The state of saññāvedayitanirodha is in fact a result of mental projections (saṅkhārā):
Husgafvel briefly mentions saññāvedayitanirodha as a potential non-dual meditative attainment within the Canon in note 32 of this article: Full article: THE ‘UNIVERSAL DHARMA FOUNDATION’ OF MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION: NON-DUALITY AND MAHĀYĀNA BUDDHIST INFLUENCES IN THE WORK OF JON KABAT-ZINN. Of course, this position is debatable and requires further evidence to support it, but Husgafvel does not provide any arguments in its favor.
Honestly, I did not undestand your point of view: on one hand, you tend to agree with Griffiths’ idea regarding the paññā’s formula being out of place; on the other hand, you are not convinced by the possibility of developing paññā after emerging from the meditative attainment of nirodha. Do you think that this is simply a paradox, perhaps intentionally created?
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Yes, though I don’t think I’d characterize it as “intentionally created.” It just is that way. And, certainly, they were intentional in expressing it that way, or in not making it more palatable. And, to be clear, while I might agree that that formula is out of place there (Shulman notes that [Schmithausen notes that] it’s only present in the MN and AN, it’s absent from the DN and SN), I wouldn’t go so far as to say paññā itself would be out of place there: if that makes sense. I wonder, though, what that paññā consists of. (Shulman advises recognizing a distinction between the paññā of saññāvedayitanirodha and the ñāṇaṁ of fourth jhāna.) What sort of paññā might obtain in such a state?
The formula paññāya cassa disvā āsavā parikkhīṇā honti also occurs in the Kīṭāgiri-sutta, referring to the liberated person. But I’m not sure of the content of this knowledge. Do you have any ideas?
Just the understanding that the āsavas are extinguished.
Gone. Absent. Empty of āsavas. Cessation of defilements.
Yet, while the arahant who realizes this is still alive and the khandhas are still present, there is consciousness of the absence, the cessation, of the āsavas.
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That’s a logical conclusion, and I did think that for years, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily so. Taking the formula straightforwardly, it would appear that whatever the meditator saw with paññā was seen before the eradication of the āsavā. In fact, we might surmise that the eradication of the āsavā was predicated on the seeing with paññā.
If you accept that this attainment is the same as the one being discussed in the Samādhi Sutta and the Sāriputta Sutta linked above (again, something which might not necessarily be so), then I would propose that what was seen could perhaps be whatever those suttas claimed the meditator was percipient of.
Whether the defilements are eradicated before or after samādhi may be of less importance than the direct knowledge that they are indeed ceased, without the possibility of arising again. That’s what I meant by :
Futher, in MN44 the Bhikkhuni Dhammadinnā is asked:
“But ma’am, which arise first for a mendicant who is emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling: physical, verbal, or mental processes?”
“Mental processes arise first, then physical, then verbal.”
This points to the resumption of these processes after the state of saññāvedayitanirodha - including the perception of the eradication of the defilements.
If by the Samādhi sutta, you referring to AN4.92-AN4.94 or to SN22.5 – none of them specifies what insights may or may not occur during jhana.
But, again, what I think matters beyond our speculations is whether the defilements have been fully eradicated – and that there is the understanding, the realization, of this.
At that point all our speculations are ended. 