A Critical Analysis of the Jhanas in Theravada Buddhist Meditation

One of the most important aspects of Buddhist meditation is a set of attainments called, in Pali, the Jhanas. The Jhanas are encountered repeatedly in the scriptural texts of early Buddhism. They were instrumental in the Buddha?s own achievement of enlightenment and in the training he formulated for his disciples. Jhana means meditative stages and equivalent terms in other Buddhist schools are ?Zen? in Japanese, ?Seon? in Korean, ?Thien? in Vietnamese, and ?Samten? in Tibetan.