B.Sujato definition of sankappo in MN 117, vacī-saṅkhāra in MN 44

Discussion
19

One thought I’ve had is that verbal thought is primarily symbol manipulation. Words are symbols: symbols of ideas. When manipulating those words, the mind touches upon the underlying ideas. Those ideas in turn may slightly trigger the actual experiences underlying those ideas (not very much in everyday thought since the symbols/words and ideas are usually whizzing by so fast). Think of the word “happy” or “hate” and just a slight shadow of the experience may flicker across the mind.

When the mind slows down, the mind has more chance to focus on an idea like “metta” more, which may in turn trigger an actual experience of metta, and when the mind gets quiet enough we are left focusing on metta the experience, and the idea and certainly the symbol/word has been left behind.

Probably not very clear (all rather vague to me :slight_smile: ). Where the lines should be drawn I’m not sure. As you say, it’s a continuum. Maybe some people draw the line at one place and others at another, but perhaps it’s all the same continuum.

On the Vimuttimagga quote, yes it seems to be saying that. However, the author seems to be working with the same relevant suttas we have available. It does seem to indicate (assuming the translation is ok) that the author’s view was that sound could be heard in first jhana. I also tend to your viewpoint on this. However, the statement “sound is a thorn to the first jhana” I’d generally hold to be a neutral piece of evidence in this regard.

The whole argument that has been made regarding the meaning of “vivicceva kamehi” is probably the strongest one in favour of sound not being hearable (other senses too). The fact that a messy physical process, breathing, is involved in the transition to fourth jhana is to me the strongest argument against. Sound as a thorn sits somewhere in the middle.

There are also some examples of sense exclusion in samadhi states in the suttas. That all usually devolves into arguments about what exact states are involved (arupa or rupa jhanas or other states) and intricate arguments about ablatives and very fine points of Pail grammar, which are far beyond my pay grade! :slight_smile:

Sound being a thorn to the first jhana could be interpreted either way (as support for sound not being hearable or alternatively that instead sound is hearable andcan threaten to reactivate the speech formation). Anyway, that’s probably getting sidetracked enough!

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“Closer scrutiny of the discourse itself shows that some of the Pali terms used in the Mahacattarasaka-sutta’s definition of supra-mundane right intention, such as “fixing” (appanā) of the mind and “mental inclination” (cetaso abhiniropanā), are not found in other discourses and belong to the type of language used only in the Abhidharma and historically later Pali texts.”
(Madhyama-āgama Studies)
Anālayo

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I don’t know Pali, and am not a sutta scholar. But I am devoted to practice, and check right view frequently. The best way I have found to do this (for myself) is very practical. It is to ‘experiment’ with all kinds of permutations of ‘instructions’, and to reflect deeply on the process and outcomes from the perspective of ‘does it enhance movement towards liberation’?

With regard to jhanas then, reflecting deeply on the experiences/outcomes of different states, no matter what they are labelled, is essential. If the experiences meet the objective, then that is viewed as ‘success’ and supports the position that it is right view. From the point of the outcome I find it easier to “classify” what the state was.

As such there are 2 angles from which to look at the process of jhanas; 1) interpretation of the text instructions and 2) practical experience. If the first is imprecise/confusing and can only take you a certain distance, then greater reliance on the second is indicated.

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May I say Sir that definition of right view is very clear.
SN 12.15
MN117 (difference, with parallel, as far as livelihood).
DN 22
MN 141
MN 10
And conditions & insights leading to right view, in MN 9.
How could someone “interpret” right view?

Wrong view can take man way up to “successul” wrong concentration.

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I’m guessing B. Sujato feels like it appears justifiable to include “placing the mind” under the MN 117 because Abhidhamma already greased the tracks with those new meanings for vitakka and “placing the mind” doesn’t look out of place in that company.

Unfortunately this is survivorship bias. The survivors write the history books, and dictate what’s popular and commonly believed. Vism.'s views are still popular, so it’s very easy to leverage those views to support ones own.

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I think that’s a reasonable interpretation. The ideas themselves are represented by perceptions, S&S (sati and sampajano), which survive into the 4th jhana, but V&V would involve the energetic expenditure of organizing those ideas into symbols and words that can be spoken coherently.

