Man, it must have been really confusing to be a Buddhist in China in the early days.
You can read about this topic in Bhikkhu Analayo’s The Buddha’s Last Meditation in the Dīrgha-āgama
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What’s interesting is that the Buddha passes away into final Nibbana from the fourth jhana and not from the cessation of perception and feeling.
Then the Buddha emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling and entered the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. Emerging from that, he successively entered into and emerged from the dimension of nothingness, the dimension of infinite consciousness, the dimension of infinite space, the fourth absorption, the third absorption, the second absorption, and the first absorption. Emerging from that, he successively entered into and emerged from the second absorption and the third absorption. Then he entered the fourth absorption. Emerging from that the Buddha immediately became fully extinguished. - SuttaCentral
The most common accounts of his awakening also have him realizing nibbana from the fourth jhana after recollecting his past lives and seeing beings reborn according to their kamma.
With the giving up of pleasure and pain, and the ending of former happiness and sadness, I entered and remained in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness. But even such pleasant feeling did not occupy my mind.
When my mind had immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—I extended it toward recollection of past lives. I recollected my many kinds of past lives, with features and details.
This was the first knowledge, which I achieved in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed and knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed and light arose, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute. But even such pleasant feeling did not occupy my mind.
When my mind had immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—I extended it toward knowledge of the death and rebirth of sentient beings. With clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, I saw sentient beings passing away and being reborn—inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place. I understood how sentient beings are reborn according to their deeds.
This was the second knowledge, which I achieved in the middle watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed and knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed and light arose, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute. But even such pleasant feeling did not occupy my mind.
When my mind had immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—I extended it toward knowledge of the ending of defilements. I truly understood: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.’ I truly understood: ‘These are defilements’ … ‘This is the origin of defilements’ … ‘This is the cessation of defilements’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of defilements.’
Knowing and seeing like this, my mind was freed from the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, and ignorance. When it was freed, I knew it was freed.
I understood: ‘Rebirth is ended; the spiritual journey has been completed; what had to be done has been done; there is no return to any state of existence.’
This was the third knowledge, which I achieved in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed and knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed and light arose, as happens for a meditator who is diligent, keen, and resolute. - SuttaCentral
So these narratives together suggest that the fourth jhana is originally considered more important for awakening than the cessation of perception and feeling.
It’s also interesting that the cessation of perception and feeling seems to always result in one realizing nibbana/the destruction of the taints upon exiting because it suggests that the common narrative of the Buddha’s awakening from the fourth jhana is incomplete or that he realized nibbana and then perhaps after discovered the cessation of perception and feeling. Or it is perhaps suggestive that the cessation of perception and feeling is some kind of later addition.
Maybe I’ll make this it’s own topic.
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I am wondering if he went down to the cessation of perception and feeling and back up to the fourth jhana because of this
DN12.15
“Sir, they speak of this thing called ‘right view’. How is right view defined?”
“Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence.
But when you truly see the origin of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of non-existence regarding the world. And when you truly see the cessation of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of existence regarding the world.
The world is for the most part shackled by attraction, grasping, and insisting.
But if—when it comes to this attraction, grasping, mental fixation, insistence, and underlying tendency—you don’t get attracted, grasp, and commit to the notion ‘my self’, you’ll have no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing. Your knowledge about this is independent of others.
This is how right view is defined.
He had to see the cessation and origin of the world. The cessation of perception and feeling is the cessation of the world.
AN9.38
Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end. This is called a mendicant who, having gone to the end of the world, meditates at the end of the world. And they’ve crossed over clinging to the world.”
I assumed that, once one exits Cessation of Perception and Feeling, there is a review of the “Three Knowledges” that culminates in full liberation. As at least 2 of them require a more visual component (reviewing past lives and seeing beings reborn), so it would have to be done in a Rupa Jhana, not an Arupa state. Hence going back to 4th Jhana.
