Regarding chronology

Discussion
1

I was writing about “the seven (types of) persons existing in the world” mentioned in MN 70, and had occasion to look at MN 4.

The first “person” described in MN 70 was “freed both ways”. Although Gautama listed “abiding, having apprehended with the person those peaceful Deliverances which are incorporeal having transcended material shapes” (the arupa jhanas) as one of the ways the first person was freed, he didn’t specify the second way.

Meanwhile, the second person was freed “by means of intuitive wisdom”, without having apprehended the arupa jhanas, and the third person was not freed, in spite of having apprehended the arupa jhanas.

I was astonished to find that in MN 4, Gautama described a suppleness of mind in the fourth rupa (“corporeal”) jhana, with which he directed his mind to “the knowledge and recollection of former habitations”, then to “the knowledge of the passing hence and the arising of beings”, then to “the knowledge and destruction of the cankers” (all translations here Pali Text Society, this one MN vol. I p 28).

The two “persons” freed in Gautama’s description of the seven persons had both completely destroyed the cankers. The remaining five had not completely destroyed the cankers.

For years, I labored under the assumption that the apprehension of the arupa jhanas was necessary to enlightenment. Assuming the destruction of the cankers is synonymous with enlightenment, then not so, according to MN 4: only the fourth rupa jhana and the perception of prior habitations and prior lives is necessary to discerning the four truths and the destruction of the cankers.

Moreover, from the lecture on seven persons, the arupa jhanas are insufficient in and of themselves to guarantee complete destruction of the cankers. Intuitive wisdom is apparently required, derived through a freedom and the knowledge of that freedom, in order to realize the complete destruction of the cankers.

In Satipatthana (MN 10), it’s “profound knowledge here-now” that’s arrived at instead of “intuitive wisdom”, but I have to believe these are the same. Although Satipatthana mentions concentration only in passing as one of the seven links in awakening, Maha Satipatthana (DN 22) gives particulars of the four rupa jhanas, as well as particulars of the four truths that Gautama directed his mind to in MN 4.

Meanwhile, in MN 121, Gautama recounted his passage through the arupa jhanas to the signless concentration of mind (the final arupa jhana). He described the thought of impermanence that followed, and his subsequent arrival at freedom from the cankers and the knowledge of that freedom. I had thought, based on that description, that the arupa jhanas were necessary, to arrive at freedom and knowledge and the complete destruction of the cankers, hence my surprise at the account in MN 4.

Reflecting on all this now, I’m struck that the description of the seven persons is a reconciliation of these teachings, the one requiring only the fourth rupa jhana and the knowledge and recollection of “past habitations” and “the passing hence and arisings of beings” to arrive at the destruction of the cankers, and the one requiring the arupa jhanas (and in the description of the first “person”, now also “intuitive wisdom”, so “both ways”).

That would suggest that MN 4 and MN 10, as well as DN 22, preceded MN 70 and MN 121, historically.

Moreover, in SN 54.8, Gautama states that the mindfulness described in MN 118 (Anapanasati Sutta) was his way of living before enlightenment–and after enlightenment too, in 54.11. That would seem light-years away from MN 10 and DN 22.

I’m guessing there was a change of tack, after the suicide of so many monks described in SN 54.9 (and somewhere in Vinaya). Not many can discern prior habitations and the passing hence and arisings of beings, not many can abide in the arupa jhanas, either of these avenues to the destruction of the cankers requires special talent in my estimation. Since Gautama practiced his way of living prior to his enlightenment, special talent is not necessary to live with a mindfulness like that with which Gautama lived, and that’s the whole point of SN 54. 9.

There’s hope for the rest of us yet, but it took a lot of years and the lives of many monks for Gautama to arrive at teaching that, in my estimation.

2

In MN 52 and AN 9.36 it is said that awakening can occur based on only achieving the first Jhāna. You also don’t need to recall past lives to awaken either. In terms of these attainments, a good way of looking at them is that the Jhānas are insight into feelings (vedanā) whilst the formless attainments are insight into perception (sañña).

3

I always find it staggering when people post things like this.

