yes I get that Green, I am talking about the phrase, not the path itself. I guess I am one of those beyond the pale types who thinks they see evidence of pretty significant pedagogical development across the canon, even in the EBT’s, and think that phrases like “just this noble eightfold path…” might be a bit later than the gradual training sequence I gave above. Totally think that it all came from the buddha, and that the 37 aides where a kind of curriculum endorsement the buddha made sure to give before he died, but suspect that the “gradual training” is earlier than “this noble eightfold path” even if it is just earlier in the buddhas teaching career.
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Oke, i do not have any insight in this. Maybe it is helpful that the noble 8-fold Path in DN is mentioned in DN6, DN8, DN18, DN19, DN22, DN23, DN33, DN34
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Thank you for the references! I read DN6, which is very interesting and quite hard to understand - first there are 2 groups who visit , Brahmins and licchivis, then the Buddha only speaks to one group, then in the first half of the talk the focus is on psychic powers, and the 8fold path is mentioned while the second half is about the mind body problem and the gradual training sequence is used - but the Buddha is answering a question they where never asked, that seems to have nothing to do with the situation at all… it’s interesting, what are your thoughts Green? Why are the Brahmins in the story when the Buddha doesn’t talk with them? Why is the 8fold path mentioned in relation to developing psychic powers but the gradual training mentioned for understanding the mind body problem? Why is the mind body problem discused at all when Mahali doesn’t ask about it? I would love to hear your insights. I have not hav time to re-read the other DN suttas you reference but we can go through them one by one over the next few days if you like.
LOVE
I couldn’t resist and read. DN8 also, and this one is perhaps even more confusing than the last one! First the Buddha seems to imply 3! Different ways of achieving enlightenment, by loving-kindness meditation, by the 8fold path AND by the gradual training! Now, I think you and I both agree that the 8fold path and the gradual training are synonymous, and so amount to the same thing in all but name, but what about the loving-kindness example the Buddha gives to Kassapa? Once again I would love to hear your thoughts. Let’s leave it at DN6 and DN8 for now tho, I don’t want to bite off more than we can chew!
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My opinion on this topic has been evolving. I no longer believe that the cessation of perception of feeling is Nibbana (or Parinibbana). Following AN 9.36 , I believe any Jhana or formless state can be used to attain Nibbana. I also believe attempts to “stack” the formless spheres on top of the Jhanas do seem a bit contrived/redactional. Take, for example, the Buddha’s parinibbana — why go through the formless attainments and cessation, then go back down to the 4th Jhana to achieve parinibbana?
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I very much agree with you @TheSynergist , however just to play devils advocate, the very next sutta to the one you qoute has:
Reverend, one time I was staying near Sāketa in the deer park in Añjana Wood. Then the nun Jaṭilagāhikā came up to me, bowed, stood to one side, and said to me: ‘Sir, Ānanda, regarding the immersion that does not lean forward or pull back, and is not held in place by forceful suppression. Being free, it’s stable. Being stable, it’s content. Being content, one is not anxious. What did the Buddha say was the fruit of this immersion?’
When she said this, I said to her: ‘Sister, regarding the immersion that does not lean forward or pull back, and is not held in place by forceful suppression. Being free, it’s stable. Being stable, it’s content. Being content, one is not anxious. The Buddha said that the fruit of this immersion is enlightenment.’ One who doesn’t experience that sense-field perceives in this way, too.”
One other thing of interest is the end of the sutta you quote, which has:
And so, mendicants, penetration to enlightenment extends as far as attainments with perception. But the two dimensions that depend on these—the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, and the cessation of perception and feeling—are properly explained by mendicants who are skilled in these attainments and skilled in emerging from them, after they’ve entered them and emerged from them.”
Which is a pretty odd thing for the buddha to say after explaining all the previous attainments in detail, who after all would be more skilled in these attainments than him? although this comment is perhaps more appropriate for the play of formulas thread 
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Hello, @josephzizys.
AN 9.37 kinda comes across as riddle like. What is the “immersion that does not lean forward or pull back, and is not held in place by forceful suppression”? Could it be any state of Samadhi that has these qualities? It’s not clear. It sounds like it could be any sort of right Samadhi, tbh.I suppose it could also have something to do with the state of perception in AN 11.18-21
As for the end of AN 9.36….yeah, lol, I guess that is kinda funny/abrupt. I just took it to mean that nibbana cannot be realized in those states, but only by one who has emerged from them, since realization of nibbana requires perception.