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I think that the Chinese variant SA301 is clearer:
SA301
He then asked the Buddha: “World Honoured One, you speak of right view. What is right view? How, World Honoured One, does one establish right view?”The Buddha said to Katyāyana: “There are two bases to which people in the world are attached, to which they adhere: existence and non-existence. Because of their attachment and adherence, they are based on either existence or non-existence.
“In one who has no such attachment, bondage to the mental realm, there is no attachment to self, no dwelling in or setting store by self. Then, when suffering arises, it arises; and when it ceases, it ceases.
“If one does not doubt this, is not perplexed by it, if one knows it in oneself and not from others, this is called right view right view as established by the Tathāgata (the Buddha).
“Why is this? One who rightly sees and knows, as it really is, the arising of the world, does not hold to the non-existence of the world. One who rightly sees and knows, as it really is, the cessation (passing away) of the world, does not hold to the existence of the world.
“That is called avoiding the two extremes, and teaching the middle way, namely: Because this exists, that exists; because this arises, that arises. That is, conditioned by ignorance, activities arise, and so on …, and thus this whole mass of suffering arises. When ignorance ceases, activities cease, and so on …, and thus this whole mass of suffering ceases.”
The Anālayo article is great, and I think provides very plausible answers to OP’s questions. I agree with the poster who finds the interesting point to be the buddhas settling on the 4th jhana as the “point of departure”. There does seem to be overall a focus on this attainment as the crucial one. As Anālayo says it is the point from which one can either develop the psychic powers, or the 3 knowledges, or the formless spheres… it does appear to me that there is therefore something fundamental about this 4th jhana.
I’ve lost my train of thought… might return to this comment later.
Recently, I attempted to start a thread which was intended to encompass questions like this. In that context, I find your comments interesting and would be interested to hear why you (or anyone else, because I do feel it is the default narrative) might feel the evidence suggestive of these particular conclusions rather than the other other way around (i.e., that, perhaps, the cessation of perception and feeling may have been considered more important for awakening than the fourth jhāna, or that the fourth jhāna rather than cessation might be some kind of later addition).
I will have a stab at it: for one, 12 of the first 13 suttas in the canon state that the 4th jhana is part of the gradual training but do not mention the immaterial attainments at all. for two there are several accounts of the buddhas awakening that give the same 4th jhana as the point form which the 3 knowledges where attained, for 3 the sutta in question in this thread states that the 4th jhana was the absorbtion from which the buddha attained final nibbana, for 4, right samadhi is almost always glossed as the 4 jhanas, for 5 the four foundations of mindfulness are said to underly the 4 jhanas at multiple points.
so that’s a few reasons.
My impression is that Analayo leans towards your suggestion that the attainment of cessation of perception and feeling was something like the direct “experience” of Nibbana, but I am more of the impression that Nibbana is just one of the words they put at the end of things as a synonym for making an end to suffering, and therefore should simply be translated as extinguishment (of suffering) and not overly fixated on, as in MN 26
‘nāyaṁ dhammo nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na upasamāya na abhiññāya na sambodhāya na nibbānāya saṁvattati, yāvadeva nevasaññānāsaññāyatanūpapattiyā’ti.
‘This teaching doesn’t lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment. It only leads as far as rebirth in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.’
I’m not sure the term even occurs in DN, and in MN it occurs as above, as just one more epithet to describe the completion of the noble quest to make an end of suffering.
as a more reified term it starts to appear much more in SN, which for mine is already getting a bit abhidmaa-ee
I will check out your thread and think on this some more.
