Another take on Satipatthana and Jhana

Discussion
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Martin wrote:
I generally find it more productive to focus on developing something (wisdom, or 7 factors of enlightenment, or whatever), rather than trying to get rid of something (ignorance, or the hindrances).
Wisdom and ignorance are words, the trouble with words as J. Bronkhorst points out they get rigidified in our minds, and from that rigidification views arise DN 1 Brahmajala, Net of views! A view on ignorance? a view on wisdom?
Buddha’s teaching is useless unless one puts it to practice. It might as well be another philosophy, where folks sit around, round tables and argue until death do them part.
Soteriologically speaking wisdom enhances with right Samadhi, but it cannot be reckoned, like how the wearing away of “Adze handle” cannot be measured SN 22.101.

Right Samadhi impacts the cognitive apparatus, and transforms it. Craving diminishes. Meditator succeeds at breaking the cycle of DO at the 8th factor with time.

How does craving cease? Because the practitioner sees all she craves is for naught. One can also scramble the cycle of DO at the point of “contact”. Right Samadhi offers the means. Folks argue about these matters without understanding what Right Samadhi is. Not understanding the basics is the biggest hindrance.

Ultimately to address your question, one is not “trying to get rid of Avidya” This is impossible, one via meditation is working on reduction of papanaca, craving is an example of that. Without rudimentary buddhist jhana practice, one cannot understand the essential EBT suttas. People’s time is spent on arguing instead of meditating. When one succeeds in diminishing craving, Avidya dies a slow death.

So it is crucial to understand the components of Dependent Rising, Avidya vs craving.
Consciousness that gives to Nama Rupa vs cognition that rises due to contact with the six sense bases. Repeatedly born, within one life? A meditator can only address the second of these two issues. But addressing the second automatically takes care of the first. “No worries” as folks down under say. Aussie accent is adorable. To repeat, nobody is trying to get rid of Avidya and Hindrances, these simply get worn away as practice advances. Practice advances as talk lessens. I am half kidding. Of course you know I am the Joker.
You asked for a list of Suttas once. SN 22.101 is at the top of my list this morning. It is called the Ship or the Adze handle
with love :eagle::rose:

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I find this interesting. Could you please offer more clarity.
Thanks in advance.
With Metta

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Hi Nimal: How are you? Let me start at square one. DO works like this. If you pay attention you will notice consciousness is found in two different places, but they are of two different flavors…
IGNORANCE > Motivating dispositions > consciousness > nama rupa> six sense fields> contact > Feeling > cognition> CRAVING > clinging > rigid being > decrepitude> dying…
To answer your question…
First consciousness (Relinking?) is needed for me to be born, let us say, finally I am born and get about, I am not dead yet. But between this physical birth and my physical death, I repeatedly generate eye cognition, year cognition etc every time I come into contact with sensory world, altogether six separate types of cognition. right?
These give rise to new sets of feelings, a new set of apperceptions, which lead to unwholesome mental proliferations, if I am not an Arahant.
So every time one comes in contact with the sensory world, a person is born over and over again due to the relentless surging of ego through these acquisitions of feelings and apperceptions,
endless becomings within one life. We are stuck to the Tree of becoming, hence subject to relentless birthing within one life.
Arahant although living is not. Once he becomes the Arahant, he is freed from the Tree of becoming DN 1, he is not born again and again, during the remainder of his life. Are you with me so far? Pl feel free to ask. Did I clarify? Did I understand your question right?
With love :dove:

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My Dear Martin: Revisting your old comment regarding tranquility and insight or Serenity and insight, here is another take.
Serenity and Insight! the two divine messengers, there is a warning attached to these two messengers. In MN 52 “Man From Atthakanagara” under the description of first jhana, excerpt "The first jhana is conditioned and volitionally produced But whatever is conditioned and volitionally produced is impermanent, it ceases.
In the footnote BB writes Abhisankhatam abhisancetayitam. The two terms are frequently used in conjunction to indicate a conditioned state in which volition (cetana) is the most prominent factor.
Sutta continues. If he is steady in that, he attains destruction of taints?
What does the sutta mean by steadiness? I think it means a natural descent into jhana naturally executed. Jhana should not be a contrived activity. If you live the right way, jhana just happens to you.
Sutta continues. But if he does not attain the destruction of the taints because of the desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure abodes, and there attain NIbbana…

  • Sutta is critical of the practitioner’s delight in Dhamma.

