@Sylvester pardon me if I misunderstand you, but is this not self-contradictory?
On one hand, @chansik_park says the ‘restricting’ meaning (which I understand as ‘junction’) is unlikely according to Warder, and on the other you say Warder is correct, but then provide arguments to demonstrate that junction is the consistent interpretation in the case of AN 6.63 and MN 13?
Hi silence
I’m not sure if I would understand @chansik_park 's post like you.
His initial analysis was -
At the very least, the quoted passage would be suggesting that the list of adjectives in the definition of the five kāmaguṇā are descriptive of all objects of the five senses rather than acting as restricting conditions for which of the objects of the five senses qualify (the reading I’d been favouring at least).
He then analyses the counterargument -
I think for the contrary position to be tenable in the face of this sutta, we’d have to weaken the defining of loka here (not implausible given that it’s already subsumed by a broader definition that includes mind) by adopting the ‘restricting’ meaning behind the aforementioned adjective list.
However, AK Warder’s Introduction to Pali says this is grammatically unlikely (pg 61):
The first argument, as I read it, is for the nexus interpretation, while the second suggest the junction interpretation. I was actually thinking of this little nugget suggested by Warder at footnote 3, page 14 that refers to this on page 61 -
An adjective usually precedes the noun it qualifies (thus contrasting with attribute nouns : cf Lesson 1), but when there are several adjectives with one noun very often one adjective precedes and the rest follow the noun.
This seems to conform to the structure of the kāmaguṇā pericope. Unless of course, we chuck the standard dictionary gloss of ABCviññeyya and ask why an absolutive like viññeyya turns the compound into an adjective. It does not look like a syntactical compound like paṭiccasamuppāda, since the examples given by Norman have the absolutive as the first member, and the second member a substantive traceable to a verb (which does not seem plausible in eg cakkhuviññeyya).
1 Like
I was suspecting that, but your post suggested the contrary. Thanks for clarifying.
1 Like
I’ve yet to find the acuity to properly digest the particulars of your comment above as well as the prudent grammatical note in response to @silence—and thank you for the SA 559 pointer as well, btw!—but stepping back, minding @Charlie’s ‘bigger jhana tent’, in devising some way to organize what I think we can all agree to be a fairly cumbersome topic, I wonder whether we might find some agreement on the overall landscape here.
Eg: As a starting point, and taking a cue from @FrankK’s comments elsewhere, what would anyone’s objections be towards establishing, as a general framework, that there are in fact three rough dispositions towards first dhyāna? Namely:
- With-sound, with-body, all the way.
- No-sound, no-body, as definition of attainment.
- [1] in mere-attainment; [2] at purity.
Each would be replete with implications towards the other attainments along with branching dispositions within the same. For example, perhaps there’s even a no-sound, with-body variation for [2] and [3] that’s possible as per Frank’s careful framing of the original article, by taking the point of distinguishing between internal and external bases somehow (a topic I’ve not studied carefully with enough recency I’d note).
In this discovery phase, we could aggregate all arguments that support each respective position (as well as forming the substructure of each disposition). In a later phase, we can figure out some kind of process for documenting individual cross-dispositional interactions and reconciliations and maybe even try to prune the tree somewhat (in lossless, indexable manner, of course).
I can’t be sure whether this is workable at the moment, and it certainly explodes the scope of the discussion, but in collaboration, I’m thinking this is sort of where we should be headed for a sustainable, lossless and orienting document as I imagine Frank intended in creating it.
1 Like
regarding an 9.38
check out these 2 suttas in SN 35. i cut and paste the whole thing because SC’s numbering is different. translation is b.bodhi
- Going to the End of the World
1“Bhikkhus, I say that the end of the world cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling. Yet, bhikkhus, I also say that without reaching the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering.”96 “”
2Having said this, the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling.97 “” Then, soon after the Blessed One had left, the bhikkhus considered: “Now, friends, the Blessed One has risen from his seat and entered his dwelling after reciting a synopsis in brief without expounding the meaning in detail. Now who will expound in detail the meaning of the synopsis that the Blessed One recited in brief?” Then they considered: “The Venerable Ānanda is praised by the Teacher and esteemed by his wise brothers in the holy life; the Venerable Ānanda is capable of expounding in detail the meaning of this synopsis recited in brief by the Blessed One without expounding the meaning in detail. Let us approach him and ask him the meaning of this.”
3Then those bhikkhus approached the Venerable Ānanda and exchanged greetings with him, after which they sat down to one side and told him what had taken place, [94] adding: “Let the Venerable Ānanda expound it to us.”
