If jhana is total absorption without physical sensation, why is pain only abandoned in the fourth jhana?

The Watercooler
77

Hi, here’s what I think:

  1. The Uppaṭipāṭikasutta (SN48.40) talks about contemplating pain and happiness, but it doesn’t explain any more than other suttas how they attain the jhanas. It doesn’t say that their contemplation directly leads into the jhanas. The explanation of how to attain jhana is still the same as always: abandoning the hindrances and sense objects. I’m not sure what Pa-Auk would mean by “unreal concepts”, though, so I can’t respond on that. If it means mental objects, then yes I would agree that is what has to to happen eventually. But there is nothing unreal about those things. If anything, it’s more real than anything in the physical world. Also, contemplation and other types of meditation lead us there, so I wouldn’t make a hard distinction, whether we call it “real” and “unreal” or whatever.

  2. It’s a bit strange, yes. The sutta says sukha is abandoned in the 3rd jhana, where there is still sukha! :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Well, it clearly uses sukha in a different sense. The word does have different senses throughout the canon, so that’s not particularly strange. For example, parinibbana is also a type of sukha but of course there are no feelings there, so it is not sukha of the jhanas, which is a feeling. In the Uppaṭipāṭikasutta sukha must stand for piti, since that is what is abandoned in the third jhana. A bit weird, but the sutta seems to somewhat forcefully try to fit the four “faculties” (dukkha, sukha, domanassa, somanassa) onto the four jhanas, which, because these two sets of four don’t really match, in some cases is done in a somewhat creative way. Like, domanassa, which is said to be abandoned in the second jhana, seemingly refers to the vitakka vicara, which is a bit strange too. But this stretching and challenging of concepts is something that the Buddha did all the time.

  3. Thanks, I haven’t read that, but going by what you say, in these other treatises the pain/pleasure faculties are mixed up compared to the Pali. I think this shows my assumption, that the four don’t really match the jhanas properly, and that the sutta was a creative way of categorizing things. The main point is that it aids contemplation, not so much to explain us what the jhanas are like.

I was aware of some of the different usage of terms here, but I think for the first jhana it’s still pretty clear that physical pain is abandoned already there.

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