A warning is inserted here. Dhammaragena and dhammanandiya: BB’s footnote. These two terms signify desire and attachment (Chandaraga) with respect to serenity and insight.
So as much as we pursue Serenity and Insight, we need to watch out. Are we getting enamoured by the sound of these words? or can we see through these, and use what is described by these concepts, non-conceptually?
If one is able to discard all desire and attachment concerning serenity and insight, one becomes an Arahant. See how tricky the Dhamma is.
Getting hold of the snake of Dhamma by the wrong end, is a liability as Buddha warns elsewhere. MN 22 if I recall right.
It is lovely to have you here.

With love :rose:

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Hi,
Thanks for the response.

However, I find it hard to reconcile your explanation with the way the Buddha explained re-birth jati in SN 12.2 which is;

And what is rebirth? The rebirth, inception, conception, reincarnation, manifestation of the aggregates, and acquisition of the sense fields of the various sentient beings in the various orders of sentient beings. This is called rebirth.

Further, the

is another idea which is Abhidhammic. Can you please clarify.
Thank you
With Metta

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This sutta seems very relevant to the topic:

“But ma’am, is the noble eightfold path conditioned or unconditioned?”

“The noble eightfold path is conditioned.”

“Are the three practice categories included in the noble eightfold path? Or is the noble eightfold path included in the three practice categories?”

“The three practice categories are not included in the noble eightfold path. Rather, the noble eightfold path is included in the three practice categories. Right speech, right action, and right livelihood: these things are included in the category of ethics. Right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion: these things are included in the category of immersion. Right view and right thought: these things are included in the category of wisdom.”

“But ma’am, what is immersion? What things are the foundations of immersion? What things are the prerequisites for immersion? What is the development of immersion?”

“Unification of the mind is immersion. The four kinds of mindfulness meditation are the foundations of immersion. The four right efforts are the prerequisites for immersion. The cultivation, development, and making much of these very same things is the development of immersion.”

https://suttacentral.net/mn44/en/sujato

Is it also good to remember that Anapanasati is part of Satipatthana. Straight from Satipatthana-Sutta:

And how does a mendicant meditate observing an aspect of the body?

It’s when a mendicant—gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut—sits down cross-legged, with their body straight, and focuses their mindfulness right there. Just mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out.

https://suttacentral.net/mn10/en/sujato

So in short, jhanas are result of developing all kinds of satipatthanas together with the rest of eightfold path, until they finally culminate in jhanas, and then insight can be taken to another, ultimate level from there.

Since there are suttas that take brahma-viharas as entry to jhanas like MN52…

Furthermore, a mendicant meditates spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of love to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. Then they reflect: ‘Even this heart’s release by love is produced by choices and intentions.’ They understand: ‘But whatever is produced by choices and intentions is impermanent and liable to cessation.’ …

Furthermore, a mendicant meditates spreading a heart full of compassion … rejoicing … equanimity …

When he said this, the householder Dasama said to Venerable Ānanda, “Sir, suppose a person was looking for an entrance to a hidden treasure. And all at once they’d come across eleven entrances! In the same way, I was searching for the door to the deathless. And all at once I got to hear of eleven doors to the deathless. Suppose a person had a house with eleven doors. If the house caught fire they’d be able to flee to safety through any one of those doors. In the same way, I’m able to flee to safety through any one of these eleven doors to the deathless. Sir, those who follow other paths seek a fee for the teacher. Why shouldn’t I make an offering to Venerable Ānanda?”

https://suttacentral.net/mn52/en/sujato

… then it means that brahma-viharas are satipatthanas in a way. Satipatthana means putting your mindfulness to a particular “topic/object”, which is pretty much what meditation is. So jhanas are culmination of active process of meditation meditation, which the best word in pali canon for is “satipatthana” and “bhavana”. From 2nd jhanas onward vitakka and vicara is stilled so it is no longer an active process, but sort of automatic absorption.

Various good teachers put different importance to various “satipatthanas” - various active meditations to be developed by students. But in the end they teach the same path. As Buddha said himself, there are 11 doors. 11 kind of jhanas - that lead to Nibbana. And all jhanas are born from mixture of satipatthanas and brahma-vihara bhavana and Noble Eightfold Path in general.