I don’t think it needs to be retained in pali, but it does need to be consistently translated to maintain coherence everywhere in the suttas. If you look at what all the other professional translators use (see other recent article), including Ven. Analayo’s from the other EBT schools, they all at least contain some connection to ideas or thought, and retain the ability to do vipassana. “Placing the mind and keeping it connected” loses the ability to do vipassana, and the connection to higher order ideas. It’s too low level, redundant to manasi karoti / attention towards perceptions.

So this isn’t just about preferences, it’s about preserving meaning and coherence. You also forgot to consider the implications of noble silence, the relationship between hearing, speaking, that V&V=vaci-sankhara, the thoughts you think before you say them.

The Buddha is telling the monks, when you guys are out and about, if you gather you should either talk (vaca, speaking out loud) about the Dhamma, or maintain noble silece (defined as second jhana, where V&V has stopped). So obviously V&V can not just be “placing the mind and keeping it connected”, that would not be “talking about the Dhamma” (thinking thoughts about the Dhamma but not vocalizing it). Placing the mind would not qualify breaking noble silence. If B.Sujato’s translation of V&V is correct, then first jhana, and VRJ first jhana would be noble silence.

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Well, there’s “vacī” and there’s “vacīsankhāra”. I’ll concede that “vacī” is probably just speech (aside from my speculative hairsplitting about mentally spoken speech). I’d understand “vacīsankhāra” to mean something like requisite/antecedent/necessary condition for speech and do think that V&V is essentially equivalent to this, and why ceasing of V&V in 2nd jhana is “noble silence”.

However, what exactly “vacīsankhāra” means is not clear to me from the suttas. One could argue that it is just the motor control part of speech (still being able to mentally internally verbalize the actual words but that just the very final motor control link is missing). This certainly does meet the “requisite for speech” condition.

“Vacīsankhāra” could, though, mean a deeper link in the chain. The Visuddhimagga quote might indicate, with speech and hearing becoming uncoordinated, that some of the brain circuits connected with speech processing are shutting down.

Another example comes to mind. Mind reading is part of the world of the suttas. What happens when a person reads the mind of someone who speaks another language? Presumably this is still possible and it is the underlying ideas themselves and relationships between them that are being seen? On top of that, we then have the brain machinery to do with words (the grammar structures, parsing and word orders of that language and the particular symbols associated with those ideas). I’d reckon that this underlying deeper layer (of ideas/sub-verbal thoughts and their relationships) is a candidate for “vacīsankhāra”. This also is a “requisite for speech”. First jhana doesn’t have to be fully unified so maybe there can still be wholesome ideas and the relationships between them (and the examination of these relationships and aspects of these ideas) present.

The mind has unified at second jhana and is focused on one thing – not multiple ideas, their aspects, and their relationships though. IMO speech is basically a symbolic representation of the underlying juggling/connecting/relating of different ideas/thoughts/aspects of those thoughts (maybe “keeping the mind connected” is accurate in the sense of the mind still being able to connect and link ideas).

Perhaps the symbolic representation machinery (speech brain circuits) goes quiet first (-> first jhana) and is an explanation for vacī ceasing. Afterwards the ability to juggle the underlying ideas themselves goes quiescent (-> second jhana). I reckon this may be vacīsankhāra. The mind unifies on one thing then anyway, so that ability to relate or juggle multiple ideas is redundant anyway.

Anyway, the precise meaning of vacīsankhāra seems unclear to me from the suttas. I think my interpretation above seems to fit with what’s there (though it’s probably not the only understanding that would tick the requisite boxes). There may very well be some flaws to my reasoning though! :wink:

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This is a great question that deserves it’s own topic.

Personally, I’m currently on-board with the skeptical camp. I don’t think it’s anything more than being able to pay attention very careful to subtleties in expression, sub-vocalization (minuscule movements in the larynx without fully articulating speech), etc. Basically, the same (very impressive) skills that stage magician “mentalists” possess.

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BTW, I think @suaimhneas posts here are a great example of cool, rational, and respectful discussion. Not resorting to rudely mischaracterizing the counterpoint.