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佛般泥洹經 (T5.172c12) doesn’t mention the Buddha going in and out of any specific meditation. Instead, it describes him transcending samsara and entering nirvana after a deep meditation. It’s date is ~290-307 AD according to Muller’s dictionary. It reads:
T01n0005_p0172c13║佛起正坐，深思道
T01n0005_p0172c13║原，棄是善惡，都及三界，年亦自至七十有
T01n0005_p0172c14║九，惟斷生死迴流之淵。思惟深觀，從四天
T01n0005_p0172c15║王上至不想入，從不想轉還身中，自惟身
T01n0005_p0172c16║中四大惡露，無一可珍，北首枕手猗右脇
T01n0005_p0172c17║臥，屈膝累脚，便般泥曰。
What’s kind of fascinating is that instead of naming the meditative states, it describes the Buddha examining all the realms of existence from the four god kings up to the dimension of no perception, and then returning to his body. This is the thing modern people discount or don’t realize when they read about the four dhyanas and samadhis, not thinking of them as associated with the form and formless heavens. This, however, is the likely reason the samadhi of cessation is added to the eight. Otherwise, the Buddha would have just been taking a tour of samsara rather than transcending it.
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That’s sounds so cool. I hope you do a full translation. 
Indeed. I figured it was T5; but, as you always know so many obscure parallels, I just wanted to confirm. Also, I hadn’t yet read the article when I asked to notice that Anālayo also says that.
But I think this is just an ontological way of saying the same thing; that is, I’m at a loss for why we wouldn’t say this one also agrees.
Exactly. So, I see it as: Four God Kings=1st jhāna/access/neighborhood/etc.; no perception=nirodha-samāpatti; body=any of the so-called rūpa jhānas (though probably the 4th). It seems to agree to me.
In this case, I have a good reference to look it up with. The Japanese translation of the Dirgha Agama has a wonderful table in the back detailing the parallels for each section of the Parinirvana Sutra. I really want to stop translating and write up some of the research that’s in that set of books in English. It’s really comprehensive.
Yeah, I guess that argument could be made. It’s strange though that the desire realm heavens are included. It may have been intended to mean he was using the deva eye rather than moving through the nine samadhis. T5 is the earliest translation of the sutra that I know of, so it may be evidence of a version prior to the adoption of the nine samadhis in the passage. It doesn’t have Ananda and Aniruddha commenting about it, either.
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Something really weird happened here: I thought I responded to you the day before yesterday, @cdpatton , but I came back today to find I hadn’t. I tried several times to post, but it kept saying, “read-only mode,” and wouldn’t let me. Then, finally, I thought it went through, but I came back and the whole post was gone. It was long and elaborate, too. I guess that’s a dignified way of saying it was wordy and long-winded. In any case, I can’t go back and do it over; I’m just going to hit the main points as best I can.
Could be the personification of something “sub-jhānic” like access or neighborhood concentration, or (perhaps even more plausibly) devānussati? Theravāda stops at first jhāna; others may not have.
Yes, but I don’t know that the deva eye would be effective in *asaññīsattāyatana–if that is indeed what 不想入 means. Also, in Theravāda at least, that realm belongs to the fourth jhāna, so attaining to it would not constitute transcending saṁsāra. Even if here (we don’t know the school affiliation, do we?) it indeed represents a transcendent level associated with saññāvedayitanirodha–which I personally think is the stronger case here–I still don’t think devas, eyes, or even deva’s eyes “gain a footing” there.
Sure, but there are probably other plausible explanations as well. Again, do we know the school? It may be a different scheme altogether. Assuming that this snippet of a cosmology was meant to correspond to meditative levels like in Theravāda, and that this is an ascent through these meditative levels/cosmological planes, I think there may be something interesting in that in this version the ascent begins, as you pointed out, in the desire realm. Also, it would be remarkable if the placement of their asaññīsattāyatana differed so significantly from the Theravādin.
Yeah, do we know the school?
Exactly. By this point in the narrative, I don’t know what jhāna Ānanda had attained to, but he would not be able to see whatever the corresponding heaven would be–that is, he would not able to see the Buddha’s ascent past a certain point. However, much the same would probably hold for Anuruddha as well; as, again, he would probably not be able to perceive the Buddha in 不想入, whatever it’s meant to represent.
Actually, does anyone know what the deal is with beings’ ability in any case to perceive one another beyond the form realms?
