I have discussed this passage with Sylvester at length in another thread. My opinion is that you are correct, but his is that there is only awareness of the mind and that kaya means the mind or something related to it, but not the physical body (Sylvester please correct me if I misrepresent your opinion).
Am I summarizing the first part of your point accurately by the following?
- vimuttattā ṭhito, ṭhitattā santusito, santusitattā no paritassati are in the ablative case, which marks causality
- therefore they do not describe that particular samadhi but its resulting, following state
If I am reformulating your point accurately above, then what subject do the past participles ṭhito, santusito, no paritassati apply to (this was addressed by ven. Bodhi in quote I provided earlier)?
Also, can you explain how this helps bolster your claim that
since the expression Evaṃsaññīpi kho, āvuso, tadāyatanaṃ no paṭisaṃvedeti at the end of AN 9.37 seems to apply to all that was described just before (ie. the 5 afore mentioned items, plus possibly aññā) and there is no reason a priori to think it applies only to a samadhi that would (in your view) precede said 3 predicates. Can you point to such a reason that would be completely separated from any propensity to interpret the texts in a light that favors your overall opinion on this subject?
Do you mean to say that SN 24.1 demonstrates that a sotapanna is ‘without clinging to what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change’? Does the statement made in this sutta not rather simply mean that when a noble disciple has abandoned perplexity, he is a sotapanna?
I don’t see a problem here.
One becomes an arahant > there is no support for the establishing of consciousness > ‘it’ is liberated > at the time of death there is no rebirth
What’s the problem? Am I missing anything here?
I was under the impression that the stream entrant was not attached to views about the five aggregates rather than the five aggregates themselves. kāma tanha, bhava tanha vanishes late in the process so attachment (upadana) must still persist, but I suppose not necessarily at the same strength or equally for all the aggregates.
With metta
Hi Piotr
This should be fairly easy to disposed off. I would not read that passage in isolation, as the opposite situation is posited in the preceding paragraph -
復次，比丘於諸三昧有行所持，猶如池水周匝岸持，為法所持，不得寂靜勝妙，不得息樂，盡諸有漏。如彼金師、金師弟子陶鍊生金，除諸垢穢，不輕、不軟、不發光澤，屈伸斷絕，不得隨意成莊嚴具。
「復次，比丘得諸三昧，不為有行所持，得寂靜勝妙，得息樂道，一心一意，盡諸有漏。如鍊金師、鍊金師弟子陶鍊生金，令其輕軟、不斷、光澤，屈伸隨意。
The preceding paragraph also mentions the exhaustion of the effluents, even though it is in the context of not attaining this peaceful concentration.
The only I can think of to resolve this seeming inconsistency is that the Chinese translators were working with a text that has the instrumental case, instead of the locative rendering given by BB. Would this now read better -
…does not attain the peaceful and the sublime, does not attain the quiescent pleasant state, by which all the effluents are exhausted.
… he attains the peaceful and the sublime, he attains the quiescent pleasant state, the unified mind, by which all the effluents are exhausted.
Let me try to locate my old post on AN 1.38 in this subject from DW. It was also raised by Dmytro (I believe).
Pls don’t apologize for raising this! It’s a legitimate question and I can’t expect you to be in DD stalking me 24/7.
PS - I thought I should elaborate a little about the SA 1246 analysis. Although BB inserted the postposition “in” to “in which all the taints are destroyed” (盡諸有漏), the text actually does not have any postposition or even a preposition. It’s just in the nature of the SA in Chinese - many words are rendered as stems without any preposition/postposition to indicate the grammatical relation that word is showing within a clause/sentence. That is why I think an instrumental or ablative probably makes more sense for the 2 passages than a locative case.
Hi silence
Quick one before I run off.
Yes, you have understood one of my points concerning the nature of the kāya in the jhana pericopes. For this point, I think we need to have a fulsome re-ventilation of the semantic shifts around attan and kāya that was discussed in @Gabriel 's lovely essay ‘Kāya’ and ‘body’ in context
I’ve raised other objections as well, principally dealing with the impossibility of any of the 5 senses contacting mind-born pleasure (MN 43) and the base nature of pleasure born from the kāmā (MN 66).
