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

The Watercooler
102

Hello Venerable,

I remember you saying that samatha and vipassana are practiced together. However, you also say that jhana is absorption without physical sensation. So what do you think samatha (jhana) looks like when practised at the same time as vipassana? A priori, in a jhâna without physical sensation, you can’t practice vipassana on physical sensation. So vipassana is practiced on something else, such as what? The jhâna factors?

I ask this question because in the Pa-Auk system, the object of jhana concentration is nimitta. Now, nimitta is considered an unreal concept (i.e. it’s not an ultimate reality but just a perception). If we stop concentrating on nimitta, then there is no more jhâna. This is why Pa-Auk considers that vipassana cannot be performed in jhana: vipassana is performed on real objects, whereas samatha is performed on unreal objects.

Thanks again

1 Like
103

Ajahn Chah says,

Wrong samādhi is where the mind enters calm and there’s no awareness at all. One could sit for two hours or even all day but the mind doesn’t know where it’s been or what’s happened. It doesn’t know anything.

1 Like
104

Hey, bhante. Sorry to interrupt your exchange with Ceisiwr, but that’s the exact same quote I used to explain wrong samādhi in a class! :slight_smile: Happy to see we agree on something at least!

Because maybe it’s beneficial from time to time to focus on the agreement instead of the differences.

2 Likes
105

I don’t remember having put it this way.

Let me put it like this: Samatha and Vipassanā are qualities developed in meditation, not practices or meditation methods.

If you practice meditation, let’s say, breath meditation, or metta meditation, or even something that’s called vipassana meditation (even if the Buddha didn’t use that term in this form), and if you practice it well, the qualities of Samatha and Vipassanā are developed in you. And they are developed together; if one is growing, the other one is growing as well. You become both calmer and see clearer.

But basically, I am just repeating or paraphrasing what Ajahn Brahmali said in the essay I have linked above in this thread, and it’s perhaps nicer to read it in Ajahn’s own words. And also consider Venerable @Sunyo’s explanations above which are perhaps even more nuanced (I didn’t read the entire thread, but am just referring to Bhante’s first reply here).

There isn’t anything more I have to say on the topic.

5 Likes
106

We can all quote teachers who agree with us, although I could probably find a quote from Ajahn Chah that contradicts your view Bhante. Also note that Ajahn Chah says there that samadhi with no awareness is wrong samadhi. I don’t agree with that definition, but either way it’s not referring to the absorbed kind of meditation since there is awareness there.

1 Like
107

I’ve come to realized that when people use the word “absorption” for meditation, what they mean can vary quite a bit.

1 Like
108

Thank you very much Venerable, sorry I misunderstood your comment and thank you for taking the time to correct me.

Ven. Brahmali is very interesting and compared to other teachers I’ve read, he has a very original vision. I understand your comment better.

Let me try to summarize his article for those who read us.
For Ven. Brahmali, samatha (= calm, tranquility) and vipassana (= clear vision) are not practices, but results of practice. And as results of practice, samatha and vipassana are achieved progressively and together: you can’t have samatha without vipassana and vipassana without samatha. This is why samatha and vipassana are inseparable. And he explains that to obtain samatha and vipassana, we need to purify our mind through sila, compassion and meditation. This purification is the source of samatha and vipassana. This is another reason why samatha and vipassana are inseparable.

1 Like
109

Hello DeadBuddha. The notion samatha & vipassana is result of practice is straight from MN 149 and was widely taught well before Ajahn Brahmali came to exist as a bhikkhu. Regards.

1 Like
110

Of the Theravadin/Brahm/Sujato/Buddhadasa kind.

2 Likes
111

Analayo and Aj Thanissaro also uses “absorption”, but their understandings of it clearly differ.

I’m not sure if Aj Buddhadasa used “absorption” for meditation. A quick search on Google doesn’t show. (I did see “total absorption in sensuality” though, but that’s not what you’re referring to.)

1 Like
112

I don’t think he did use it. I’m using it to refer to mediation that is without the 5 senses but filled with rapture and ease. I had assumed you knew the manner in which I was using it.

