If I go blind tomorrow I can still be distracted by desire for pleasurable forms. Bhante is presenting a stronger argument, namely that secluded from sensual pleasures means totally shut off from any sense experience (of the 5 senses). For me secluded from sensual pleasures means just that. Secluded from pleasing sights, sounds, smells etc.
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Yes but you would achieve that if you shut off the five senses as well. If you went blind (though I hope you remain in good health of course!) you probably would be less distracted by sights, it’d be easier to focus on the other senses?
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Thank you for your interesting counter-arguments. But after reading a number of your posts, I can’t figure out what your position is on rupa jhâna. Do you see them as total absorption (without the 5 senses)? Or as retaining the 5 senses? Or are you skeptical?
Of course. The formless for example. The debate here is if “secluded from sensual pleasures” means “shut off from the senses” or “away from pleasing sense objects”. I quite like one of the Theravadin interpretations (there are different ones in the school on this) that it means bodily seclusion, whilst “unwholesome states” is the mental seclusion. You are physically away from sensual pleaures and mentally away from sensual desire, so the mind is (relatively) still.
That doesn’t seem to be the message of the Indriyabhāvanā sutta (MN 152) or - SN 35.117:
“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.’
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Hiya,
Thanks for a reasonable exchange. This is much more interesting to me than discussing with people who ignore dictionaries or entire meanings of a word.
I was talking about the gloss “i.e. the five objects of sensual pleasure viz. [or “that is to say”] rūpa, sadda, gandha, rasa, poṭṭhabba”. To me that reads as if the writers intended it to refer to all sense objects, regardless of whether they are pleasant.
But let’s agree to disagree on that, since I can understand how you read it differently, and it’s boring to argue over dictionaries!
Then still I’d say that if pleasant sights, sounds, etc. are abandoned, it is only natural that unpleasant sights, sounds, etc. are also abandoned. This is also what AN5.176 says: that in the first jhāna there are no pleasure and pain connected with the sense objects (kāmas). So, to come back to the original question of this topic, this also indicates that the first jhāna is already beyond physical pleasure and pain, that physical pain doesn’t end only at the fourth jhāna. The sutta also clearly separates this type of pleasure and pain from the pleasure and pain that come from the unskillful (i.e. the hindrances), showing that kāmas in context of the jhānas is not sensual desire (or “sensuality”), which is already included in the hindrances—as you agree (but others don’t).
And if your body is in pain, you can’t escape it by walking into a forest. So it has to mean something more deep than that, and to me it makes most sense if this means not being able to feel the body at all. That’s how you escape from bodily pain.
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.
To me that’s not a natural reading, for reasons I’ve given, but also because it is pragmatically rather meaningless. Let’s take the enlightened, who have no hindrances all the time, so “unwholesome states” are always abandoned by them. In your interpretation, since the only other thing they have to fulfill is “bodily seclusion”, walking into the forest or hut makes the enlightened beings enter jhāna. That makes no sense to me. And that’s also what’s makes this interpretation vague, aside from pleasure being a personal preference, and it not taking into account that you can’t walk away from physical pain.
In the suttas we also consistently see the Buddha sitting down (or lying down in DN16) before he enters jhana, and he did so only after he already entered the forest a while before. Also, you can enter jhāna without going into a forest or being in isolation. In DN16 the Buddha attained it in a village while people were standing around him talking. Your interpretation of vivicceva kāmehi to move to a hut or forest doesn’t seem to align with these things.
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
No, that’s not the escape in this sutta (AN9.42), because the confinements for the higher states are all certain perceptions or experiences, not a desire for those things or an obsession over them. For example, in the “dimension of infinite space”, “Whatever perception of the dimension of infinite space has not ceased is the confinement there.” The perception itself is the confinement, not the desire for it. By extent, the confinement before the first jhāna is also a certain perception, namely the perception of the five senses. This fits when for example AN9.34 says that “perceptions of sense objects” are abandoned. Or in Ven. Sujato’s translation:
While a mendicant is in such a meditation, should perceptions accompanied by sensual pleasures beset them due to loss of focus, that’s an affliction for them.