MN4 reproduces, in part, the description of the path to enlightenment that is given in full at DN2:40.1 and then repeated at DN3, DN4, DN5, DN6, DN7, DN8, DN9, DN10, DN11, DN12 and then modified for Brahmin consumption at DN13.

MN4 relies on this passage, as does MN4 MN6 MN19 MN27 MN36 MN38 MN39 MN51 MN53 MN60 MN65 MN73 MN76 MN77 MN79 MN85 MN94 MN100 MN101 MN107 MN112 MN119 and MN125.

How is it possible that again and again here I see people professing their more or less complete ignorance of what is indisputably the most widely repeated and referenced passage of text in the entire canon?

The turning of the mind towards the knowledge of the destruction of the asavas (and past lives and arising of beings) from 4th jhana is THE most frequent, THE longest, and THE most prominent (in the sense of being placed first in the canon) of the descriptions of enlightenment.

I have slowly come to realize that there is a deep and profound motivation for contemporary Therevadans to deny, obscure and demote this passage, it is because to almost anyone not under the influence of Therevadan dogma or a delusional religious naivete, it is OBVIOUS when reading the suttas IN ORDER (i.e DN first, MN second, SN third and AN fourth), that there is clear and significant evolution in the way the teaching is presented, the language and ideas used, the style, and even the names of the people involved.

This took place over centuries, not decades, and anyone with their eyes open can see it.

There are people here, and I assume all throughout Buddhism, who because they are so intensely motivated by a need to believe that the Buddha themselves directly said everything in the suttas, cannot and will not accept the obvious truth of historical development in these texts.

The asavanirodha agamani patipada therefore creates a massive cognitive and pedagogical problem for such people by it’s annoying and complete lack of any mention of an 8fold path, 5 clinging aggregates, 12link DO, etc etc etc. This feature is easily explained by any person who is willing to accept that the teaching evolved over time to add these pedagogical features, but for the Thervadans and thier proxies this amounts to admitting that thier canon too, like that of the Mahayanas, is the product of historical development, and this simple fact is one they will always refuse to acknowledge, or at least minimize and militate against, because it is the source of thier pride and sense of superiority over their northern cousins.

And again, once the scales fall from your eyes, it becomes OBVIOUS who these people are, and what is motivating their desperate clinging to an obviously false conception.

I have spent years here now collecting evidence and argument to the effect that this historical development is discernable by the application of a fairly simple and common sense analysis of the phrasing used to explicate the teaching, it’s reptation, it’s dependencies and it’s distributions.

I do not regret the work, nor the robust conversations I have had in it’s presentation and defense, but I am currently taking a hiatus from it because it has finally dawned on me that the people I talk to here, with a handful of wonderful exceptions, have NO INTEREST in the EBT, EXCEPT as a resource to promote and defend their already fixed ideas about their own religious faith.

In 99 percent of cases, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

As I ruminate now on exactly who my research is for, since I now realize it is not for the bulk of the community here, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that the single biggest obstacle to understanding the pali texts is precisely the contemporary Therevadan religion, and it’s institutional need to obscure the contradictions, developments, and differences in theses texts.

Any genuine and robust engagement with these texts, IMV, requires a dual process, one, study of the texts themselves, and two, equally important, is study of the hegemonic and institutional obscuration of these texts by the religious order that has paradoxically preserved them for us.

The quicker one realises that the Therevada interpretation of this corpus is every bit as late, medieval and distant from it’s source as the Mahayana is, the more rapidlly onecan begin to understand what is actually in them.

and what is actually in them is overwhelmingly claims that 4th jhana is sufficient to prepare the mind to destroy the asavas and to know it.

Metta.

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4

Is the author a Theravādin?

5

If they are reading from SN backwards and have just discovered MN’s developmental structure and are about to discover DN after that then I would say the influence is clear.

(btw @Ceisiwr you are definitely one of the “wonderful exceptions” here.)

(Oh, and I should say I have nothing to say about Theravada as a religion, I have come to hold all institutional religions in equal contempt, it is much, much more Theravada as an institutional force in the scholarship of the Pali corpus, where I believe it’s religious priorities distort much of the discourse to the detriment of understanding.)