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Was an interesting question that seemed to touch on questions of where to draw the vacīsankhāra/vacī boundary.

On telepathy and psychic phenomena in general, I’d remain undecided and fairly open-minded (being neither a believer or disbeliever). I’ve encountered stuff in my own life over the years (and also heard first-hand experiences) that has definitely given me pause for thought. In general, I’d reckon the frequency of such anecdotal accounts seem to be at a higher level than they should be if such things didn’t exist but also frustratingly at a lower level than if they really did! It’s almost if the universe is having a joke at our expense and deliberately being frustratingly vague on the question! :slight_smile:

I’ve also yet to see someone give a convincing plausible scientific mechanism (quantum-based or otherwise) for how such stuff might work, but one can overdo that point also. There are many things science doesn’t yet understand, or may never understand, and the Shakespeare quote comes to mind: “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

The evidence from parapsychology isn’t terribly impressive (seems to be quite a shy and elusive effect :slight_smile: ). But even there things aren’t quite so clear-cut, and tantalizing hints crop up from time to time, e.g. the Daryl Bem experiments in recent years did throw the cat amongst the pigeons with some replications and replication failures. For the pro-parapsychology side, an interesting article was published recently (APA PsycNet but is now behind a paywall, but quick summary here: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/07/02/parapsychology-has-been-unfairly-side-lined-claims-a-new-review-of-the-field/ ). IMO I’d agree in that I don’t think such phenomena have been disproved but, then again, they haven’t exactly been proved either! :wink:

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vacī- is a copulative form of vāca. Here is my version of the MN 44 translation that shows the relationship between vaca and V&V so even those who don’t know pali can see what pali words are used and the relationship:

Vācā = voice, vocal-speech, relationship to V&V

Vācā = voice, vocal-speech, vocal, vocalization, vocalized-speech, vocalized-words, vocalized-communication, vocalized-language.
* vocalization of words and speech, spoken out loud words and speech.
* notice the indo-latin connection, vaca = voice = vox = vocalized-words
* auditory communication, vocalized-words that can be heard.
* vibrating the vocal cords & flapping the lips to communicate intelligible sound, usually in the form of a language
* Vācā is vocalized-speech, spoken words, not written speech, not mental speech, not unvoiced words. In many important contexts such as right-speech (sammā vācā), that's an important distinction. Otherwise guarding the speech to prevent bad karmic consequences of wrong vocalized-speech would not be necessary.
PED: Vācā (f.) [vac, vakti & vivakti; cp. vacaḥ (P. vaco); Vedic vāk (vāc˚) voice, word, vākya; Av. vacah & vaxs word Gr. e)/pos word, o)/y voice, Lat. vox=voice, voco to call
Bodhi SN 41.6
First one thinks and examines, then afterwards one breaks into speech; that is why thought and examination are the verbal formation
Thanissaro MN 44
Having first directed one’s thoughts and made an evaluation, one then breaks out into speech.
That’s why directed thought & evaluation are verbal fabrications.

MN 44, SN 41.6 (Fabrications: bodily, voice, mind)