I guess the claim in the suttas is that with the divine eye one can see beings being reborn according to their deeds, and that once a Buddha passes they can not be seen by gods or humans.
This suggests to me that the divine eye can see beings in formless realms, otherwise non-buddhas could hide from the eyes of gods and men in formless realms.
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No problem! I think that happens when the server that runs the forum is being worked on. They leave it online while they work but stop people from posting for a bit.
I’m thinking it’s an odd translation for the abode of neither perception nor non-perception. A search for 不想入 in T5 discovers that it’s used three times, and the other two passages identify it as the highest of the heavens. At T5.167a4, there’s a list of heavens starting with the form realm, and 不想入 is the 28th, at the end of what looks like the four formless heavens (translated non-standardly):
第二十五名空慧天，第二十六天名識慧入，第二十七天名無所念慧入，第二十八天名不想入。
So, it really looks like a pre-nine-samadhis passage that was replaced later by everybody. Then, again, ~300 AD is fairly late in history. It may have been a minority version from one of the many obscure schools of Buddhism we know little about today. 
That could be a fun dive into the Abhidharma ocean for a few days.
I haven’t looked at the alternate versions closely yet, nor tried to research academic opinions about what schools they belong to. I’m planning on taking a few months off from the translation project to do some of these types of really-interesting-and-really-time-intensive things. Right now, I’m knee deep in Buddhist cosmology (slogging through the hells – ugh!).
Right. The traditional story that developed, in which the Parinirvana Sutra plays a major role, Ananda didn’t become an arhat until after Mahakasyapa gives him a major upbraiding for being foolish at the end of the Buddha’s life (not getting the hint to ask for the Buddha to not choose Nirvana, failing to fetch him water, etc.). Crestfallen, Ananda retires to seclusion while Kasyapa convenes the first council to compile the tripitaka. Applying himself, Ananda becomes an arhat and returns to the council to recite the canon for them.
In that context, it makes sense that Ananda doesn’t know what is happening and needs to be told by an arhat like Aniruddha. Aniruddha plays an interesting role (to me, a bit humorous) in the sutra, telling people about hidden things he can see with his deva eye, like stopping the laypeople from holding the funeral right away because the gods have other plans.
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不想入 for the nevasaññānāsaññāyatana ? Have you seen that before? 不想, 無想, 無相, etc. are pretty standard variations on (a conflation already apparent in Indic sources between animittā cetovimutti and) saññāvedayitanirodha. I would say “odd” is being very diplomatic: if it’s a translation for nevasaññānāsaññāyatana, then it’s flat-out a bad one: it leaves out half the term.
Also, 無所念 is strange in any case as a rendering for ākiñcaññā: we should expect 無所有 (“absolute non-existence”) rather than 無所念 (“absolutely no thought”). It makes me wonder if something from what we would expect to follow (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana) slipped into the text: i.e., a scribal error combining previous and subsequent abodes. But who knows?
(Alternatively, there are places here and there–albeit not many–both in the Theravādin canon and others where meditative path/cosmology schemes appear which include saññāvedayitanirodha, but which leave out nevasaññānāsaññāyatana. Could this be one of those?)
Also, looking at the sentence you cited…
…when we examine the entire passage…
「我復上梵天、梵眾天、梵輔天、大梵天、水行天、水微天、無量水天、水音天、約淨天、遍淨天、淨明天、守妙天、近際天、快見天、無結愛天，諸天皆來視我，我悉問：『若寧知經不？』中有知經者，有不知經者，我皆為說生死之道，說斷生死根本之道，子曹所樂經者，我皆為說之。我效作天上衣服語言，餘四天，其天皆不能語，我欲上者，其天不能應答我；第二十五名空慧天，第二十六天名識慧入，第二十七天名無所念慧入，第二十八天名不想入。」
…we see that, where (according to a Theravādin cosmology, anyways) we would expect to find the abode of impercipient beings, asaññasattāyatana (i.e., the fourth jhāna; in bold in the block quote above)–that is, the abode of beings associated with saññāvedayitanirodha–there is no mention of any such abode. So where should those beings go?