This also shows that withdrawing from sensual pleasures is not just walking into a forest or hut, as you argue. Otherwise these things wouldn’t come back “to beset” you while you’re still meditating! But they do come back. And they are said to do so, in Ven Sujato’s translation at least, “due to loss of focus”. This means that when you lose focus on the mind, then the five senses come back into awareness. (I’m not sure if I agree with this translation, although it doesn’t really matter for my point.)
Notice also that the sensual pleasures are called an affliction, which also shows that the painful side is also included. Kāma isn’t just the pleasant side of things, it includes the painful, which is even more afflictive than the pleasant side.
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
As I read this, those thoughts connected to the dhamma are still happening before the jhāna. The first jhāna happens when the sutta later says: “But there comes a time when that mind is stilled internally; it settles, unifies, and becomes immersed in samādhi. That immersion is peaceful and sublime and tranquil and unified, not held in place by forceful suppression.” The first jhana is peaceful and sublime. Anyway, as you say, this is digressing. Now we’re discussing vitakka and vicāra. Let’s not do that now.
This isn’t a kāmaguṇa, because its not based on contacting a sensual pleasure
But the kāmaguṇa are “defined” not by what causes the feeling but just as “(pleasant) touches perceived by the body”, aka bodily feelings. Anything perceived through the body counts as a “touch” (kāya-viññeyyā phoṭṭhabbā). Whether this comes from an orgasm or some meditation experience is irrelevant. It remains a pleasant “touch”, so according to AN9.42 it has no place in the jhānas, and that is regardless of how we interpret kāmaguṇa.
Interestingly the commentaries also say that the sukha experienced is physical, not mental.
Not that it matters for what the suttas say, but where do the commentaries do so (not the sub-commentaries, some of which are written in the last handful of centuries)? The Visuddhimagga talks of sukha as being experienced (1) by “the mental body” and (2) by the “material body” only after emerging from the jhānas, so not in the jhāna itself. I’m not too fond of this commentarial “mental body” idea, as it misses the idiomatic use of kāya of “person”, but here the Visuddhimagga clearly doesn’t mean the sukha in the jhanas to be physical. The Abhidhamma also defines sukha in the jhānas as mental, and afaik it’s not often that the commentaries depart blatantly from the Abhidhamma, so if you can give a reference, that’d be helpful. Here’s what I know of:
Now, as to the clause he feels bliss with his body: here, although in one actually possessed of the third jhāna there is no concern about feeling bliss, nevertheless he would feel the bliss associated with his mental body, and after emerging from the jhāna he would also feel bliss since his material body would have been affected by the exceedingly superior matter originated by that bliss associated with the mental body. It is in order to point to this meaning that the words “he feels bliss with his body” are said. (Vism PTS 163)
Therein what is pleasure? That which is mental ease, mental pleasure, easeful pleasant experience born of mental contact, easeful pleasant feeling born of mental contact. This is called pleasure. This pleasure is accompanied by, co-nascent with, conjoined with, associated with this zest (pīti). Therefore this is called “zest and pleasure” (pītisukha). (Vb12)
Yes, but that doesn’t then mean seclusion from sensual pleasures means seclusion from sense experience.
What I was trying to say is that MN80 (in this translation anyway) appears to equate kāmaguṇa to “the senses”, not to the pleasure that comes from them. (Haven’t had time to look at the Pāli yet.)
Or do you think Great Brahma and the others have only 4 aggregates instead of 5?
I never met one of them, but I’d say they spend most of the time in jhānas, and that they are in the rūpa “loka” at that time. The lower heavens where the lower gods spend most time using the 5 senses are still part of the kāma loka. The Brahmas can still come back to lower realms, like when Brahma invited the Buddha to teach. That’s when they have five senses, but not while they are in jhānas. Them spending most of the time in jhāna is what separates them from the lower kāma-loka gods, is what I think. (I also wonder how much of this Brahmas coming down to the human realm is to be taken literally, but anyway.)
They still have 5 aggregates, though, even in the jhānas, because rūpa extends beyond what we call material or “sensual”. That’s why non-returners, who are no longer attached to the five senses, are still said to have the fetter of desire for rūpa. This refers to desire for the jhānas, I think you’ll agree. But since they no more sense desire, it has to refer to some desire for a mental thing.
