Jhana Notes (continuing the most recent jhana thread)

Discussion
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Yes, a favorite passage:

I know that while my father, the Sakyan, was ploughing, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, I entered on the first meditation (concentration), which is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness, and is rapturous and joyful, and while abiding therein, I thought: ‘Now could this be a way to awakening?’ Then, following on my mindfulness… there was the consciousness: This is itself the Way to awakening. This occurred to me…: ‘Now, am I afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind?’ This occurred to me…: I am not afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind.’

(MN 36; PTS vol I p 301; parenthetical added)

Also:

… the situation occurs, Ananda, when wanderers belonging to other sects may speak thus: ‘The recluse (Gautama) speaks of the stopping of perceiving and feeling, and lays down that this belongs to happiness. Now what is this, now how is this?’ Ananda, wanderers belonging to other sects who speak thus should be spoken to thus: ‘Your reverences, (Gautama) does not lay down that it is only pleasant feeling that belongs to happiness; for, your reverences, the Tathagatha (the “Thus-Gone One”, the Buddha) lays down that whenever, wherever, whatever happiness is found it belongs to happiness.

(MN 59; tr. Pali Text Society vol II p 69)

Yer right that:

… a good (person] reflects thus: “Lack of desire even for the attainment of the first meditation has been spoken of by [me]; for whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise” [Similarly for the second, third, and fourth initial meditative states, and for the attainments of the first four further meditative states].

(MN 113; tr. Pali Text Society vol III pp 92-94)

Gautama also said that the means of transcending the “equanimity with respect to uniformity” of the arupa jhanas was “lack of desire, by means of lack of desire”, so there you have it (not looking up the source, unless you ask for it–worn out looking 'em up!).

Still, at least in the translations of F. L. Woodward for the Pali Text Society, a certain ease arrives with the first “corporeal” jhana, and is still present in the third. Sages abide in that third state (exhausted looking up sources, but I think that’s standard). That ease disappears in the fourth state, and I have to wonder what you are referring to when you speak of “true ease”–maybe happiness, like the happiness that is still present in the cessation of volition in feeling and perceiving?

Yes, Gautama entered the first jhana watching his father plow (the king?–I think not!), and there’s no reference to “making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness” (as at SN 48.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol. V p 174) with regard to that. Doesn’t mean these things are not a part of finding concentration, as an adult not sitting under a rose-apple tree.

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I actually really enjoy Green’s posts/ mind, … but Dogen, between links, words, and a brief chat on the side has just put so many questions to rest for me … and given me some good thoughts to consider on what is left on my mind. Without even once telling me what to think either! :smiley:

Enjoy your Jhanas everyone, and all your intricacies and versions around them … I’m just doing me now no matter what the rest of you are doing :blush:

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With true ease i meant the ease of Nibbana, the total extinquishment of the inner fires, the supreme coolness of it, the sublime state of supreme peace, like the suttas call it.

The ease of jhana is volitionaly produced. One enters per choice and abides in jhana but one also leaves jhana. Then, while returning to ordinairy mind, defilements are no longer surpressed. The formerly experienced ease also disappears.

The ease of Nibbana is not like this. That coolness, that peace of heart does not disappear because it is the natural result of the uprooting and not the surpressing of defilements. This is how i understand the teachings.

The nature of sannavedayitanirodhaa i do not know, but i am not inclined to see this as some blacking out.

About the role of jhana i see the following: . On his quest the Buddha first of all went to teachers. He learned from two the highest arupa jhana and was NOT satisfied with it. He realised that it does not really lead to dispassion, peace, freedom from suffering.

Then he started with his ascetic practice and he came to the insight that this painful practice does not lead to any discernment, not to any distinction in knowlegde and vision worthy of the nobles. And then…he was in doubt…but what is the Path?..and then according legend he remembered the childhood experience of jhana…and then…he realised …jhana is the Path to awakening while in a much earlier stage he was very advanced in even entering and abiding in the most subtle jhanas and not satisfied with it…

I suspect that Buddha was suffering after his time with the teachers, after his ascetic period, and still seeking the ultimate peace of heart. Afraid of sensual pleasures, seeing the danger in sensual pleasure, he judged that jhana at least is a wholesome kind of pleasure. Maybe that is why he again embraced jhana, while he formerly was not satisfied with even the highest arupa jhana.

