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

[Nickelii]

@Sunyo

But that’s exactly how it’s defined in SN48.36–39: “And what is the faculty of pleasure? Physical enjoyment, physical pleasure, the enjoyable, pleasant feeling that’s born from physical contact.”

There also isn’t a real difference between nirodha and vaya. I don’t think this is the right place to discuss this, though. I believe Ven. Sujato addressed these ideas here .

MN 128

Sunyo. SN 48.36 does not offer any explanation of the word ‘indriya’. It is like asking: “What is the controlling faculty of the mind?” Answer: “Sukha”. The answer is unrelated to the meaning of ‘indriya’ in the question.

SN 22.5 looks like it explains what samudaya means and also its opposite nirodha.

As for MN 128, this sutta looks like its about psychic powers and not about jhana nimitta. It is obvious a jhana nimitta does not cause defilements to arise. MN 128 sounds like it is about Anuruddha & his companions, about which SN 14.15 says:

Do you see Anuruddha walking together with several mendicants?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All of those mendicants have clairvoyance (dibbacakkhukā).

In MN 128, the visions of forms Anuruddha is seeing, causing defilements to arise, are the forms seen with the Divine Eye.

[Sunyo]

@Brahmali

My point is that I think the hindrances and the upakkilesas of MN128 are in fact quite closely related.

Thanks Ajahn, I stand corrected on upakkilesa being “minor”, in fact I contradicted myself directly with the suttas I quoted right after, where it is used as a synonym for the five hindrances. And I actually realized it while I was typing it. But I was too lazy to edit, hoping nobody would notice! (But luckily someone did.) To be clear, that “minor” was my insertion, not Venerable Anālayo’s.

I also said to Erika that the fear is sometimes a disguised form of sensual desire or attachment to the five senses, so I agree on that part too.

However, I still think it may be relevant that sensual desire and anger are not mentioned explicitly in the list. In my experience, at that stage of meditation you’re generally not thinking about sensual things, or even other people. So many of the thoughts mentioned in MN19 for example are abandoned. I suppose contextually Anuruddha & co already did that by the way they lived and behaved. So also pragmatically I agree, with some defilements being abandoned by sense restraint and so forht.

Anyway, a minor detail, not relevant for the core of the arguments.

@kumara

Whether you want to have it as plural or singular doesn’t really matter here. The Pali isn’t very particular about grammatical number for abstract nouns. E.g., in speaking of the 5 aggregates, sometimes the 4th aggregate is in plural and sometimes in singular.

Thanks Venerable

But that doesn’t answer my (and Erika’s) question what it actually means to be “separated from sensuality/ies”.

Also, our whole disagreement kind of boils down to whether kāma in this case is an abstract noun or not. I don’t think you can just assume it like that.

(BTW. I don’t know if sankhāra as an aggregate is ever used in the singular, especially with the exact same sense. An example would be helpful. The other aggregates are in some contexts also used in the plural sometimes, but that doesn’t mean the number is simply irrelevant or turns it into an abstract noun. One feeling means something different from multiple feelings, for example.)

[Brahmali]

@Erika_ODonnell

I am also interested to learn about the pragmatic or phenomenological meaning of separation from sensuality when it is something else than the separation from the five senses.

Just to give some context, the disappearance of the five senses seems like such a clear experiential threshold. It must be very unambiguous whether the five senses are experienced or not; like night and day.

This is a very interesting post, Erik! Yes, I can only agree that the “hard” jhāna experience is pragmatically important, especially from an insight perspective. Insight is about the three characteristics, and jhāna gives you powerful direct experience of all three. Impermanence, for instance, as you point out, only becomes fully manifest when things disappear completely, that is, when they cease. This is so because you cannot possibly fully comprehend something while you are still immersed in it, like the tadpole in water. Only a frog, who has left the water, can have the perspective to understand it. It is for this reason that we find cessation as the highest expression of impermanence in suttas such as the Ānāpānassati Sutta, MN118.

