Abhisaṅkhataṁ abhisañcetayitaṁ: prepared & intended

Discussion
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I wanted to share my recent thoughts regarding the term sankhāra. It’s clear to me that this term alludes to some putting-together of things, and that contemporary translations overemphasize its aspect of intentionality (‘choice’ or ‘will’ for example).

I wanted to point to a few discourses to support my interpretation. First, majjhima nikaya 52, to the citizen of atthakanāgara:
In this discourse the Buddha says that someone makes a breakthrough to arahantship or non-return by seeing through the jhānas, the brahmāvihāras, or the formless liberations as abhisaṅkhataṁ abhisañcetayitaṁ.

The pairing of these terms could suggest that they have distinct meanings. All translators agree on the second word as referring to intention. The Buddha could have left it as such, but he also said these states are abhisaṅkhataṁ. Was he being redundant?

I want to point next to the culavedalla sutta MN 44. In it there is an exposition of three types of sankhara: bodily, verbal and mental. This discourse makes quite clear that these three types of sankhara condition, form, make up, prepare or even put together other phenomena. ‘Vitakka & vicāra are a speech preparation: because of thinking & pondering, one breaks out into speech’ (to paraphrase).
One contemporary translator neutralizes the conditional aspect of the term by rendering it ‘activities’ which clearly misses the point in context.

Let’s look at another sutta, the nandakovāda sutta, MN 146. There are two similes, one of a candle light and the other the shade of a tree. These phenomena are stated as being dependent on other phenomena, however taken to be self. Although the discourse doesn’t wield the term sankhāra, it’s this relationship I believe is inherent to the word. Candle light is formed, prepared, put-together or conditioned by candle wax, wick and flame. Shade is formed, prepared, put-together or conditioned by trunk, branches and foliage. Thus, the conditioners condition the conditioned.

See SN 22.79 khajjanīya sutta which says the very same thing: Saṅkhatamabhisaṅkharontīti kho, bhikkhave, tasmā ‘saṅkhārā’ti vuccati.

Provided this context, any word one choose should be consistent across the board.

Conditioners condition the conditioned
Constructors construct the constructed
Formations form the formed
Preparations prepare the prepared

It’s quite clear from the above context that the term sankhara is an allusion to forming, putting together or causality. Myself, I would say the term is obfuscated by some contemporary translations and, as a result, discourses dealing in dependent origination will be lost. I could point to inspiration from other authors or content creators regarding the term, but I thought to produce this post according to how I’ve interpreted the term rather than citing from those who’ve inspired me.

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Makeup makes up the made-up, that’s why it’s called makeup

:eye: :mouth: :eye:

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More than intention is required to develop jhana. There are other sankhara processes such as mindfulness, right view, letting go & others. This might be why the two words are used. I remember reading in that mn 44 sutta how the Noble Eightfold Path is also sankhata. :watermelon:

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Generally speaking, sankhara is a gloss of karmic action of any kind in my opinion, which I’ve formed by looking at texts of various traditions. Some traditions considered intention to also serve as a gloss of karmic action, too.

And so the two words came to refer to the same thing (i.e., if a = c and b = c, then a = b). Because some traditions put a lot of intellectual stock in equating karma with intention, sankhara lost its original meaning and became another word for cetana, essentially.

This is the case for whatever tradition the Theravada suttas descend from. It wasn’t the case in all traditions, however. So, it’s one of the many problems of later sectarian Buddhism literature. Understandings of words diverged in some cases.

I don’t myself think this confusion goes back to the Buddha. It happened afterward.

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How about habits for sankhara, there are bodily, verbal and mental habits.
Or does Pali already have a word for habit?

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Habitualized behavior is certainly the result of prior decisions/ choices/ conditioning.

So, present moment choices are fueled by prior decisions and also fuel future conditions.

Of course, not all present moment conditions one encounters is the result of conditioning. But the way one navigates the moment is based on prior conditioning, combined with free will (a choice).
It’s a very complicated interplay.

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Hi!,

It suggests they have the same meaning, because such redundancy is a standard tool in Pali to make sure the meaning got better preserved when the discourse was transmitted orally. It’d be easy to mistake one isolated word in chanting but harder to mistake two synonyms in succession.

This synonymity between sankhara and cetana is also confirmed by SN22.57:

Katame ca, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā? Chayime, bhikkhave, cetanākāyā—rūpasañcetanā …pe… dhammasañcetanā. Ime vuccanti, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā.

But it is true that the word sankhara has a wide range of meanings, which to some extend overlap. It is the will/intention (i.e. karma) that does the “conditioning” or “putting together” of the next life, I think is the idea in Dependent Arising. We see this also in suttas like SN12.39:

Mendicants, what you intend, what you plan, and what you have a tendency towards, that is a foundation for the continuation of consciousness [in a next life].

Here we have the standard link sankhara > consciousness of Dependent Arising put in different words. This is more clear if considering the sutta as a whole because the continuation of consciousness is followed by the conception [i.e birth] of namarupa, followed by the six senses, contact, etc.

There is also a repeated sentence that makes it quite clear that sankhara and karma are effectively synonyms in this context. For example, in AN4.233:

And what are dark deeds (kamma) with dark results? It’s when someone makes hurtful choices (sankhara) by way of body, speech, and mind.

Having made these choices, they’re reborn in a hurtful world, where hurtful contacts strike them. Touched by hurtful contacts, they experience hurtful feelings that are exclusively painful—like the beings in hell. These are called dark deeds with dark results.

This is outside the direct context of Dependent Arising, so the word can have a slightly different meaning here. I think Ven Sujato’s footnote to the MN44 passage is helpful:

These “processes” (saṅkhārā) apply, as we shall see, in the development of meditation (SN 41.6:1.5, DN 18:24.1). They must be distinguished from the similarly named three kinds of “choices” (saṅkhārā) that define volitional activity determining rebirth (i.e. karma, MN 57:8.2) [in context of Dependent Origination].

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