♦ 463. “kati panāyye, saṅkhārā”ti?
 “Now, lady, what are-fabrications?”
♦ “tayo-’me, āvuso visākha, saṅkhārā —
 “These three-fabrications, friend Visākha:
kāya-saṅkhāro, vacī-saṅkhāro, citta-saṅkhāro”ti.
 bodily-fabrications, vocal-speech-fabrications, & mental-fabrications.”
♦ “katamo panāyye, kāya-saṅkhāro,
 “But what are bodily-fabrications?
katamo vacī-saṅkhāro,
 What are vocal-speech-fabrications?
katamo citta-saṅkhāro”ti?
 What are mental-fabrications?”
♦ “assāsa-passāsā kho, āvuso visākha, kāya-saṅkhāro,
 “In-&-out-breaths are bodily-fabrications.
vitakka-vicārā vacī-saṅkhāro,
 Directed thought-&-evaluation are vocal-speech-fabrications.
saññā ca vedanā ca citta-saṅkhāro”ti.
 Perceptions & feelings are mental-fabrications.”
♦ “kasmā panāyye, assāsapassāsā kāya-saṅkhāro,
 “But why are in-&-out breaths bodily-fabrications?
kasmā vitakka-vicārā vacī-saṅkhāro,
 Why are directed thought-&-evaluation vocal-speech-fabrications?
kasmā saññā ca vedanā ca citta-saṅkhāro”ti?
 Why are perceptions & feelings mental-fabrications?”
♦ “assāsa-passāsā kho, āvuso visākha, kāyikā
 “In-&-out breaths, ***, (are) bodily;
ete dhammā kāyap-paṭi-baddhā,
 these dhamma-[things] (are) bound-up-with-the-body,
tasmā assāsa-passāsā kāya-saṅkhāro.
 That’s why in-&-out breaths are bodily-fabrications.
pubbe kho, āvuso visākha,
 prior to [vocalizing speech], friend Visakha,
vitakketvā vicāretvā
 (one) directs-thoughts (and) evaluates [those very thoughts],
pacchā vācaṃ bhindati,
 afterwards, vocal-speech breaks-out,
tasmā vitakka-vicārā vacī-saṅkhāro.
 Therefore directed-thought-&-evaluation are vocal-speech-fabrications.
saññā ca vedanā ca cetasikā
 Perceptions & feelings are mental;
ete dhammā cittap-paṭi-baddhā,
 these dhamma-[things] (are) bound-up-with-the-mind.
tasmā saññā ca vedanā ca citta-saṅkhāro”ti.
 Therefore perceptions & feelings (are) mental-fabrications.”
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@frankk, thanks for the references. I eventually got a chance to have a look through these and the related references (here and here) you collected. For the most part, I’m not sure they really clarify what vacīsankhāra is (those suttas emphasize that it is what underlies or what impels speech, often the translations opt for the choices/intention nuance of sankhāra). None of that surprises me (right intention after all is just before and leading onto right speech in the eight-fold path). These references I think imply vacīsankhāra is a precursor to speech, but am not sure it implies much more than that.

However, I did find your AN 3.60 translation relating to telepathy very interesting. It describes telepathy at the V&V level and then also at a deeper level of the mind. I must admit that, as you described there, the use of words like “sotam = ear, sadda = sound, sutva = hear” in relationship to the V&V-related telepathy described is definitely a point in favour of your V&V interpretation as (if I’m understanding you correctly) literally including mental vocalizations.

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You agree that vaca in these contexts means vocalized-speech and not mental speech unspoken?

If so, then in SN 36.11, MN 44 using my translations where I match the pali closely in msg 29, however you think of vacisankhara as a precursor of speech, V&V (defined by MN 44 as vacisankhara) is much closer to thinking & evaluation, than just sanna/perceptions & feelings that survive past first jhana into all 4 jhanas?

Otherwise I don’t see how V&V can remain coherent, in first jhana context, through all the situations I’ve audited in detail, noble silence being second jhana, not first jhana, telepathy, oral tradition of speaking, reciting, thinking leading to 7sb sequence derived jhanas (AN 5.26), etc.

There are a lot more references than just AN 3.60 where mind reading the thoughts happens, and the contents of the mind reading is pari-vitakka, and the thought quoted is coherent unspoken speech, such as the beginning of AN 8.30.

:diamonds: atha kho bhagavā āyasmato anuruddhassa cetasā ceto-pari-vitakka-maññāya — seyyathāpi nāma balavā puriso samiñjitaṃ vā bāhaṃ pasāreyya, pasāritaṃ vā bāhaṃ samiñjeyya; evamevaṃ — bhaggesu suṃsumāragire bhesakaḷāvane migadāye antarahito cetīsu pācīnavaṃsadāye āyasmato anuruddhassa sammukhe pāturahosi. nisīdi bhagavā paññatte āsane. āyasmāpi kho anuruddho bhagavantaṃ abhivādetvā ekamantaṃ nisīdi. ekamantaṃ
Then the Blessed One, realizing with his awareness the line of thinking in Ven. Anuruddha’s awareness—just as a strong man might extend his flexed arm or flex his extended arm—disappeared from among the Bhaggas in the Deer Park at Bhesakaḷā Forest, near Crocodile Haunt, and re-appeared among the Cetis in the Eastern Bamboo Park, right in front of Ven. Anuruddha. There he sat down on a prepared seat. As for Ven. Anuruddha, having bowed down to the Blessed One, he sat to one side.

