Jhāna Consciousness

Buddhist Meditation in the Age of Neuroscience

By: Paul Dennison

Narrated by: James Anderson Foster

An interdisciplinary deep dive into Buddhist jhāna meditation and how it can transform our understanding of self and consciousness

States of profound meditative concentration, the jhānas are central to the earliest Buddhist teachings. For centuries in Southeast Asia, oral yogāvacara (yoga practitioner) lineages kept traditional jhāna practices alive, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, reforms in Theravāda Buddhism downplayed the importance of jhāna in favor of vipassanā (insight) meditation. Some began to consider the jhānas to be strictly the domain of monastics, unattainable in the context of modern lay life. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in the jhānas, and as researcher Paul Dennison shows, the esoteric and sometimes "magical" pre-reform practices of Southeast Asia hold powerful potential for modern lay practitioners living in a more scientifically minded world. Drawing on traditional Buddhist doctrine, teachings from lesser-known meditation texts such as the Yogāvacara's Manual, and findings from the first in-depth, peer-reviewed neuroscience study of jhāna meditation, Dennison unpacks this ancient practice in all its nuance while posing novel questions about perception, subjectivity, and the nature of enlightenment.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Paul Dennison (P)2022 Tantor

Interesting book, I don't believe modern people can attain Jahanas.

I throughly enjoyed this work, it was entertaining. I doubt; however whether modern man can attain the Jahanas. Yuvall Noah Harari writes that in the not too distant past, man was capable of higher states of consciousness. So called primitive man were perfectly content to sit for hours on end when there was no work. Perhaps the modern brain and all the electric interference prevent these states from occurring.
This is a very technical work, as other reviewers have noted. This is definitely not basics of Buddhism.
I have practiced meditation of various kinds for years, and I still struggle to meditate for 10 minutes. As the author states, and I'm paraphrasing, once one turns it on (meditation) does one really know what one has gotten into? It's hard to turn off mindfulness and go back to autopilot. Does one really want to be aware of every breath, swallow, heartbeat, muscle twitchs, aches and pains, belly rumbles, when one is trying to sleep? Sometimes I really wish I could turn it off

Just great

Good narration and great material. A real gem. Look at the book reviews from master teachers. This is important for any meditator.