It seems Buddha discovered the special qualities of 4th jhana in which mind is extremely subtle and wieldy (i read: easy to use and receptive). This is how he came to knowledge and vision, a distinction worthy of the nobles.

I also feel one can say that the kind of knowledge he got in 4th jhana was what he wanted…all about understanding birth.

Does it mean we also need this 4th jhana? Do we need knowledge of former lifes for example? Do we have to know all about rebirth and how this is related to kamma and view?

Personally i feel this probably depends on ones own quest. A Buddha is probably also a person with an extreme great desire to understand all in detail but not every person has this.

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My understanding is that he went from home life to the ascetic practices, then when he recovered his health after his refreshing dip in that river, he remembered his time under the rose-apple tree. That would put the two teachers after the ascetic practices, with the attainment of “the cessation of feeling and perceiving” the concentration that those two teachers hadn’t experienced, and the key to the destruction of the asavas (cankers) for Gautama.

I find it easier to talk about what results in the destruction of the cankers, rather than to talk about enlightenment, after having read MN 70, " At Kīṭāgiri", about the seven types of persons existing in the world.

MN 70 makes clear that the attainment of the cessation of feeling and perceiving alone is not enough (the 3rd person) to completely destroy the cankers. Although there are various interpretations of “freed both ways”, I’m going with freed by “intuitive wisdom” as well as “those peaceful Deliverances” (the arupa jhanas).

So as you say, intuitive wisdom must be present, for the destruction of the cankers.

I’m writing now about the curious differences between Satipatthana (MN 10)/Maha Satipatthana (DN 22) and the descriptions of “The Chapter on In-breathing and Out-breathing” in SN 54 (PTS vol. V pp 279-289+):

In Satipatthana, concentration is mentioned only in passing, in a description of “the seven links in awakening”. The sermon calls for the comprehension of whether or not the link that is concentration has arisen, and for the comprehension of whether or not the link has come to completion (MN 10, tr. PTS p 80).

There is also a Maha Satipatthana sermon (“Larger ‘Applications of Mindfulness’” sermon), and that sermon provides specifics of the four corporeal concentrations (DN 22; PTS vol ii p 345). The inclusion of the corporeal concentrations in Maha Satipatthana suggests that the “link in awakening that is concentration” of Satipatthana could come to completion with the attainment of the fourth concentration.

In Satipatthana, Gautama declares that even just seven days and seven nights of the mindfulness of Satipatthana can result in “profound knowledge”. My understanding is that the underlying Pali for “profound knowledge” is not the same as for “intutive wisdom”, but apparently the result is the same, as in the second person of the “seven persons”: the cankers are completely destroyed.

Curious, and a little confusing. SN 54 is not the only occasion where Gautama recommended the mindfulness of “the intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing”, although in I. B. Horner’s translation of Anapanasati (MN 118) she refers to the practice as “the (mind-)development that is mindfulness on in-breathing and out-breathing” (PTS vol. III p 124). Sujato went with “the meditation on mindfulness of breathing”, which removes the differentiation of in-breathing and out-breathing. I wonder which rendition is closer to verbatum of the Pali.

Can you give a source, for associating the fourth “corporeal” jhana with the ability to see past lives?

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Hi There,

I believe this is not the right chronology. Buddha first went to his teachers, learned the highest arupa jhana, and was not satisfied. After that he started practicing asceticism. Then he came to the insight that also this is not the Path. Then he remembered his childhood experience of jhana and somehow now saw this as the Path, while earlier he rejected it.

Maybe others can comment on this chronology.

