THE Jhānas

IN Theravāda BUDDHIST MEDITATION

by Mahāthera Henepola Gunaratana

Content

• INTRODUCTION

  • The Doctrinal Context of Jhāna

  • Etymology of Jhāna

  • Jhāna and Samādhi

• THE PREPARATION FOR JHāNA

  • The Moral Foundation for Jhāna

  • The Good Friend and the Subject of Meditation

  • Choosing a Suitable Dwelling

• THE FIRST JHāNA AND ITS FACTORS

  • The Abandoning of the Hindrances

  • The Factors of the First Jhāna

  • Applied Thought (vitakka)

  • Sustained Thought (vicāra)

  • Rapture (pīti)

  • Happiness (sukha)

  • One-pointedness (ekaggatā)

  • Perfecting the First Jhāna

• THE HIGHER JHāNAS

  • The Higher Fine-material Jhānas

  • The Immaterial Jhānas

  • The Jhānas and Rebirth

• JHāNA AND THE SUPRAMUNDANE

  • The Way of Wisdom

  • The Two Vehicles

  • Supramundane Jhāna

  • The Jhānic Level of the Path and Fruit

• JHāNA AND THE NOBLE DISCIPLES

  • Seven Types of Disciples

  • Jhāna and the Arahat

• ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY

P. O. Box 61

54, Sangharaja Mawatha

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Copyright 1988 by Henepola Gunaratana

This book is an abridged version of the author’s

„The Path of Serenity and Insight: An Explanation of the Buddhist Jhānas.“

Copyright 1985 by Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi.

This abridgement is published in the Wheel series by permission of the original publisher.

ISBN 955-24-0035-X

THE WHEEL PUBLICATION No. 351/353

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Mahāthera Henepola Gunaratana was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1947 and received his education at Vidyalankara College and Buddhist Missionary College, Colombo. He worked for five years as a Buddhist missionary among the Harijans (Untouchables) in India and for ten years with the Buddhist Missionary Society in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1968 he came to the United States to serve as general secretary of the Buddhist Vihara Society at the Washington Buddhist Vihara. In 1980 he was appointed president of the Society. He has received a Ph.D. from The American University and since 1973 has been Buddhist Chaplain at The American University. He is now director of the Bhāvanā Meditation Centre in West Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, about 100 miles from Washington, D.C.