This is another controversial thing. How exactly did the bodhisatta attain awakening. As i understand it, n short
- First as a child he one time attained the first jhana.
- Later in his early 30s he left home to do yoga
- He first learned from Alara Kalama who proclaimedhe the dimension of nothingness and taught him how to enter & dwell in that dhamma. He was dissatisfied and sought further release.
- Later he learned from Uddaka Ramaputta
Uddaka Rāmaputta had this view and taught like this, “Existence is an illness, a tumour, a thorn. Those who advocate nonperception are foolish. Those who have realized [know]: this is tranquil, this is sublime, namely attaining the sphere of neither-perception-nor-nonperception.” - MĀ 114
- After this he left Uddaka to push on his own practicing austerities with other yogis thinking ‘pleasure is attained through pain’
- When his painful striving failed to produce a superior dhamma he recalled his attaining of jhana as a youth. At this point he was indiscriminately fearful of all bodily pleasure but realized that there was no reason to fear pleasure born of seclusion and gave up his view ‘pleasure is attained through pain’ realizing that pleasure is attained through pleasure born of seclusion. He renounces mortification practices and looks to nourish the body for a final push relying on pleasure born of seclusion.
- So he left the group he was with, took nourishing food and went at it developing the jhana in the sitting posture, looking for the unsurpssed release.
- At this point it is a bit confusing for me but he certainly went through the jhanas and directed his mind to knowledges of the various rebirth of beings, recollection of past lives and finally to knowledge of the destruction of taints.
“When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of recollecting my past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two… five, ten… fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction & expansion: ‘There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.’ Thus I recollected my manifold past lives in their modes & details.
“This was the first knowledge I attained in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose—as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute.
“When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away & reappearance of beings. I saw—by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human—beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: ‘These beings—who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, & mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views—with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in a plane of deprivation, a bad destination, a lower realm, hell. But these beings—who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech & mind, who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views—with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in a good destinations, a heavenly world.’ Thus—by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human—I saw beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.
“This was the second knowledge I attained in the second watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose—as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute.
“When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental effluents. I directly knew, as it had come to be, that ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress… These are effluents… This is the origination of effluents… This is the cessation of effluents… This is the way leading to the cessation of effluents.’ My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the effluent of sensuality, released from the effluent of becoming, released from the effluent of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, ‘Released.’ I directly knew that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.’
“This was the third knowledge I attained in the third watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose—as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute. MN 85 Bodhirājakumāra Sutta | Prince Bodhi
I think it is very reasonable to assert that the proclamation
This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna
Is a reference to that very dhamma he was looking for as surpassing the dhamma proclaimed by Uddaka
Those who have realized [know]: this is tranquil, this is sublime, namely attaining the sphere of neither-perception-nor-nonperception.
And we know what meditative attainment surmounts the attaining the sphere of neither-perception-nor-nonperception, namely sannavedayitanirodha.
Basically he dveloped equanimity towards the jhana, realized cessation, his taints were removed by the seeing with wisdom, knowledge of their removal he attained, and proclaimed the asankhata in dependence on which he was in samadhi
*There is, bhikkhus, a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned. If, bhikkhus, there were no not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned. But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned. Nibbāna Sutta: Parinibbana (3)
There is, bhikkhus, that base where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air; no base consisting of the infinity of space, no base consisting of the infinity of consciousness, no base consisting of nothingness, no base consisting of neither-perception-nor-non-perception; neither this world nor another world nor both; neither sun nor moon. Here, bhikkhus, I say there is no coming, no going, no staying, no deceasing, no uprising. Not fixed, not movable, it has no support. Just this is the end of suffering. Nibbāna Sutta: Parinibbana (1)
It follows from this interpretation that here is another reference to samadhi in dependence on the asankhata
"He is absorbed dependent neither on earth, liquid, fire, wind, the sphere of the infinitude of space, the sphere of the infinitude of consciousness, the sphere of nothingness, the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, this world, the next world, nor on whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, or pondered by the intellect — and yet he is absorbed. And to this excellent thoroughbred of a man, absorbed in this way, the gods, together with Indra, the Brahmas, & Pajapati, pay homage even from afar:
‘Homage to you, O thoroughbred man.
Homage to you, O superlative man —
you of whom we don’t know even what it is
dependent on which
you’re absorbed.’" Sandha Sutta: To Sandha
And this ties to what brahma doesn’t know of regarding vinnanam annidassana, describing what is not experienced through the allness of the all and that pleasure not being felt.
There are hardly any controversies left if one can weave it like this.
All that is left is explaining that this samadhi in dependence on the asankhata is apprehended as signless, empty & undirected.
One can be puzzled by so many terms being used to describe these attainments but it’s hardly unexpected because one has to in many contexts be able to delineate things like one who attains, that which is attained, that in dependence on what it is attained, the variant fruitions of attainment, the variant aproaching of attainment and the apprehending of attainment in relation to variant systems of explaining progression.
