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Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.

So it's actually very harmful to do these claims; each dhyana (or jhana) level corresponds to a certain level of wisdom, and you are supposed to have less and less afflictions as you move up. The problem with meditation training is that is very common (and easy) to get sidetracked for 10 years thinking you have attainment but you are stuck. The Chinese style is to find a good teacher, an enlightened teacher, a so called Good Knowing Advisor who can certify your attainment or put you on the right track. Because otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

Best or luck to the author, but like the GP said, have some humility and find a competent, certified teacher. Making false claims, even out of ignorance will prevent you from accessing the proper instructions in the future.

>Claiming that someone attains Arhat (or Arahant, if you are used to Theravada texts) with just a couple of meditation retreats is just wild. Because the 9 dhyana, or 9 samadhi, or 9 Juana corresponded to the level of wisdom of an Arhat. It corresponds to enlightenment in Theravada, and in Mahayana too - just not the "biggest" one.

To be fair, the Pali Canon is filled with episodes of followers spontaneously achieving arahantship after practicing only a brief time. I'm having trouble finding the sutta, but even the Buddha says with a single moment of appropriate practice, enlightenment is obtainable immediately.

Sure! But those were not ordinary people but special disciples, who had accumulated alot of blessings over a long time, thus were able to meet the Buddha and become enlightened with a couple of sentences from the Buddha. Still, the Buddha himself certified their enlightenment, they didn't go around claiming it themselves. Huge difference.

> these language game land wars

"Energy" is also a "language game war" between internet posts on physics and professional physics.

> This–and TWIM jhanas in general–certainly involve the arising of the relevant jhana factors.

Yes. So someone suggested calling them "mindfulness of the jhana factors". Also the word for joy in several languages is "piti". We can talk of joy and happiness, and see it's not the same as jhana. Is any joy and happiness from non-sensory wholesome states jhana? No.

> People feel real and somewhat life-changing experiences of piti, sukha, equanimity… are those, due to limited concentration, below some critical threshold to earn the name “jhana”?

Yes I don't want to dismiss these states they are wholesome, just not jhana. Do cultivate joy in wholesome states!

> Besides, it’s not even entirely clear that the earliest texts are actually describing something all _that_ much more concentrated than Nadia does

Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana? they are quite deep and quite challenging to conventional world view (just like if someone did an excellent physics experiment). Consider AN 9.42... senses disappear to the mind at the first jhana https://suttacentral.net/an9.42/en/sujato

> Well, how do the early texts describe the insights that happen as a result of jhana?

The main reference I can think of off the top of my head is something along the lines of “with a mind thus purified [by jhana] the meditator inclines the mind to [insight practice]”, which feels compatible with either the very strong Vsm version or the weaker end of loose interpretations of the suttas. Even a really really weak experience of J4-flavored equanimity still reduces stray selfing enough to make insight practice work better. Obviously this effect is magnified many many times by the pa auk style jhana states.

Perhaps there are other specific claims I haven’t read.

[edit to respond to AN reference in edit] interesting, first I’ve seen this one. On one hand it does seem to imply a slightly higher level of concentration than other suttas I’ve read but even here it only talks about elimination of desirable/arousing sensory phenomena, not the sense of “pretty much all sensual phenomena” that Vsm points to. I don’t actually have a super hard time squaring this with what Jhourney and TWIM teach.

Another one to read would be the Uppakilesa Sutta (MN128) which the buddha is giving specific meditation advice to someone who is experiencing lights but not yet cultivated first jhana. It's an awesome sutta as it also connects that depth of practice with communal harmony and how that sort of inner emotional "good-with-oneself" connects with deep meditation and it's also a clear example of the buddha talking about first hand experience in a phenomenological way that we see common today.

Neat, that is a good one, thanks!

And anyway… isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct before being reconstructed from the suttas and commentaries sometime in the 18th/19th centuries? Vipassana at least was reinvented as such. Unless some enclave somewhere preserved an actually unbroken thread of jhana practice based on what was written in the suttas (maybe there was?), it weakens the authority of interpretation argument anyway!

I think there's always been monks meditating following the vinaya strictly in forests. They may not have a marketing department.

However that sort of question " isn’t it the case that Theravadan meditation practice went practically extinct" is a very theravada move as the "way (vada) of the elders (thera)" it always asks "is this modern buddhism really what the buddha taught" and that characteristic emphasis at the center distinguishes it from the mahayana

Fair. Probably this phenomenon is more limited to Vipassana specifically than I was guessing.

I take the point about the Theravadan rhetorical move here but I still feel like at the very least the original texts deserve to not be written _out_ of the definition of a word if they can be reasonably interpreted to mean something different from what’s practiced in schools working from later turnings and teachings.

That leaves room for determining what is a reasonable interpretation though, and I am extremely far from any kind of authority on that.

I mean according to the suttas there's no directed thought after the second jhana, right? That seems different from what she's describing.

Vitakka and vicara are these two terms translated as applied and sustained thought or so, and are kind of famously debated in terms of their specific meaning.

Some translations/interpretations just take this to mean that the second jhana is “stable” and doesn’t require constantly redirecting your attention at it to sustain it, while the first takes active maintenance. Others interpret it in more of an “any kind of thinking” sense.