Losing the direction re vitakka/vitarka

[Sylvester]

@suaimhneas

Sure, your MN117 list points in that direction of saṅkappā and the speech formation being synonymous. However, I’d tend to view that as more indicating a lot of intersection of meaning between the words in that list (the same meaning as one of the words in the vitakka-vicārā compound). Also, isn’t that sutta one that has been posited as displaying some later Abhidhammic influences? So that argument probably needs further sutta corroboration to be stronger.

Hi! So as not to bog down this thread with another fulsome discussion of MN 117, could I trouble you to look at an earlier thread where arguments were canvassed against the suspicion of its Abhidhammic provenance -

Interpreting the first Jhana

Hi Bhante! While I generally find Ven Analayo’s analyses very sound, I am not too satisfied with how he has dealt with MN 117. Firstly, he notes the divisions into wrong factor, mundane factor and supramundane factor. I would just point out that the text actually does not say “mundane” factor, but it merely predicates a factor as “sāsava puññabhāgiya upadhivepakka” (with effluents, partaking of merit, resulting in acquisitions). How he adduces the “mundane” is by contrast to the presence …

and here -

Interpreting the first Jhana

Eh, I don’t like the tone of the article either, but I appreciate that the author took time to trace the different parts of the sutta back to other references in the tipitaka…

Against the Abhidhamma usage of lokuttara to mean “supramundane”, in terms of its four-fold classification of types of consciousness/citta (ie the 3 bhavas and the supramundane), the MN 117 lokuttara schema does not have anything to do with cittas, but with path-factors. The Abhidhamma lokuttara schema, on the other hand, is an eight-fold articulation of the different types of citta that pertain to path (magga) and fruition (phala) of the levels of Stream-entry up to Arahantship. Clearly, in Abhidhamma, lokuttara needs to be understood as “supramundane” as it describes “states” of citta, but in MN 117 it is applied to undertakings of wisdom, virtue and concentration.

So, in the suttas we have this formulaic set of adjectives that describe the Dhamma -

gambhīrā gambhīratthā lokuttarā suññatapaṭisaṃyuttā
deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness

Cf another formula -

Ariyaṃ … lokuttaraṃ dhammaṃ
Noble transcendent teaching

Another occurence of lokuttara, in relation to the contemplations that lead to non-clinging in MN 122 -

ekantakusalā kusalāyātikā ariyā lokuttarā anavakkantā pāpimatā
entirely skillful, with skillful outcomes; they are noble, transcendent, and inaccessible to the Wicked One

Most tellingly, MN 48 contextualises what is lokuttara in its most literal sense, ie world-transcending. It begins by speaking of the view that is noble (ariya) and emancipating (niyyānika), leading one who practises it to the ending of suffering (dukkhakkhaya). Well, the one who practises realises 7 things that are predicated as ariya and lokuttara. And it is here that I suggest that lokuttara is nothing more than a synonym for niyyānika.

So, I think the qualms about the MN 117 schema ought to be laid aside, insofar as the qualms rest on the suspicion that it is affected by the Abhidhamma conception of lokuttara.

@suaimhneas

it almost sounds to me that vicārā (exploration) lies somewhere in the middle of the process of going from intention to actual speech in everyday life. There’s the initial intention/direction (borrowing your terms) of mind, then further vicārā (exploration), then in ordinary life, speech (one theory anyway).

Let’s have a thought experiment. When was the last time you stubbed your toe and shouted? How long did you vicāreti before the shout left your lips? Were you conscious of your mind exploring the pain?

What I am suggesting is that if verbal kamma can proceed unconsciously under the influence of the the latent tendency to aversion (in the above hypothetical), can mental kamma not proceed unconsciously under the influence of the wholesome counterparts to the anusayas? Notice my citation of the suttas above that say that paṇidahati also works with the mind, besides speech.

I think this is where context must triumph dictionaries. There is no denying the utility of dictionaries in a spatial context, but in a mental context that borrows flavour from the spatial, how much of the speech formation is left (or even what it looks like) in the 1st Jhana, when even speech has ceased? : SN 36.15?