All in all, to my mind the evidence…
- the translation itself being a pretty common rendering of saññāvedayitanirodha (sort of!),
- the fact that it comes last in the scheme,
- the ill-fit of 無所念 as a translation for nevasaññānāsaññāyatana,
- the fact that, other than here, I don’t see where asaññasattā would dwell, and
- the fact that all other parallels support such a reading…
leans pretty heavily toward understanding 不想入as referring to saññāvedayitanirodha.
That being said, I agree that “the highest heaven” would indeed suggest nevasaññā-nāsaññāyatana, though we do have to keep in mind that we are quite possibly dealing with an alternative scheme which may have all or most of the same players, though perhaps characterized differently: meaning, they may have considered asaññasattāyatana to be the highest heaven. Why not?! Saññāvedayitanirodha is the highest meditative attainment! (It’s relegation to a role as a sort of fourth jhāna cul-de-sac by the Theravāda is, to me, a travesty.)
Yeah, at this point, I think assigning this text (this doctrine?) a place on the historical timeline is somewhat ill-advised. (I think you sensed that, too.) I’m sure you are already aware, but I did want to mention that 慧 for āyatana in the names of heavens is attested in very early
texts; meaning that these translations are perhaps not as non-standard as they may appear on first glance. (All the more reason to take 不想入 on face value, I think.)
Yes, in the end, all of this speculation, while perhaps valuable as an intellectual exercise, means next to nothing without knowing the school affiliation.
Well, this is becoming a tangle of replies, so I’ll simplify with a general response, and hopefully I can be a little clearer.
The basic problem with trying to read the nine samadhis into the passage in T5 is that 1) it includes all the heavens, not just the form and formless heavens, and 2) T5 translates the fourth formless heaven with 不想入 in two other passages, making it clear that the passage we’re interested in is listing all the heavens from the four god kings on up and doesn’t mention a extra something that would parallel the samadhi of cessation.
I’ll briefly go over the two other passages T5, including the one I already cited.
The first one is near 164c14:
佛語阿難：「今佛年已尊，且八十，如故車無堅強，我身體如此無堅強，我本不為若曹說，無有墮地不死者，最上有天，名不想入，壽八十億四千萬劫，會當復死，用是故起經於天下，斷生死之根本。
不想入 is the “highest heaven that exists” (最上有天) where “beings live for 840 million? eons” (壽八十億四千萬劫). So, unless we believe there’s a fifth formless heaven, I would take this to be the same as the abode of neither perception nor non-perception.
The second one is near 167a4:
我效作天上衣服語言，餘四天，其天皆不能語，我欲上者，其天不能應答我；第二十五名空慧天，第二十六天名識慧入，第二十七天名無所念慧[1]入，第二十八天名不想入。」
Here, the Buddha refers to the “remaining four heavens” (餘四天) before listing them out as numbers 25-28. 25. is the abode of emptiness, 26. is the abode of consciousness, 27. is the abode of nothingness, and 28. is the abode of neither perception nor no perception.
Now, I should note a couple things. The passage hasn’t been preserved well, which often happens with these old Agama texts (and which makes them nearly unreadable sometimes). Notice how ayatana is “translated” as 慧天, 慧入, and 入? More than likely, this is the result of copyist errors building up over time. The Taisho note on the third abode is the Taisho editors deleting an extra 慧 from the passage found in several older editions.
So, it’s a damaged text.
Another thing to point out is that the third of the formless heavens gave Chinese translators difficulty. In DA, the abode of nothingness is translated as 不用處, which is equally awkward. I think the problem was they were trying to communicate the lack of mental activity, so they ended up with these translations like 不用 and 無所念. In T6, it’s translated as 無所用. So, it’s the abode of nothingness, translated in different ways. The context of the passages makes it clear, being in the third position of four and coming after space and consciousness.