Bhante Sujato has wrote amazing whole book on relation of satipatthana and jhana and how jhanas relates to all other aspects of Buddha teachings:

Bhikkhu Sujato - A Swift Pair of Messengers.pdf (1.3 MB)

I think it is hard to describe it better than Bhante Sujato did in this book, so I highly recommend to read it everyone who is interested in relation of jhana and satipatthana.

I hope my post is of any help. With metta. :slight_smile:

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When I say born again and again, what I mean is becoming again and again, via acquisition of feelings, perceptions,

  • Emergence of ego or self notion over and over again.

Consciousness renewing itself via feeding on contact. SN 12.2 definition does not apply here. Think of Putramansa sutta. True you cannot compare this process with physical birth and death.
I did not mean to get into Abhidhmma, I used a word commonly used in Theravada. Think of it as the factors that connect one life to another. Kamma or whatever, Z that connects one life to another. Forget that I said “relinking”.
The ever becoming process that I speak about …is the mental proliferations that go on in us, that give rise to ever renewed ways of thinking. Pl read MN 18… hopefully it will clarify … it speaks of generating Papanca. One who can stop this process meditatively can stop the process of becoming even though for short periods.
Arahant arrests it totally. Stuff I say might make sense, if you engage in Samma Sati and Samma Samadhi. Perhaps you do.
Have I made anything more clear? If not pl ask again. Do not be discouraged.
With love

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Is it what your call “rigid being”?. Further,

What is in between rigid being and decrepitude?. Is it an oversight or intentional?.
With Metta

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Relevant to this topic, Ajahn Brahm talking about samadhi: meditation is stillness, not concentration.

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Yes, the nidana descriptions of birth, aging and death in SN12.2 appear to be biological, and I don’t see much support in the suttas for the idea of “moment to moment rebirth”.
Perhaps the point is that physical birth, aging and death cease to be a source of suffering when self-view ceases.
I think bhava is more difficult to interpret, and possibly this does occur over different time-scales.
Though of course the interpretations of DO out there are numberless. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Nimal wrote Rigidification … what do I mean?
to introduce, it might be helpful if you reread the suttas spoken to Vaccagota. MN 73, 74 etc. Vacca and Malukyputta were guys, going about questioning everything, endlessly. How is this? How is that? The ten points that Buddha refused to answer with very good reason! Buddha made them sit and meditate. In that stillness, all the questions fell away.
Let me try to explain explain, ask me again if I do not make sense. Imagine how folks study, DO. They look at the 12 nidanas, and form a view on that. It is a linear series. But how else can the text present it? Text is a representation, simplified for ease. It is not quite linear, many factors inflow at every point.

  • Unless one meditates according to Samma Sati and Samma samadhi MN 117 it all lands in dead words and views.
    One walks around carrying wrong views of DO. First step in 10 fold path refers to Right view, MN 117, but to get that right, it takes us a while, one has to cycle the darned thing several times.
    Being happens to be challenging, that becoming, the rigidification.
    Earlier you asked about relinking? it is just another word theravadins came up with to explain craving. In Vaccagota suttas somewhere,
  • Buddha explains a fire is sustained by fuel, and how craving is that fuel, that takes us from one life to another.
    Craving and avidya walks hand in hand, gets one born. From that birth until death, from moment to moment we come in contact with the sensophere. O beauty beauty beauty? how can we resist?
  • We fall in love with sight, sound, touch etc. We begin craving these things.
    Each time in the series we begin craving a rebecoming? It is called Upadanakhanda, I think. We regenerate a new set of aggregates. Rebirth at a micro level? not macro. More rigidification? That is why i said born again to simplify, but you interpreted the word differently, thinking I was talking of one’s Birthday…born on that special day.
  • Each moment we are bombarded by sensations, from the sensations that arise due to contact with Sensory world, a new falling in love, that love or craving is rigidified in one’s consciousness.
    Now that may be called rigidification of being, relentlessly. Abhisankharoti?
    In the larger context, there is birth to death (visibly), at the micro level a rigidification of craving goes on, (invisibly, rebirths of craving) resulting in views. Wrong views form a net around us and trap us. DN 1.
    Right View is crucified, within that net.
    Did I bring you closer to rigidifaction of being? If not pl. ask again. I like to present things using different words, Once one is born one is crucified, Jesus Christ super star. Amen!
    Can using a Pali word help us better understand? perhaps. We do not even know what exactly the original Pali words meant. Once Bhante Sujato said translating a word is like dealing with Schrodinger’s cat.

