Can you hear sound and feel body in jhāna?

Essays
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has anyone studied this short sutta SN 48.40 carefully? vism. uses it to prove body awareness does not exist in first jhana.

i searched ajahn brahm’s “meditation bliss and beyond”, and saw only 2 references to SN 48, neither one was that particular sutta. so that makes me think SN 48.40 might not be EBT, otherwise ajahn B would have cited it as evidence to prove his case that you can’t hear sound in first jhana.

i studied this sutta, and it makes no sense to me. especially for the part where 3rd jhana is:

“idha pana, bhikkhave, bhikkhuno appamattassa ātāpino pahitattassa viharato uppajjati sukhindriyaṃ. so evaṃ pajānāti — ‘uppannaṃ kho me idaṃ sukhindriyaṃ, tañca kho sanimittaṃ sanidānaṃ sasaṅkhāraṃ sappaccayaṃ. tañca animittaṃ anidānaṃ asaṅkhāraṃ appaccayaṃ sukhindriyaṃ uppajjissatīti — netaṃ ṭhānaṃ vijjati’. so sukhindriyañca pajānāti, sukhindriyasamudayañca pajānāti, sukhindriyanirodhañca pajānāti, yattha cuppannaṃ sukhindriyaṃ aparisesaṃ nirujjhati tañca pajānāti. kattha cuppannaṃ sukhindriyaṃ aparisesaṃ nirujjhati? idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu pītiyā ca virāgā upekkhako ca viharati sato ca sampajāno sukhañca kāyena paṭisaṃvedeti yaṃ taṃ ariyā ācikkhanti ‘upekkhako satimā sukhavihārī’ti tatiyaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati, ettha cuppannaṃ sukhindriyaṃ aparisesaṃ nirujjhati. ayaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, ‘bhikkhu aññāsi sukhindriyassa nirodhaṃ, tadatthāya cittaṃ upasaṃharati’”.

b.bodhi english for relevant section:

9“And where does the arisen pleasure faculty cease without remainder? With the fading away as well of rapture, a bhikkhu dwells equanimous and, mindful and clearly comprehending, experiences happiness with the body; he enters and dwells in the third jhāna of which the noble ones declare: ‘He is equanimous, mindful, one who dwells happily.’ And it is here that the arisen pleasure faculty ceases without remainder.220 “”

10“This, bhikkhus, is called a bhikkhu who has understood the cessation of the pleasure faculty. He directs his mind accordingly. [215]

standard 3rd jhana formula has “sukhan-ca kāyena patisamvedeti”. But SN 48.40 is claiming sukha-indriyam has ceased without remainder. huh? does sukha vedana not exist in sukha indriyam?

similar logical problems happen for the other jhanas.

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Hi Frank

Although SC does not list any parallel for SN 48.40, Tse Fu Kuan has located secondary material citing now-lost Agama parallels to this.

If you can locate the Journal of Indian Philsophy (2005) 33: 285 – 319, Kuan sets these out (3 secondary sources that cite a sūtra). Some of them make better sense than SN 48.40, but not all of them offer a satisfactory fit with the standard model. Eg in the Aviparītaka Sūtra (cited in the Yogācārabhūmi at T 30, 331a), dukkha appears to persist in the First Jhana, contradicting AN 5.176.

I once had a conversation with Ajahn Brahm about SN 48.40 (perhaps in 2005?), and he too expressed puzzlement with its architecture.

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Hi @frankk,

on the other hand we have a texts like Indriyabhāvanā Sutta (MN 152), where the Buddha seems to ridicule an idea of meditation witout being aware of sounds or visual forms.

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Great to see this collaboration, but I don’t think this is a suitable topic for an official wiki post. The whole idea of the wiki was to gather simple reference material in a friendly and accessible manner, especially for newcomers. See my template post on rapture for what I was after. It’s not for controversial topics or discussions, which are likely to just be confusing for newcomers.

That’s not to say you can’t collaborate on this post as a wiki, but I’d prefer if it was treated as a collaborative essay under the “essay” category.

I apologize if this was unclear. It’s an evolving thing, and we are all finding out the things we can do with this platform. I’ll edit the category description for wikis to make it clearer.

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Some Suttas seem to indicate that this is possible:

"And then Venerable Mahā Moggallāna addressed the monks: ‘Here,
friends, when I had attained imperturbable samādhi on the bank
of the Sappinikā River, I heard the sound of elephants plunging in,
crossing over, and trumpeting.’ [On which the Buddha commented:]
‘The meaning is that that samādhi was not fully purified. Moggallāna
spoke truthfully.’ Vin Pj 4

AN 3.63 Venāga : "…I enter and dwell in the fourth jhāna, neither painful nor pleasant, which has purification of mindfulness by equanimity.
“Then, brahmin, when I am in such a state, if I walk back and forth, on that occasion my walking back and forth is celestial. If I am standing, on that occasion my standing is celestial. If I am sitting, on that occasion my sitting is celestial. If I lie down, on that occasion this is my celestial high and luxurious bed. This is that celestial high and luxurious bed that at present I can gain at will, without trouble or difficulty.”