At the end of the sutta, in verse Anuruddha expresses that part of his mind being read, as sankappa instead of vitakka

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I’d agree that it’s probably not classified under vācā. However, I’d also have doubts as to whether mentally vocalized speech should be going on during V&V. It seems a fine distinction to me to physically chant a sutta and internally chant the words of it in one’s mind, and say one can be part of V&V and the other not.

And as I said in my last post above, the use of words like “sotam = ear, sadda = sound, sutva = hear” with regards to mind reading at the V&V level do lend support to your interpretation. However, it’s not conclusive. For example, there’s the phrase in English describing mind reading as “hearing another’s thoughts”. However, just because “hear” is used in that phrase doesn’t necessarily mean that the telepathy being described necessarily means actually reading the internal mental vocalizations as opposed to the ideas themselves. Perhaps it is somewhat indicative, but one can only take such things so far.

This is a continuum, however, and there’s still quite a bit of space between mentally vocalized speech and the sanna/perceptions/feelings level. I think one can explore wholesome ideas like renunciation, non-ill will and harmlessness and yet not do so in terms of actual mental words/symbols.

Well, there are different levels. A person can say words with malicious meaning out loud; he can internally say those words in his mind; he can be dwelling on and turning over the malicious ideas underlying those words in his mind, and then finally there are the malicious intentions/feelings towards someone in his heart (even if his mind is relatively quiet). I’d agree that the final level is sankappa rather than vitakka. However, I’d be inclined to think the third level is where V&V happens (aside from these being unwholesome thoughts). There is telepathy described at various levels in the suttas. I just think there’s space between mentally vocalized speech and the internal “language of the heart” (sankappa/feelings/perceptions) level.

I think you have a wider conception of V&V than I have (though others have a narrower one).

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To really know, the best way is to do second jhana, and then see exactly how much you can get away with in terms of mental unvocalized speech. From my experience, even in an arupa samadhi I can carry on full discursive mental speech, such as, “whoah! where’s my body? which way is up? where’s my hand? I can’t wiggle my toes!” without knocking me out of the arupa samadhi.

From second jhana, if I mentally chant well memorized sutta passages and reflect (vicara) on their meaning, that decreases the magnitude of pitisukha quite a bit, and makes it uneven, given it energy spike drops, kind of like a light bulb not well screwed in and flickering on and off from physical vibrations on the ground from a passing train. But if I try to chant out loud (vaca) the same passage I just mentally recited (v&V), then almost all the pitisukha drops out, and doesn’t feel like a first jhana. Because actually moving your muscles to emit voice is quite an energy expenditure, and diverts it away from going into feeding the pitisukha.

edit: addition
in second jhana and higher, you can know which jhana you’re in, you can notice impermanence of the phenomena , you can do vipassana, and that doesn’t require the mental labels that would make it into mental speech of V&V. Going from first jhana into second jhana doesn’t mean your mind suddenly blanks out and you can’t do anything. It just becomes mentally energetically more efficient, and doesn’t need to add V&V commentary to the bare S&S (sati and sampajano) that can do things like “samahitam cittam pajanati”, or notice that the breath nimitta is grey, or white, small large, etc.

Another example would be sitting with eyes closed in sitting meditation, listening to a dhamma talk. First jhana is easy to do, and discernible, compared to the pitisukha of the second jhana.

Another example: if I try to change posture, from sitting to standing, from quiet second jhana sitting, the change in posture requires quite a bit of physical energy diverted away from pitisukha, but maybe 20 seconds later in standing posture I can get most of second jhana level of piti sukha back.

Another example: ordinary people can have moments where V&V stop, so why don’t they get momentary spikes of second jhana? The answer is it’s all about internal energy pacification. It’s not about how discursive the V&V in first jhana is.

When most people get second jhana for the first time, and learning, it’s very obvious, because you feel an exponential explosion of pitisukha compared to the intermittent small pulses of pitisukha prior. Like someone talking in to a microphone standing too close to a speaker, the mic picks up the speaker and causes a feedback loop and an exponential explosion of the background sound.

