You are of course free to see the Buddha in the way that’s most helpful for you. 
I am not speaking of experience here. It’s simply what the word means. 
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The sutta’s are very clear that Dhamma is beyond mere reasoning, it is deep, and can only be experienced by the wise. Are the wise the rationalist? Yes, they believe they are:-) They are not.
That’s my conclusion. I leave it at that.
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Thank you 
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I’m not sure that it’s right to identify consciousness with Nirvana. Maybe some strains of Buddhist thought felt that Nirvana was not simply winking out of existence, that it was “somewhere” outside of the round of rebirth. In which case, the consciousness that “goes there” would be a special kind of consciousness, I suppose. We certainly see these sorts of ideas in early Mahayana texts, which assert that buddhas continue to “exist” in a noumenal sort of way, and that arhats actually become buddhas eventually. That sounds to me like a direct commentary on the concept of Nirvana, saying that it was not literally cessation but departure from existence.
On the other hand, it’s probably a little tone deaf to take those assertions literally. There was an effort to explain how buddhas arise and what their relationship to existence was. If their mission was Nirvana, why arise at all? And when no buddha exists in the world, why does a new one come to be? So, a noumenal buddha was conceived, which seems very Platonic to me. The noumenal buddha was a perfect form that doesn’t exist in the world but is the model for buddhas that do. Buddha nature is like that, too, but it’s immanent in sentient beings rather than being an otherworldly principle. But it still explains how buddhas arise.
I think the problem for early Buddhists was that they rejected the idea of a heaven where liberated people go like in other traditions. The afterlife became 100% not a place where liberation happens. But they did have a state of liberation that a person entered, which they didn’t want to be considered a place in another life. So, we find them talking about Nirvana as though it were a blissful place like a heaven, but they denied that it was when pressed on it. On the other hand, they also tried to tamp down talk of arhats ceasing to exist, too. It’s strange compared to other religious traditions.
Was this concept of Nirvana really the original one? I wonder sometimes. It sounds like it may have been a positive thing, and then it was changed to avoid the assertion. Jains have a heaven for liberated people, and Buddhists have the pure abodes, which is a heaven for the liberated-in-waiting. It kind points to something for me, but whatever it was, it’s lost to the mists of time.
When I read these various accounts on the topic that exist today, though, it seems that the problem for Buddhists revolved around trying avoid the absolutist logic that drove endless debates on the subject of the afterlife among other traditions. Buddhists didn’t exist in a cultural vacuum, after all. They had to deal with these other people who’d try to argue with them about this or that idea. Buddhists wanted to avoid getting wrapped up in an ideological mentality that leads to divisive arguments. So, there was a more practical reason for Nirvana becoming a blissful-yet-undefined sort of nihilistic form of liberation. IMHO, at least it was to exit stage right from the debate stage. So, then I wonder if they once had a positive view of Nirvana that they forgot after a long time trying to avoid arguing about it.
I think they often are describing similar experiences from different cultural and historical perspectives. And we all live in the same kind of world with other humans, so they discover similar answers to the same perennial problems if they are clear thinking. The ideologue will always claim their way is best, but really its another way in the world.
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-*When those discourses spoken by the Tathagata that are deep, deep in meaning, supramundane, dealing with emptiness, are being recited they will not be eager to listen to them, nor lend an ear to them, nor apply their minds to understand them; and they will not think those teachings should *
be studied and mastered (SN20.7, Bodhi))
Is this not what is actually happening?
There is nothing that is allowed to be deep, deep in meaning, nothing supramundane is allowed, even while the texts also distinguish between the noble path and mundane noble path still based upon defilements (MN117). There are more clues, many, but it is all washed away by the force of intellect and reasoning. But why? Why is it so important that there no deep meaning in Dhamma?
No, he longed for the demonstration of special abilities and that is something completely different then longing for the mystical and esoteric.
And ‘longing for the mystical and esoteric’ is also not the issue. The issue is that many long to hammer out with reasoning and study a Dhamma that is seemingly consistent in their head. Like a puzzle in which the pieces nicely fit. But the problem is, ofcourse, there are many different puzzles and there are many who claim they have the right Dhamma-puzzle. This is how Sangha’s become divided.
