According to Abhidhamma Vitakka and Vicara are two different mind moments. I can understand this. Both Vitakk and Vicara can not exist in the same mind moment. Otherwise, we can’t differentiate the two.
What Abhidhamma has done is to divide Sutta mental states into subtle mind moments.
- Supramundane (Lokuttara) jhana.
Such a category of jhana is not mentioned in EBTs. The abhidhamma mentions this apart from the 4 material jhana and 4 immaterial (arupa) attainments.
With metta
One of the contradictions which I care a great deal about is the understanding of jhāna and the factors closely involved with that: kāya (body of flesh and blood or mental factors), V&V (vitakka & vicara), S&S (sati and sampajano), sukha vedana.
I’ve discussed the contradictions and audited the pali and english in other threads, tracing where the contradictions happen from the Ab Vb bojjhanga chapter, Ab Vb jhāna chapter, through the Vimt, commentaries, and Vism. I will also collect all of my detailed audits and compile into one book sometime this year so anyone interested an audit for themselves.
If you compare Bhante Gunaratana’s current interpretation of Jhāna (his book “beyond mindfulness” ) compared to his interpretation 30 years ago in his dissertation when he was still adhering completely to Abhdhamma interpretation, you’ll see it used to be the same as Pa Auk Sayadaw’s interpretation.
Both interpretations can’t be correct. They contradict. Bhante G. clearly decided in the end to side with the EBT.
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see AN 8.63 , MN 128 , and I have a thread somewhere recently on the “3 ways of samadhi” with every sutta reference to the 3 types of samadhi.
In fact the existence of this 3fold classification is strong proof that V&V is not samatha kung fu, but instead directed thinking and vicara is evaluation/pondering. Because as you point out, V&V gradually dropping out just doesn’t make any sense if it’s understood as samatha kung fu of mind gluing to a visual nimitta.
In AN 8.63, vitakka in first jhana has the role of selecting an appropriate 4sp topic, for example metta, or breath meditation, or a dhamma passage that deals with removing a hindrance when necessary. Vitakka switching between those topics is why vitakka is “directed thought”, and not just “applied thought”. Vicara has the job of exploring the 4sp topic chosen by vitakka. If it’s metta, vicara might be extending the spatial awareness, directing towards one class of living beings, etc, if it’s breath meditation, vicara could be examining whether the breath feels comfortable or not, hot or cold, etc.
This classification is just to identify the Ariya in Jhana state.
There is no need to accept Sutta classification is the ultimate.
Any person can classify his or her experience to their wishes.
The extract from the book I read.
There are any number of ways we can analyse our experience; there are a potentially infinite number of categories we can invent into which we can classify our experiences. What is important is that we remember the difference between category and experience, and avoid becoming lost in the category. Our tendency is to get lost in the categories, and in doing so, lose touch with experience. When we create a system of categories we freeze the process of living experience and create a solid something in which our experience must now conform. We now divide our experience into two basic divisions: those experiences which we can fit into our system of categories, and which is therefore valid, real and useful; and those experiences which we cannot fit into our system of categories. Of course, in the act of meditating, we put more attention to our valid, real and useful experiences than we do to the other type. In brief, we become stuck in attachment and aversion, and instead of investigating our experience, we revert to manipulating it. We take the practice of freedom and turn it into a prison. This is inevitably the case when we project reality into the categories of analysis - whatever system we use - and not into the actual, living, stream of experience. Hence we must treat this system with great caution. We must learn to use it, and not be used by it.
http://www.buddhanet.net/knowledg.htm
:reading:
Another great thing about a discussion about Abhidhamma is that it reminds us not to objectify the experience. People who object to Abhidhamma are the people who objectify experience. If you do not objectify the experience there is no reason to object to some one’s experience. Because of we know that only way you can verbalise experience is by objectification.
But abhidhamma talks about an ‘inherent nature’ (svabhava dhamma) of its categories. This objectifies it more than the suttas do. Where does it ‘remind us not to objectify experience’?