4[The Venerable Ānanda replied:] “Friends, it is as though a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering in search of heartwood, would pass over the root and trunk of a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, thinking that heartwood should be sought among the branches and foliage. And so it is with you venerable ones: when you were face to face with the Teacher you passed by the Blessed One, thinking that I should be asked about the meaning. For, friends, knowing, the Blessed One knows; seeing, he sees; he has become vision, he has become knowledge, he has become the Dhamma, he has become the holy one; he is the expounder, the proclaimer, the elucidator of meaning, the giver of the Deathless, the lord of the Dhamma, the Tathāgata. That was the time when you should have asked the Blessed One the meaning. [95] As he explained it to you, so you should have remembered it.”
5“Surely, friend Ānanda, knowing, the Blessed One knows; seeing, he sees; he has become vision … the Tathāgata. That was the time when we should have asked the Blessed One the meaning, and as he explained it to us, so we should have remembered it. Yet the Venerable Ānanda is praised by the Teacher and esteemed by his wise brothers in the holy life; the Venerable Ānanda is capable of expounding the detailed meaning of this synopsis recited in brief by the Blessed One without expounding the meaning in detail. Let the Venerable Ānanda expound it without finding it troublesome.”
6“Then listen, friends, and attend closely to what I shall say.”
7“Yes, friend,” the bhikkhus replied. The Venerable Ānanda said this:
8“Friends, when the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling after reciting a synopsis in brief without expounding the meaning in detail, that is: ‘Bhikkhus, I say that the end of the world cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling. Yet, bhikkhus, I also say that without reaching the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering,’ I understand the detailed meaning of this synopsis as follows: That in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world—this is called the world in the Noble One’s Discipline. 98 “” And what, friends, is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world? The eye is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world .99 “” The ear … The nose … The tongue … The body … The mind is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world. That in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world—this is called the world in the Noble One’s Discipline. [96]
9“Friends, when the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling after reciting a synopsis in brief without expounding the meaning in detail, that is: ‘Bhikkhus, I say that the end of the world cannot be known, seen, or reached by travelling. Yet, bhikkhus, I also say that without reaching the end of the world there is no making an end to suffering,’ I understand the meaning of this synopsis in detail to be thus. Now, friends, if you wish, go to the Blessed One and ask him about the meaning of this. As the Blessed One explains it to you, so you should remember it.”
10“Yes, friends,” those bhikkhus replied, and having risen from their seats, they went to the Blessed One. After paying homage to him, they sat down to one side and told the Blessed One all that had taken place after he had left, adding: [97] “Then, venerable sir, we approached the Venerable Ānanda and asked him about the meaning. The Venerable Ānanda expounded the meaning to us in these ways, with these terms, with these phrases.”
11“Ānanda is wise, bhikkhus, Ānanda has great wisdom. If you had asked me the meaning of this, I would have explained it to you in the same way that it has been explained by Ānanda. Such is the meaning of this, and so you should remember it.”
117. Cords of Sensual Pleasure
1“Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still a bodhisatta, not yet fully enlightened, the thought occurred to me: ‘My mind may often stray towards those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart100 "
" but which have passed, ceased, and changed, or towards those that are present, or slightly towards those in the future.’ Then it occurred to me: ‘Being set on my own welfare,101 “” I should practise diligence, mindfulness, and guarding of the mind in regard to those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart, which have passed, ceased, and changed.’
2“Therefore, bhikkhus, in your case too your minds may often stray towards those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart but which have passed, ceased, and changed, or towards those that are present, or slightly towards those in the future. Therefore, bhikkhus, [98] being set on your own welfare, you should practise diligence, mindfulness, and guarding of the mind in regard to those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart but which have passed, ceased, and changed.
3“Therefore, bhikkhus, that base should be understood,102 "
" where the eye ceases and perception of forms fades away.103 “” That base should be understood, where the ear ceases and perception of sounds fades away.… That base should be understood, where the mind ceases and perception of mental phenomena fades away. That base should be understood.”
4Having said this, the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling. Then, soon after the Blessed One had left, the bhikkhus considered … (all as in preceding sutta down to:) [99–100] … The Venerable Ānanda said this:
5“Friends, when the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling after reciting a synopsis in brief without expounding the meaning in detail—that is: ‘Therefore, bhikkhus, that base should be understood, where the eye ceases and perception of forms fades away…. That base should be understood, where the mind ceases and perception of mental phenomena fades away. That base should be understood’—I understand the detailed meaning of this synopsis as follows: This was stated by the Blessed One, friends, with reference to the cessation of the six sense bases.104 “”
6“Friends, when the Blessed One rose from his seat and entered his dwelling after reciting a synopsis in brief without expounding the meaning in detail … I understand the meaning of this synopsis in detail to be thus. Now, friends, if you wish, go to the Blessed One and ask him about the meaning of this. As the Blessed One explains it to you, so you should remember it.”
