Dhyana in Buddhism
In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna or jhāna is a component of the training of the mind, 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." 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. 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, as in Theravada and Tiantai, anapanasati, 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". Developed into Sanskrit root √dhī and n. dhī, 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. This term developed into the variant √dhyā, "to contemplate, meditate, think", from which dhyāna is derived.According to Buddhaghosa, the term jhāna 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".
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, and four additional meditative attainments called arūpa.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 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, controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear. Right effort and mindfulness, 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 āyatana''s
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, corresponding to the arūpa-loka, to be distinguished from the first four 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 and thus came to be treated by later exegetes as jhānas.The four arūpa-āyatanas/arūpa-jhānas are:
- Fifth jhāna: infinite space
- Sixth jhāna: infinite consciousness
- Seventh jhāna: infinite nothingness
- Eighth jhāna: neither perception nor non-perception
''Nirodha-samāpatti''
Only in commentarial and scholarly literature, this is sometimes called the "ninth jhāna". Another name for this state is saññāvedayitanirodha. According to Buddhaghosa's , it is characterized by the temporary suppression of consciousness and its concomitant mental factors, so the contemplative reaches a state unconscious for a week at most. In the nirodha the meditator is not dead: life-force and bodily heat 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 ; contemplation on the elements of which the body is composed; contemplation on the stages of decay of a dead body; and mindfulness of breathing. 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. 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.Early Buddhism
The Buddhist tradition has incorporated two traditions regarding the use of jhāna. There is a tradition that stresses attaining insight as the means to awakening and liberation. 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.Origins of the ''jhāna/dhyāna''-stages
Textual accounts
The List of Majjhima Nikaya suttas|, 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" 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.