If we use a previously existing category (e.g.: jhana) and create a new category (e.g.: supramundane jhana) then there has to be a reality to it, experientially. For example a man who knows cats, upon seeing a snake for the first time, cannot call it a long cat. That is an invalid category. It is not a cat; it is a snake. Ever since then people will be searching for ‘long cats’ never finding them anywhere. It is true that cats and snakes have certain similarities. Similarly I would say that jhana and moments of attainment have certain similarities according to what I have heard. But to call attainment ‘events’ jhana is mistaken, and also misleading. When there was a vocabulary already used by the Buddha and his disciples it was not necessary to create potentially misleading categories to denote the same objects.
With metta
What I am saying is this discussion help us to learn not to objectify Suttas.
It is just a name. You can call it a long cat or a snake. What matters is what you experience. You experience a snake. That is what matters. Not what you call it.
In factors of stream entry association with kalyanamittas, listening to the true dhamma (saddhamma) and contemplating along its lines come before practicing the dhamma. Right view is arrived at by the voice of another and contemplating the dhamma. So Right view is arrived at before practicing the dhamma. This Right view along with the dhamma practice then leads to knowledge of things as they really are (yatabutanana).
The idea that experience is all that matters is a modern construct. The abhidhamma is all that matters is an ancient concept. The Buddha’s dhamma strikes a middle path through both! I have heard of practitioners stuck in their Vipassana because 1) they have no concept of reality (or Right view) 2) rarely, they are trying to understand abhidhammic pitaka concepts in their Vipassana (Kalapa, for example) without really engaging with stuff that their reality is made of (aggregates, for example).
With metta
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Dear Matt,
thank you for your answer and taking the time to delve a bit into the subject. See some quotes and comments below.
Actually I thought always on similar lines, that this classification of jhāna as fivefold is unique to the abhidhamma, but recently I read a sutta from the sa.myutta-nikāya, which seems to be in perfect concord with this mentioned composition usually more common to the abhidhamma. The text says, that there is a concentration (samādhi) without though (vitakka) but with examination (vicāra):
[…] “And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Concentration with thought and examination; concentration without thought, with examination only; concentration without thought and examination: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned" […] (SN 43, 3)
Even if we suppose that there is material within the abhidhamma-pitaka which is in that form not found in the sutta-pitaka this is, as I see it, still not really a safe ground for maintaining that abhidhamma is late or the inventive composition of scholars. We can, for example, also see a variety of aspects of the Buddha’s teaching emphasized in different nikāyas from the s-p (e.g. one aspect is mentioned only in the first nikāya, some other merely in the last etc.), so the argument, that if something is in the a-p, but not in the s-p, the material of the a-p must be flawed, is not without problems.
The fact of the already mentioned general faithfulness of the Theravāda should be here, to my mind, also applied to the field of abhidhamma teachings. As I mentioned previously, there is material (such as background stories) which you find in other traditions canonized, which in the Theravāda only found entrance into commentaries – the extra-canonicity of it being explicitly upheld. At the time of writing down the tipitaka in the first century B.C. and before, nobody within the Theravāda seems to have touched certain “uncomfortable” points significantly, but rather to have kept the records as they are – a pivotal criteria of the Theravāda. Also Buddhaghosa, I heard, of course later though, sided at times with the teachings of the transmitted canon, against the interpretation of his elders, which suggest that endowing him with a certain credibility is not too far off the mark. Devious scholasticism on the side of the Theravāda seems to me one of a more unlikely nature therefore – differences among early Buddhist schools might have arisen for numerous reasons, I think (cp. my first post). On what grounds would you argue further for scholastic invention of the abhidhamma, if I may ask further?
Much mettā
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Dear Bhante & Mat,
re:
I just wanted to mention that Ven Anālayo has writen about this classification, both in the Pali Canon and parallels in the Chinese MĀ. I don’t know if the paper is available on-line and presently I cannot seem to locate the name of it either. However I did find a very brief reference in his recently published book Early Buddhist Meditation Studies , which is a compilation and reworking of a few of his previous papers. The reference is on pp 152-3, and in the corresponding footnote he lists several references in both the Pali Canon and the Chinese parallels which mention a stage of concentration “where vitakka has been overcome but vicāra still persists” (footnote 95).
