Hello Ven. Bhikkhu Pesala, and thank-you ever so much for taking an interest
in my small endeavors. I am honored that you would send me such a long post,
however it seems to be full of strange characters that I think must be Pali,
but since I have an old worn out Macintosh computer with many broken parts I do
not seem to have the font that you are using, which has rendered the hard
work in your response useless to me. However I will endeavor to decipher this
other wise excellent post.

I am sorry you find my posts are in error. I am a simple contemplative who
speaks from personal experience, and reads a little from the Pitaka every day
for inspiration, thus I am sure there are many errors in what I say.

While you say Devadatta was supposedly accomplished in jhana, it is hard for
me to imagine anyone as saturated as I have become in jhana ever feeling like
harming anyone, therefore I assume Devadatta could not have been too deep in
jhana. Maybe he just had a little taste from time to time.

I do not know why anyone who attained "Lokuttara Dhamma, (would) even
contemplate such an act." It is beyond me. He even had the Lord Buddha himself as a
teacher, and yet he still went wrong. I guess even the best teachers must
learn to put up with the worst of students.

I have found no need to alter the Buddha's discourse on meditation, or the
practice of Sati as he described it, however I have found it necessary to
challenge what appears to be a few small translation errors because otherwise these
suttas are almost useless.

A practice based upon the Buddha's discourses has worked very effectively for
me, and it works very effectively for my students, so I do not know why
anyone would want to change them. But, then the Buddha himself had Devadatta who
went wrong, so I am sure there are others in later days who go wrong thinking
they are more sophisticated, so think they can change the practice. Their
results are due to their actions. This is what is called karma. I just endeavor
to practice and teach what the Buddha taught, as close to what he taught.

I do not find support in the Discourses of the Buddha for a 'dry' insight
practice, so I did not practice it and I do not teach it. That maybe why a
simple and ignorant layman, such as this one, in a spiritually backward nation like
the USA, can practice according to the Sutta Pitaka and attain all of the
jhanas and Lokuttara Dhamma.

Those more sophisticated folk of Asia have all of those wise teachers who
have come up with many, many practices that they claim are superior to the
historic Buddha's practices. But, if their practices are so much more superior to
the Buddha's, then why do they say it takes many thousands of lifetimes to
achieve enlightenment? Why do they call themselves Buddhists? Shouldn't they call
themselves something else?

The Buddha said it only takes 7 years to attain nibbana, maybe even less. I
practiced for 30 years by myself, and it thus took a very long time to get to
the little bit if attainment that I have. I can only say that following the
Buddha's teachings have given me a pleasant abiding in the here and now that is
not born of sense contact. If your practice has done that for you, then I am
happy for you. Why then should you bother with this insignificant and
impoverished layman who only seeks a bowl of rice once a day, or a week old loaf of
bread once a week and a bit of cheap nut butter and honey to spread on it, and
maybe a rag to wrap around the body once a year? I am happy to even park my
van under a tree, and a hose or river to bath in is fine.

I do not wish to argue with the great and wise Nyanaponika Thera, when he
says, that life now is too "hectic and noisy" to cultivating the absorptions
(jhanas). But I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment with my teenage son who
listens to music in his bedroom, the walls are paper thin, so I hear the TV next
door. I live in a city of 900,000 people, it is noise with an air force base
near by, and an international airport, and police helicopters over head, and
barking dogs, and traffic noise, and noisy neighbors on all sides. But, I just
empty myself and let all of the sounds become one sound, and like Bahiya in
that emptiness there is no me there. Then there is only jhana-nimitta and no me.

I find no place in the Sutta Pitaka where it says one develops either insight
or absorption separately. Perhaps you could point that place out to me. In
my experience and reading of the Sutta Pitaka it is clear that insight and
absorption are simply two sides of the same coin. One who has absorption has
insight, one who has insight has absorption. There is no insight without
absorption. There is no absorption without insight.

Why do you sell a dry practice? How can that satisfy the needs of the
people? Their lives are already dry, they want the moisture of ecstasy and bliss,
that is why they take drugs and pursue so many silly escapes.

When a religion ceases to serve the needs of a people it is time for a new
religion to be born.