7“Yes, friends,” those bhikkhus replied, and having risen from their seats, they went to the Blessed One. After paying homage to him, they sat down to one side and told the Blessed One all that had taken place after he had left, adding: [101] “Then, venerable sir, we approached the Venerable Ānanda and asked him about the meaning. The Venerable Ānanda expounded the meaning to us in these ways, with these terms, with these phrases.”
8“Ānanda is wise, bhikkhus, Ānanda has great wisdom. If you had asked me the meaning of this, I would have explained it to you in the same way that it has been explained by Ānanda. Such is the meaning of this, and so you should remember it.”
Hey Frank,
Based on your more tractable proposal, I’ve run through a first-pass draft (ie a request-for-comment) to get a sense of what it’d look like. Feel free to revise into the original until we get the wikiness of the thread fixed. The Y/N labels (and the quick quips) are loosely based on a roughly conceived “argument-initiator” heuristic and we could, in the interim, go so far as to link to individual comments/resources there.
(Oh and thanks for the two references above!)
draft.zip (1.3 KB)
(very) Roughly mined from:
Can you hear sound and feel body in jhāna?
Vitakka vicāra (Jhana-factors)
Roderick S. Bucknell - Reinterpreting the Jhānas (1993)
Others to mine:
"Sutta" and "Visuddhimagga" jhanas
The Third Jhana - 'of which the noble ones declare'
Jhana Interpretations
http://dhammawheel.com
Dīgha/Dīrgha
Y: DN 2 – “No part of the body unsuffused with rapture and pleasure”
Majjhima/Madhyama
Y: MN 118 – “I breathe out sensitive to pleasure and rapture”
Y: MN 125 – “Abide contemplating body without sensual thoughts, then with stilling, second jhana” (!MA 198, c.f. MA 102 != MN 19)
Y: MN 152 – “A blind man would have developed faculties if one does not hear eye/sound in developing faculties”
Saṃyutta/Saṃyukta
Y: SN 40.1 – “While I dwelt in first jhana sensual perceptions assailed me”
N: SN 48.40 – “(Bodily) dukhindriya ceases without remainder in first jhana”*
N: SA 559 – “Percipient without experiencing senses in first jhana+” (as in AN 9.37 for formless)
Aṅguttara/Ekottarika
Y: AN 3.63 – “When I am in fourth jhana, I walk back and forth, celestial”
Y: AN 5.113 – “One who can withstand the five senses can remain in right concentration”
Y: AN 5.176 – “[Bodily] pleasure & [mental] joy dependent on the skillful, while dwelling in seclusion & rapture”
N: AN 9.34 – “Sensual perceptions in first jhana like pain for a healthy person”
N: AN 9.38 – “Dwelling in first jhana is dwelling at the end of the world”
N: AN 10.72 – “Noise is a thorn to first jhana”
(Khuddaka)
(Vinaya)
- c.f. Clarification on Feelings in Buddhist Dhyāna/Jhāna Meditation, Tse Fu Kuan, Journal of Indian Philsophy (2005) 33: 285 – 319; p.290: T28, 979b, T32, 285b, T30, 331a, Ak-P 440
2 Likes
The OP of any post can make their own post a wiki, I believe. Click the wrench icon at the bottom of the post and then, make wiki. This means that anyone can edit it.
This wiki functionality is separate from the “Wiki” category, and can be used for anything.
Bhante, it looks like it’s a ‘Trust-Level Badge’ thing. (I’m unable to do the same for the one post I created.)
On the Badges page from the top-right menu, the word “Granted” in the descriptions of each Trust-Level Badge links to the technical documentation for the feature, where it says:
Users at trust level 3 can make their own posts wiki (that is, editable by any Trust-Level 1+ users)
However, searching the Discourse Meta for the word ‘wikify’ leads me to this topic and links to a pull request from January that says that there’s a setting “min_trust_to_allow_self_wiki” that is set to 3 by default…
I think Ud 3.3 (Yasoja Sutta) should be included. This is the one where Buddha and 500 monks are sitting in imperturbable concentration. Ananda asks the Buddha a question twice without a response but upon asking him the question for a third time:
Then the Blessed One, emerging from his imperturbable concentration, said to Ven. Ānanda, “Ānanda, if you had known, not even that much would have occurred to you (to say). I, along with all 500 of these monks, have been sitting in imperturbable concentration.”
