In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna () or jhāna (Pāli) is a component of the training of the mind (bhāvanā), commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions and "burn up" the defilements, leading to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi)." Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment.
In the later commentarial tradition, which has survived in present-day Theravāda, dhyāna is equated with "concentration", a state of one-pointed absorption in which there is a diminished awareness of the surroundings. In the contemporary Theravāda-based Vipassana movement, this absorbed state of mind is regarded as unnecessary and even non-beneficial for the first stage of awakening, which has to be reached by mindfulness of the body and vipassanā (insight into impermanence). Since the 1980s, scholars and practitioners have started to question these positions, arguing for a more comprehensive and integrated understanding and approach, based on the oldest descriptions of dhyāna in the suttas.
In Buddhist traditions of Chan and Zen (the names of which are, respectively, the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations of dhyāna), as in Theravada and Tiantai, anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing), which is transmitted in the Buddhist tradition as a means to develop dhyana, is a central practice. In the Chan/Zen-tradition this practice is ultimately based on Sarvastivāda meditation techniques transmitted since the beginning of the Common Era.
Etymology Dhyāna, Pali jhana, from Proto-Indo-European root *√dheie-, "to see, to look", "to show".Online Etymology Dictionary, Zen (n.) Developed into Sanskrit root √dhī and n. dhī,Jayarava, Nāmapada: a guide to names in the Triratna Buddhist Order which in the earliest layer of text of the Vedas refers to "imaginative vision" and associated with goddess Saraswati with powers of knowledge, wisdom and poetic eloquence.Jan Gonda (1963), The Vision of Vedic Poets, Walter de Gruyter, , pages 289-301 This term developed into the variant √dhyā, "to contemplate, meditate, think",George Feuerstein, Yoga and Meditation (Dhyana) from which dhyāna is derived.William Mahony (1997), The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination, State University of New York Press, , pages 171-177, 222
According to Buddhaghosa (5th century CE Theravāda exegete), the term jhāna (Skt. dhyāna) is derived from the verb jhayati, "to think or meditate", while the verb jhapeti, "to burn up", explicates its function, namely burning up opposing states, burning up or destroying "the mental defilements preventing [...] the development of serenity and insight."
Commonly translated as meditation, and often equated with "concentration", though meditation may refer to a wider scale of exercises for bhāvanā, development. Dhyāna can also mean "attention, thought, reflection".Sanskrit Dictionary for Spoken Sanskrit, dhyana
Zoroastrianism in Persia, which has Indo-Iranian linguistic and cultural roots, developed the related practice of daena.
The jhāna/dhyana-stages
The Pāḷi Canon describes four progressive states of jhāna called rūpa jhāna ("form jhāna"), and four additional meditative attainments called arūpa ("without form").
Integrated set of practices
Meditation and contemplation form an integrated set of practices with several other practices, which are fully realized with the onset of dhyāna. As described in the Noble Eightfold Path, right view leads to leaving the household life and becoming a wandering monk. Sīla (morality) comprises the rules for right conduct. Right effort, or the four right efforts, which already contains elements of dhyāna, aim to prevent the arising of unwholesome states, and to generate wholesome states. This includes indriya samvara (sense restraint), controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear.Analayo, Early Buddhist Meditation Studies, p.69-70, 80 Right effort and mindfulness ("to remember to observe"), notably mindfulness of breathing, calm the mind-body complex, releasing unwholesome states and habitual patterns, and encouraging the development of wholesome states and non-automatic responses. By following these cumulative steps and practices, the mind becomes set, almost naturally, for the equanimity of dhyāna, reinforcing the development of wholesome states, which in return further reinforces equanimity and mindfulness.
The rūpa jhānas
The arūpa āyatanas
Grouped into the jhāna-scheme are four meditative states referred to in the early texts as arūpa-āyatanas. These are also referred to in commentarial literature as arūpa-jhānas ("formless" or "immaterial" jhānas), corresponding to the arūpa-loka (translated as the "formless realm" or the "formless dimensions"), to be distinguished from the first four jhānas (rūpa jhānas). In the Buddhist canonical texts, the word "jhāna" is never explicitly used to denote them; they are instead referred to as āyatana. However, they are sometimes mentioned in sequence after the first four jhānas (other texts, e.g. MN 121, treat them as a distinct set of attainments) and thus came to be treated by later exegetes as jhānas.
The four arūpa-āyatanas/arūpa-jhānas are: Fifth jhāna: infinite space (Pāḷi ākāsānañcāyatana, Skt. ākāśānantyāyatana) Sixth jhāna: infinite consciousness (Pāḷi viññāṇañcāyatana, Skt. vijñānānantyāyatana) Seventh jhāna: infinite nothingness (Pāḷi ākiñcaññāyatana, Skt. ākiṃcanyāyatana) Eighth jhāna: neither perception nor non-perception (Pāḷi nevasaññānāsaññāyatana, Skt. naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana)
Nirodha-samāpatti Beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception lies a state called nirodha samāpatti, the "cessation of perception and feeling".Majjhima NIkaya 111, Anuppada Sutta Only in commentarial and scholarly literature, this is sometimes called the "ninth jhāna".Steven Sutcliffe, Religion: Empirical Studies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, page 135.Chandima Wijebandara, Early Buddhism, Its Religious and Intellectual Milieu. Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya, 1993, page 22. Another name for this state is saññāvedayitanirodha ("cessation of perception and feeling"). According to Buddhaghosa's (XXIII, 18), it is characterized by the temporary suppression of consciousness and its concomitant mental factors, so the contemplative reaches a state unconscious (acittaka) for a week at most. In the nirodha the meditator is not dead: life-force (āyu) and bodily heat (usmā) remain. Neuroscientists have recently studied this phenomenon empirically and proposed a model for its neural-substrate.
