Dhyana

Transpersonal Psychology: Integral · Esoteric · Meditation

Dhyana
Sanskrit Name
Romanization	Dhyāna
Devanāgarī	ध्यान
Pali Name
Romanization	Jhāna
Devanāgarī	झान
Sinhala	ඣාන
Chinese Name
Hanyu Pinyin	Chán
Wade-Giles	Ch’an
Cantonese IPA	sɪm4
Cantonese Jyutping	sim
Hanzi	禪
Jiantizi	禅
Korean Name
Revised Romanization	Seon
McCune-Reischauer	Sŏn
Hangul	선
Hanja	禪
Japanese Name
Romaji	Zen
Kanji	禅
Vietnamese Name
Quốc ngữ	Thiền
Tibetan Name
Wylie	bsam gtan (pronounced samten)

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.

Dhyāna in Hinduism[]

Main article: Dhyana in Hinduism

Dhyāna's beginnings are traced to Hinduism, where it is considered to be an instrument to gain self knowledge, separating maya from reality to help attain the ultimate goal of Moksha.

The Bhagavad Gita, thought to have been written some time between 400 and 100 BCE, talks of four branches of yoga:

Karma yoga: The yoga of action in the world
Jnana yoga: The yoga of Wisdom and intellectual endeavor
Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion to God
Dhyana yoga: The yoga of meditation

Dhyana in Raja Yoga is also found in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Depictions of hindu yogis performing dhyāna are found in ancient texts and in statues and frescoes of ancient India temples. Kshatriya Siddhartha Gautama studied dhyāna during his early years away from his kingdom.

Dhyāna in Buddhism[]

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
One-pointedness, Ekaggatā (Sanskrit: Ekāgratā)
Equanimity, Upekkhā (Sanskrit: Upekṣā)

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 cease.
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.^{[How to reference and link to summary or text]}

These 5 psychic powers are also known as Pancha Abhigna.

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).

Dhyāna in Jainism[]

is called Samayika.

External links[]

The Jhanas -thesis by Ven.Henepola Gunarathana
The Jhanas by Ajahn Brahmavamso
Explanations of jhana by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (log in with userID "guest")
The Buddha's descriptions of the first four states of dhyana in the Pali Canon (Anguttara Nikaya V.28)
Dhammakaya Meditation
[1] Dhyan

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