Nimal asked “Is it an oversight or intentional?”
Not sure how to answer. We do unwholesome things since we intend, mentally, bodily, verbally. When we engage in Samma Sati and Samma Samadhi, we avoid that.
PS Stuff to do right now. I shall answer Martin too, over the coming days. With love

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Do you have any support for this from the discourses?. Cessation of self view, as I understand, is the removal of the first fetter. Even a Sotapanna has at least seven more lives left. This means that they have to undergo at least seven more deaths and suffering completely ceases only when awakened fully.

I think continued existence fits well when the context is taken into account. What do you mean by “over different time scales”?

This is true. I have read more than twelve versions. I think, that is exactly why we need to engage constructively to reach consensus.
Thanks
With Metta

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Yes, it would probably need to be the cessation of the conceit “I am”, a full realisation of anatta.
But I find the array of DO interpretations quite bewildering! They can’t all be right, but none of them seem completely wrong.
Also I’m not sure clear how one’s interpretation of DO would make a substantive difference to one’s approach to satipatthana and jhana, practically speaking.

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Martin you wrote Martin you wrote
One of my Tibetan teachers used to talk a lot about “spaciousness”, it was an eyes-open meditation tradition. Its a Vajrayana thing, embracing rather than limiting, looking outwards rather than inwards. I don’t think there is a direct equivalent in the suttas, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Wider horizons can be useful.

Spaciousness missing in the suttas?
if you pay attention, it is there in almost every other sutta, for example in every sutta referring to 4 buddhist jhanas, or in Samma sati according to SN 47 that I selected.
What is Jhana about? it is about emptying your mind of unnecessary preoccupations, that may be called trash or Papanca.
When you empty the trash bin what do you have? spaciousness.
A jhana sutta in the Anguttara is called "The Reservoir"by BB, Bhante Sujato called it the “Waste water pool”
That small change in the title opened my eyes to the nature of our minds. It is a veritable waste water pool, PCBs, pesticides, mercury residues, sewage leakage? PCBs have no known taste or smell, how can one know the contents of the mind that do not stink?
Samma sati as I suggested in the main post or the 4 buddhist jhanas are about cleansing the mind, creating spaciousness, or creating emptiness as Mahayanists call it.
A purified mind is empty, this enables one to see how one is caught up in aggregates. Mahayana literature has a way of expressing stuff differently that appeals to some.
Think of Lankavatara sutta, one long rambling poem. They have copied the technique from Upanisads. What is yogacara? a hybrid of Buddhism and Upanisads. Many are seduced by poetry. But try to figure out how to Rightly meditate in Mahayana suttas?
They give you the run around. Tantric stuff cannot be revealed. Their meditation is a combination of the wisdoms of the Mahayana over the ages, all that jazz.
It is only in the suttas you find the technique of jhana. When papanca is done away with, there is the vast open space (spaciousness) that the Tibetans are taking about? Sakka panha DN 21 focusses on Papanca not as an underlying matrix of thought but as the phenomenon of actual ideas. Correct understanding of view formation is explained in MN 18. Madhupindika.
Jhana or Samma Sati are the entry points to Dhamma. Without that one drifts around caught up in attachment to feelings, and perceptions. Questions arise due to attachment to the aggregates. When one succeeds in detaching from aggregates, there is no outward nor inward, boundaries vanish. Only spaciousness!
A beautiful day to you dear Martin, sun lights up the receptive surface of the leaf. It is no more in the dark.