When things cease, you also understand dukkha in a much deeper way, again because you have emerged from the thing that has ceased. When something is completely gone, you understand it’s true value, or lack thereof. And finally you get a deeper appreciation of anattā. By entering a meditative state where the things that have ceased are no longer accessible, such as the five senses in “hard” jhāna, you know they must be nonself. Anything that is outside off your control, that you cannot access, is by definition nonself.

So yes, “hard” jhāna (not sure if I like that term, though! ) is pragmatically a very important basis for insight in a way that pre-jhāna samādhi can never be. IMO.

However, there are even further pragmatic aspects that need to be properly discussed. So far as I am concerned, it is beyond doubt that people have experiences that match the description of hard jhāna. These are states of extreme otherworldly bliss, where there is no mental movement (with the partial exception of the first jhāna), where you have complete nondual unity of mind, where you are frozen for hours or even days on end. What are these states if not jhāna?

I mean, the jhānas are at the very end of the Buddhist path. They are almost always classified as a distinct category together with the four stages of awakening. They are praised throughout the suttas as exceptional. They are variously called the bliss of awakening, the footsteps of the Buddha, super-human qualities, distinctions in knowledge and vison worthy of the noble ones, etc. We should expect the jhānas to be at the very peak of profound spiritual qualities. I don’t know, but this seems to me to match so much better with “hard” jhāna than soft jhāna. And again, what are these states if not jhāna?

[thomaslaw]

However, according to SA 347 (but not in its counterpart SN 12.70), the four jhanas are not needed for attaining the wisdom-liberated ‘paññā-vimuttā’:
Pages 201-2 from The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism Choong Mun-keat 2000.pdf (167.3 KB)

[kumara]

@Sunyo

But that doesn’t answer my (and Erika’s) question what it actually means to be “separated from sensuality/ies”.

For that, please refer to my book again, under the heading Vivicca & Viveka.

@Sunyo

I don’t know if sankhāra as an aggregate is ever used in the singular, especially with the exact same sense. An example would be helpful.

Here you go:

Saṃkhārā bhikkhave, anattā, saṃkhārañca hidaṃ bhikkhave, attā abhavissa nayidaṃ saṃkhāraṃ ābādhāya saṃvatteyya, labbhetha ca saṃkhārā "evaṃ me saṃkhāraṃ hotu, evaṃ me saṃkhāraṃ mā ahosī’ti. Yasmā ca kho bhikkhave, saṃkhāraṃ anattā, tasmā saṃkhāraṃ ābādhāya saṃvattati. Na ca labbhati saṃkhāre "evaṃ me saṃkhāraṃ hotu, evaṃ me saṃkhāraṃ mā ahosī"ti.

It’s in Anattalakkhana Sutta a.k.a. Pañcavaggiya Sutta.

FYI, your desire to win arguments is the reason I’m reluctant to engage with you.

[kumara]

@Erika_ODonnell

I am also interested to learn about the pragmatic or phenomenological meaning of separation from sensuality when it is something else than the separation from the five senses.

Pls refer to the same as I suggested to @Sunyo above.

[Erika_ODonnell]

@Brahmali

So yes, “hard” jhāna (not sure if I like that term, though! ) is pragmatically a very important basis for insight in a way that pre-jhāna samādhi can never be. IMO.

I’m not sure about the hard/soft jhana as terms either, but AFAIK it’s the shortest to write so it saves the most typing time

@kumara

@Erika_ODonnell

I am also interested to learn about the pragmatic or phenomenological meaning of separation from sensuality when it is something else than the separation from the five senses.

Pls refer to the same as I suggested to @Sunyo above.

Hi Venerable, congratulations on your book! it’s an accomplishment even if some people disagree with some of the points

Here I’m quoting from the book:

In this way, sensualities and unskillful qualities can still occur while the observer feels separate from them, thus not dis-eased by them, making it easy to examine them objectively.

So if I have understood correctly, in the way (first) jhana is conceptualized in your book, the hindrances can be present during the first jhana but the meditator is experiencing a feeling of separation from them. (I’ll just use ‘the hindrances’ as a blanket term here)

My first question is how this relates to right effort and right mindfulness. The EBTs are full of instructions not to tolerate arisen unskillful qualities. If the point of examining the hindrances objectively is to make them go away, isn’t this just right effort rather than right samadhi?

