Can you hear sound and feel body in jhāna?

[silence]

I admire and respect Venerable Analayo, but sometimes it seems to me that in his writings the line between opinion and fact becomes a little blurred, as he seems to engage in cherry-picking arguments that support his preferred interpretation, without examining counter-arguments that may sometimes have greater authority.

If I understand well the arguments here,

1. The lists of thorns differ heavily between the Pali and Chinese counterpart outside those of the four jhanas. From this, Bhante concludes that probably (in his opinion) both lists of thorns outside those of the jhanas are unauthentic.
2. In the list of four jhanas, what constitutes a thorn is apparently something that would completely disrupt the attainment since it cannot be present therein, so similarly sounds would completely disrupt the first jhana, so it cannot be heard therein.

I have provided here a counterargument:

@silence

Here is a quote from AN 9.41:

"So at a later time, having seen the drawback of directed thought, I pursued that theme; having understood the reward of being without directed thought, I familiarized myself with it. My heart leaped up at being without directed thought, grew confident, steadfast, & firm, seeing it as peace. With the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, I entered & remained in the second jhana: rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance.
"As I remained there, I was beset with attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought. That was an affliction for me. Just as pain arises as an affliction for a healthy person, even so the attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought that beset me was an affliction for me.

It seems that the expression “I was beset with attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought”, which describes vitakka as “an affliction” just like “pain arises as an affliction in a healthy person” corresponds quite closely to the concept of “a thorn”.

So if we interpret the “thorn” in AN 10.72 as meaning the “affliction” that represent “attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought” (vitakka-sahagatā saññā-manasikārā), then the thorn simile is consistent throughout AN 10.72 in the understanding that it represents “something that creates difficulties for what it touches” rather than “something that cannot be present without destroying what it pierces”, since in AN 9.41, “attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought” do not “destroy” the first jhana but bring some kind of “pain” into it, arguably like a thorn.

I am not sure that Bhante Analayo’s observations have conclusively debunked the above argument, so I would call the matter inconclusive.

I think Bhante Analyo’s work could gain from being less partisan in controversial issues, at least not without seriously examining the strongest counterarguments to his assumptions.