But is sure is clear as clear can be that what V&V doesn’t mean is “placing and keeping the mind connected” from all of those sutta examples when using the “hearing” of mental V&V. Since we’re a communicative speaking species using language, we’re in a habit of forming V&V of unspoken speech very quickly to accompany the underlying sanna and vedana that constitute the verbal ideas. But someone exercising mind reading picks up all of that, the sanna , ideas, concepts that haven’t formed into mental speech yet, and the mental speech .

One time I was listening to a live talk from a monk who I strongly suspect has mind reading powers. He was talking about some Dhamma topic, and he made a mistake, getting a number wrong. I mentally reacted with a mental shout, “what!? It’s not 7, it’s 6!”, or something like that. I didn’t say it out loud, but I mentally thought it “loudly”, with quite a bit of intensity, and definitely had an intention to raise my hand, and point out the error. I had my eyes on him the whole time, and here’s the eerie thing. He physically flinched, said the wrong number again with a stutter, and then corrected himself with the correct number. No one else in the audience was doing anything or making any noise or distraction, it just just him speaking. I didn’t emit any sounds, except for a loud “mental” shout correcting him with the right number. But he physically reacted as if I had shouted and startled him. Coincidence?

In Ajahn Mun biography and books of his disciples, the mind reading examples and recorded incidents are so common and numerous to almost seem pedestrian.

All 4 jhanas, other than breath stopping, is pretty fuzzy with no object hard benchmarks that you can absolutely distinguish exactly which jhana you’re in. But the important point is, however fuzzy it is, “thinking & evaluating” is much more accurate in describing first jhana than VRJ and “placing the mind & keeping it connected” which really fits better with VRJ and not the EBT first jhana.

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Really thanks for sharing your experience with jhana (and I think you’d had a lot of it :slight_smile: ). It’s very nice to hear about such experiences. Experience is experience and, in a sense, there’s no real arguing with it (though people’s experiences vary also :wink: )!

IMO what you’ve shared isn’t at all out of alignment with the words on the topic in the suttas (though I find the sutta words somewhat imprecise and a bit fuzzy on the details). I think what you’re generally arguing is for people to think for themselves and not to let other people’s ideas about jhana (even if well established traditionally) and particular translation choices sway them too much (lest this limit their preconceptions about what it might be and hence possibly limit and restrict their potential experiences)?

You’re more than making that case here! :slight_smile: I think you’ve done a good job in demonstrating that your jhana approach and experiences aren’t incompatible with what’s in the texts. Going further than that, though, to “prove” purely from the texts that your V&V/jhana take is the original correct approach, is likely to be far trickier. I reckon the texts are probably just too imprecise for that to be possible.

Anyway, I remain pretty open-minded on the whole topic (@Viveka’s whole approach in an earlier post seemed very sensible to me).

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Well said! And when the time comes when people need to investigate the source text because of any doubt, just remember the pali audit is already done, lined up word for word in many cases, and easy to check for yourself. You owe it to yourself to verify any claims about the Dhamma that sound dubious or just doesn’t smell right. And remember, just because a teacher is great, they may be wrong about some things. Don’t fall into a cognitive dissonance where you either believe 100% of what they say o r doubt 100% of what they say. Even the very best teachers, that I have the highest respect for, I approach them with the attitude they may be right 99% of the time, but they might be wrong 1%. That 1% might block nirvana, so you better always be on guard!

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I want to say, that I agree with this statement.

with metta

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Straight from the Kalama sutta :slight_smile:

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Just seen this thread. I made a post just now about this same passage! But from a different angle - going into the Pāli to try to see what this really means:

takko vitakko saṅkappo appanā byappanā cetaso abhiniropanā vacīsaṅkhāro

Rather than:

It’s the thinking— the placing of the mind, thought, applying, application, implanting of the mind, verbal processes

I’m wondering if it might rather mean something along the lines of:

It’s the examining and reexamining (/reflection) of intention,
the directing and repeated directing of mind,
the total fixation of ‘attention and consideration’.

Here’s the thread: