How the Buddha spoke of what is beyond the first Jhana

Discussion
1

Venerables & friends,

In MN44, Ven. Dhammadinnā answered the question of the layman Visākha in the following manner:

Why are placing the mind and keeping it connected a verbal process?

First you place the mind and keep it connected, then you break into speech. That’s why placing the mind and keeping it connected are a verbal process.

We also know from other suttas that vitakka and vicara cease upon attaining the second Jhana. This have led me to question how the Buddha spoke of what is beyond the first Jhana?

The most obvious answer i can find is that when the meditator emerges from the higher jhanas, they will have to rely on memory to report on what is been experienced beyond the first jhana. For memory to function, nama has to act as a nimitta of rupa in order for experience to stay connected and transform into speech.

In AN6.61, keeping ends connected is alluded to as craving through the analogy of a seamstresses:

“Name, reverends, is one end. Form is the second end. Consciousness is the middle. And craving is the seamstress”

If reconnecting the first Jhana with what is beyond it can only happen through speech to form a sequence, then this would be a recipe for craving and not inline with the spirit of simsapa sutta where the teachings is likened to a handful of leaves in contrast with a forest.

The question stems from a possible alternative: the first Jhana is the highest attainment where sensible speech is possible. If there is anything beyond that, we should remain silent about it.

Grateful for your inputs in relation to this matter.

2

@Bundokji :victory_hand::slightly_smiling_face:

Then Sakuludāyī, having quieted those wanderers, said to the Buddha, “Well sir, at what point is a perfectly happy world realized?”

“It’s when, with the giving up of pleasure and pain and the disappearance of former happiness and sadness, a mendicant enters and remains in the fourth absorption.

There are deities who have been reborn in a perfectly happy world. That mendicant associates with them, converses, and engages in discussion.

It’s at this point that a perfectly happy world has been realized.” - MN 79

  • These conversations and discussions are taking place in the 4th jhana! :smiling_face::folded_hands:

:wheel_of_dharma: :thaibuddha: :wheel_of_dharma:

3

Thank you. There is no reference to vaci (speech) in MN79. In SN21.1 we have Ven. Mahāmoggallāna describing the second Jhana as noble silence due to the stilling of vitakka and vicara - where the Buddha came to him through psychic power. It is therefore likely that any discussions taking place in the fourth Jhana is done telepathically.

My line of inquiry has to do with the suttas - which was transmitted to us by Ven. Ananda who accompanied the Buddha, was able to hear the teachings and memorize them. To me, the issue at hand is disciplinary more than anything else - bordering at talking non-sense. For example, In SN35.23 the Buddha defined the all in terms of the six senses and closed the sutta by declaring:

Mendicants, suppose someone was to say:

Yo, bhikkhave, evaṁ vadeyya:

‘I’ll deny this all and describe another all.’ They’d have no grounds for that claim,they’d be stumped by questions, and, in addition, they’d get frustrated.

'ahametaṁ sabbaṁ paccakkhāya aññaṁ sabbaṁ paññāpessāmī’ti, tassa vācāvatthukamevassa;

puṭṭho ca na sampāyeyya, uttariñca vighātaṁ āpajjeyya.

Why is that?

Taṁ kissa hetu?

Because they’re out of their element.

Yathā taṁ, bhikkhave, avisayasmin"ti.

Linking speech (vaci) with a range or domain (visaya) is echoed in AN4.77 and applied more specifically to the Jhanas:

“Jhāyissa, bhikkhave, jhānavisayo acinteyyo, na cintetabbo;yaṁ cintento ummādassa vighātassa bhāgī assa”

So, if the domain of the Jhanas is unthinkable, then why to teach them through a sequence?

4

Beggars are not choosers. As i am awaiting for possible input, i thought i would share few more ideas relevant to the topic in hand.

In my previous posts i raised questions in relation to what can be spoken about sensibly, and the issue of presenting the rupa jhanas in numeric sequence. Similar trajectory cannot be found in arupa jhanas, and even if we use fifth or sixth jhanas to describe them, that would not be based on the suttas.

What makes rupa loka different from kama loka is the role of the elements. In SN12.2 we read:

The four principal states, and form derived from the four principal states.

Cattāro ca mahābhūtā, catunnañca mahābhūtānaṁ upādāyarūpaṁ.

This is called form.

Idaṁ vuccati rūpaṁ.

If rupa loka is more descriptive of the elements than the senses, then why to mark the first Jhana by vitakka and vicara? If we take each rupa Jhana as alchemical composition of some sort with varying potentialities in terms of knowledge and liberation, then the suttas seems to be more preoccupied with portraying Baka (the Brahama who dwells in the first Jhana) as deluded and snowflake than explaining his alchemical compostion. Instead, in DN11 we have an account of a mendicant who climbed the sensual ladder asking a question about the elements, for Baka to be incapable of answering his question. Then the Buddha magically appeared, corrected the framing of his question and introduced the idea of “viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ”. It is worth noting that correcting the framing of his question involved changing the sequence of the elements - which supports the idea that the rupa jhanas are descriptive of different alchemical compositions.

As to the issue of sequence, MN1 provides a sequence beginning with the puthujjana and ending with the sammasambuddha that include the elements and how they are perceived and conceived. For some reason, the mendicants who were listening to this particular discourse were unusually displeased with what the Buddha said. In MN49. the same formula is used in the Buddha’s discussion with Baka to demonstrate that the Buddha is superior to Baka - engaging in a game of hide and seek to prove it.

