Dhyana

Dhyāna in Sanskrit or Jhāna in Pāli refers to a type or aspect of meditation. It is a key concept in Hinduism and Buddhism. Equivalent terms are “Chán” in modern Chinese, “Zen” in Japanese, “Seon” in Korea, and Samten in Tibetan.

In the Theravada tradition

In the Pali Canon the Buddha describes four progressive states of absorption meditation or Jhāna. The Jhānas are said by the Buddha to be conducive to detachment but they must not be mistaken for the final goal of nibbana. The Jhānas are states of meditation where the mind is free from the five hindrances (craving, aversion, sloth, agitation, doubt) and incapable of discursive thinking. The deeper Jhānas can last for many hours. When a meditator emerges from Jhāna, his/her mind is empowered and able to penetrate into the deepest truths of existence.

There are four deeper states of meditative absoption called the immaterial attainments. Sometimes these are also referred to as the “formless” Jhānas, or Arupajhana (distinguished from the first four Jhānas, Rupajhana). In the Buddhist canonical texts, the word Jhāna is never explicitly used to denote them, but they are always mentioned in sequence after the first four Jhānas.

Jhānas are normally described according to the nature of the mental factors which are present in these states

Movement of the mind onto the object, Vitakka (Sanskrit: Vitarka) Retention of the mind on the object, Vicāra Joy, Pīti (Sanskrit: Prīti) Happiness, Sukha Equanimity, Upekkhā (Sanskrit: Upekṣā) One-pointedness, Ekaggatā (Sanskrit: Ekāgratā)[1]

First Jhāna (Vitakka, Vicāra, Pīti, Sukha, Ekaggatā) The five hindrances have completely disappeared and intense unified bliss remains. Only the subtlest of mental movement remains - perceiveable in its absence by those who have entered the second Jhāna. The ability to form unwholesome intentions ceases. Second Jhāna (Pīti, Sukha, Ekaggatā) All mental movement utterly ceases. There is only bliss. The ability to form wholesome intentions cease as well. Third Jhāna (Sukha, Ekaggatā) One half of bliss disappears (joy). Fourth Jhāna (Upekkhā, Ekaggatā) The other half of bliss (happiness) disappears, leading to a state with neither pleasure nor pain, which the Buddha said is actually a subtle form of happiness (more sublime than pīti and sukha). The Buddha described the Jhānas as “the footsteps of the tathāgata”. The breath is said to cease temporarily in this state. Traditionally, this fourth Jhāna is seen as the beginning of attaining psychic powers (abhigna).[2]

The scriptures state that one should not seek to attain ever higher jhanas but master one first, then move on to the next. ‘Mastery of jhana’ involves being able to enter a jhana at will, stay as long as one likes, leave at will and experience each of the jhana factors as required. They also seem to suggest that lower jhana factors may manifest themselves in higher jhanas, if the jhanas have not been properly developed. The Buddha is seen to advise his disciples to concentrate and steady the jhana further.

In Mahayana traditions

In the Mahayana tradition, dhyāna is the fifth of six pāramitās (perfections). It is usually translated as “concentration” or “meditative stability.”

In East Asia, several schools of Buddhism were founded that focused on dhyāna, under the names Chan, Zen, and Seon. According to tradition, Bodhidharma brought Dhyāna to the Shaolin Temple in China, where it came to be transliterated as “chan” (”seon” in Korea, and then “zen” in Japan).

Krishnamurti on Meditation

Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.

J. Krishnamurti

The teachings are not something out there in a book; what the teachings say is, ‘Look at yourself, go into yourself, inquire into what is there, understand it, go beyond it’, and so on. The teachings are only a means of pointing, explaining, but you have to understand, not the teachings, but yourself.

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI was born May 12, 1895, in Madanapalle, south India. From 1929 until his death in 1986 he traveled all over the world speaking spontaneously to large audiences. He engaged in dialogues with religious leaders, scientists, professors, authors, psychologists, computer experts, and people from many different backgrounds deeply questioning their daily life. His talks and dialogues have been compiled and published in more than fifty books and translated into as many different languages. His books include Think on These Things, Education and the Significance of Life, The Awakening of Intelligence, and The First and Last Freedom.

Krishnamurti claimed allegiance to no caste, nationality or religion and was bound by no tradition. He said man has to free himself of all fear, conditioning, authority and dogma through self-knowledge and this will bring about order and psychological mutation. The conflict-ridden violent world, he suggested, cannot be transformed into a life of goodness, love and compassion by any political, social or economic strategies, but only through this mutation in individuals brought about through their own observation, without the mediation of any guru or organized religion.

Krishnamurti`s stature as an original philosopher, attracted non-traditional and traditional thinkers and philosophers alike. Heads of various religious organizations held discussions with him, only to hear him repeat his central theme that authority in whatever form religious, psychological or political is a hindrance to seeing the truth; man has to be his own guru to bring about psychological transformation. Attending Krishnamurti`s talks in 1961, Aldous Huxley said, “It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha-such power, such intrinsic authority….” In 1984 he spoke to nuclear scientists at the National Laboratory Research Center at Los Alamos, New Mexico, U.S.A. David Bohm Ph.D., the quantum physicist and friend of Einstein, recognized in Krishnamurti’s teachings parallels with his own revolutionary theories of physics. This led to many years of dialogue between the two men. In 1980 a series of conversations took place between Krishnamurti and Bohm, which began with the question ‘Has humanity taken a wrong turn . . .?’ These conversations were later compiled into the book, The Ending of Time.

In establishing the many schools he founded in India, England, and the United States, Krishnamurti envisioned that education should emphasize the integral cultivation of the mind and the heart, not mere academic intelligence. Krishnamurti said, “Surely a school is a place where one learns about the totality, the wholeness of life. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but a school includes much more than that. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught explore not only the outer world, the world of knowledge, but also their own thinking, their behavior.” For decades he engaged in dialogues with teachers and students to emphasize the understanding that it is only in such freedom that true learning can take place.

He established foundations in India, Europe and the United States with the defined role of protecting the teachings from being distorted and of disseminating his work, without the authority to interpret or deify the teachings or the person. There can be no learning where there is authority in any form. He stated tirelessly, “We must be very clear on this matter from the very beginning. There is no belief demanded or asked, there are no followers, there are no cults, there is no persuasion of any kind, in any direction, and therefore only then we can meet on the same platform, on the same ground, at the same level. Then we can together observe the extraordinary phenomena of human existence.”

“The Core of Teachings “

Written by Krishnamurti in 1980 for the biography by Mary Lutyens Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfilment. In 1983, he revised the statement to its current form.

“The core of Krishnamurti teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said: Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security, religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates mans thinking, his relationships, and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is mans pretense that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge, which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.”