Because they feel this dhamma puzzle is the real Dhamma.
If we are honest we can all see and understand this Dhamma understanding is nothing else but a system of thoughts, the fetter of views, the love for ideas. It is all about grip and not about letting go. It is all about conceiving, not about direct nor true knowledge.
Dhamma is about letting go but who lets go of a thought-system in which so many time and energy is invested and is even considered to be the true understanding? I understand the need for consistency, for clarity in thoughts, but this need is part of tanha and avijja. It is part of the problem we must solve. Not by endlessly making a puzzle, reasoning, hammering things out, but by seeing what we are doing. We are involved in the sankhara khandha. Slaves of tanha and avijja. That is the real seeing and real deal. And if we are honest to ourselves we really admit that we are all the time involved in sankhara khandha, love it, do not see the problem, we love conceiving. Well, then, i feel, we skipped some crucial lessons, right?
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In the formless dimensions there is no rūpa present, that’s literally what the name says. But they are still dependent on rūpa. How? The rūpa of the past. In order to get in such states you have to meditate and to develop the rūpa jhanas beforehand. So they are independent of present rūpa but dependent on past rūpa. In other words, they are a state of a temporary suspension of rūpa.
Perhaps you might use an analogy of gravity. If I hold up a ball, it is suspended for a time in the air, but it is still attracted by the force of gravity and dependent on the strength of my arm. But if I throw it far enough, like super duper high, it will go into orbit. There it might “remain for many years without returning” (which is a direct quote from snp5.7:5.1). But it is still subject to the law of gravity, it is in fact falling all the time, and eventually will crash back to earth.
The qualifier “this” is misleading. No jhana intrinsically requires a sense of “I or me”. That’s why the Buddha and arahants keep practicing them. But if one has a sense of “I or me” then one will see the jhana in that light, regardless of what kind of state it is.
I’m afraid he’s wrong.
The text speaks of the “cessation of consciousness”, just like any number of other Buddhist texts, and says nothing of it being “unconditioned”, yet you have ended up in a place where you are trying to understand the persistence of an unconditioned consciousness, literally the exact opposite of what it says.
Don’t equate “deep” with “esoteric”. The teachings of the Vedic traditions are highly esoteric (“for the gods love hidden things”), but the Buddha argued that they hide shallowness behind pseudo-profundity. One of the Buddha’s most salient teaching characteristics was to reject esotericism in favor of plain speech. Translators translate in that way because that is the kind of texts they are.
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Venerable, perhaps the text uses the term “consciousness” with two different meanings (once to speak of nibbana, a second time to speak of a samsaric consciousness)?
However, I have to say that I also find this interpretation a little strange. But it doesn’t seem so absurd to me if we take into account this passage from MN 49 speaking of a consciousness without surface beyond its 6 senses (thus including beyond the mind), the “All”:
“‘Consciousness without surface,
endless, radiant all around,
has not been experienced through the earthness of earth… the liquidity of liquid… the fieriness of fire… the windiness of wind… the allness of the all.’9
Ven. Analayo questions the authenticity of this passage, but I’m not personally convinced by his arguments.
Nope. There’s simply no textual support for this idea. The consciousness it speaks of is a kind of meditation attainment, it has nothing to do with Nibbana.
Take a step back. Is it really plausible that the Buddha would have concealed his true meaning, and only hinted at it in discussions that have a strongly Brahmanic context, requiring the student to know these specific passages and to interpret them in this esoteric sense? If all he was doing was agreeing with the Upanishads, then why not say that? The Upanishads are able to state their meaning plainly enough.
Or would he have said exactly what he means in plain language hundreds of times?
It’s textually ambiguous, but I think in that case the speech is that of Brahma, not the Buddha.
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Actually for me the suttas speak of two perennial views. sassatavada and ucchedavada.
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EBTs, such as the four principal Nikayas/Agamas, in history can be identified as either essential teachings (such as knowing-seeing the four noble truths, the notion of anicca, dukkha, anatta, and the middle way) or non-essential teachings (such as adaptations of Vedic religious myths) of Early Buddhism. But the texts are just texts, some edited or collected early, some later.