Buddhas appreciation for jhana seems to be connected to his fear for pleasure of the 5 senses. His seeing of the danger in that and his experience in his life that these are base. And it is a pleasant abiding here and now. And maybe he also discovered the great intuitive abilities mind has in 4th jhana later? (see at the end)

The cessation of perception and feeling (sannavedayitanirodha), is, i feel, not a good translation because sanna is not really perception but the mental function in the proces of cognition that is able to distinguish in a non conceptual way the unique features of a sense object. For example, even when i have no clue what is oak, what is maple, i can still see the unique features of these sense-object. I can smell the differences, i can feel the different structures, see the different structures, can taste differences, etc. That seems to refer to the function of sanna.

Because sense vinnanas have always this function of sanna too (MN43), the kind of cognition vinnana represents is clearly that of a discriminating moment of awareness. The suttas use the examples that it can discriminate pleasure, painful and neutral feelings (MN43). They give another example that vinnana discriminates tastes like sweet, sour etc (SN22.79). Wanting to make clear…i believe…sense vinnanas are moments in which a moment of a discriminating awareness or discriminating moment of knowing arises, right?

Some believe that EBT-Buddha teaches that there is nothing else but a discriminating kind of knowing. This is rejected by many great buddhist teachers from experience. But I also feel there is no need to conclude there is only that kind of knowing that is discriminating and sensual of nature.

Also the idea that when the function of sanna ceases, the ability to know also ceases is not reasonable, i feel. For example, in sleep there is no sense vinnana (no discriminating awareness) but there is certaintly mind with its receptivitiy to receive and proces info. It is not really rational to think that the absence of the 6 sense vinnanas would be the same as the absence of mind, or the absence of all knowing.
Only for this reason one must assume a kind of being informed/knowing that is not of the nature of a sense vinnana.

I feel it is also very reasonable that minds most basic ability to know is a bare awareness, and not yet a discriminating form of awareness. It is mere receptivity.
And this precedes all what we experience (dhp1). In this basic function of receptivity mind precedes all phenomena, also all sense vinnanas. (dhp1)

While some believe that cessation of sanna and vedana is some kind of blacking out or absence, i believe those teachers that teach that there is no blacking out.
But this nirodha is impossible to know when there is still a perspective in the mind, which is the trademark of any jhana. Cessation is very different because also the perspective vanishes, i believe. I believe that the one who knows this, knows that only suffering ceases and only suffering arises but a mere cessation is impossible.

Yes, as i understand it only seeing with wisdom is able to make an end to defilements. And this is not the same as having experienced this or that. One can always develop wrong views based upon what is experienced . That is the idea expressed in MN1, i believe. And also based upon lack of experience wrong ideas can develop. There is no experience or lack of experience, i believe, that cannot become a support for wrong view. The suttss also constant make this disclaimer…seeing with wisdom the taint are destroyed.

For example, biljons of people have special experiences, spiritual experiences, mystic experiences, esoteric experiences etc, but that does not mean at all that their taints have ceased. This almost never happens but they grow! Conceit almost always grows because one starts to feel more and more like a possessor.
And this does not uproot at all the conceit, the desire and underlying tendency ’ I am’ (asmi mana).

"Again, bhikkhus, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the fourth jhana, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to
equanimity. Thus too, bhikkhus, the exertion is fruitful, the striving is fruitful. "When his concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. He recollects his manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births…(as Sutta 51, §24). MN101, Bodhi

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Ok-doke. I see now that the chronology is there, in the same lecture with the account of him meditating under the rose-apple tree (MN 36, PTS vol. I p 303).

You’re quite right, in that sermon and in MN 4, Gautama speaks of “entering into and abiding in the fourth meditation”, after which he directed his mind first to “the knowledge and recollection of former habitations”, then to “the knowledge of the passing hence and arising of beings”, and finally to “the knowledge of the destruction of the cankers”.

As to the chronology, in MN 36, he described his dissatisfaction with the householder life, and the practices he undertook as an ascetic. After he had held his breath until he had severe pains, and spoiled his complexion from eating basically nothing, he said to himself, “… I, by this severe austerity, do not reach states of further-men, the excellent knowledge and vision befitting the ariyans. Could there be another way to awakening?”

That’s when he recalled his meditation under the rose-apple tree, proceeded through the four rupa jhanas, and practiced directing his mind to the three knowledges.

Thanks much for setting me to find that clarification.

