I've attended 2 and 4 week retreats with Leigh Brasington studying his style of Jhana and have, at times, reliably achieved J1-4 at various levels of intensity. For me a minimum of 1 hour of daily meditation (for weeks) is required to be able to reliably enter Jhanas and the quality is dependent on my recent volume of meditation. Brasington does warn about the risk of becoming a Jhana Junkie but not excessively, it seems a temporary trap. For him the point of the Jhanas is to develop insight, not the pleasure they create. Going through J1-4 then applying the resulting state to a contemplative practices or even work is a huge amplifier. If you're in it for the pleasure, you're missing the point. Becoming addicted to it would be like having to run a daily 10k to maintain a heroin addiction.
J1 is unpleasant for me, too intense. J2-3 are nicer and a solid J4 is amazing oceanic calm that leaks into the next day. I had surgery a few years ago. When they pumped a bunch of opiates into me before doing some nerve blocks I though "meh, I can do better than this", felt like a middling J3.
I have lapsed in my meditation practice despite how much I enjoy Jhanas. This is common particularly without a community of practice around you.
As for the questions:
1) Not sure how to answer this. I'll have to think about it.
2) I have pretty much done this, as described above. Meditation payoff is longer term, more like exercise than drugs. Jhanas give the impression of immediate payoff but it's illusory, demonstrably insufficiently reinforcing to commonly lead to addiction.
3) I dunno. Maybe a lot of meditation was reducing some sort of pathological need that led to having casual sex. Perhaps a control; If he meditates a lot without entering Jhana, just deep concentration, and doesn't feel the need for casual sex it could be argued that the meditation is causing it. Personally I never liked casual sex for the same reason I don't like J1; too intense.
I recommend Brasington's book "Right Concentration" for anyone interested in achieving Jhanas. He makes a solid case (backed by plausible scriptural arguments) that the Jhanas are core to Buddhist meditation but have been neglected. He's an excellent teacher with pretty much all of his content available online.
I've attended 2 and 4 week retreats with Leigh Brasington studying his style of Jhana and have, at times, reliably achieved J1-4 at various levels of intensity. For me a minimum of 1 hour of daily meditation (for weeks) is required to be able to reliably enter Jhanas and the quality is dependent on my recent volume of meditation. Brasington does warn about the risk of becoming a Jhana Junkie but not excessively, it seems a temporary trap. For him the point of the Jhanas is to develop insight, not the pleasure they create. Going through J1-4 then applying the resulting state to a contemplative practices or even work is a huge amplifier. If you're in it for the pleasure, you're missing the point. Becoming addicted to it would be like having to run a daily 10k to maintain a heroin addiction.
J1 is unpleasant for me, too intense. J2-3 are nicer and a solid J4 is amazing oceanic calm that leaks into the next day. I had surgery a few years ago. When they pumped a bunch of opiates into me before doing some nerve blocks I though "meh, I can do better than this", felt like a middling J3.
I have lapsed in my meditation practice despite how much I enjoy Jhanas. This is common particularly without a community of practice around you.
As for the questions:
1) Not sure how to answer this. I'll have to think about it.
2) I have pretty much done this, as described above. Meditation payoff is longer term, more like exercise than drugs. Jhanas give the impression of immediate payoff but it's illusory, demonstrably insufficiently reinforcing to commonly lead to addiction.
3) I dunno. Maybe a lot of meditation was reducing some sort of pathological need that led to having casual sex. Perhaps a control; If he meditates a lot without entering Jhana, just deep concentration, and doesn't feel the need for casual sex it could be argued that the meditation is causing it. Personally I never liked casual sex for the same reason I don't like J1; too intense.
I recommend Brasington's book "Right Concentration" for anyone interested in achieving Jhanas. He makes a solid case (backed by plausible scriptural arguments) that the Jhanas are core to Buddhist meditation but have been neglected. He's an excellent teacher with pretty much all of his content available online.