If I recall correctly from the paper I’m thinking of and/or a talk I heard, Ven Anālayo suggested that the two different descriptions each focus on/emphasize a different type of analysis, with the standard and more common description of 4-fold jhāna more about describing the types of happiness experienced, from joy and happiness in the 1st all the way to the deep equanimity of the 4th, whereas the less common description is concerned with the role of vitakka and vicāra. I think he also said that when the two systems were put together, so to speak, into a 5-fold description in the later texts, that then lost a bit of the uniqueness/emphasis in each type of anaysis as presented in the suttas (the standard 4 and then breaking the first 2 into 3). I hope I’m not misrepresenting his words as I am just going from memory.
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I agree. I think if the Buddha wanted to samadhi with or w/o vicara was about a jhana he would have simply said it (like he did elsewhere). I came across SN 43.3 years ago and was wondering about its relationship to the 5 fold analysis in the abhidhamma. It is my conclusion that the abhidhamma, in any case, overstretched itself in asserting that there are 5 Rupa jhana (as a result). My alternative understanding of SN 43.3 is that it samadhi training with different levels of mastery, paralleling the Anapanasati sutta. Considering that the training in samadhi in the heightened mind (adhicitta sikkha) happens in the training for the non-returner state, it is likely to be very advanced training of the mind. This explanation doesn’t require ‘over-jhanafication’, something I sense quite a lot in the commentary - that is mention of samadhi etc is taken to mean jhana when it might not necessarily be so. It doesn’t water down advanced practice. Evidence of advanced practice must be present in a path that involves progressive development.
As experientially there are no 5 Rupa jhana, it is apparent that this section of the abhidhamma (it should be commended that it speaks of Rupa jhana) is derived analytically. It therefore should not be seen as a book of practice but more in line with later elaborations of prince Siddhartha’s life story which introduces many awe-inspiring elements.
With metta
Hi @Mat
Sorry, not sure I totally understand your point. But it’s okay as I’m not so interested in which system is correct/best. I just find it interesting the references in the suttas to samadhi that bascially break the first two into three. But clearly the 4-fold jhana analysis is the most common in the suttas.
In my own practice, I work with the suttas as those are what I’m most drawn to and find the most direct & powerful (though I know many people who work more, or additionally, with the abhidhamma or commentarial systems of practice who are very proficient meditators and dedicated practitoners & are very inspired by those systems and find them very helpful). I just think everyone needs to find out for themselves what leads one onwards in practice (with hopefully grounding in the suttas as a basis no matter what and certainly I think its very important to know what comes from where, some type of historical framework, and in what ways there are differences).
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I don’t think so. In this discussion, we should keep in mind that Samma Vayama and Samma Sati also considered Samadhi. There is also Upacara Samadhi. What I am saying is, we should not try to objectify Samdhi. When you objectify you end up with misunderstand the meaning of Samadhi.
See my rely above to Linda.
I doubt this very much. It seems more likely it was a work that designed to show off the Theravada school against the other prevalent schools at the time. King Dharmashoka was disrobing Bhikkhu’s en-mass and each school would have wanted to shore-up their position.
If what is in the a-p contradicts the s-p it is indeed a problem. If it’s system of classification creates an emphasis which is unintentionally and excessively ‘moral’ in nature it tips a balance IMHO.
He was influenced by the abhidhamma but seems to have swung back the pendulum making the Visuddhimagga much more practical.
With metta
I’m in Sri Lanka these days and find relaxing in a pool quite helpful for my mental state. However I doubt I will reach Nibbana. I’m sure many thousands find the abhidhamma helpful. I’m only discussing descrepencies with EBTs as per the OP. 
With metta
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Hi @SarathW1
I may not be explaining very well the point Ven Anālayo was making and it should really be made giving a lot more context. I only mentioned his work because of what Ven @Thanuttamo brought up.
But I agree with you that it’s best not to objectify samādhi (if I understand correctly your point). The point was specifically about the jhāna descriptions in the suttas. Actually objectifying anything is not such a good idea 
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Thank you Linda,
I will keep his works in mind – I am happy for the good reference.
Mettā