Would you then assert that anyone who feels pleasure while reading an interesting book or ‘Gabriel’s lovely essay’ is in fact deluding himself into believing he is feeling an impossible pleasure?
Aah, but where is that pleasure felt? The mind or the skin/muscle?
It’s part of the old debate - does the mind experience kāyika feelings, or does the mind experience only cetasika feelings?
Exactly what I am saying. The pleasure is felt in the body, but it is mind-born since it originates from juggling with ideas in the mind.
How do you describe the hedonic tone of that feeling? Is it tactile in nature?
Say the reader even has goosebumps… yes it is an obviously mind-born tactile pleasure
Not quite. I believe I was referring to vimuttattā, ṭhitattā and santusitattā as the ablatives in question. Vimuttattā = from being liberated. I take it that this to refer back to the state of vimutti that flows out from being concentrated, given that vimutti is an umbrella term used for the attainments, among others.
The participles in nominative ṭhito and santusito are part of a standard periphrasis, where the auxillary verb hoti is silent. Here, the hoti would be referring to the person in question, namely the meditator who has attained this concentration. Looking at the na paritassati would confirm this, since it is always used in suttas to refer to the person being discussed in the sutta.
I think it would be quite ungrammatical to read the passage as you propose. Let’s render the text in full, including the pronoun in locative yāyaṃ. If you are to translate this precisely into ugly Buddhist Hybrid English, you will have -
Sister, with reference to the concentration that does not lean forward and does not lean back and that is not reined in and checked by forcefully suppressing the defilements, by being liberated, one is steady…
It is impossible to translate it as -
Sister, with reference to the concentration that does not lean forward and does not lean back and that is not reined in and checked by forcefully suppressing the defilements, that is liberated, one is steady…
Do you see now my point about the ablative? If you wish to argue for your translation, the participle “liberated” would need to be in the nominative as well, as the grammar brooks no mixing up of the declension of adjectives in a junction with its noun. In fact, AN 9.37would have had to use the participle vimutto instead of a substantive noun vimuttatta.
Can I take this point as resolved? Or do you wish to insist that this samadhi is predicated on 5 qualities, when the grammar clearly only allows 3, ie na abhinata, na apanata, and na sasaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagata?
I don’t believe the texts identify that as mind-born tactile pleasure. It is simply tactility born pleasure.
That does not mean that tactility born pleasure cannot be the result of the CNS acting as the bridge between the mind and neurotransmitters and skin. The texts are quite clear - the 5 senses can only touch their respective external base. It is impossible for any of the 5 senses to touch dhammas. By the time, pleasure has arisen at the skin, some many biological intermediaries have already kicked in.
Unless you wish to argue that all of the intermediaries all fall under mind?
So are you asserting that when someone who reads a book and has goosebumps, those goosebumps have nothing to do at all with his mental activity while reading a book?
So now you say there is a tactility-born pleasure that actually comes originally from the mind via the CNS, but it should not be said that it is mind-born because that would be in contradiction with a particular interpretation of Pali texts?
I think I prefer simple, straightforward thinking and I would have long abandoned a view that would force me into such mental gymnastics.
It would certainly contradict this and MN 43 -
If, friends, internally the body is intact but no external tangibles come into its range, and there is no corresponding conscious engagement, then there is no manifestation of the corresponding section of consciousness. If internally the body is intact and external tangibles come into its range, but there is no corresponding conscious engagement, then there is no manifestation of the corresponding section of consciousness. But when internally the body is intact and external tangibles come into its range and there is the corresponding conscious engagement, then there is the manifestation of the corresponding section of consciousness. : MN 28
Not really. Mine is the rather innocuous suggestion that the Stream Winner is also the antithesis of the person at the head of the sutta, ie the one who has doubt concerning the six cases (ie the 5 Aggregates and the Upanisadic trope of “diṭṭhaṃ sutaṃ mutaṃ viññātaṃ pattaṃ pariyesitaṃ anuvicaritaṃ manasā”). This no doubt would be MN 11’s attavādupādāna, given the reference to the trope diṭṭhaṃ etc that forms much of the basis for the Upanisadic musings on the Self.
