Jeff, sorry about the Pali characters. I didn't realise that this forum
wasn't able to interpret Unicode, as they do display correctly in the
message box. I immediately deleted my message 4452, replaced ā with aa
etc., before reposting it as message 4456.
Your ignorance of Dhamma is truly appalling. Please do not continue along
this line of teaching. You must surely have misunderstood something very
fundamental somewhere.
Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw was the chief questioner at the Sixth Buddhist
Council and spent his entire teaching life propagating the method of dry
insight. He did not disparage the practice of jhana, and I do not either,
but please do not teach that there is no insight without jhana. It is true
to say that there is no insight without concentration, but jhana
concentration is not essential. Momentary concentration is sufficient.
Devadatta was fairly deep into jhana. He had to be to attain some minor
psychic powers. You also claim to be deep into jhana, but you are
misrepresenting the Buddha, which is a serious error, and a falsehood.
I will not reply to you any further, as this is a forum for learning Pali
and perhaps discussing the Pali texts, not for debating the pros and cons
of various meditation techniques. Please seek guidance from someone who is
more learned than me, like Bhante Gunaratna or Sayadaw U Silananda. These
learned Mahatheras are also knowledgeable about jhanas, which I am not, as
I only know about the method of dry insight.