Many kind wishes for you,

Jeff Brooks

In a message dated 3/7/04 1:33:34 AM, Pali@yahoogroups.com writes:

<< Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 08:24:00 -0000
From: "Bhikkhu Pesala" <pesala@...>
Subject: Re: Common Misconceptions of Jhana

Jeff, your latest post is full of errors and misconceptions. Please do not =


perpetuate these wrong views. Jhāna was indeed much praised by the Bud=

dha,
but it does not necessarily follow that one who can attain jhāna is
following the Noble Eightfold Path properly. Was Devadatta not well
accomplished in jhāna? Did he not try to kill the Buddha? How come, if=

he
had attained to Lokuttara Dhamma, could he even contemplate such an act?

The way of liberation via paññāvimutti is well known, and most suitabl=

e
for modern times when most people do not have the right perfections, or
enough time to cultivate jhāna.

"Katamo ca, bhikkhave, puggalo paññāvimutto? Idha, bhikkhave, ekacco
puggalo ye te santā vimokkhā atikkamma rüpe äruppä te na käyena p=

husitvä
viharati, paññäya cassa disvä äsavä parikkhïnä honti. Ayam vuccati,
bhikkhave, puggalo paññävimutto."

"What kind of person is one liberated-by-wisdom? Here some person does not =


contact with the body and abide in those liberations that are peaceful and =


immaterial, transcending forms, but his taints are destroyed by his seeing =


with wisdom. This kind of person is called one liberated-by-wisdom."

One should encourage the practice of jhana, as deep concentration is very
helpful to later gain insight. However, some people can be adept in jhā=

;na
without attaining any insight at all -- as was the case with Devadatta!

The following important point was made by Nyanaponika Thera in "The Heart
of Buddhist meditation:"

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

"We have to face the fact that, in this hectic and noisy age of ours, the
natural quietude of mind, the capacity for higher degrees of
concentration, and the requisite external conditions to cultivate both,
have greatly decreased, compared with the days of old. This holds good not =


only for the West, but also, though in a lesser degree, for the East, and
even for a not inconsiderable section of Buddhist monkhood. The principal
conditions required for cultivating the Absorptions are seclusion and
noiselessness; and these are very rare commodities nowadays. In addition,
environment and education have produced an increasing number of those
types who will naturally be more attracted by, and adapted to, the direct
development of insight.

"Under such circumstances, it would amount to a neglect of promising roads =


of progress if one were to insist rigidly on an exclusive approach through =


the Absorptions, instead of making use of a method emphatically
recommended by the Buddha himself: a method which is more easily adaptable =


to the current inner and outer conditions, and yet leads to the aspired
goal. To make use of it will be a practical application of the Clear
Comprehension of Suitability. ...

"These reasons of practicability referred to here, will certainly have
contributed to the fact that Satipatthāna has obtained such a strong h=

old
on the minds of many in modern Burma. The single-minded application to the =


Way of Mindfulness and the enthusiastic propagation of it, by Burman
devotees, are based on the conviction conveyed by personal experience. The =


emphasis which the practice of Satipatthāna receives in Burma, and in =

the
pages of this book, is however, not meant to be a discouragement or
disparagement of other methods or devices. Satipatthāna would not be t=

he
Only Way if it could not encompass them all."

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

It does a disservice to Buddhism to insist on developing jhänas before
insight. Forest monks may be able to spend long hours for meditation, but
most monks and nearly all lay people require a more suitable method for
their busy lifestyles.

The importance of gaining insight during this waning era of the
Buddhasäsana cannot be overemphasized. Jhänas can be attained at any time, =


even outside of the Buddha's dispensation, but insight requires the unique =


Satipatthäna method taught by the Buddha, there is no other method,
whether one develops jhänas first or not.

Ālāra the Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmāputta were al=

so adept in jhāna. Unlike
Devadatta, they were virtuous persons and were also the teachers of the
bodhisatta, but they failed to gain enlightenment in this dispensation
whereas many ordinary lay persons with no special accomplishments in
meditation were able to do so by listening to the Dhamma.

Please refer to Sayādaw Pandita's book "In This Very Life" and read th=

e
chapter on the Vipassanā Jhānas. Better still, get yourself to Bu=

rma and
ordain under that eminent Sayādaw to practise vipassanā meditatio=

n under
his guidance. Your jhānas should lead you quickly to attain genuine
insight and the realisation of nibbāna. >>