Dhyana

Dhyāna in Sanskrit or Jhāna in Pāli refers to a type or aspect of meditation. It is a key concept in Hinduism and Buddhism. Equivalent terms are "Chán" in modern Chinese, "Zen" in Japanese, "Seon" in Korea, and Samten in Tibetan.

Dhyāna in Hinduism
Dhyāna's beginnings are traced to Hinduism, where it is considered to be an instrument to gain self knowledge, separating maya from reality to help attain the ultimate goal of Moksha.

The Bhagavad Gita, thought to have been written some time between 400 and 100 BCE, talks of four branches of yoga:


 * Karma yoga: The yoga of action in the world
 * Jnana yoga: The yoga of Wisdom and intellectual endeavor
 * Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion to God
 * Dhyana yoga: The yoga of meditation

Dhyana in Raja Yoga is also found in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Depictions of hindu yogis performing dhyāna are found in ancient texts and in statues and frescoes of ancient India temples. Kshatriya Siddhartha Gautama studied dhyāna during his early years away from his kingdom.

In the Theravada tradition
In the Pali Canon the Buddha describes four progressive states of absorption meditation or Jhāna. The Jhānas are said by the Buddha to be conducive to detachment but they must not be mistaken for the final goal of nibbana. The Jhānas are states of meditation where the mind is free from the five hindrances (craving, aversion, sloth, agitation, doubt) and incapable of discursive thinking. The deeper Jhānas can last for many hours. When a meditator emerges from Jhāna, his/her mind is empowered and able to penetrate into the deepest truths of existence.

There are four deeper states of meditative absoption called the immaterial attainments. Sometimes these are also referred to as the "formless" Jhānas, or Arupajhana (distinguished from the first four Jhānas, Rupajhana). In the Buddhist canonical texts, the word Jhāna is never explicitly used to denote them, but they are always mentioned in sequence after the first four Jhānas.

Jhānas are normally described according to the nature of the mental factors which are present in these states


 * 1) Movement of the mind onto the object, Vitakka (Sanskrit: Vitarka)
 * 2) Retention of the mind on the object, Vicāra
 * 3) Joy, Pīti (Sanskrit: Prīti)
 * 4) Happiness, Sukha
 * 5) One-pointedness, Ekaggatā (Sanskrit: Ekāgratā)
 * 6) Equanimity, Upekkhā (Sanskrit: Upekṣā)


 * First Jhāna (Vitakka, Vicāra, Pīti, Sukha, Ekaggatā): The five hindrances have completely disappeared and intense unified bliss remains. Only the subtlest of mental movement remains - perceiveable in its absence by those who have entered the second Jhāna. The ability to form unwholesome intentions cease.
 * Second Jhāna (Pīti, Sukha, Ekaggatā): All mental movement utterly ceases. There is only bliss. The ability to form wholesome intentions cease as well.
 * Third Jhāna (Sukha, Ekaggatā): One half of bliss disappears (joy).
 * Fourth Jhāna (Upekkhā, Ekaggatā): The other half of bliss (happiness) disappears, leading to a state with neither pleasure nor pain, which the Buddha said is actually a subtle form of happiness (more sublime than pīti and sukha). The Buddha described the Jhānas as "the footsteps of the tathāgata". The breath is said to cease temporarily in this state.

Traditionally, this fourth Jhāna is seen as the beginning of attaining psychic powers.

These 5 psychic powers are also known as Pancha Abhigna.

The scriptures state that one should not seek to attain ever higher jhanas but master one first, then move on to the next. 'Mastery of jhana' involves being able to enter a jhana at will, stay as long as one likes, leave at will and experience each of the jhana factors as required. They also seem to suggest that lower jhana factors may manifest themselves in higher jhanas, if the jhanas have not been properly developed. The Buddha is seen to advise his disciples to concentrate and steady the jhana further.

In Mahayana traditions
In the mahayana tradition, dhyāna is the fifth of six pāramitās (perfections). It is usually translated as "concentration" or "meditative stability."

In East Asia, several schools of Buddhism were founded that focused on dhyāna, under the names Chan, Zen, and Seon. According to tradition, Bodhidharma brought Dhyāna to the Shaolin temple in China, where it came to be transliterated as "chan" ("seon" in Korea, and then "zen" in Japan).

Dhyāna in Jainism
is called Samayika.