1 Like
113

Can you point to a reference on his teaching of meditation without the 5 senses?

1 Like
114

AN9.42 freedom from 5 senses at first jhana (line 3.9 and 4.1).

And answer to OP is that freedom from pleasure (mental) is gone to one who goes to 4th AN9.42 (line 6.5) That it is “upekkhāsukhaṁ” - pleasure with equanimity - is abandoned - as it’s a confinement.

The way I guess / interpret - the faculty of being able to distinguish pleasure and associated equanimity - is seen as requiring energy to maintain and one who enters 4th recognises that as confining, thus drops all recognition of pleasure or displeasure - less things to be “equanimous” with

4 Likes
115

It’s freedom from sensual pleasures, not the 5 senses.

4 Likes
117

I see, I take it to mean freedom from the noun - (each of the senses) the adjective to the noun is "viññeyyā " that (thanks to suttacentral translation tools) as in the ear sotaviññeyyā [sota] 1. the ear. (masculine) viññeyya - 1. to be perceived

So, to make up a noun, I read that as the confinement is that-to-be-percieved-ear-wise, to-be-percieved-eye-wise that-to-be-percieved-nose-wise, etc that are otherwise pleasurable, agreeable, enticing, etc

Maybe the buddha just pitched at the right level so we got on with it … hehe (I think there’s an issue though - I don’t know pali - so I’ll bow out)

EDIT: It may be conceptually distinct, but it seems practically and in practice equivalent. Like how if you keep your eyes still long enough - parts of the room disappear (stare at a dot on a wall for 20 minutes - detail in wall disappears, periphery disappears and sometimes the dot disappears - then to “regain” the visual input all you have to do is move your eyes) - this is a “mundane” example of how the stillness makes things disappear in sensory world. Or how stillness makes things disappear in the neurological world (don’t quote me but I believe is neurons in the eye unstimulated that makes this phenomena). One way is to not be moving those eyes getting enticed by different sights. Can you imagine the self-confidence and coolness to do this with all the senses and all the habitual patterns and knots between them like thoughts? (maybe that’s the 7 parts of the path to first jhana) What if all jhanas were degrees of stillness that switch things off in the mind? and facility with not having neurons always automatically fire a certain way in a variety of contexts - the freedom from fetters?) Anyway speaking way above my pay grade here so I’ll bow out now - nice to share some dhamma chanda with you.

4 Likes
118

Well, that depends on how we read it. To me the Pali does not necessarily want to limits “the five kinds of sensual stimulation” (kāmagūṇa) only to pleasant sights, sounds, etc. Rather, it seems to say that all sights and sounds can be seen as pleasant. Because quite literally it says:

Sights known by the eye: likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing.

That is to say, it does not use a restrictive pronoun such as “that” in “sounds that are likable”. The Critical Pāli Dictionary also defines the kāmaguṇā as " viz. rūpa, sadda, gandha, rasa, poṭṭhabba," i.e. just as sights, sounds, etc. regardless of whether they are pleasant.

That may be because everything can be likeable to some people. In the Magandiyasutta (MN75) a leper is burning his skin with glowing coals and he finds that very pleasant. He "acquired a mistaken perception of it as pleasant.” So what is pleasant is very personal. To the leper pain is also pleasant. All sense experiences can be perceived as pleasant. Where do we draw the line? In SN3.12 it is also said that “The very same sights that are agreeable to some are disagreeable to others.”

(By the way, to those who don’t believe that kāma can refer to the objects of the senses, this sutta clearly indicates that it does when it says “sights/sounds/etc are the best of the kāmas (sense objects)”.)

With that personal aspect in mind, if in AN9.42 we interpret the confinement as only “sensual pleasures”, as you suggest, what is the escape from this confinement becomes very vague and personal. That does not fit the other “openings” that follow, which are very well defined, such as the disappearance of pīti in the third jhāna, and such. I’m saying that the “confinement” for the first jhana must also be something very defined. And in my opinion that is what Dan suggests, namely the five senses altogether. To leave behind the five senses is the way to truly escape from these “sensual stimulations”.

