My current sutta central offline website has this listed as the parallel for AN 9.37:
AN 9.37 Ānanda AN iv 426 SA 557*
A while back brother Chansik did a translation of the chinese parallel for AN 9.37, SA 559. It’s an old thread within the past year you can find on SCD&D. In his English translation, it looked like it contradicted what AN 9.37 said regarding the possibility of first jhāna in a state where the mind is divorced from the 5 bodily faculties. So I asked my friend Dr. Chu to investigate further, here’s his reply.
SA557-SA559 should be treated as a cluster of suttas on the same theme, i.e., that of animitta samadhi.
This is not a controversial observation. It has been pointed out by a few Agama specialists, including Yinshun (see, for example, Kong zhi tanjiu (1985), p. 36). Also, in the Chinese Agamas, Ananda is most often the main interlocutor or expounder of animitta samadhi. And here, in all three suttas, Ananda was the protagonist.
Animitta samadhi is a tricky matter, both in the context of the Pali canon and that of the Chinese Agamas. In both contexts, animitta could refer to a variety of very different attainments: it could be synonymous with the dimension of neither-perception-nor-non-perception; it could be an unskillful, coma-like state of general non-differentiation (an instance of Wrong Concentration which the Sarvastivadins and the Sautrantikas classify as one possible manifestations of the fourth jhana, and the Theravadins classify as unskillful but nonetheless above the realm of the fourth jhana); it could be a characteristic of the Unbinding itself; it could be the cessation [of feeling and perception] attainment; or it could be this unspecified but highly revered attainment where all disturbances cease (c.f. Culasunnata Sutta).
In the Chinese context, animitta is variously translated as wuxiang 無想 and wuxiang 無相. Given the context of SA557-SA559, there’s little doubt that wuxiang 無想 and wuxiang 無相 are indeed treated as the same thing.
With this in mind, there’s nothing particularly controversial about the doctrinal stance of SA559.
Typically, jhanas in the major Nikayas/Agamas are primarily described in somatic terms (related to the body). There’s good continuity on this issue between the “early of the early suttas” (e.g. portions of KN) and the major Nikayas/Agamas. The former talks often of “staying in touch with bodily bliss” as among the primary duties of a monk, that it is perfectly sensible that the same theme is picked up and elaborated in the other Nikayas/Agamas. It also leaves little doubt that, jhanas, as envisioned in the early suttas, entail tactile/corporeal sensory experience.
In contrast, the formless are differentiated from the jhanas by the experience of sensory shutoff: bodily perception is transcended, the mind is no longer sensitive of the dimension [of the five senses], there’s not the perception of multiplicity, feelings and somatic metaphors are absent in their standard descriptions…
But there’s an exception to this general rule. This is where the animitta is shown to be unique. And in fact, SA557-SA559 are precisely about Ananda being asked about the special status of animitta. When first jhana all the way to the dimension of not-a-thing-ness are practiced in the animitta way, the mind can be “noncognizant [of the sensory dimension]” but still perceiving perceptual data; and when neither-perception-or-non-perception is practiced in the animitta way, the mind can be “noncognizant [of the sensory dimension]” AND also not perceiving perceptual data.
In other words, the main point of the SA suttas in question is to point out the unique nature of the animitta attainment, which subverts the norm. The norm is of course that, in jhanas, one is cognizant of the sensory dimension and perceiving perceptual data.
Although AN9.37 is identified as a parallel sutta to SA557 & SA559 taken as a cluster, AN9.37 is, unlike its supposed SA parallel, actually spelling out the norm: first, it makes no mention of the animitta at all (this is significant, and it brings to question whether we are dealing with sister suttas after all). It is simply talking about the formless attainments. Second, it proceeds to describe the formless attainments as having the characteristic of “not being sensitive to the sensory dimension.” And of course you cannot apply that same description to jhanas, which is precisely why AN9.37 didn’t include the jhanas in its list of “not-sensitive to that dimension.”