He is sitting in the imperturbable concentration, Ananda asks the question, he comes out of that concentration, and then answers the question – implying that he must have heard the question while in that concentration. That he does not answer him the first two times does not necessarily mean that he did not hear him. There are numerous instances in the suttas of Buddha remaining silent until a question has been asked three times – generally when he doesn’t really want to answer - as seems to be the case here.
2 Likes
i didn’t intentionally withrawal the post, i clicked the trash can icon by accident while looking for the icon to make the post wiki-able. how do i un-withdrawal that post?
i looked under my original first post (essay), saw no wrench icon. i looked under the last post at the bottom of the thread, no wrench icon.
i think clicking on the trash can icon should give you a confirmation to proceed. people with laptops and handheld devices very easily can tap/activate an icon unintentionally.
Okay, thanks for the clarification.
On the row of icons at the bottom there is a backwards rotating arrow sign ↺ which says “undelete this post” when you hover.
Usually the three times rule applies when the same question is asked three times in a row. In this case Ananda first tries to get the Buddha to greet the monks after the first watch of the night then he tries again after the middle watch of the night and finally he apparently succeeds after the last watch of the night. So it could very well be that the Buddha just happened to emerge at that (preset) time, surveyed the minds of the bhikkhus including Ananda’s and told him he had been making a fool of himself.
3 Likes
Well, it was three times in a row - but I agree, normally there is not a time span of hours between questions. Still, time is experienced differently in these states so maybe it didn’t seem like all that long?
So it could very well be that the Buddha just happened to emerge at that (preset) time, surveyed the minds of the bhikkhus including Ananda’s and told him he had been making a fool of himself.
It is possible but seems an unlikely coincidence. I don’t know - one can speculate one way or another about any of these suttas. I think you just have to work with what is there - as is - unless there is some alternative reading of the pali or something in other parallels?
where does ven. b.bodhi stand on anapansati 16 steps , step 3?
- b.bodhi: … in SN 54.1 anapana samyutta, he has “experiencing the whole body, I will breathe in”, but in MN 118, he has
He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in experiencing the whole body [of breath]’
in SC, the mouse over comment adds that the [of breath] addition was added by the editor or translator. what’s the story?
the first post is now an editable wiki by anyone, so have at it guys.
BB was using the Commentarial explanation.
Before we reject that, it may be worthwhile noting that at least one Agama sutra supports the Pali commentary on this. See SA 810.
Ah, but the 16 modes of anapana are somewhat different between the Pali Canon and the Samyukta Agama. In the Ekottarika Agama, they are even different yet.
In the SA, as far as I am aware, it does not speak of a “body of breath.” Instead, it speaks of being aware of bodily formations (身行覺知), and calming bodily formations (身行休息). These are included in the first tetrad, and classified under the base of mindfulness of contemplating the body as the body (身身觀念住).
From what I can remember, the 16 modes of anapana in the SA are consistent throughout the Anapana Samyukta.
Edit: This article gives full details on which stages are included in the agama instructions for anapana.
3 Likes
Hi llt
Do the SA sutras offer any definition of
身行 ?
1 Like
Yes, in some way, although I rarely see mention of it come up.
In SA 568, Ven. Kamabhu says that bodily formations are the in-breath and the out-breath. This is basically the same as what we see in SN 41.6.
2 Likes
So this supports the Pali commentarial idea that sabbakāyapaṭisamvedī (“experiencing the whole body”) refers to the breath, right?
1 Like
In his Perspectives on Satipatthana Ven Analayo
translates instructions 3 and 4 from SA 803 as follows:
experiencing the whole body when breathing in, one trains well …
experiencing the calming of all bodily formations when breathing in one trains well …
He compares this with the version in the Mahasanghika Vinaya which he says sheds light on the instructions:
At the time of breathing in pervading the body, one knows one is breathing in pervading the body …
At the time of breathing in letting go of the bodily formations one knows . …
I have no Chinese, but Analayo translation makes much sense in terms of the practice as I understand it. Do you refer to the same text?
Whole body and bodily formations refer to an expanded sense of first Satipatthana, focusing not so much on the anatomical but on patterns of subtle sensations and energies as the perception of ‘body’ shifts and lightens. Also note calming/letting go parallelism which points to a greater detachment from and relaxation of the bodily felt experience.
However, I am not sure how this may be relevant to the original questions of this thread as this maps a stage in a process or a facet of satipatthana contemplation rather than describing jhana attainment.
1 Like