If the confinement would just be “sensual pleasures”, it would also mean that just walking away from a sensual environment (like music or whatever) would be enough to enter this “opening amidst confinement”. But that can’t be the proper requirement for such elevated states of mind.

Recalling that the Buddha-to-be remembered the first jhana as the path to awakening, that is already a very high “opening (or per Sujato ‘opportunity’) amid confinement”. It seems that this first jhāna is referred to in the verse at AN9.42:

‘The opportunity amid confinement
was discovered by the Buddha of vast intelligence,
who woke up to absorption.’

If this escape from confinement is just being away from sensual pleasures, everybody could fulfill it with ease. Then it wouldn’t be praised like this, nor would it be such a particular requirement for the jhanas, mentioned not only in this sutta but also others, and in the very formula of the first jhāna as well, as I see it (“separated from sense objects”, vivicceva kāmehi).

As a side note, regardless of how we interpret kāmaguṇa, texts like this show that the pleasure (sukha) of the jhanas is not a bodily feeling. Because that would be “touches known by the body—likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, etc.” It would be included in the kāmaguṇa.

Notice also that specifically excluded in the “confinement” of AN9.32 are feelings of the mind. That is what pīti and sukha are: pleasant, likable states of mind. Hence it is also said:

The pleasure and happiness that arise from these five kinds of sensual stimulation is called sensual pleasure. There are those who would say that this is the highest pleasure and happiness that sentient beings experience. But I don’t acknowledge that. Why is that? Because there is another pleasure that is finer than that [i.e. a pleasure not coming from the five senses, but from the mind.]

And what is that pleasure? It’s when a mendicant, quite secluded from sensual pleasures [i.e. not experiencing the five senses], secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion [from the five senses], while placing the mind and keeping it connected. (SN36.19)

It makes little sense to me if this pleasure that is finer than the pleasures of the five senses, would be a bodily feeling. For a sutta that talks about pīti in a similar way see MN99.

Notice also that here the sensual pleasure arises from the kāmagūṇa (the “kinds of sensual stimulation”). The sensual strimulations are not themselves the sensual pleasure. MN13 likewise says: “The pleasure and happiness that arise from these five kinds of sensual stimulation: this is the gratification of sensual pleasures.” So the kāmaguṇa are not the pleasure, they are the objects that result in pleasure.

In SN1.30 it is also said (in verse) that: “The world has five kinds of sensual stimulation, and the mind is said to be the sixth.” So by analogy to the mind, the five kāmaguṇa refer to the five senses as a whole, not just the pleasant aspects of them.

And in MN80 that: “The pleasure and happiness that arises from these five kinds of sensual stimulation is called sensual pleasure. So there is the saying: ‘From the senses comes sensual pleasure.”

And in AN9.38: “These five kinds of sensual stimulation are called the world in the training of the noble one.” And one who has reached the first jhāna has provisionally reached the end of the world.

So I agree with Dan that AN9.42 tries to tell us that the five senses are no longer experienced in the first jhāna. But that is also in light of other discourses that point at the same idea, because it is true that kāmaguṇa isn’t super clearly defined. We can find also suttas where it seems to refer only to the pleasant aspects. However, in context of jhānas I don’t see how that makes sense.

6 Likes
119

You are fascinating Venerable. Your arguments often seem very convincing to me. I wonder what one could counter-argue. Thank you very much Venerable.

1 Like
120

Can I ask a question about this? Are people using “body scanning” to refer to vipassana as taught by Goenka?

We have an interesting situation in Alberta and I am not sure how it occurred, but a lot of roughnecks from the oil patch in Fort McMurray go to vipassana retreats. I’ve spoken to a number of them, and it’s actually a very important learning experience for them to get in touch with their sensible capacities and feelings and such during their retreats, because - well working in the cold alone is bound to numb you - but the oil patch is a very masculinist, repressive culture, that offers (or at least used to) very high paychecks in exchange for the brutal life that many have no choice but to carry out there. The work camps in the bush and the city itself are awash with drugs, gambling, women … all the worst kinds of entertainments, and it has a really debilitating effect on all the people in gathers into it.