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Thank you very much for your help Venerable !
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If this state depends on past rupa, does it not depend on the presence of the element of earth?
If a rupa is temporary suspended how can there be vinnana if vinnana depends on a sense contact. I do not yet understand. Is this not one of the 6 sense vinnana’s?
Can there be a jhana while there are no elements? Can there be experienced change in jhana’s without elements?
Do you believe the Buddha and arahant have not left allready any Me and mine-making?
Oke, i can sympathize with the idea that there might be corruption going on, some showing off, some falsehood, hiding shallowness behind pseudo-profundity. But i also feel that this does not have to be the case.
I belief that there is no being, no human also, that has no hidden Truth inside.
That has no esoteric nature and understanding. In other words, everybody in a sense has a secret live and understanding too. Unfabricated, not part of conceiving.
To only see and talk about what is manifesting, arising and ceasing in the mind, and taking that to be Me and mine is a kind of shallowness, i feel. Also judging other people this way is a very narrow mindedness. It is like seeing someone become angry and immediately forget his/her empty and perfectly pure nature. Like judging the book at his cover.
I know, people like to judge this, want to disgrace it, maybe call this that ‘shallowness behind pseudo-profundity’, i regret that.
Vinnana has so many meanings. Cessation of sense vinnana does not happen for an arahant while alive but cessation of kamma-vinnana happens. The cessation of avijja does not lead to the cessation of sense vinnana too, ofcourse. In the context we must see what cessation of vinnna is refered to.
Vinnana is also not the same as mind. No one would agree that an ear-vinnana is the same as mind, or that one is mindless when one is unconscious. One also does not purify vinnana but mind, especially the latent tendencies in the subconscious. Mind has also a hidden aspect because we do not really see these tendencies lying, but while they arise we know and see them.
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some extra words on this:
I understand that there might be shallowness behind pseudo-profundity, but i also feel there is resistance towards letting go of intellectual understanding, descending into emptiness, making a home of ones heart instead of head. There is so much love for thinking, reasoning, conceiving, intellectual knowledge. I feel this is not really a quality.
In my opinion a great teacher is never really impressed with all that intellectual understanding. Not only that, a great practioner also not. Ofcourse there is use in conceiving, in reasoning, in ratio, in intellectual understanding but one must also not exegerate it, right? How do you see this?
Most of the time, i can see for myself, that it is exactly intellectual knowledge what is felt as deep by oneself. Like one now really knows something while one does only intoxicate oneself with the drug of thinking to know things.
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This also appears in Ud 1.10 in a context that I think sheds some light on it meaning.
This is said after Bahiya is given the following instruction:
This would seem to support your theory or another kind of consciousness. The verse that @josephzizys points to appears to be a translation of a later redaction or interpolation.
Samjna and Vijnana in Sanskrit refer to different kinds of consciousness, at least in the Salt Analogy. Samjna is dualistic (you in that) and Vijnana non dualistic(no you in that). Snp 4.11 appears to be pointing to the Vijnanna as non dualistic. The meaning and connotations of Vijnana appear to have changed over time. The Atthakavagga does not seem to be aware of the aggregates, so perhaps it was with the development of that concept that the original meaning was lost.
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Hi all, 
I don’t think there are. 
The brackets in “the cessation (the activity of) consciousness” in this translation already indicate that one has to be very liberal in one’s interpretation to read the discourse in this way. Because it doesn’t say “the activity of” consciousness ceases, it just says consciousness itself ceases. And that includes the infinite consciousness mentioned just before, which as others said is indeed a state of meditation that’s mentioned throughout the discourses to be impermanent and conditioned. (I prefer to call it ‘unbounded/boundless consciousness’, and also argued for this in the brief essay linked by Jasudho above, which notified me of this topic.)
The rendering ‘formless’ for 無形 I find interesting, because in the essay I concluded the Pāli equivalent anidassana to be a poetic metaphor for formless. The quite literal Chinese translations 無形 (formless/invisible) also agrees that renderings such as ‘without surface’ aren’t warranted.