Or, if this is a fourth satipatthana practice (i.e. understanding the hindrances) isn’t this right mindfulness rather than right samadhi?

How would you respond to a criticism a la “yeah, if you do this and manage suppress the hindrances, then the vision of lights and form appear, which is the path into the first jhana”?

[Sasha_A]

@Erika_ODonnell

I am also interested to learn about the pragmatic or phenomenological meaning of separation from sensuality when it is something else than the separation from the five senses.

There is an excellent book on the subject: ‘The Only Way To Jhāna’ by Ajahn Nyanamoli.

@Ven. Nyanamoly

If people were to truly see the danger of sensual desire for sensual pleasures, none of that would ever again be seen as safe, friendly, suitable, pleasurable for me; it would be seen to be like a pit of burning embers, a poisonous drink, a bait, a trap, etc. Those significances are there, it’s not like you must remove the significances of pleasures. No, you must instead stop entertaining them, and look for the other significances that are equally present, but that you have been ignoring out of your habit of welcoming lust.
…

AN9.41
Then the thought occurred to me: “If, having seen the danger of sensual pleasures, I were to pursue that; and if, having understood the reward of renunciation, I were to develop it, there’s the possibility that my mind would leap up at renunciation, grow confident, steadfast, and firm, seeing it as peace.” So at a later time, having seen the danger of sensual pleasures, I pursued that theme; having understood the reward of renunciation, I familiarized myself with it. My mind leaped up at renunciation, grew confident, steadfast, and firm, seeing it as peace.

Then, withdrawn from sensual desires, withdrawn from unwholesome states, I entered and remained in the first comprehension: pleasure and happiness born from withdrawal, with thinking and pondering.

…

MN36

“In the same way, there are ascetics and brahmins who live withdrawn in body and mind from sensual pleasures. But they haven’t internally given up or stilled desire, affection, infatuation, thirst, and passion for sensual pleasures. Regardless of whether or not they suffer painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings due to overexertion, they are incapable of knowledge and vision, of supreme awakening.”

You’re not in the water any more, but the mind is still wet with the value of sensuality. So it doesn’t matter what you do, or how much effort you’re putting in, or how motionless and for how many hours you sit in your meditation, if you have not, on the level of your views, devalued sensuality forever. Through not understanding the danger of it—you are still within it. So there will be no wisdom arising on account of whatever endurance you undergo, because you do so while still acting from the point of view that sensual pleasures are valuable. … Mentally abandoning sensuality is not simply about not thinking about it, it means devaluing it.

If you physically step outside of the swamp of sensuality, but still mentally value swimming in it, you’re not withdrawn from it. If you don’t see the danger in it, you are still valuing it.

[kumara]

@Erika_ODonnell

So if I have understood correctly, in the way (first) jhana is conceptualized in your book, the hindrances can be present during the first jhana but the meditator is experiencing a feeling of separation from them. (I’ll just use ‘the hindrances’ as a blanket term here)

Seems to me you didn’t read that section properly.

@Erika_ODonnell

My first question is how this relates to right effort and right mindfulness. The EBTs are full of instructions not to tolerate arisen unskillful qualities. If the point of examining the hindrances objectively is to make them go away, isn’t this just right effort rather than right samadhi?

Or, if this is a fourth satipatthana practice (i.e. understanding the hindrances) isn’t this right mindfulness rather than right samadhi?

Are you regarding right effort, right mindfulness and right samadhi as separately practised?

@Erika_ODonnell

How would you respond to a criticism a la “yeah, if you do this and manage suppress the hindrances, then the vision of lights and form appear, which is the path into the first jhana”?

I would find it so confusing that I wouldn’t be bothered.

[Erika_ODonnell]

@kumara

Seems to me you didn’t read that section properly.

Would you kindly point out my error?

@kumara

Are you regarding right effort, right mindfulness and right samadhi as separately practised?

I guess I regard them as causally linked, one leading to the other (e.g. the noble eightfold path, the gradual training, simile of the goldsmith).

@kumara

I would find it so confusing that I wouldn’t be bothered.