6

I’ve not come across any Theravādin source which states in which order the Nikāyas should be read. By that I mean commentary. I’m open to being wrong though.

(Oh, and I should say I have nothing to say about Theravada as a religion , I have come to hold all institutional religions in equal contempt, it is much, much more Theravada as an institutional force in the scholarship of the Pali corpus, where I believe it’s religious priorities distort much of the discourse to the detriment of understanding.)

I think your frustration is with traditional Buddhism in general, since the things you mention aren’t uniquely Theravādin. For example if we somehow teleported a Sautrāntika here they would read the suttas in the same way as many here, which you take issue with.

7

Yes, I think you are quite right, I need to find better terms and language for this critique, I am still in the “ferment” stage I guess when my language may be hyperbolic and ill-considered, I would say if anything the mainline traditional source for this interpretation of the order of the suttas is the sarvastivadan vinaya, but the people who I see most often privileging SN over DN here are all either ordained into the lineage of the Therevada or followers of such, with a few exceptions. I guess I am more observing a “not-mahayana” phenomena, perhaps I should say “southern” buddhism, I don’t know, I will give it some more thought.

Yes, your probably right again, although I am not so sure all Sautrāntika would have been as “traditional” as you suggest, however the particular sort of constellation of ideas I am refering to does ssem to me to be from the Therevada-EBT-“Not-Mahayana” types who seek to privilage the suttas over the mahayana writings more or less on the tacit or explicit basis that the mahayana is “late” and the EBT are “so early we can plausibly ascribe them all to one person in the 4th or 5th centuries bce”.

I think that this position at the end of the day is untenable, and that there must be a powerful formation of motives underlying it that supports it’s persistance in the face of the actual texts, which as I say, IMO if read without a pre-concieved commitment ot thier being “buddha-vacana” are very obviously the product of a lengthy development.

8

There will always be those who don’t agree with something we say or argue for. Sometimes you will be the only person in the room thinking it. It’s best not to let frustration take over. You can only state your position and why you think it is so. What other people do with that information is up to them. Of course we should also review our own positions from time to time, and hold the conclusions lightly. There have been plenty of times where I was sure x was right, but then a little further down the line I realised otherwise.

That’s my unsolicited advice, if you forgive it. I know you don’t like to feel like you are being preached at or advised on this or that.

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9

with you I make an exception @Ceisiwr :slight_smile: I will do my best to keep your kind advice in mind.

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MN 52 is a lecture from Ananda. Usually there’s a least the insertion of an approval from the Gautamid, I suspect by later editors, but even that is lacking in this case.

AN 9.36 is more interesting to me, and maybe Ananda was riffing off something like this. I key in on:

Suppose that an archer or archer’s apprentice were to practice on a straw man or mound of clay, so that after a while he would become able to shoot long distances, to fire accurate shots in rapid succession, and to pierce great masses.

(AN 9.36 Jhana Sutra tr. Thanissaro Bhikkyu)

That makes sense to me. Trick 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)

“One-pointedness of mind” is acknowledged by Gautama to be “right concentration” (in association with the other seven elements of the eight-fold path, MN 117). AN 9.36 essentially says, “got one-pointedness? Then you have everything you need, over time.”

The confusion that I find among Theravadins as to the meaning of “one-pointedness”, however, is profound.

Incidentally, I find it more useful to think of the fourth jhana as the cessation of (“determinate thought” in) in-breathing and out-breathing, and of the signless concentration as the cessation of (“determinate thought” in) feeling and perceiving.

Sorry I don’t have the new reference abbreviations for most of the following sources (at the moment):

…I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought. ( AN 6.63); tr. Pali Text Society Vol III p 294)

“When one determines”—when a person exercises volition, or choice, action of “deed, word, or thought” follows.