Hi Ven! This I agree forms part of understanding what the discourse is about, but the story doesn’t have to be literal, and I’m not convinced the formless meditations is the only thing the monk is inquiring about. It seems he also thinks these attainments are themselves nibbāna, in part because he asks for where the four elements cease without remnant, i.e., cease forever.
Discussions about this discourse always start with the verses, but I think it is helpful to consider the wider context as well. Noteworthy is the place of this discourse in the Dīgha Nikāya. It’s part of the Sīlakkhandha Vagga, each discourse of which addresses views of outsiders. The function of this discourse therefore isn’t to give some of the canon’s highest teachings on nibbāna. Its primary function is to refute the doctrines of others. That knowledge helps us interpret the sutta. 
An important idea of the discourse, one that it sort of revolves around, is:
And what is the miracle of instruction? Here, Kevaddha, a monk gives instruction as follows: "Consider in this way, don’t consider in that, direct your mind this way, not that way, give up that, gain this and persevere in it.”
So who are considering things the wrong way in this case? Whose view is to be given up? As in most cases, it’s the Brahmins. This is indicated indirectly by the story wherein Brahmā doesn’t know the answer to the question and refers to the Buddha, and more directly by the specific terms used in the verses.
However, since no Brahmin is explicitly addressed, and since the commentary is—as always—completely unaware of Upaniṣadic ideas and terminology, it misinterpreted the verse’s “invisible, unbounded consciousness” (viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ anantaṃ). It took this to refer to the ability to know (viññātabba) nibbāna, even though the word ananta should make it clear that this refers to the second formless state, the state of unbounded (or “infinite”) consciousness.
Note, though, that the commentary understood viññāṇa here to have the meaning of understanding rather than awareness. It did not think this was about a type of unconditioned consciousness, a consciousness outside of the aggregates or alike. Such ideas only came later, quite possibly indirectly influenced by the commentary’s initial misunderstanding and reference to nibbāna.
But as I said, it seems the verses are actually a response to the Brahmins. Richard Gombrich already observed that “the opening statement of the answer seems prima facie to reify consciousness and the language sounds as if it could come from an Upaniṣad” (How Buddhism Began). He did not provide further sources, but I have no doubt these verses indeed reference Brahmanic ideas. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad the Brahmin sage Yājñavalkya describes the highest form of existence as “an unbounded, limitless mass of consciousness” and also calls it “neither fine nor coarse, neither long nor short”, in both cases using the direct Sanskrit equivalents of the terms used in the Kevaddha Sutta. (2.4.12, 3.8.8) He also describes this form of existence as being different from and uninfluenced by the four elements. (3.7.3) Further, the Taittirīya Upaniṣad calls this highest essence “invisible” (nadṛśya). (2.8)
It is a bit more speculative, but the term ‘all-shining’ or ‘luminous all-round’ (sabbato pabhaṁ) might have a link with a statement from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad: “Far above here [is brahman] the light that shines from heaven on the backs of everything, on the backs of all (sabba) things, in the very highest of the high worlds—it is clearly this very same light here within a man. […] This self of mine that lies deep within my heart—it is made of mind, […] luminous is its appearance.” (3.13.7) One idea here seems to be that this consciousness makes awareness of things in the world possible. It “illuminates” them, making them in a sense visible. However, the term ‘all-shining’, which to Yājñavalkya would have implied a pure eternal entity, to the Buddha merely referred to the purity of a temporal and individual experience.
The term nāmarūpa is also found in the Upaniṣads, where a type of knowing or consciousness apart from “name and form” was the highest goal. (See e.g. Falk Nāma-rūpa and Dharma-rūpa.)
Yājñavalkya’s unbounded consciousness likely differed from the Buddha’s, not only philosophically but also in practice, because the Upaniṣads indicate Yājñavalkya arrived at it through reason rather than meditation. (See e.g. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge §42) But regardless, the Buddha did use the exact same terminology, which indicates he—or whoever composed the Kevaddha Sutta—was very familiar with these Brahmanic ideas and was addressing them directly.