Would you mind elaborating a bit about what is confusing about it? I really do want to try to understand your point of view

[Ceisiwr]

@Erika_ODonnell

I’m not sure about the hard/soft jhana as terms either, but AFAIK it’s the shortest to write so it saves the most typing time

I think “absorbed vs non-absorbed” is a better phrasing.

[DeadBuddha]

Very interesting, thank you! Please, do you know if there is an English translation of this Agama? I would like to verify for myself that the Buddha explains that rupajhanas are not necessary. Thanks in advance.

[Sunyo]

Hi Bhante

What version of the Pali canon is that from? That looks to me like a wrong expansion of a peyāla (the “…” or “fill in the blanks”) by the transcriber, accidentally putting saṇkhāra in the singular.

This is what the Chattha Sangayana has as well as its Mahasangiti version used here on SuttaCentral:

Saññā anattā…pe… saṅkhārā anattā. Saṅkhārā ca hidaṃ, bhikkhave, attā abhavissaṃsu, nayidaṃ saṅkhārā ābādhāya saṃvatteyyuṃ, labbhetha ca saṅkhāresu – ‘evaṃ me saṅkhārā hontu, evaṃ me saṅkhārā mā ahesu’nti. Yasmā ca kho, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā anattā, tasmā saṅkhārā ābādhāya saṃvattanti, na ca labbhati saṅkhāresu – ‘evaṃ me saṅkhārā hontu, evaṃ me saṅkhārā mā ahesu’’’nti.

And that’s how it’s usually chanted everywhere I know of, with saṅkhārā in the plural.

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss saṅkhāra! And I actually don’t disagree that there are abstract nouns in the canon. This is not a good example of this, though. But more on topic, I see no reason for kāma to be so. I think it’s very specifically in the plural because it refers to the five sense objects.

I noticed your reluctance, Bhante, to reply to me. But I’m not here to win an argument. My desire, if I have any desire about this, is, just like you, to teach people what the jhanas are about, what samādhi is about. If anything, I’d rather not have to have this discussion at all, actually! But since I think people are mistaken about some very important aspects of the path, and because I’m a Buddhist teacher, I point out what I think is mistaken. If at times it seems like I’m doing so rudely or just to “win”, that’s an artifact of the written medium.

Perhaps these things should be discussed in a live meeting instead, that’d be interesting.

Anyway, meta discussion aside. I read that part of the book already. I actually disagree that there are still unskillful qualities in the jhānas, but let’s put that aside. Like Erika, I still don’t understand. It doesn’t explain to me what “secluded from sensualities” means. I suppose it’s clear to you, but not to me. And I am truly interested in what you have to say, not to win an argument but to understand where others are coming from.

I was hoping you could explain it briefly here instead of referring to your book. Anyway, if you don’t want to explain that’s fine. Then I just don’t understand. To me, though, vivicceva kāmehi means something very specific, as you’ll know, being without experiences of the five senses. I can put that very briefly.

Much metta from down under!

[thomaslaw]

@DeadBuddha

Very interesting, thank you! Please, do you know if there is an English translation of this Agama? I would like to verify for myself that the Buddha explains that rupajhanas are not necessary. Thanks in advance.

I think it is possibly no English translation of the sutra yet. But I could be wrong. The full text is shown here:
https://suttacentral.net/sa347/lzh/taisho?reference=none&highlight=true

[kumara]

I’ve lost interest engaging with you.

[Sunyo]

Well, I get bored with myself at times as well, so I can understand!

[kumara]

@Erika_ODonnell

@kumara

Seems to me you didn’t read that section properly.

Would you kindly point out my error?

Just search for “hindrance” in that section and you should find them. E.g.:

1. Although the hindrances—being grosser forms of unskillful qualities—are abandoned, at least temporarily, subtler ones such as own-self view (sakkāya·diṭṭhi), ego (māna), and some other fetters (saṁyojanas) must remain, unless they are already abandoned through awakening.

@kumara

Are you regarding right effort, right mindfulness and right samadhi as separately practised?

I guess I regard them as causally linked, one leading to the other (e.g. the noble eightfold path, the gradual training, simile of the goldsmith).

