Jhāna is tremendously useful, but not necessary for insight meditation practice. Jhāna offers many benefits, however. It produces a joyful, happy, stable mind; it strengthens focused attention, balances energy, and develops refined meditative skills. The early discourses of the Buddha tell us that concentration develops a mind that is malleable, wieldy, imperturbable, and “fit for work”. The concentrated mind is extremely conducive to insight meditation and has the power and stability needed to perceive impermanence clearly and thereby realize the fruit of liberating insight.