Broader dhyana-practices While dhyana typically refers to the four jhanas/dhyanas, the term also refers to a set of practices which seem to go back to a very early stage of the Buddhist tradition. These practices are the contemplation on the body-parts and their repulsiveness (patikulamanasikara); contemplation on the elements of which the body is composed; contemplation on the stages of decay of a dead body; and mindfulness of breathing (anapanasati). These practices are described in the Satipatthana Sutta of the Pali canon and the equivalent texts of the Chinese agamas, in which they are interwoven with the factors of the four dhyanas or the seven factors of awakening (bojjhanga). This set of practices was also transmitted via the Dhyana sutras, which are based on the Sarvastivada-tradition, forming the basis of the Chan/Zen-tradition.Deleanu, Florin (1992); Mindfulness of Breathing in the Dhyāna Sūtras . Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan (TICOJ) 37, 42–57.
Early Buddhism
The Buddhist tradition has incorporated two traditions regarding the use of jhāna. There is a tradition that stresses attaining insight (vipassanā) as the means to awakening (bodhi, prajñā, kenshō) and liberation (vimutti, nibbāna). But the Buddhist tradition has also incorporated the yogic tradition, as reflected in the use of jhāna as a concentrative practice, which—in some interpretations—is rejected in other sūtras as not resulting in the final result of liberation. One solution to this contradiction is the conjunctive use of vipassanā and samatha.Thanissaro Bhikkhu, One Tool Among Many. The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice
Origins of the jhāna/dhyāna-stages
Textual accounts The , Majjhima Nikaya 36, narrates the story of the Buddha's awakening. According to this story, he learned two kinds of meditation from two teachers, Uddaka Rāmaputta and Āḷāra Kālāma. These forms of meditation did not lead to liberation, and he then underwent harsh ascetic practices, with which he eventually also became disillusioned. The Buddha then recalled a meditative state he entered by chance as a child:
Originally, the practice of dhyāna itself may have constituted the core liberating practice of early Buddhism, since in this state all "pleasure and pain" had waned. According to Vetter,
Possible Buddhist transformation of yogic practices The time of the Buddha saw the rise of the śramaṇa movement, ascetic practitioners with a body of shared teachings and practices. The strict delineation of this movement into Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanical/Upanishadic traditions is a later development. According to Crangle, the development of meditative practices in ancient India was a complex interplay between Vedic and non-Vedic traditions. According to Bronkhorst, the four rūpa-jhānas may be an original contribution of the Buddha to the religious practices of ancient India, forming an alternative to the ascetic practices of the Jains and similar śramaṇa traditions, while the arūpa-āyatanas were incorporated from non-Buddhist ascetic traditions.
Kalupahana argues that the Buddha "reverted to the meditational practices" he had learned from Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, "directed at the appeasement of mind rather than the development of insight." Moving beyond these initial practices, reflection gave him the essential insight into conditioning, and taught him how to appease his "dispositional tendencies", without either being dominated by them, nor completely annihilating them.
Wynne argues that the attainment of the formless meditative absorption was incorporated from Brahmanical practices, and have Brahmnanical cosmogenies as their doctrinal background. Wynne therefore concludes that these practices were borrowed from a Brahminic source, namely Uddaka Rāmaputta and Āḷāra Kālāma. Yet the Buddha rejected their doctrines, as they were not liberating, and discovered his own path to awakening, which "consisted of the adaptation of the old yogic techniques to the practice of mindfulness and attainment of insight." Thus "radically transform[ed]" application of yogic practices was conceptualized in the scheme of the four jhānas.
Yet—according to Bronkhorst—the Buddha's teachings developed primarily in response to Jain teachings, not Brahmanical teachings,and the account of the Buddha practicing under Uddaka Rāmaputta and Āḷāra Kālāma is entirely fictitious, and meant to flesh out the mentioning of those names in the post-enlightenment narrative in Majjhima Nikaya 36. Vishvapani notes that the Brahmanical texts cited by Wynne assumed their final form long after the Buddha's lifetime, with the Mokshadharma postdating him. Vishvapani further notes that Uddaka Rāmaputta and Āḷāra Kālāma may well have been sramanic teachers, as the Buddhist tradition asserts, not Brahmins.Vishvapani (rev.) (1997). Review: Origin of Buddhist Meditation. Retrieved 2011-2-17 from "Western Buddhist Review" at http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol5/the-origin-of-buddhist-meditation.html .
Five possibilities regarding jhāna and liberation