When you add a link to another, is the earlier linked dropped?

@kumara

I would find it so confusing that I wouldn’t be bothered.

Would you mind elaborating a bit about what is confusing about it? I really do want to try to understand your point of view

I really can’t elaborate about what is confusing about what I find confusing.

Anyway, perhaps you’d be enlightened by this: https://web.archive.org/web/20160306112732/http://measurelessmind.ca/nimitta.html

[Erika_ODonnell]

@kumara

Just search for “hindrance” in that section and you should find them. E.g.:

I guess I don’t understand the difference between sensualities, unskillful states and the hindrances then.

So is it that subtle hindrances can be present during first jhana then?

[DeadBuddha]

Venerable, I found your post very well written. It has made me want to practice rupajhanas without the 5 senses even more!

Yes, I can only agree that the “hard” jhāna experience is pragmatically important, especially from an insight perspective. Insight is about the three characteristics, and jhāna gives you powerful direct experience of all three. Impermanence, for instance, as you point out, only becomes fully manifest when things disappear completely, that is, when they cease. This is so because you cannot possibly fully comprehend something while you are still immersed in it, like the tadpole in water. Only a frog, who has left the water, can have the perspective to understand it.

Personally, I don’t feel that it’s impossible to fully understand the 3 characteristics without being in a situation analogously similar to that of the frog out of the water (compared to the tadpole in the water), i.e. I don’t think it’s necessary to outright suppress our 5 senses to fully understand dukkha, anatta, and anicca.

The reason is the following syllogism.

Presupposition n°1 :
Human beings can also illusorily identify with their minds;

Presupposition n°2 :
rupajhana do not suppress the mind ;

Presupposition n°3 :
it seems that SN 12.70 implies that to attain liberation, it is not necessary to reach a meditative state that suppresses the mind, since this sutta says that to attain liberation, it is not necessary to reach the deep meditative states superior to the 4 rupajhanas ;

Presupposition n°4 :
Now, if liberation could only be attained by a person analogously similar to the frog out of water (without 5 senses), and if the reason for this is that as long as one is immersed in the 5 senses one is not fully aware of the associated identifying illusion, then to attain liberation it would be necessary to suppress the mind through a deep meditative state (since an identifying illusion can be associated with the mind in which one is immersed);

Conclusion :
So personally, I’d find it hard to say that “full understanding of the 3 characteristics can only be obtained if we suppress the 5 senses by rupajhana analogously to the frog, because otherwise we’re too immersed to notice the illusion”.

These are states of extreme otherworldly bliss,

When things cease, you also understand dukkha in a much deeper way, again because you have emerged from the thing that has ceased. When something is completely gone, you understand it’s true value, or lack thereof. And finally you get a deeper appreciation of anattā.

I mean, the jhānas are at the very end of the Buddhist path. They are almost always classified as a distinct category together with the four stages of awakening. They are praised throughout the suttas as exceptional. They are variously called the bliss of awakening, the footsteps of the Buddha, super-human qualities, distinctions in knowledge and vison worthy of the noble ones, etc. We should expect the jhānas to be at the very peak of profound spiritual qualities.

I don’t think this is the monopoly of senseless jhanas. I don’t see why jhanas with senses couldn’t be extremely pleasant, extremely powerful, extremely calm, and so radical that they would completely change our vision of our body, our mind, and the world. Maybe they wouldn’t be as radical as senseless jhanas, I don’t know. But I don’t see why they wouldn’t also be largely sufficient to take us a long way along the path; for example, if sense jhanas could bring about a total imbibition of pleasure in the physical body, this might imply that when the meditator comes out of jhana, he is much less attached to ordinary worldly pleasure. This is already a great step forward, I think. But in addition, if from the point of view of jhana with senses, we interpret AN 9.36 and MN 111 as instructions to practice vipassana while in jhanas completely imbibed with different qualities, then these jhāna with senses can also clearly be used to deepen our insight.

Here are a few impressions!

[DeadBuddha]

Please, does anyone know if Bhikkhu Bodhi thinks rupajhanas are senseless?