I see that in MN 4 as well as MN 36, he equates his understanding of the four truths after the attainment of the fourth jhana with with an understanding the cankers, and with the freedom and knowledge that constituted his enlightenment.

As to the final arupa concentration, I’m not convinced that what you are describing is not something that is perceived or felt. Haven’t been there, can’t claim to know.

My guess: the final arupa jhana is the activity of the mind in “feeling and perceiving” solely by virtue of the occurrence of consciousness. The place from whence Gautama got his description in MN 149 of consciousness as the result of sense organ, sense object, and contact between the two. That kind of awareness with regard to the six senses, he said constituted a satisfaction of the eight-fold path.

That, as contrasted with the fourth rupa jhana, wherein “purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind” I believe becomes the sole source of the activity of the body (AN 5.28), the cessation of “determinate thought” in in-breathing and out-breathing.

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Forgot to mention, that in MN 4 Gautama made clear that the destruction of the cankers was, for him, synonymous with his insight into the four truths. Apparently that’s the “profound knowledge” referred to in Satipatthana (MN 10, tr. PTS), and the “intuitive wisdom” referred to in MN 70.

In MN 70, Gautama describes “seven persons existing in the world”, and five of them have “seen by means of wisdom” but not completely destroyed the cankers. A caution!

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I do see where the confusion comes in, with regard to the chronology.

As I mentioned, in MN 36 Gautama states that his time as an ascetic preceded his recollection of sitting under the rose-apple tree, and his pursuit of meditation as a means to enlightenment. There’s no mention of Alara the Kalama or Uddaka, Rama’s son, but he does talk about studying with them in MN 26. There, he doesn’t mention his time as an ascetic, but just mentions that he left home “hair coal-black” and went into homelessness. The very next sentence, he is approaching Alara the Kalama.

What he says is that after his experience with Uddaka, while walking on tour in Uruvela:

… I saw a delightful stretch of land and a lovely woodland grove, and a clear flowing river with a delightful ford, and a village for support nearby. … ‘Indeed this does well for the striving of a young man set on striving’ (he thought). So I… sat down just there, thinking: “Indeed this does well for striving”.

(MN 26; tr. PTS vol. I pp 210-211)

In the sermon, he goes on to describe his winning of nibbana, and how he had to convince the five ascetics who were his previous companions to listen to him.

I think he just left out the part about his ascetic pursuits, in MN 26, and he left out the part about Alara and Udaka in MN 36. But since he apparaently went to Uruvela after leaving Udaka, and then returned to the 5 ascetics after his striving in Uruvela (MN 26), his ascetic years must have been before Alara. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

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Yes in the suttas things are left out about chronology, i have seen too.

I read other books about this too and also webpages. They share that after Buddha left his life in the palace, he first went to his teachers of which he learned the highest arupa jhana. Was not satisfied, and met ascetics and tried their practise.
It did not work. And then came the memory back of his jhana experience in the youth etc.

Maybe @Dhammanando knows the right chronology?

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Personally i do not read this. This is also not really what the suttas describe. This is hineininterpretiert. Becuase the suttas really describe that the 4th jhana comes with a bright,unblemished, mallleable, wieldy steady mind. And in the 4th jhana he directs the mind to the memory of former lives. The sutta does not even suggest it is after 4th jhana.

But for some strange reason people seem to believe that jhana is some state of unflexibility, rigidness, locked in, fixed attention, but that is all not true, i believe.

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Yes, the sutta makes clear that he was in the 4th jhana when he directed his mind to “the knowledge and recollection of former habitations”, when he directed his mind to “the knowledge of the passing hence and arising of beings”, and when he directed his mind to “the knowledge and destruction of the cankers”.

I would guess that is how he could say that there was a “person existing in the world” who had arrived at “intuitive wisdom” without the incorporeal jhanas, and likewise how a person could expect to arrive at “profound knowledge” after seven days and seven nights of mindfulness, as in Satipatthana. Satipatthana doesn’t reference the corporeal concentrations, but Maha Satipatthana does, and presumably the “link in awakening that is concentration” in Satipatthana would require at least the corporeal concentrations to “come to completion”.