Another thing I notice while searching for these terms is that T6 also uses 不想入 to translate the fourth formless heaven. At 188b19, the Buddha goes through the eight samadhis, and 不想入 is the last formless samadhi, not the samadhi of cessation. That’s translated instead as 想知滅之思惟, which is quite in line with the Pali and DA (思惟 here being equivalent to samadhi).
Anyway, this is the difficulty with Chinese Agamas when we wade out from the relative consistency of the four Agama collections themselves. The early translators were all over the place in how they translate different terms, and texts are badly corrupted on top of that. Which is why I try to be careful and find all the occurrences in a text to get a better idea of what was intended by a term. We’re lucky in the case of T5 that there are a couple other passages with good context to help us understand it.
Aside from all of that, though: It is interesting that there are these loose ends of non-perception abodes and heavens like the extra one added to the dhyana heavens in some sources or that extra ayatana in DN 15. It does make me wonder whether the fourth formless heaven wasn’t sometimes called the “abode of no perception,” but then it was changed. In DA, the fourth heaven is throughout called “abode with and without perception,” giving us yet another possible variation on the name. It’s just difficult for me to tell if it’s translators or in the originals. I wonder if some of the old fragments that exist might have variant names in them? Otherwise, I would assume it was Chinese translators struggling with difficult Indian concepts.
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Indeed. That may be at least partially my fault; I detest the internet as a medium of communication and will be the first to admit that I am right poor at communicating through it. I prefer the back-and-forth of natural dialogue, which I find difficult to reproduce online. We have to type for an hour to be fully explicit, send it off, and wait for a response to attain any level of clarity; whereas, in a conversation, a simple, “Wait. Do you mean… ?”, “No, I mean…”, “Okay. Got it. Continue, please.” would suffice. This can be irksome, especially when the issues of contention revolve around minutiae.
Also, this doctrinal point is connected to my dissertation, so I am really focused on it.
Yes sir. Got it. I’m with you.
It certainly appears that way.
I think this is a legitimate point.
Thank you for pointing that out; as I said, I had never seen it translated like that before. So, as you pointed out above concerning 不用處 and the rest: this term, too, gave Chinese translators difficulty–not just within the conflation of animitta cetovimutti and saññāvedayitanirodha, but it seems also in distinguishing the latter from nevasaññānāsaññāyatana. I did not know that. Thank you.
No, sir; the asaññasattāyatana being located in the fourth jhāna heaven is not limited to DN 15, this is standard Theravāda doctrine here, there, and everywhere. This is why this passage excites me so: it’s the first (possibly) alternative cosmology I’ve seen.
This is my original point, stated in reverse, which may not be applicable to this particular passage, but is still something worthy of consideration.
Thinking_About_Cessation_The_Phapalas.pdf (1.9 MB)
Starting on about p. 27, Daniel Stuart gives some cross-traditional evidence of just this sort of conflation between these two adjacent levels in the early traditions. I believe this passage is an example of just such a conflation.
So, then, based on your evidence, please allow me to refine my stance: this is neither cessation nor is it the fourth formless heaven; strictly speaking, it is a conflation of the two, which may indeed be due to…
…but which the paper I attached above causes me to think was perhaps a doctrinal ambiguity imported wholesale from India.
Thank you, @cdpatton . In Japan, I would say, “ありがとうございました、ぎょうさん話してくれたた、お疲れさまでした,” which basically means, “Thank you for speaking so long and in-depth with me: I received much from it, and I apologize for having exhausted you.”
Hey, fun fact: “Thank you!” or “Arigatou” actually is a Buddhist term. It means, “I express gratitude for this good fortune because I realize there was a great difficulty (ありがとう(有り難う)) in this service you’ve done me coming to fruition.” It’s a reference to the difficulty of the blind turtle in the sea and the life preserver metaphor. (Or at least so I was told.)
In any case, “Thanks!”