Gombrich also commented on the Kevaddha Sutta (DN11) that “it is a bit risky to take a riddle or its solution as a philosophical tenet or argument”. I wholeheartedly embrace this sentiment, but in this particular case the overall meaning seems clear enough to me. In short, the Buddha acknowledged the existence of an unbounded consciousness but denied its unconditioned nature. To the Buddha all consciousness is dependently arisen, including unbounded consciousness. His essential response to the Brahmanic ideas is therefore two final lines of verse: “when consciousness ceases, then those come to cease”. While the Yājñavalkya’s goal was a type of consciousness free from name and form, his goal was the cessation of consciousness.
Some interpreters have failed to keep these two concepts apart. Oldenberg for example wrote in The Doctrine of the Upaniṣads and the Early Buddhism that the “Brahmanic thinking […] is also basically valid for the Buddhistic”, both resulting in “the blissful merging with infinity” when name and form are abandoned. 
This is exactly the kind of thinking the Buddha was trying to avoid when saying consciousness depends on nāmarūpa. The essential message in these verses is that nāmarūpa can only end when consciousness ends as well. So it’s somewhat ironic (and perhaps also a bit sad) that these statements are now often interpreted in the exact opposite way. 
Oldenberg isn’t alone in this. Some very well-known Buddhist monks have made similar statements, although less publicly.
That something is inauthentic in some versions of MN49 is not in question, because the Pāli versions differ. None of them actually correctly attributes the quote to the Buddha. The Burmese tries to do so, but does it in a broken way, lacking an end quote marker ti. Since the other versions aren’t broken in such a way and attribute the words to Brahmā, and since the Chinese parallel attributes a similar statement to him, this is more likely to be the more authentic reading. That of course also aligns with an unbounded/infinite consciousness being a Brahmanic idea of liberation.
That aside, if we have to take a playful statement on ‘the all’ from one sutta to interpret a unique and broken quotation in another sutta, to interpret a cryptic riddle-like verse in yet another, and then this we take as one the strongest indications that the Buddha’s goal was a type of consciousness… to me this isn’t really very solid reasoning.
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With respect,
is it fruitful for a discussion to imply one’s own understanding is deep and dealing with emptiness and that of others just rational and intellectual?
I know you repeatedly say things like “I feel”, and thanks for that. But I hope you’ll realize people on the other side will feel the exact same things. Notice how this topic started. If the ultimate goal was a type of consciousness or existence, then, as DeadBuddha said, “Are we to conclude that these currents/religions also really enable us to achieve nibbana?”, “do all religions point to the same wisdom?” That conclusion would actually make Buddhism less deep and less esoteric.
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Thanks. Parallels are always nice to have.
Thanks for getting back to me. Its taken me some pondering of this issue so I took some time out for said pondering. There are just some things about this interpretation that seemed kind of awkward. Anyway, I will post my thoughts …
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Part 1
-
cloud
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cloud sdert
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cloud vndiie
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cloud zvwerdt
What kind of clouds are we talking about?
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cloud – simple enough
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cloud forest
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cloud storage
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cloud burst
All are types of clouds, right? Let’s just for now set aside the idea that vinanna anidassana is a kind of vinanna – maybe it is, but maybe it means ‘vinanna like but different’, or maybe it is something found in the presence of vinanna like ‘cloud forest’, or something entirely different.
Part 2
For a start, let’s assume that Ven. Sujato is right when he speculates that this sutta is about a monk that has mastered the form jhanas and wants to know about the formless jhanas. This monk uses his psychic powers to travel through the various realms asking this question: “Where do these four great elements—the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property—cease without remainder?”
Assuming the Buddha knows the nature of the question, why does he then rephrase the question into two separate ones:
Buddha:
Instead, the question should be asked like this:
“‘Where do water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing?
Where are long & short, coarse & fine, fair & foul,
name & form brought to an end?
If the monk is just wondering about how to develop the formless states then why introduce “where are long …” into the issue? Maybe the Buddha wants to give him some extra teaching. That certainly happens often in the suttas.
So Sujato tells us the Buddha rephrases this as two questions, 1) regarding where the four elements have no footing and 2) where are ….name and for brought to an end.