I still think his ascetic period preceded the two teachers whose concentrations he mastered. Gautama lists his ascetic practices in MN 36, and then speaks of sitting under the rose-apple tree and realizing concentration was “the Way to awakening”, after which he began to take nourishment and the five ascetics rejected him. The account in MN 26 makes no mention of the ascetic practices, but only of his leaving home and his study with the two teachers, then his return to the ascetics after his enlightenment. I can only assume that his discovery of concentration as “the Way to awakening” under the rose-apple tree preceded his study with the two teachers of concentration, and his ascetic period preceded that discovery.

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I also feel that Dhamma does not denie the existence of a person, for example in SN22.22 the person is described like this:

“And who is the bearer of the burden? The person, it should be said; the venerable of such and such name and clan. This is called the bearer of the burden”.

Also in the right view that there is father and mother i see the clue that one is also a person. Once born, child of this and that father and mother. A person that also is the owner of the kamma, the heir of kamma.

One must not exagerate and not see oneself as person anymore. It is also impossible to live a normal life and totally have no me and mine making. I am sure of that. This is also not what Buddha meant. What he means is that me and mine can arise in a blind way or it can be used in a awakened and wise way. We must only abandon that me and mine making that is passionate and blind of nature, and never that me and mine making that is just needed to live in this world but is free, not fettering. It can be abandoned any moment.

Yes

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Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present… (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.

(MN 109, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III p 68)

For years, I tried to make the inconceivable the doer in my life:

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Tanahashi)

Now I see that what I need is:

… making self-surrender the object of thought, (a person) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)

And the four arisings of mindfulness–my abbreviation:

  1. Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

  2. Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

  3. Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

  4. Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

That last requires sitting until activity takes place solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness, regularly–at least for me it does!

… tell me, what is the most essential place? How is effort applied?

(Yuanwu Keqin, “The Blue Cliff Record”, Case 55, tr. Cleary and Cleary)

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… making self-surrender the object of thought, (a person) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)
[/quote]

Anapanasati reveals that there is breathing with the body, in the rythm of the body, and there is breathing with the mental-vinnana, more or less intentional or willed. With an element of mental effort. Have you seen this?

I always feel here lies the self-surrender. That one sees the mental effort and lets go of all effort to breath, and let solely the body breath.

In the tradition i like one must follow the natural breath but in reality this is often not that natural. Unconsciously there is often lot of mental effort in the system.

Has this any relation to how you experience self-surrender?

By the way, i do not believe this is the Path to jhana. Jhana needs a one-pointed focus as entrance and following the breath is to global as field of attention. Often people focus on the breath on a certain spot such as the nostrils or the chakra close to the belly. But i am not instructed this way by the teachers.

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From something I wrote:

In one of his lectures, Shunryu Suzuki spoke about the difference between “preparatory practice” and “shikantaza”, or “just sitting”:

But usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit. (“The Background of Shikantaza”, Shunryu Suzuki; San Francisco, February 22, 1970)

Suzuki said that directing attention to the movement of breath (“following breathing… counting breathing”) has the feeling of “doing something”, and that “doing something” makes such practice only preparatory.

Although attention can be directed to the movement of breath, necessity in the movement of breath can also direct attention, as I wrote previously:

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages.

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

The necessity that places attention can be the necessity of breath, or the necessity of engaging a mechanism of support for the spine in the movement of breath, or a necessity whose origin is beyond the range of the senses. That’s my experience.

The key is to keep a presence of mind with the involuntary placement of consciousness, with a one-pointedness in the placement of the base of consciousness, and that can be close to sleep at times,

So (in seated meditation), have your hands… palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site)

At some point, the experience can become activity of the body solely through the location of the single-pointed place of consciousness, and that is the cessation of volition in in-breathing and out-breathing.

… tell me, what is the most essential place? How is effort applied?

(Yuanwu Keqin, “The Blue Cliff Record”, Case 55, tr. Cleary and Cleary)

The effort is mindfulness in the four arisings of mindfulness, but without the essential place, the single-pointed location of consciousness that can shift and move, no legs to mindfulness.