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Martin you wrote
Also I’m not sure clear how one’s interpretation of DO would make a substantive difference to one’s approach to satipatthana and jhana, practically speaking.
This discussion is about my take on Satipatthana using SN 47.42 and Samma Samadhi. Samma samadhi according to eight or ten fold paths is defined as the 4 buddhist jhanas.
Can you tell me your understanding of Sn 47.42 or the Four Buddhist Jhanas?
What is the practitioner trying to accomplish? When you answer, then I will tell you why the correct understanding of Paticca samuppada is essential.
With love

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Dear Nimal: I shall try to answer your queries here. the way I see it, suffering does not cease when self-view ceases. True, it is a Sotapanna qualification, yet it is still a view A “right view” I would say, first factor of 8fp.
Arahant, with the dropping of all conceit, all ignorance, all her views are eliminated. For the saint it is a realization, not a view anymore. Saint holds no views.
There is a significant difference between Sotapanna and Arahant. It is only at the latter point, that all suffering ends. Sotapanna holding on to no-self view still suffers.
As for Martin’s comment “over different time scales?” I cannot answer that question. I think I explained bhava as becoming, This can happen in the non-arahant, from moment to moment, also.
You asked about numberless interpretations of DO, and

  • the need to reach a consensus.
    What do you mean consensus? that all should agree? the arahant, the sotapanna, and the puthujjana? Is that not too much to request? They are standing at different points of the jhana mountain, as some call it. Pl read Dhantabhumi sutta. I shall clarify, if you are not already familiar with it.
    I shall answer Martin’s question soon. Hopefully it clarifies some of your concerns.
    With love
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Martin you wrote Also I’m not sure clear how one’s interpretation of DO would make a substantive difference to one’s approach to satipatthana and jhana, practically speaking.
You do not see a link between Samma samadhi and DO? but there is one.
If I was smart I would have caught on to that by reading just a few suttas. Had to read the entire canon and then some, to figure this out. I will condense what I learnt.
On the thread Nimal and you have noted that DO is confusing. The reason? too many versions of it in EBT.
True, suttas were written by various Buddhist teachers over time, in the EBTs according to their understanding.
But we can see Buddha in some places. Buddha is always concise and precise.
Forget the twelve nidanas. Focus on the links of DO applicable to our daily lives, that we can do something about, that we can smash, kick, demolish, shatter destroy in Samma samadhi, or Samma sati.
SN 23.2 writes about a bunch of kids playing in the sand,
eventually the kids are bored "lose their lust, desire, affection thirst, passion, and craving, for sand castles, then they scatter them with their hands and feet, demolish them, shatter them, and put them out of play."
What is the sutta talking about here? putting out of play? what? Ans: consciousness that is being regenerated.
Consciousness is the biggest problem, it is the personification of Mara. In SN 23.3 it writes
What is the conduit to existence?
"Radha, the desire, lust, delight, craving, engagement, and clinging, mental standpoints, adherence, and underlying tendencies, regarding form" Buddha replies.
All these factors are expressions of consciousness summarized in DO. Nothing we can do about the beginning phase of the 12 nidanas at this point, Right?
*So let us focus on: not who shot the arrow, but how to pull the arrow out?
In SN Sister Vajira writes condensed
"Only suffering arises, and suffering remains and disappears, There is only a heap of processes, There is no person to be found"
This communicates a heap of data regarding our condition basically. It is a process, no person to be seen.
Then in another sutta in SN 22, Kandasamyutta, I think. it writes.
Contacted, one feels
Contacted, one intends
Contacted, one perceives, These three things, too are moving and tottering, impermanent, Khandasamyutta?
Consciousness comes to be in dependence on a dyad.

To kill consciousness, we have to kill the dyad. right?
so we begin at Contact. Contact is one factor of DO. To disable DO we can work on a process that begins at contact.
Meditation begins from there, dismantling ill affects, of contact, thereby dismantling DO over time.
PS I do not have exact sutta number in one case. I used my “Post It” notes on the refrigerator to comstruct this comment.
Do you begin to see how there is a connection to DO? If it is not yet clear, pl bug me gain. Are you still confused by Bhava, if so pl ask
With love
PS it takes me way too long to comment on SC. I make too many errors. Editing, is time consuming. So now and then, I shall comment.

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By consensus I meant the need to have a universally accepted interpretation of DO. I do not know if it is too much to expect.
Having said that, I agree that if all the different view holders understand that DO’s purpose is to prove that living being is just Sankhara without a self or anything similar and that it is ignorance that makes the Sankhara of living being go from birth to birth, then it is OK.
With Metta

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It’s a tower of dyads. Consciousness feeds on itself. So the first task is to restrain the building of sand castles. Then we can settle down to watch the waves wash them all away, content in that evolution.

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Dear Karl, you are quite right.
With love

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