MN 118: " “[5] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.’ [6] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.’ [7] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.’[4] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.’ [8] He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.’” This means that while the breathing is still there we experience rapture and pleasure, factors of the first Jhana.

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Pulling on the thread of Frank’s comment here regarding MN 125 by following through on Bhikkhu Bodhi’s footnote to the relevant portion (n.1177) leading to a study by Bhikkhu Analayo (fortunately carried by Library Genesis for those so inclined [1]), I ran into AN 9.38 which presents the most convincing case I’ve seen for the no-sound-no-body position:

Pañcime, brāhmaṇā, kāmaguṇā ariyassa vinaye lokoti vuccati.

These five objects of sensual pleasure are called ‘the world’ in the Noble One’s discipline. (tr. Bodhi)

Though this particular definition of loka is subsumed by one that includes all six senses elsewhere, it nevertheless bolsters the no-sound-no-body position since, as we read further, we have:

Ayaṃ vuccati, brāhmaṇā, ‘bhikkhu lokassa antamāgamma, lokassa ante viharati’.

[A bhikkhu dwelling in first jhāna] is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world.

So dwelling in first jhana (and all others) is here called dwelling “at the end of the world of the five senses” (though he has not escaped the world and is still part of the world).

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 atleast).

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):

When an adjective, or (all the) adjectives, follows its noun this usually indicates that it is being “predicated” of the noun, or in other words that the attribute in question is being emphasized. One should then translate “… who is/which is…”. If we use the terms “nexus” and “junction” then the word order adjective+noun usually indicates junction and the order noun+adjective (or equally another noun in the same case) indicates nexus. When there is no verb in the sentence, however, we understand a nexus regardless of the order; then the placing of a nexus-adjective first indicates emphasis of it (as in an argument).*

(footnote to the last sentence reads:

In Pali word order is important chiefly for the sake of being able to deviate from it for effect. This may explain why some severe philologists have refused to countenance it.

Bhikkhu Analayo also notes in the aforementioned study:

SA 559 at T II 146c6 indicates that, even though the six senses and their objects are present and one is perceptive during the attainment of the first absorption, the objects of these senses will not be experienced.

Does anyone know whether an English translation of this Āgama is forthcoming? Sounds super-relevant. I’d be very curious to know how the distinction between “present” and “experienced” is made.

Stepping back a bit, I do hope that we might come up with a good way to organize the topic. Perhaps when I find the time, I’ll try to come up with some kind of argument tree format or something and herd together the arguments that have already been made.

eg:

Arguments for:

  1. …

1.1 Counterargument: …

1.1.1 Countercounterargument …

etc. etc

[1] More specifically, in the order they lead to one another:

  1. Majjhima Nikaya, Bodhi, MN 125, n.1177
  2. Majjhima Comparative Study vol. 2, Analayo, p.721, n.175
  3. “Hindu, Buddhist, and Daoist Meditation”, Halvor Eifring et. al., p.78, n.25

Bhikkhu Analayo’s study in the third is entitled “The First Aborption in Early Indian Buddhism” and contains the footnote re: AN 9.38.

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I think the answer to this is ‘sometimes yes, sometimes no – depending on conditions’.

People like Ajahns Sumedho, Amaro, Brahm, Than. Geoff. - all of these people have made comments at one time or another that lead me to believe they are at least stream winners and probably well beyond that. And none of them teach the same as the other. I don’t think it is a case of not agreeing over how to interpret this or that phrase in a long dead language - but rather that they teach based on their own experience of what worked for them and as they gain experience, what has worked for their students.

Jhana is fabricated and we as the fabricators are a diverse bunch of beings with very different tendencies, skills, personalities, and life conditions. Why should any two of us fabricate exactly the same thing? And communicate what we have fabricated in exactly the same way?

Unfortunately, I think much of this debate derives from individual teachers trying to find within the suttas language to validate or support their particular experience (and teaching) – which if held too narrowly - invalidates the teachings of other equally qualified teachers.

Can we create a bigger jhana tent that accepts a variety of experience – something beyond our own personal experience and views? This is not an ‘anything goes’ request. I think there are many aspects of jhana – key aspects - on which the above mentioned ajahns as well as the suttas all agree.

