r/streamentry • u/tea_and_samadhi • 5d ago

Ānāpānasati Does Jhana (Lite Jhana/Leigh Brasington) turn the world from endurance to easeful?

For a lot of people life really has one large purpose, to endure until consciousness ceases. That's it, to endure.

And that seems like an extremely painful way to exist and leads to short term harmful action solely for the experience of relief. Take food and drug indulgence, or even having children when one can't provide.

My question is, does jhana make life not just easier, not just more endurable...but actually easeful and joyful? Or does it just make life less shit, but it's still a shit that we need to endure? I will obviously have to remove ill health and physical disease as a factor from this question.

Looking for hope here. Looking for motivation. Looking for a real way out not just after death for a better rebirth or no rebirth at all, but looking for a way out of suffering in this very life.

Can the jhanas as taught by Leigh Brasington make one actually happy to be alive? And I really mean that, happy to be here.

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u/OrcishMonk 5d ago

No. You're looking for a magical carrot to remove pain and suffering. There's no easy answers. Not Jhana, not even awakening. As Jack Kornfield book title reminds us, "After the Ectasy, the laundry."The Buddha had back pain. U Tejaniya reminds us that to expect only good experiences is not the way of the Dharma.

I don't want to leave you discouraged so I recommend the Eight fold noble path as a holistic approach. Which does includes jhana and meditation. Also look at direct path approaches. I recommend Metta and Equanimity practice.

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u/Decent_Key2322 4d ago

for physical pain there I don't know.|
but for psychological suffering awakening (dropping all the fetters) is the magical carrot and it exists if you believe the buddha and ppl who achieved it. I think this is what OP is asking about and it is possible.