And the answers are then:
- the formless attainment of infinite consciousness
- nibanna
There are some problems that I see with this approach:
- if the monk wants to develop the formless jhanas then he should probably start with the first one not the second. The state of infinite space is where the perception of the form element ceases not the state of infinite consciousness. Remember, the monk is asking about where the form properties “cease without remainder” – he never asked anything about ‘infinite consciousness’ (remember: its just a label).
AN9.31
For someone who has attained the dimension of infinite space, the perception of form has ceased.
ākāsānañcāyatanaṁ samāpannassa rūpasaññā niruddhā hoti;For someone who has attained the dimension of infinite consciousness, the perception of the dimension of infinite space has ceased.
viññāṇañcāyatanaṁ samāpannassa ākāsānañcāyatanasaññā niruddhā hoti;
- nor did he ask ‘Where does the perception of form cease temporarily?’ And if he has already mastered the four jhanas wouldn’t he at least be aware that the formless attainments are not permanent?
There is no basis that I can see to assume that the monk is asking about the dimension of infinite consciousness. The answer should be the dimesnion of infinite space – the first of the four formless attainments. So why would Ven Sujato expect the Buddha to jump over the first formless attainment and refer to the second?
Ven. Sujato wrote:
“The Buddha was so very very emphatic that the end of dependent origination was the end of all forms of consciousness. Making distinctions between “consciousness” and “awareness” and the like is no use, since these do not apply in the suttas.”.
- source (found in comments)
Nibbana is not viññāṇa. Really, it just isn’t. | Sujato’s Blog
I think this is the reason. His view is that with the end of dependent origination this is also the end of all forms of consciousness. And I agree – consciousness as it is defined in the context of dependent origination without a doubt ceases upon awakening. So the problem is that the Buddha (not the monk) throws the reference to ‘infinite consciousness’ into the mix – and this doesn’t seem to fit – this is why he needs to bring in the dimension of infinite consciousness instead of the dimension of infinite space. Keep in mind the cloud problem.
What I would like to do instead is just work with this sutta exactly as it is and set the troublesome term aside for later as I am not sure of what it means. Let’s instead focus on: What is it a label for? W hat does it point to?
(to be continued)
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Part 3
I learned that the Suttas are by and large accurate. I think I learned that from Ven. Sujato. Of course, there are variations introduced due to an ancient language as well as the difficult task of translation.
What might be an alternative way of looking at this sutta?
Lets proceed as it is written and see how far we can go.
First off, what is the motive of this monk in asking this question? We can’t say for sure but he is asking where these four properties cease without remainder – and we can be pretty sure this is accurate because it is repeated so many times.
As a monk who is already capable of psychic powers he probably knows that suffering and stress arise with the body. Maybe he has a thorn in his foot – making it difficult to walk – and that is why he uses psychic powers instead of just walking. Who knows.
Now the Buddha rephrases the question as:
“‘Where do water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing?
Where are … name & form brought to an end?”
We know that it is with the cessation of ignorance that name and form come to an end. But what about the four properties – do they lose their footing there?
Thanks to Sylvester who left a comment on Ven. Sujato’s article on this topic (linked to above) we don’t have to do much hunting. I will just copy his comment below [my emphasis]:
Sylvester says:
May 15, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Oops, my erstwhile speculation did not show up. Here it goes –
SN 1.27:
“Q1 From where do the streams turn back?
Q2 Where does the round no longer revolve?
Q3 Where do name-and-form Cease utterly without remainder?”
“A: Where water, earth, fire and air,
Do not gain a footing:
It is from here that the streams turn back (Q1),
Here that the round no longer revolves (Q2);
Here name-and-form
Cease utterly without remainder (Q3).”
“Kuto sarā nivattanti,
kattha vaṭṭaṃ na vattati;
Kattha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhatī”ti.
“Yattha āpo ca pathavī,
tejo vāyo na gādhati;
Ato sarā nivattanti,
ettha vaṭṭaṃ na vattati;
Ettha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhatī”ti.
In SN 1.27, the triad of questions is answered with just one reply, ie “Yattha āpo ca pathavī, tejo vāyo na gādhati”, (where water, earth, fire and air do not gain a footing). It should be obvious that the corresponding question “where do water, earth, fire and air not gain a footing” is answered by DN 11’s “viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ”. In other words, the answer to the 3 questions in SN 1.27 is also nothing more than “Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ”.