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(regarding AN 9.38)
all of the first 8 meditative attainments (1st jhāna … ākincāyatanaṃ (base of nothingness)) end like this:

others say thus of him: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’ I also say thus: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’

only the 9th attainment (saññā-vedayita-nirodha)

327(9) “Again, by completely surmounting the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the cessation of perception and feeling, and having seen with wisdom, his taints are utterly destroyed. This is called a bhikkhu [432] who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world, one who has crossed over attachment to the world.”
( ‘bhikkhu lokassa antamāgamma lokassa ante viharati tiṇṇo loke visattikan’”ti. sattamaṃ.)

so the relevant aspect of this sutta has to do with the 2nd noble truth, being fully abandoned, it’s not dependent on loka being 5 sensory objects, and one does not have to have complete non-percipience of 5 sensory objects to abandon craving for those 5 classes of objects.

in the first jhana formula, “loka” does not appear in it, so proving loka means 5 mere sensory objects does not sway the argument IMO. what WOULD be convincing is if we can see other suttas that clearly show “vivicceva kāmehi” is undoubtedly referring to 5 senses shutting off, as in space-infinitude-dimension. i don’t think those passages exist, or it would have been proudly put on display already.

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i really have to wonder if anyone reading the EBT’s ever actually thought, when reading the standard first jhana formula, "oh, vivicceva kāmehi, what does that mean? oh, that means i can’t hear any sounds and body senses have been completely shut off! "

no amount of grammar expertise could show how you draw that conclusion. you’d have to show other EBT passages where vivicca (seclusion) has that meaning of such absolute sensory deprivation.

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that’s more of the feel i get from reading the EBT, that jhāna is a bigger tent than how some teachers try to represent it.

if you look at the suttas near AN 9.38, there’s one where “vimutti” is used in a way to show gradual stages advancing through the 9 attainments, not just one absolute narrow definition for final release. Also with suññata, as in the cula sunnata discourse (MN 100 something), where it’s applied to increasingly refined states of samadhi, not just one narrow absolute definition.

so jhana, samadhi, vimutti, sunnata, all seeem to have a broad umbrella. as well as “dhamma”. i’m of the opinion the 4th satipatthana refers to both “Dhamma” as a teaching, a mental model to apply every moment, as well as the object of the 6th sense organ mana/mind. usually you hear teachers argue for one or the other why not both simultaneously? they both fit. so that’s what i’m going with.

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Could you explain your argument in more understandable language for the layman? Particularly, what is a “nexus” as opposed to a “junction”?

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Hey Frank,

Basically, the salient question raised by just this sutta boils down to: “What does it mean to dwell at/on/upon/towards the end/edge/limit/boundary of all* objects of the five senses?” I’m hoping that SA 559 sheds some light on what this might mean. I would appeal that if it is indeed the case that kāmaguṇā (ie not[aot] kāmā) does refer to the 5 mere sensory, this sutta does potentially hold sway over the issue since it directly comments on how one dwelling in first jhāna relates to the 5 mere sensory. The manner of this relationship (and so the tenability of a with-sound-with-body position that encompasses this sutta) is certainly contingent on the meaning of the particular phrasing.

What’s your take on it? Why does the sutta even bother to define kāmaguṇā as loka then?

*(See grammar notes in response to @silence below)

Overall, though, it’s definitely just one piece of the puzzle, and in no way do I want to say that this somehow settles the matter, merely that the with-sound-with-body position seems particularly difficult to maintain for this particular sutta and that from what little I’ve seen, it’s the most direct corroboration of the no-sound-no-body position. I think it would be utterly useful to continue aggregating the references and arguments from both sides to come up with and build on some comprehensive picture of the issue.

For example, if we look at Prof. Bhikkhu Analayo’s arguments for the omission of first jhāna from the sequence in MN 125 as being a mistake rather than genuine, it relies on a bit of loose psychological inference that isn’t quite as airtight as one might wish (atleast in the form presented across the references I included in the parent comment), and being able to stack all the arguments up against one another in an easy-to-consume structure might save a lot of headache in the future and perhaps even reveal something new, who knows.

On that note, is there a way for you to turn your original post into something anyone can edit? It’s been a few months since I’ve delved into this platform so I’m not sure if we need to get one of the moderators to do that somehow…Or maybe once we find some confidence in how the whole thing would be structured?

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I can certainly try but I should warn you that I’ve made it past maybe 4 out of the 30 lessons in the book, a few months ago at that. The excerpt I quoted is from lesson 11.

In any case, the labels he gives to the two different orders are not as yet clear to me, but basically, the professor’s saying that if the order is “adjectives+noun”, eg “happy, jolly, merry Christmas”, then the adjectives “happy, etc.” differentiate the noun Christmas from other Christmases that are not “happy, jolly, etc” (“junction”). In the other order “noun+adjectives”, the adjectives would be emphasising that all Christmases happen to be “happy, jolly, etc” (“nexus”).

