25
= 100
Then we get the points.
Wherever we know the mathematical term for what we just did, makes no difference. In the same way, just because as humans who are interested in Dhamma we use a lot of technical terms when communicating with each other, that does not mean the value is in those terms. The Holy Buddha used the expression that His finger points to the moon, but the moon is not at His finger. The words are pointing us at something: To see things as they are.
When in jhana, it is crystal clear that this is much better than getting joy from eating a hamburger. But using a little logic will tell us that there is again something better than jhana. Therefore, just as we should not cling to sensuality, we should not cling to jhana. Not cling to views. Not cling to becoming. And not cling to ‘self’ ideas. When this brother was a commoner, his body was his ‘I am’. When I was a Christian, my soul was my ‘I am’. When I was a Hindu Non-dualist, atman was my ‘I am’. Now by the grace of the Dhamma and Noble Ariyans, there is no clinging to ideas of ‘I am’.
You shared, ”Because I don’t think anariya person like me…” This is a horrifying statement. You say you are anariya, that means you are saying you’re going to end up in hell! You got to do something! FAST! Stop reading this post, sit down, calm your mind, think deeply, realise nothing is worth getting… nothing is worth becoming… Nothing can in truth be, ”I am this, this is me, this is my ‘self’, this belongs to me.” Put away all doubt, superstition and ritualism. This body, mind and consciousness… ”I am not this, this is not me, this is not my ‘self’, this does not belong to me.” GO!…