In DN31 there is a distinction between three types of rūpa, on which Sujato notes:
“Visible and resistant [form]” refers to material phenomena perceivable by the eye. “Invisible and resistant” is a shorthand for material phenomena that are not perceivable by the eye, but which nonetheless impinge on other senses, such as sounds or smells. “Invisible and non-resistant” includes form perceived solely in the mind.
The latter rūpa is the rūpa of the jhānas, and this is the rūpa experienced by the Brahmas when they are in their natural state of jhāna.
In some suttas rūpa includes besides the four elements also a fifth element, that of space, and this is what is present in the jhānas. It’s a mental perception of space, though, not a physical one (although you can’t feel space with the body anyway). This “space” sort of falls apart in the first arūpa (I’m presuming and going by what I’ve been told, so I may change my mind later), hence the first arūpa is “the dimension of boundless space”. Space, having no more boundaries, has become kind of ill-defined here, hence now it’s called “formless”.
After that state, the mental awareness also starts to cease in the formless attainments, ending eventually in the cessation of perception. So it’s a natural progression: entering the jhānas (the rūpa attainments) the five sense world (kāma) has ceased. In the formless the object of the mind (the rūpa) starts cease. In the final attainment the mental awareness itself ceases as well.
Sorry, I’m drifting from the topic quite a bit here. But this is how I read the suttas, and it is what I think makes most sense considering both the texts and pragmatically.
But is this about jhāna or about more general sense restraint? Since it talks about mindfulness and guarding the mind, it’s not yet samādhi in the sense of the jhānas.
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I think that originally the 1st Jhāna meant something like this
Vivicca - Secluded from, away from, not having anything to do with
Kāmehi - Sensual pleasures
Akusalehi dhammehi - Hindrances (such as sensual desire, ill-will etc)
Pīti - Rapture, an emotion which arises due to seeing the overcoming of the hindrances and is the basis for mental ease (somanassa)
Sukha - Physical ease due to bodily and mental tranquillity (and rapture)
Vitakka-vicāra - Synonymous with saṅkappa (intentional thoughts). Thoughts of loving-kindness, contentment, sympathetic joy etc which continually repel the hindrances (sasaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagata)
As I mentioned earlier, even for orthodox Theravāda there is physical ease when Jhāna is obtained, its just tradition considers it proper when absorption into a nimitta occurs. Here is my not so good translation of the commentary to DN 2
226.So vivicceva kāmehi…pe… paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharatītiādi pana upacārasamādhinā samāhite citte uparivisesadassanatthaṃ appanāsamādhinā samāhite citte tassa samādhino pabhedadassanatthaṃ vuttanti veditabbaṃ. Imameva kāyanti imaṃ karajakāyaṃ. Abhisandetīti temeti sneheti, sabbattha pavattapītisukhaṃ karoti. Parisandetīti samantato sandeti. Paripūretīti vāyunā bhastaṃ viya pūreti. Parippharatīti samantato phusati. Sabbāvato kāyassāti assa bhikkhuno sabbakoṭṭhāsavato kāyassa kiñci upādinnakasantatipavattiṭṭhāne chavimaṃsalohitānugataṃ aṇumattampi ṭhānaṃ paṭhamajjhānasukhena aphuṭaṃ nāma na hoti.
“By means of seclusion from sensual pleasures…1st jhāna is arrived at and dwelt in” and so the citta concentrated in access concentration attains distinction concentrated in absorption concentration. That concentrated citta should be classed as and understood as being for the sake of seeing. “This exact same body” This physical body. “Fills up” Makes the naturally occurring rapture and pleasure drench and moisten everywhere. “Completely infuses” Experiences all around. “Whole body” This bhikkhu’s body, complete in all its parts, in the place where the continuity that is grasped occurs accompanied by skin, flesh and blood there is not even the tiniest part that is not pervaded with the happiness of the first jhāna."
As I said, the sub-commentary makes it clear that the sukha here is of the physical body. What is interesting is that this commentary is saying that an experience of the body still occurs whilst in Jhāna. I happen to think there is likely differing views in the commentaries, with the Visuddhimagga trying to harmonise them all. In ancient times it looks like the majority of the Ābhidhammikas thought that the senses can’t operate whilst in Jhāna, possibly because momentariness makes it impossible. The Sautrāntika and many Mahāyānists taught the opposite. Even today in Mahāyāna, whilst they don’t teach Jhāna much, when they do they say that the senses are still experienced. This actually became the basis for Zen meditation much later. For example, what I said above regarding vitakka-vicāra is essentially the same as what is taught about them in the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra, a very old Yogācārin work.
