“1. What if a person has been meditating for many years but is not able to get into jhana?”
- It is not necessary to be able to get into a jhana to make progress on the Noble Path and to attain magga phala.
- Jhanas correspond to mental states of Brahmas in various realms of rupa loka. Getting to a jhana is an anatariya kamma (good one) that guarantees one of rebirth in a Brahma realm. So, it is not bad. However, unless that person has attained at least the Sotapanna stage, he/she will return to the human realm at the end of that Brahma existence and can then be reborn in an apaya; i.e., cultivating a jhana does not free one from future rebirths in an apaya.
- Thus, one should focus on attaining the Sotapanna stage rather than jhana. Some people attain jhana even without trying, and that would be a bonus.
” 2. Is just remaining in jhana meditating, in light of that only an arahat has broken the 6th and 7th fetters (basically craving brahmaloka) so even an anagami will have attachment for jhana?”
- Fetters (samyojana) are broken in a stepwise manner. One breaks the first three (sakkaya ditthi, vicikiccha, silabbata paramasa) when one attains the Sotapanna stage. Then they break the kama raga and patigha samyojana to attain the Anagami stage (those two samyojana are only weakened at the Sakadagami stage, which a Sotapanna would attain before the Anagami stage). The 6th and 7th samyojana (rupa raga and arupa raga) can be broken only by an Anagami. An Anagami attains the Arahant stage by eliminating three more samyojana (mana, uddacca, avijja). So, an Arahant has broken not only the 6th and 7th, but all ten samyojana.
- One with any jhana has not broken any samyojana unless they had also attained a magga phala, Sotapanna through the Arahant stage.
” 3. What if a person meditates but fails completely to make any progress, or does not know how to identify progress?”
- This is why it is good to understand the “Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2)” I referred to in my previous comment. I will try to address that in the post. It may take a couple of weeks to write that post.
- In the meantime, everyone is welcome to read the sutta and ask any questions they would like clarified.
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P.S. By the way, one attains the Sotapanna stage by completing step (i) in the sutta (first section of the sutta) that I stated in my previous comment as follows:
(i) First, one must engage in contemplation to grasp the key concepts og Buddha’s worldview; this is ‘Dassanā pahātabba‘ or ‘getting rid (pahātabba) of wrong views (Dassanā).’ This is the first section of the sutta on ‘Defilements Given Up by Seeing.’