It must be word of mouth that got around, because they just know it’s mindfulness meditation, going to be the hardest thing they’ve ever done in their lives, but it’s so rewarding, etc. and so they go to it on their way out of their tour of duty in the patch. Quite a number of men have talked to me about how they didn’t realize how numb, blunt, unattuned, repressed, sort of dead to living - and the living - they were. Even cultivating sensual perception and awareness through Goenka’s vipassana is consistently reported as a huge boon to them.

You people might be intelligent, a lot of these guys aren’t, and this has got to make a difference for them.

Goenka’s always been controversial. I read that his organization was forced to put in their screening process when he first entered North America, way back in the 70s I think, after people leaving his retreats were having psychotic episodes, major depression, and I understand, even a couple suicides. I’ve heard that all the behaviours at his different centres are not consistent, so I don’t know.

2 Likes
121

Well, that depends on how we read it. To me the Pali does not necessarily want to limits “the five kinds of sensual stimulation” (kāmagūṇa) only to pleasant sights, sounds, etc. Rather, it seems to say that all sights and sounds can be seen as pleasant. Because quite literally it says:

Sights known by the eye: likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing.

That is to say, it does not use a restrictive pronoun such as “that” in “sounds that are likable”. The Critical Pāli Dictionary also defines the kāmaguṇā as " viz. rūpa, sadda, gandha, rasa, poṭṭhabba," i.e. just as sights, sounds, etc. regardless of whether they are pleasant.

Even without “that” this still reads that the kāmagūṇa are pleasurable sense objects. I had a look at the Critical Pāli Dictionary.

kāma-guṇa

, m. and n. (mostly ) pl. [ts.; Buddh. sa. kā-
maguṇa, cf. SWTF s.v. ], the (five ) strands of sensual
pleasure, (cf. Sn-trsl. II ad 50-51), i.e. the five objects of
sensual pleasure viz. rūpa, sadda, gandha, rasa, poṭ-
ṭhabba, cf. kāma, q.v. s.v.; — exeg.: definitions of ~:
pane’ ime ~ā … cakkhuviññeyyā rūpā iṭṭhā kantā
manāpā + … sotaviññeyyā saddā … ghānaviññey-
yā gandhā … jivhāviññeyyā rasa … kāyaviññeyyā
phoṭṭhabbā,

It states that the kāmagūṇa are sights etc which are manāpā (pleasant, likeable, attractive, agreeable). I don’t see how you get from “sensual pleasures” to “sense experience”.

That may be because everything can be likeable to some people. In the Magandiyasutta (MN75) a leper is burning his skin with glowing coals and he finds that very pleasant. He "acquired a mistaken perception of it as pleasant.” So what is pleasant is very personal. To the leper pain is also pleasant. All sense experiences can be perceived as pleasant. Where do we draw the line? In SN3.12 it is also said that “The very same sights that are agreeable to some are disagreeable to others.”

I don’t see your logic here Bhante? Of course sensual pleasures are subjective. As a gay man my kāmaguṇā will be different to heterosexual men. Our music tastes are different etc etc. I don’t see how that then means “secluded from sensual pleasures” means “secluded from sense experience entirely”. A more natural reading, to me, would be that it means physically secluded from them. A mendicant goes to a forest, or a hut, or a cave with secluded from “unwholesome states” is mental seclusion, and so Jhāna requires both a bodily seclusion and a mental one.

(By the way, to those who don’t believe that kāma can refer to the objects of the senses, this sutta clearly indicates that it does when it says “sights/sounds/etc are the best of the kāmas (sense objects)”.)

I agree with you that kāmehi in the Jhāna passages is referring to sensual pleasures, i.e. pleasing sights etc.

With that personal aspect in mind, if in AN9.42 we interpret the confinement as only “sensual pleasures”, as you suggest, what is the escape from this confinement becomes very vague and personal. That does not fit the other “openings” that follow, which are very well defined, such as the disappearance of pīti in the third jhāna, and such. I’m saying that the “confinement” for the first jhana must also be something very defined. And in my opinion that is what Dan suggests, namely the five senses altogether. To leave behind the five senses is the way to truly escape from these “sensual stimulations”.