I should say that none of this precludes nimittas. They are too widely attested across all of these different traditions. In my mind, and in agreement with the Visuddhimagga, they are merely the mind’s attempt at making sense of the refined consciousness that is occurring during the attainment. The question is if we should absorb into them or not? I leave that open to you. Since the practice to attain these states is always the same, thereabouts, simply put in the work and obtain jhāna. Then you can decide if one is to absorb into a nimitta or not.
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I just thought it was worth pointing out that the first includes the other 
In any case, I’m enjoying reading the ongoing discussion here and I don’t have anything more to add right now 
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Thank you Bhante for the enjoyable exchange too. It’s nice to be able to share our (somewhat) conflicting exegeses in a reasonable manner (both here and on the other thread). Also nice to converse with someone who doesn’t just make stuff up or, as you say, ignores dictionaries. I will reply to your post soon, possibly in a day or two or at the weekend. Sadly, the lay life gets in the way of these things.
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Thank you so much for your opinion and advice.
I find your posts very helpful to me, and must be very helpful to others as well.
About nimitta (uggaha/patibhaga nimitta), what I find strange is that the “teachers explaining that one should absorb oneself in nimitta” insist a lot on nimitta in their teachings, and explain well how to form, maintain and then absorb oneself in nimitta.
But when I read the sutta talking about jhanas, I’ve never yet seen the Buddha insist so much on nimitta. When the Buddha talks about entering the jhanas, I just get the impression that you have to get away from things that destabilize the mind (sensual pleasures, bad thoughts, etc.), contemplate perceptions (MN 125), and suppress factors.
This reminds me of the bhavanga-conscioussness of the Pa-Auk system.
Pa-Auk teaches that in order to pass from the first jhâna to the second jhâna, one must :
1/ reach the first jhâna ;
2/ then exit the first jhâna ;
3/ then direct attention to bhavaïga consciousness at heart level;
4/ then examine the factors of the first jhâna (at the level of bhavaïga consciousness in the heart);
5/ then, understand the disadvantages of the coarse factors of the first jhâna, and understand the advantages of the factors of the second jhâna;
6/ while determined to eliminate the coarse factors of the first jhana, concentrate on patibhaga nimitta ;
7/ the second jhana appears.
These explanations are fascinating, rigorous and beautifully detailed. But when I read the suttas, I don’t get the impression that the Buddha is talking about this (but this impression may be wrong). I have the impression that some people artificially construct theories and practices on top of the Buddha’s teachings.
My interpretation of the suttas tends to be down-to-earth and not artificial. When I read suttas, I take the explicit meaning directly. That, for me, is a natural interpretation of the suttas. In other words, I don’t try to force the Buddha’s teaching into a philosophically systematic bottle that conforms to my idea of logic and ideological coherence.
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That’s a very good point.
It also reminds me of Indriya-bhavana Sutta: The Development of the Faculties
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You find it strange because you’ve read the Suttas and find no connection between them.
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MN128, one of the more detailed suttas about meditation, is all about developing the nimittas. The Buddha’s explanation starts:
Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too perceived both light and vision of forms. But before long my light and vision of forms vanished.
Then it speaks about all sorts of hindrances which perfectly describe what happens when the nimittas arise, such as excitement (when they first come up), fear (when the body is let go off), or perceptions of diversity (when you focus too much on the shapes of the lights or they aren’t stable). When the hindrances arose for the Buddha, “my immersion fell away.” At the end it concludes:
‘I’ve given up my mental corruptions. Now let me develop immersion in three ways.’ I developed immersion while placing the mind and keeping it connected; without placing the mind, but just keeping it connected; without placing the mind or keeping it connected; with rapture; without rapture; with pleasure; with equanimity.