Gautama also spoke of “the activities”. The activities are the actions that take place as a consequence of the exercise of volition:

And what are the activities? These are the three activities:–those of deed, speech and mind. These are activities. (SN II text ii, XII, I, section 3; © Pali Text Society Vol II p 4)

Gautama claimed that a ceasing of “action” is possible:

And what… is the ceasing of action? That ceasing of action by body, speech, and mind, by which one contacts freedom,–that is called ‘the ceasing of action’. (SN IV text iv,129, XXXV, III, 5, section 145; © Pali Text Society Vol IV p 85)

He spoke in detail about how “the activities” come to cease:

…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, in-breathing and out-breathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling. (SN 36.11 2, PTS vol IV p 146)

(A Way of Living)

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Hello thank you for the post. I May run into something like this in the future, I don’t have the intelligence to articulate what this is.

I do know that I would prefer to avoid Conversations verging on argumentation With anyone Tending towards the dogmatic and or powerful; Dispute could impede The likelihood I have a chance to Apply the Buddhist teachings in the future Which may have Been of benefit.

I do have confidence in a few Teachers and practitioners, Confidence that the application of the teachings which they have engaged with Have born fruits.

Although I have not engaged with the writing I am aware that Bhante’s Sujato and Brahmali Have written about the authenticity of texts. Have you encountered these works?

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What is your reasoned argument for that?

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I am not falling for this again @thomaslaw You are perfectly well aware of my posts and arguments, and from long previous experience with you I have learned not to engage any more.

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I am not well aware of your any reasoned arguments at all. Do you really have any reasoned arguments for that!?

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8 posts were split to a new topic: Jhanā or Yoniso Manasikārā as a necessity

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Thanks, josephzizys. Sorry to stagger you like that, yet again.

Speaking for myself, I have read the first four Nikayas, but I confess to skimming a large part of the material as I sought for something relevant to my own practice.

That began with attempting to use the illustrations from the back of “Three Pillars of Zen” to sit zazen, so I am looking for what I can use on the cushion first and foremost, and then hoping I can find a way to apply that in my daily life.

I did look at DN 2, and I am amazed at the number of psychic feats that Gautama said were possible in the fourth rupa jhana. I will take your word for it that these kinds of descriptions are repeated, in whole or in part, in the other sermons you cited, and I feel properly ignorant for not having noticed it before.

Does beg the question, why did Gautama feel the need to study with the two teachers mentioned in MN 26, and abide in the arupa jhanas, attaining freedom and knowledge after the final arupa jhana? He already had it after the fourth rupa jhana, according to DN 2 and the other sermons you cited. Why the detail in MN 121 concerning his experience after attaining that freedom and knowledge, his experience of emptiness?

Add to that his description of the third “(type of) person existing in the world”, the person who has attained and abided in the arupa jhanas, yet has not completely destroyed the cankers (asavas)–interesting!

MN 4, he points to understanding the four truths about suffering and another four truths about the cankers, in the fourth rupa jhana. My assumption is that these insights constitute the “intuitive wisdom” that he refers to in MN 70, as a way that the second person is freed. I’d also assume that it’s the combination of the arupa jhanas and intuitive wisdom, that allow the first person to be “freed both ways”.

I see Gautama’s descriptions of bending the mind in the fourth rupa jhana as having had this effect, that Theravadins are hesitant to describe the rupa jhanas at all, and folks in general can’t accept that “the five limbs” of concentration can be a matter of daily routine and an essential part of mindfulness.

These things interest me more than what teaching came first, although I agree with you that there certainly seems to have been an evolution in the teaching, at least in so far as the jhanas.

17

Have you read MN26? maybe you missed these bits;

Tassa mayhaṁ, bhikkhave, etadahosi:
Then it occurred to me,
‘nāyaṁ dhammo nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na upasamāya na abhiññāya na sambodhāya na nibbānāya saṁvattati, yāvadeva ākiñcaññāyatanūpapattiyā’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 nothingness.’
So kho ahaṁ, bhikkhave, taṁ dhammaṁ analaṅkaritvā tasmā dhammā nibbijja apakkamiṁ.
Realizing that this teaching was inadequate, I left disappointed.

and

Tassa mayhaṁ, bhikkhave, etadahosi:
Then it occurred to me,
‘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.’
So kho ahaṁ, bhikkhave, taṁ dhammaṁ analaṅkaritvā tasmā dhammā nibbijja apakkamiṁ.
Realizing that this teaching was inadequate, I left disappointed.