The escape from them would be not desiring them, no? The abandoning of sensual desire (kāma) for sensual pleasures (kāmā). Confinement to me means being distracted by sensual pleasures, with a mind that can’t be still because its obsessing about sensual pleasures

“Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still a bodhisatta, not yet fully enlightened, the thought occurred to me: ‘My mind may often stray towards those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart but which have passed, ceased, and changed, or towards those that are present, or slightly towards those in the future.’ Then it occurred to me: ‘Being set on my own welfare, I should practise diligence, mindfulness, and guarding of the mind in regard to those five cords of sensual pleasure that have already left their impression on the heart, which have passed, ceased, and changed.’ - SN 35.117

Its personal, but I don’t see what’s vague about it?

If the confinement would just be “sensual pleasures”, it would also mean that just walking away from a sensual environment (like music or whatever) would be enough to enter this “opening amidst confinement”. But that can’t be the proper requirement for such elevated states of mind.

No, you need to give up sensual desire and the hindrances too via maintaining the wholesome intentional thoughts (vitakka-vicāra)of loving-kindness, contentment etc etc

When they’ve been given up and eliminated, only thoughts about the teaching are left. That immersion is not peaceful or sublime or tranquil or unified, but is held in place by sasaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagato. - AN 3.101

sasaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagata
adj. held in place and restrained by intention; intentionally managed and controlled [sa + saṅkhāra + niggayha + vārita + gata]

In the first Jhāna one is continuously repelling the hindrances, which is why true composure of the mind comes with the 2nd Jhāna. Anyway, I’m digressing.

As a side note, regardless of how we interpret kāmaguṇa, texts like this show that the pleasure (sukha ) of the jhanas is not a bodily feeling. Because that would be “touches known by the body—likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, etc.” It would be included in the kāmaguṇa.

It seems to me that the tranquillity of the body is what causes the physical ease (sukha). This isn’t a kāmaguṇa, because its not based on contacting a sensual pleasure (the touch of a loved one, silk on the skin, and orgasm etc). I think a natural reading of the Indriya section of SN is that sukha in Jhāna is physical, not mental. Interestingly the commentaries also say that the sukha experienced is physical, not mental. The sub-commentaries are even more clear on it, since they use the word “sarīra” which means the literal physical body.

In SN1.30 it is also said (in verse) that: “The world has five kinds of sensual stimulation, and the mind is said to be the sixth.” So by analogy to the mind, the five kāmaguṇa refer to the five senses as a whole, not just the pleasant aspects of them.

“The world has five kinds of sensual stimulation,
and the mind is said to be the sixth.
When you’ve discarded desire for these,
you’re released from all suffering.”

People desire pleasing sights, sounds etc. People also desire mind based pleasure. I imagine the Jhāna’s are being referred to here. When you give up desire for sensual pleasures of the senses, and desire for the bliss of meditation, then you are awakened. People desire pleasing things. The problem is that they don’t see that what they desire leads to dukkha. The pleasing things they chase leads to dukkha.

And in MN80 that: “The pleasure and happiness that arises from these five kinds of sensual stimulation is called sensual pleasure. So there is the saying: ‘From the senses comes sensual pleasure.”

Yes, but that doesn’t then mean seclusion from sensual pleasures means seclusion from sense experience. Pleasure and happiness can come from pleasing sights etc, and one is to be secluded from them. You still have a lot to do to get from that to “no sense experience”. So far it doesn’t follow.

And in AN9.38: “These five kinds of sensual stimulation are called the world in the training of the noble one.” And one who has reached the first jhāna has provisionally reached the end of the world.

For beings in the kāma-loka sensual pleasures are their world. They live obsessed by them. Their vision is blurred by them. They operate their lives in slavery to them. The beings of the rūpa-loka also have sense experiences via the 5 senses, but they aren’t slaves to sensual pleasures. Or do you think Great Brahma and the others have only 4 aggregates instead of 5?

6 Likes
122

You can’t have sensual desire or be distracted by sensuality if you don’t have access to the five senses. So isn’t what Ven. Sunyo is arguing just a stronger version of what you’re arguing?

1 Like