Portraying a Brahma who dwells in a prestigious cosmological station as the first jhana as deluded seems dogmatic and evasive. It is dogmatic because if his alchemical composition is explained, then perceiving him as the highest would come with a caveat that there is something beyond pending how sequence affect composition. It is evasive because his alchemical composition is never explained by him - but eluded to by a third party as in the mendicant in DN11.

Last but not least, i encountered debates about whether it is possible to hear voices while in the jhanas. I can’t help but wonder how speech would be possible in the Jhanas without hearing voices?

5

OK, here are my two cents. Not sure if this will help but this is how I think about this in contemporary terms:

Let’s say you have never experienced snow before but you are very interested in it and have read and studied it for years. How does that conceptual knowledge compare to the experiential wisdom of finding yourself out in a field of snow for even a few minutes? You would probably reflect on your study of snow and think “OK, this is what they were talking about, this is what they meant”.

This is what I think AN4.77 is about: that there is a big difference between conceptual understanding and experiential understanding (knowledge vs wisdom).

And this distinction between conceptual and experiential also applies to two modes of our mind often thought of as head vs heart or cognitive vs feeling. The cognitive or thinking mind is dominant in pretty much all of us over about 13 years of age. Nevertheless, we are constantly switching back and forth between these two modes without being aware of it. We make this shift whenever we need to really tune into our senses - a faint sound, a distant sight, or think of an artist like a painter or sculptor, a wood worker or basket weaver - there is a kind of flow that they can get into where the thinking mind is stilled and they are absorbed in there work.

Jhana is not unthinkable but rather non-verbal from the second one onward. And even in the first it is not thinkable in the sense of everyday discursive thinking and chatter. But one is quite lucid so it’s easy to reflect on it afterwards. But if you have that experience and then describe your experience to me (and I have not had it) then for me it is conceptual. But importantly, it gives me an idea of what the experience is like similar to how your study of snow led you to recognize that it was snow when you had the actual experience.

The following two quotes describe making the shift between thinking to feeling in terms of left brain and right brain modes:

“In order to gain access to the right brain [feeling mind], it is necessary to present the left brain [thinking mind] with a task that it will turn down.”

“In other words, it is no use going up against the strong, verbal, domineering left brain to try to keep it out of a task. It can be tricked, however, into not wanting to do the task, and, once tricked, it tends to “fade out”, and will stay out, ending its interfering and usurping. As a side benefit, this cognitive shift to a different-from-usual mode of thinking results in a marvelous state of being, a highly focused, singularly attentive, deeply engaging, wordless, timeless, productive, and mentally restorative state”. - Source Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain pg: XXV

In my view, the first jhana is acting like a bridge between the thinking mind and the feeling mind. It repeatedly gives the thinking mind a task that only the feeling mind can handle (“pointing the mind”) which causes a shift to the feeling mind. Then we attend to, nurture, savor the resultant feeling as long as possible (“keeping it connected”) until it starts to fade and then “point the mind” once again to sustain the focus. The first jhana has completed its task when the mind is able to stabilize in “feeling mode”, and the thinking mind drops out of the experience.

The purpose of the first jhana is then to clear away the mental chatter so as to become aware of what is going on beneath all that noise.

6

Thank you for your input.

In the commentaries, wisdom is analyzed into three types: Sutamayā paññā (by hearing/learning), Cintāmayā paññā (thinking/reflecting) and Bhāvanāmayā paññā (developing/cultivating). If what you meant (without putting words in your mouth) by differentiating wisdom from knowledge is that Bhāvanāmayā paññā is the only type of paññā relevant to the Jhanas?

7

All three types are relevant to not just jhanas but whatever we want to do. Let’s say that you are lost in the woods and it’s raining.

Someone comes along and tells you that you should build a shelter in order to get out of the rain. That is relevant and helpful but it doesn’t in and of itself get you out of the rain.

You think that makes sense so you start figuring out what you can use and how to put things together. Such thinking is helpful and needed but in and of itself it doesn’t get you out of the rain.

The act of building the shelter, reflecting on it as you build it so as to build it well and then using it - that is what actually gets you out of the rain.

You know that saying “where the rubber meets the road”? Bhāvanāmayā paññā is ‘where the rubber meets the road’.

8

In the N8FP, the Jhanas belong to the training in samadhi, not wisdom. Possibly this is why, the issue of “hearing voices” while in the Jhanas is a debatable issue.

In terms of discipline, evaṃ me sutaṃ functions as both a caveat and a truth statement. It has the connotations of “suspending judgement” where the speaker is only conveying whats been heard - without additions or editions of his own. In worldly affairs, to simply report what you hear is to be exempt from potential falsehood. Your statement would be truthful even if the source was lying. This is why, ignorance can be a justification in such cases.

This discipline in relation to whats been heard transforms into a discipline in terms of speech. I wonder if the Buddha’s spoken words on what is beyond the first Jhana are primarily designed to make us blameless. If we repeat what he said, we won’t be engaging in falsehood regardless of having direct insight into what he said. This also would shed an interesting light as to why paccekabuddhas are not listed in MN1 amongst the sequence and the corresponding hierarchy. They do not establish a sangha and therefore adhere to worldly disciplines.