So the sutta you cite as as evidence for the necessity of the “arupa jhanas” (there is no such thing in the suttas btw) explicitly says they don’t lead to enlightenment.

Now this is of course in direct contradiction with whatever suttas claim the opposite, and this leads to endless musings form people who are entranced by the idea of a glorious, intricate and complete “system” that integrates the jhanas, the arupas, the brahmaviharas, the foundations, etc etc, and every person so entranced has thier own pet arrangemts of “intuition” and “I suspects” and this word “really means” this other word, and so on and so forth.

I call these people ADND Buddhists, becuase they think of Buddhism like a teenager thinks of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, some kind of elaborate rule book that is alwyas just around the corner from making complete sense (or in the case of the truly delusional already makes complete sense).

The fact is that these texts accumulate over centuries and come to incorporate several different systems of meditation, most of which almost certainly pre-date Buddhism (at least Jhanas, Brahmaviharas and arupas are all explicitly stated to predate the Buddha in the suttas themselves.)

Questions like “then why did the Buddha say x in sutta y?” betray the exact delusion that the questioner is suffering under, the assumption that this corpus all falls fully formed from the mouth of a founder and therefore must all make sense.

it didn’t and it doesn’t.

good luck with your zazen!

18

Why I prefer the Pali Text Society translations! MN 26:

Then it occurred to me, monks: ‘This dhamma does not conduce to disregard nor to dispassion nor to stopping nor to tranquillity nor to super-knowledge nor to awakening nor to nibbana, but only so far as reaching the plane of no-thing.’

(MN 26, tr. PTS vol I p 209)

You can read it as “rebirth in the plane of no-thing”, I guess, but I think the above makes more sense.

As to the “arupa” jhanas–in MN 70, we read:

And which, monks, is the person who is freed both ways? As to this, monks, some person is abiding, having apprehended with the person those peaceful Deliverances which are incorporeal having transcended material shapes; and having seen by means of wisdom (their) cankers are utterly destroyed. I, monks, do not say of this (person) that there is something to be done through diligence. What is the reason for this? It has been done by (them) through diligence, (they) could not become negligent.

(tr. PTS vol II p 151)

Those “deliverances” which are “incorporeal”–the “non-material” concentrations, the arupa jhanas.

Also from the above, the “incorporeal” jhanas (if you prefer) can result in the complete destruction of the cankers, but only when they occur in combination with “intuitive wisdom” (which is different from “having seen by means of wisdom”, which all seven of the “persons” had done–sounds like a hedge?).

I’m not saying that the corpus fell fully formed from the mouth of the founder. I find evidence of a drastic change in the teaching. For me, that’s at SN 54.9, and in the entire chapter of SN 54. Gautama allowed as the mindfulness that made up his way of living was drastically different from the mindfulness outlined in the two Satipatthana sermons, and he repeats that drastically different mindfulness, seemingly as better than the other practices he outlined, in Anapanasati (MN 118).

Not only that, but this mindfulness doesn’t require enlightenment, to be a way of life (SN 54.8). And Gautama said it was especially his way of living in the rainy season, meaning it wasn’t automatic and all the time (SN 54.11; PTS vol. V p 289). But his return to one-pointedness of mind after he spoke, that was all the time (MN 36, tr. PTS I p 303).

What’s your take on one-pointedness of mind?

And to refer to the rupa jhanas plus the sign of the concentration (survey-sign) as “the five limbs” of concentration, I think that indicates the regularity of his practice of the five.

One-pointedness, the five limbs, and “the concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing” as I am able–that’s all I need, to reconcile an experience I had in 1975 with my life. Kobun described my experience exactly:

You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around.

(Lecture at S. F. Zen Center, 1980’s)

Dogen described it more obliquely:

Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

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

It’s another way of arriving at what Gautama referenced as “no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body”:

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, Pali Text Society III p 68; pronouns replaced)

It’s difficult to reconcile “no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’” with everyday life–at least in my experience. I’m thinking Gautama did provide a way, and a way that didn’t require seeing past habitations and the passing and arising of beings.