When Bodhi translates “you should discover the cause for that” (for the lights to disappear), he notes "Nimittaṁ paṭivijjhitabbaṁ. Lit. "You should penetrate that sign [nimitta].” Although nimitta can mean ‘cause’, perhaps a more literal translation is warranted, because two sentences later the text just uses the more normal hetu and paccaya, not nimitta: “What is the cause (hetu) and condition (paccaya) why the light and the vision of forms have disappeared?’” (Late edit: Having let it sink in a bit, I think it’s likely Bodhi’s translation is correct, that nimitta means ‘cause’ here.) Either way, whether nimitta here means the sign as later tradition used the term, or more figuratively “cause”, the practice described in this sutta imo quite clearly is about the lights and forms that come up in meditation, and how to stabilize them.
I’m not familiar with Pa Auk’s system, though, which you describe.
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I’d like to chime in with a couple of points that I hope haven’t been made by anyone! I have only read bits and pieces of this thread.
An important indication of the meaning of kāma is that other Pali words for desire, such as taṇhā, rāga, lobha, and chanda, are almost always found in the singular. With kāma it’s the other way around: the plural form is the predominant one. Kāma in the singular corresponds to the other words for desire, whereas kāma in the plural must refer to something else, that is, the five senses.
Moreover, there are a number of compounds that make much better sense if we understand kāma in the plural as the five senses. Here are some:
- Kāmacchanda: desire regarding the five senses (not desire for sensual desire)
- Kāmarāga: lust in regard to the five senses (not lust for desire)
- Kāmupapatti: rebirth in realm of the five senses (not rebirth in the realm of sensual desire)
- Kāmupādāna: grasping in relation to the five senses (not grasping of sensual desire)
What about the entire Pali commentarial tradition?
The five senses are interesting only in so far as they provide pleasure. Freedom from sensual pleasure means freedom from the five senses. These things are given up together.
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Bhante, my translations for the above:
- Kāmacchanda: sensual desire
- Kāmarāga: sensual passion
- Kāmupapatti: sensual birth
- Kāmupādāna: sensual clinging
Another:
kāmasukha: sensual happiness
Doesn’t that come under those who go by the Visuddhimagga’s idea of jhana?
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Hi Venerable, nice to see you here!
These are reasonable translations, but they don’t help us much with the deciding the exact meaning of kāma. We know from AN6.63 that kāma can refer to the personal feeling of desire for things in the sensory realm:
Greedy intention is a person’s sensual pleasure (kāmo, singular)
We also know that kāma and kāmaguṇa are used extensively to refer to the objects of the senses:
There are these five kinds of sensual stimulation (kāmaguṇā = kāmā, both plural)—Sights known by the eye … Sounds known by the ear … Smells known by the nose … Tastes known by the tongue … Touches known by the body that are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing.
You can see here how the rendering “sensual pleasure(s)” obscures the distinction between the different meanings of singular and the plural. If fact, it seems this is precisely why so many translators choose this rendering. It means they can render kāma with a single word. Personally I am not sure if this is such a good idea, precisely because it obscures what is going on. When a single word has two significantly different meanings, I think it is better to vary the translation dependent on the context.
So when it comes to the compounds kāmacchanda, kāmarāga, kāmupapatti, and kāmupādāna, it is necessary, I think, to translate with greater precision as to the two known meanings of kāma, and then see which makes the better sense. Hence my renderings above.
The commentarial literature is huge, spanning millennia and involving a large number of different authors. So far as I know there are no alternative interpretations of jhāna. The reinterpretation suggested here seems to be a modern phenomenon started by the likes of Rod Bucknell. But see Ven. Analyo’s critique of Rod Bucknell in Journal of Buddhist Studies Vol. XIX, 2022.
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Hi Venerables both,
I don’t think kāma is an adjective in these compounds, though, if anywhere. Sometimes such compounds seems to be translated as if kāma was an adjective (“sensual”), as in “sensual desire” or “sensual pleasure”, but those are just shorthand translations, employed because expressions like “desire for sense objects” and “pleasure coming from sense objects” are bulky and unsightly. But the latter is what those compounds literally mean. That this is the case is indicated by other places where the “parts” of the compounds are separated and kāma is clearly a noun, like in kāmesu rajjati (“he desires sense objects”, Snp1.9) or kāmesu tibbasārāgā (“with strong desire for sense objects”, MN4). (Just two examples I quickly found for kāmarāga.)
If there is any place where kāma is clearly an adjective I stand corrected. But either way, in vivicceva kāmehi the word kāmehi clearly isn’t an adjective, otherwise it means “fully separated from sensual”, which is meaningless. So here it is surely a noun.
