Pure Inspiration

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi – 38
Subsequently, as my knowledge of the suttas developed and I acquired
a broader perspective on the range of possibilities in the Buddha’s path,
I came to question this insistence on the necessity for jhāna as a
foundation for insight. In my current understanding, it is certainly
possible to attain the first two stages of realization — stream-entry
and once-returning — on the basis of insight without a foundation of
jhāna. I also came to see the whole subject of meditation as involving
complexities that cannot be resolved simply by reciting sutta and verse.
I now understand the jhānas to take on a crucial role, from the
suttanta perspective, in making the transition from the second to the
third stages of realization, that is, in moving from once-returner to
non-returner. I also don’t discount the possibility, attested to in the
commentarial literature of several Buddhist schools, that even
arahantship can be won by means of the ‘dry wisdom’ approach
without reliance on the jhānas. In these early days, however, it was the
views of Ven. Kheminda and Ven. Ñāṇavimala that most strongly
shaped my understanding of meditation.
Over the following years I met Ven. Ñāṇavimala numerous times,
usually at Vajirarama, and my recollection of his teaching is thus a
collage of talks he gave on different occasions. Sometimes I spoke to
him privately, sometimes along with other monks. Whenever we met
one to one, after I paid respects, he would always begin the
conversation by asking, ‘How are you getting on?’ This was not just a
polite inquiry but a loaded question intended to elicit from me a
disclosure of my state of development, which would open the way to a
discourse on practice. For Ven. Ñāṇavimala, the Buddhist training was
always something to be done, a matter of ‘getting on.’