This interpretation does not appear to be consistent with SN 22.45 and the following sutta:
viññāṇadhātuyā ce, bhikkhave, bhikkhuno cittaṃ virattaṃ vimuttaṃ hoti anupādāya āsavehi. vimuttattā ṭhitaṃ. ṭhitattā santusitaṃ . santusitattā na paritassati. aparitassaṃ paccattaññeva parinibbāyati. ‘khīṇā jāti, vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ, kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ, nāparaṃ itthattāyā’ti pajānātī”ti.
If, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu’s mind has become dispassionate towards the consciousness element, it is liberated from the taints by nonclinging. By being liberated, it is steady; by being steady, it is content; by being content, he is not agitated. Being unagitated, he personally attains Nibbāna. He understands: ‘Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more for this state of being.’
You may notice that the first two participles, ṭhitaṃ and santusitaṃ, are declined at the neuter nominative singular, which indicates that their subject is the neuter cittaṃ, rather than the person in question. However, it appears correct that the subject of the verb na paritassati would rather be the person.
This only helps bolster my case that
and that therefore the case for tadāyatanaṃ no paṭisaṃvedeti in AN 9.37 necessarily applying to all lower jhanas is pretty weak.
I don’t think there was any misunderstanding on this point. I may have earlier expressed myself not clearly enough though.
I believe you are rather talking about a translation you made up earlier -I imagine, supposedly on my behalf - translation that for whatever reason you are now attributing to me, although I do not agree with it, and never have.
Would you care to explain yourself? I really don’t see how that quote supports your claim or invalidates mine.
silence:
Do you mean to say that SN 24.1 demonstrates that a sotapanna is ‘without clinging to what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change’? Does the statement made in this sutta not rather simply mean that when a noble disciple has abandoned perplexity, he is a sotapanna?
I believe your statement was actually a suggestion that anupādāya (‘without clinging’) applies not only to arahants but also to sotapannas:
So it appears that what you said afterwards (Not really. Mine is the rather innocuous suggestion that the Stream Winner is also the antithesis of the person at the head of the sutta) does not agree with what you said before (I don’t think anupādāya necessarily is the monopoly of arahants… clearly applied to a Stream Winner?).
Didn’t you say -
Evaṃsaññīpi kho, āvuso, tadāyatanaṃ no paṭisaṃvedeti at the end of AN 9.37 seems to apply to all that was described just before (ie. the 5 afore mentioned items, plus possibly aññā)
Surely I do not misrepresent you when I address what the above entails? Would it be better if I said -
If you wish to argue for your interpretation…
I fully agree on your grammatical analysis. But I’m not sure if you can infer from that fact that SN 22.45’s agreement of noun (citta) and adjectives (ṭhita, santusita) that the same syntax governs AN 9.37. Bear in mind, SN 22.45 has a complete sentence before the adjectives. In AN 9.37, it is a mere subordinate clause. Secondly, the vimuttattā ṭhitaṃ syntax already shows that the state of ṭhitatta is a result of liberation. Is there any reason to assume that this quality occurs concurrently with the dispassion?
Have you considered reviewing DN 34’s identification of Right Concentration as being predicated by na sasaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagata?
Anupādāya does not mean “without clinging”. It is not an adjective.
It is the negation of the absolutive upādāya.
So, when it says that “Stream Winners anupādāya”, it is not saying that Stream Winners are without clinging. It simply means “the Stream Winner, by not clinging”, or if you prefer Buddhist Hybrid English, it means “the Stream Winner, having not clung”.
Both Stream Winners and Arahants are fully capable of not clinging (adverbal, not adjectival here); they just drop different fetters. The Stream Winner simply na upādiyati different things such as attavāda.