Very commonly mentioned in the suttas is also “heavenly kāmas” (dibbā kāmā) which makes little sense as “heavenly sense desires” (or “heavenly sensuals” or “heavenly sensualities”). What it means is heavenly sights, heavenly sounds, etc. Somewhere in DN it is also mentioned that a father will provide his son with kāmehi, i.e. with sense objects, not sense desires or “the sensuals/sensualities”. There’s more quotes like this where the objective meaning of kāma is very clear. This meaning of kāma as the sensual objects really shouldn’t be under discussion.
But does it apply to the first jhāna formula? I said before that the plural doesn’t necessarily mean that kāmehi refers to these objects, although it is a strong indication. But many texts directly oppose the kāma(guṇa)s to the first jhāna, which indicates that this objective meaning of kāma is what is implied in vivicceva kāmehi.
Of course, we can still argue exactly what that means. Is it being without any sense experiences, is it being withdrawn in a hut, or is it something else? Regardless, as I mentioned to Ceisiwr, I think it leaves no room for the pīti and sukha of the jhanas to be pleasant bodily feelings, because these would be included in the kāma(guṇa)s regardless of how we interpret it. As I quoted before: “The pleasure and happiness that arise from these five kinds of sensual stimulation is called sensual pleasure. [But] there is another pleasure that is finer than that.”
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I’d translate the noun form literally as “sensuality".
Isn‘t that forcing an equation here? Clearly, there’s no kāmā in here.
The same commentarial literature also admits that “jhana” (as they understand it) is not necessary for liberation from suffering.
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It’s true that MN 128 is interesting. The Buddha talks about developing light and forms to access jhanas.
But personally, I don’t recall any other sutta stating that “the development of visions of light and forms enables one to attain jhana”. So far, in all the other suttas I’ve read about jhana, the Buddha doesn’t talk about the development of light and form (when the suttas mention light, they’re referring to higher knowledge - for example, the divine eye - aren’t they?). So I would find it a little strange to consider that MN 128 proves the absolute necessity of the development of light and forms for jhana. It seems strange to me.
And as this article explains (which Venerable Kumara shared in his book), even commentaries like the Visuddhimagga assert that there are meditations allowing access to jhana without relying on light as the object of attention (from memory I think there’s skeleton meditation, worm-infested body meditation, dismemberment meditation, etc.).
However, I admit that this sutta is rather disturbing.
Also, if you want to know more about the Pa-Auk system, I recommend reading “Knowing and Seeing” and “The Only Way for the Realization of Nibbāna” by Pa Auk Sayadaw. They describe in detail the stages of meditation leading to Nibbana, based on the commentaries (and particularly the Visuddhimagga; Pa Auk Sayadaw is a huge fan of the Visuddhimagga and has great respect for it). The explanations are very detailed, fine-tuned and precise.
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Some contents of the four jhanas are found in the SN/SA Vedana Samyutta, e.g. SN 36.11, 15-18 (= SA 474), SN 36.19-20 (= SA 485); SN 36.29 (= SA 483).
But the four jhanas are certainly not the core teachings of the Buddha for the cessation of dukkha.
The core teachings of the Buddha for the cessation of dukkha are essentially about Right View, according to SN/SA suttas.
So, did the Buddha teach the four jhanas for his core dhamma, although it is part of the noble eightfold path?
If the Buddha did not teach the four jhanas for his core dhamma, then, any interpretations of the four jhanas seem meaningless for the cessation of dukkha!
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But again, the ambiguity in the term sensuality avoids taking a clear position. If kāma means sensual desire, then the translation need to work with this rendering.
This is how kāma is understood in our best dictionaries. Some of these dictionaries, especially the CPD, are meticulously researched. We should have really good reasons for going against them. I cannot see any such reasons. Again, the fact that all words for “desire” normally occur in the singular means that kāma in the plural must refer to something else.
Sometimes this does seem to be the case, but generally the commentaries are very positive about the contribution of jhāna on the path. In any case, this is a different matter. Even if the commentaries at times misrepresent the importance of jhāna, this does not mean that they also misunderstand the meaning kāma. I believe we should assume that the accumulated wisdom of the commentaries is right unless we have good evidence to the contrary.
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