Essays: Early Buddhism & Meditation

How long does it really take to attain jhana? The honest answer is longer than the popular ones — and it points to a deeper kind of jhana than what often goes by the name today. On where the suttas actually set the bar.

What does early Buddhism actually look like in daily life? Five areas any layperson can develop — generosity, virtue, meditation, Dhamma knowledge, and sense restraint — grounded throughout in the suttas.

The suttas call certain noble disciples body-witnesses (kayasakkhi). The classical Theravada reading ties the term to the formless attainments. I suggest a different reading — that the body-witness is one who contacts the cessation of perception and feeling — which I think makes more sense of both the texts and the term.

It is tempting to call nirodha samapatti, the cessation of perception and feeling, a form of Nibbana: the mind shuts down and all formations come to rest. In one sense that is right; in another it is not. Here is what the suttas mean by Nibbana, which senses the cessation attainment fits, and why it may still be the closest thing to a taste of final Nibbana in this life.

Theravada orthodoxy says only non-returners and arahants can reach nirodha samapatti, the cessation of perception and feeling — and many believe reaching it carries you to awakening. I disagree with both claims. Here is what the suttas do and don't say about who can attain it and what follows, alongside what I found in my own practice.

Nibbana is often treated as mystical and unfathomable. I don't share that view — rare and difficult to attain, yes, but more concrete and down-to-earth than it's sometimes made out to be. Here's what I mean by it and four common misconceptions worth clearing up.