The argument I’m relaying (actually from a footnote in Acariya Piya Tan’s translation of AN 6.63 which seems no longer available on dharmafarer.org for some reason), is that in the usual definition of the five strands of sensuality we have:

Bhikkhus, there are these five cords of sensual pleasure. What five? Forms cognizable by the eye that are desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing, sensually enticing, tantalizing. Sounds cognizable by the ear … Odours cognizable by the nose … Tastes cognizable by the tongue … Tactile objects cognizable by the body …These are the five cords of sensual pleasure.

Pañcime, bhikkhave, kāmaguṇā. Katame pañca? Cakkhuviññeyyā rūpā iṭṭhā kantā manāpā piyarūpā kāmūpasaṃhitā rajanīyā, sotaviññeyyā saddā … pe … ghānaviññeyyā gandhā … pe … jivhāviññeyyā rasā … pe … kāyaviññeyyā phoṭṭhabbā …—ime kho, bhikkhave, pañca kāmaguṇā.

In the English, it’s unclear as to whether the adjectives in the highlighted portion “desirable, lovely, etc.” apply to all forms cognizable by the eye, or whether of all the forms cognizable by the eye, just the “desirable, lovely, etc.” ones qualify as being a part of the five sensuality strands. Common sense would dictate that there are plenty of sights, sounds, etc that aren’t “desirable, lovely, etc.” and so we should read the sentence as the latter.

In the parallel portion in Pali, rūpā is the noun and the other seven words are adjectives. According to the rule, there being no verb in the sentence (the ones in the English are artificial), all seven adjectives, including cakkhuviññeyyā, would be ‘nexus’ adjectives, emphasising that all sights are of such and such characteristic, with particular emphasis on the fact of eye-cognizedness, etc. So this would dictate that we read the sentence as the former.

However, the professor in the footnote cautiously notes that “severe philologists” tend to discount such rules due to some amount of fluidity in context.

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Hi Chan

AN 9.38’s reference to loka/world can be profitably compared to AN 4.45, where the same assertion is made -

… it isn’t through that sort of traveling that the end of the cosmos is known, seen, or reached. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos.

I take the loka in both suttas to refer to the Clinging-Aggregates. Even though forms, sounds etc are present, the Aggregates in relation to such external bases are absent (ie form of sound, consciousness of sound, perception of sound, feeling of sound, volition towards sound are the loka that has temporarily ended in the Jhanas)

Indeed, Warder is correct, otherwise AN 6.63 and MN 13 would be unsustainable in making the kāmaguṇā a subset of the kāmā . Reading the kāmaguṇā pericope as establishing a junction, and not a nexus, between the substantive and its adjectives is consistent with these 2 suttas.

I’ve looked at SA 559, and it says very much the same thing as AN 9.37 regarding the kāmā , but without first mentioning the formless attainments. The monk enquires of Ven Ananda how one is percipient yet unaware of the external bases and Ven Ananda goes through the pericopes for the First Jhana etc etc.

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Alas, I have to confess that I was the one who misled Piya very early on, when I forgot the part that Warder mentioned as establishing a junction -

Adjective+substantive+adjective+adjective.

I only noticed the substantive+adjective+adjective in the pericope and assumed that it was a nexus.

So, a junction (aka restrictive predication) would be something like -

Mary threw the ball that is red.

Only the red ball out of the many balls was thrown, ie the red is restricted to only that ball.

The nexus (ie non-restrictive predication) would be something like -

I dated Mary and Jane, who are the daughters of Penelope.

Assuming that Mary and Jane are known to the the only daughters of Penelope, the predicate “daughters of Penelope” would define only Mary and Jane.

http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/restrictiveclauses/

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I’m not so sure that you did, though! Doesn’t the junction require a verb? In which case, what would be the verb of the sentence in the kāmaguṇā definition?

ie from Warder, last sentence of p.61:

… When there is no verb in the sentence, however, we understand a nexus regardless of order; then the placing of a nexus-adjective first indicates emphasis of it (as in an argument).

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Pali being a zero-copula language, the verb hoti/is does not need to be expressed.

For the kāmaguṇā, the junction would show up with “that are”. If the Pali had been a nexus, it would have been “, which are”.

Thanks for p.61!

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(I hope to make this pdf I have from ahandfulofleaves.org searchable some day soon :tired_face:)

Yes, but a quick scan yields that in p. 9 and p. 14, Warder expresses this as:

Pali sentences do not all contain verbs. (9)

(sometimes there is no verb in Pali in this type of sentence…) (14)

However, I haven’t had the chance to double-check the rules, sort of see them in the wild, (nor read enough of the damn manual) so many thanks for your patience if I’m way off on this! (It’s a bit surreal to know about your raising the point with Acariya Tan, btw!)

If the point in this comment is salient, I can create another thread for just this nuance if you’d be so inclined to test the rules out collaboratively.

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@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?

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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).

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