Remember the cloud problem.
We also have SN7.6:
Where name and form
Yattha nāmañca rūpañca,
cease with nothing left over;
asesaṁ uparujjhati;
as well as impingement and perception of form:
Paṭighaṁ rūpasaññā ca,
it’s there that the tangle is cut.”
etthesā chijjate jaṭā”ti.
The term ‘gains no footing’ might also refer to the imperturbability of the Arahat.
SN22.76
How happy are the arahants!
Craving isn’t found in them.
Cut off is the conceit, ‘I am’;
burst, the net of delusion.
Having reached imperturbability,
their minds are clear & disturbance-free.
At this point we haven’t had to touch the text at all. I added a possible motive but it was not necessary – just wanted to show that there are other possibilities. We have an additional sutta that backs up the two question, one answer format of the original and others that support the general theme. And do remember that originally the monk only asked one question – it was the Buddha that rephrased it and also brought in the umm… ‘cloud reference’ thing.
Part 4
So what about that infinite consciousness thing?
First of all, let’s remember that this term is only used in a couple of places and not defined anywhere in the suttas so translation is not so easy. Here are some translations:
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Ven. Sujato: infinite consciousness
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Ven. Nananda: non-manifestative consciousness (he discusses this topic at length starting near the end of mind stilled number six and into seven and beyond – interesting stuff)
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Thanissaro Bhikkhu: consciousness without surface
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RhyDavids/Brasington: consciousness that is signless
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Bikkhu Bodhi: Don’t know, maybe someone can let me know?
My feeling regarding this term is that the Buddha uses it (vinanna) not because it is a type of vinanna but because vinanna is how a worldly person experiences ‘the world’ and he wants to contrast that with how an Arahant experiences the flow of phenomena while at the same time disjoined from it. Recall that when the Buddha awakens he says ‘the world’ came to an end (anyone got a citation for me?)
Having reached imperturbability, their minds are clear & disturbance-free.
The Arahat knows this – and according to the suttas it is you could say ‘a world of difference’ from that of the worldy person.
I am still looking for other terms the the suttas use do describe the knowing aspect of the mind of the Arahat. There are a number. If you have some you like feel free to post them.
Thanks for reading.
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Hi Charlie,
As I said in an earlier response, I do agree with you the monk in question is not just asking about the formless attainments. I think he also looks for liberation in them, and that helps us understand why the Buddha also explains what liberation really is; namely, the cessation of name-and-form and consciouness.
However,
This isn’t true. The thing is all over the place. It’s the anidassana that’s rare, not the infinite thing. If it refers to the state of infinite consciousness, like some suggest here, then in a sense it is explained very often.
As to your question why the Buddha’s response is the second formless attainment and not the first, and the reference to SN1.27, have you read the link in the second post of this thread? I suggested some answers there. In short:
- Form can still “find a footing” in the first formless attainment. This happens when one goes back to the fourth jhana. In the second formless this can’t happen. Form can’t disturb it anymore, but the perception of unbounded/infinite space (the first formless) can. See AN9.34:
Take a mendicant who […] enters and remains in the dimension of infinite space. While a mendicant is in such a meditation, should perceptions accompanied by form beset them due to loss of focus, that’s an affliction for them.
Furthermore, take a mendicant who […] enters and remains in the dimension of infinite consciousness. While a mendicant is in such a meditation, should perceptions accompanied by the dimension of infinite space beset them due to loss of focus, that’s an affliction for them.
This can explain why form only really finds no footing in the state of infinite consciousness.
- Form also doesn’t find a footing when name-and-form cease completely, i.e at parinibbana, but that doesn’t mean that every mention of this not-finding-a-footing is a reference to parinibbana. It’s like, suppose I once said “a tree isn’t an animal” and then concluding that every time I say “it isn’t an animal” I’m talking about a tree. There’s also other things that aren’t animals. Likewise, both the state of infinite/unbounded consciousness and nibbana are “things” where the four elements “find no footing”.
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