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BTW, if I were to play Devil’s Advocate for my own view, I would point to AN 9.38. In this sutta, the Buddha says one must reach the end of the world to end suffering, and goes on to say that someone meditating in the Jhanas/4 formless states is still included in the world. The “end of the world” does not appear to be reached until the end, after the cessation of P/F is reached:
Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end. This is called a mendicant who, having gone to the end of the world, meditates at the end of the world. And they’ve crossed over clinging to the world.
One could interpret this as meaning that the cessation of P&F is the “end of the world.” However, it’s not clear whether the end of the word is cessation of P&f or the ending of defilements.
SN 36.11 is kinda similar, as is MN 111, and a bunch of stock suttas at AN 9.52-61. So there a number of places where the redactors really want to make the cessation of P&F some sort of “end stage,” yet nonetheless stop short of elaborating on its importance.
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yeah, it is interesting, there does seem to be the claim that CofP&F is a kind of attainment that is practically guaranteed to result in enlightenment, but I think that it is still the case that nibbana is a kind of “knowing” not a kind of experience, even in MN111 we have;
And he emerged from that attainment with mindfulness. Then he contemplated the phenomena in that attainment that had passed, ceased, and perished: ‘So it seems that these phenomena, not having been, come to be; and having come to be, they flit away.’ And he meditated without attraction or repulsion for those phenomena; independent, untied, liberated, detached, his mind free of limits. He understood: ‘There is no escape beyond.’ And by repeated practice he knew for sure that there is not.
So it is an understanding, a “knowing” about the experience of CofP&F that is the “nibbana” spoken of, not the experience itself. So if anything I think this re-enforces your original contention, it isn’t the meditative experiences themselves that are liberating, it is that they illustrate certain facts, facts that the full understanding of, the full knowing of constitute nibbana.
I think of it sometimes like a proof in mathematics, especially well illustrated when of a visual kind:
looking at this picture, and really understanding it, should convince you of the truth of the Pythagorean theorem, but the knowledge that the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides is not something that you “experience” or need to “see” visually, once you have had enough visual experiences (or mathematical ones) then you KNOW the truth, the image helped convince you, but the certainty you have in the end is not dependant on images, its true knowledge.
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-“But ma’am, when a mendicant has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, how many kinds of contact do they experience?” “They experience three kinds of contact: emptiness, signless, and undirected contacts" (MN44)
I think one in cessation of p&f is in a very direct contact with the nature of the mind, which is empty, does not incline to anything, is without tendencies (anusaya are absent), sees no signs like the attractive, ugly, unpleasant etc. It is mirror-like, just knowing, just reflecting.
One is, as it were, gone beyond the normal human disposition because one has become so deepy inbedded, grounded, as it were, in the nature of mind during cessation.
I think the ending of of defilements is no ending of the word, in this way that an arahant and Buddha’s 6 senses are still active. They experience the All, the world. In cessation one has, i belief, a very direct knowing of the end of the world, not conceived.
Greetings Bhante, Best wishes, and foregoing some formalities I would like to ask a question: since the formless attainments, as I understand them not having myself experienced them, are purely experiential by nature and can’t be described, have no simile and no characteristics to describe except a label, such as “nothing”, or “infinitude of space/consciousness” (unlike the jhanas which have characteristics and similes to describe them), then is there another way to begin talking about the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, the cessation of feeling and perception, or Nirvana, which I think are considered unique to the Dharma, but also lack describable characteristics, without first distinguishing them from what had already (probably) been discussed philosophically for a long time by proponents of opposing (externalist) schools of thought? Sorry for the long sentence
And speaking of space 
, (the concept of) Sunyata/Emptiness excepts all phenomena and the formless absorptions’ characteristics, including the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. It’s describable only as “signless” or uncharacterizable. (MN 121) Again is there another way to broach this without first referencing what it’s distinct from?
They sound like rhetorical questions, so here’s another: Have I understood any of this correctly?
I appreciate any clarification I may have coming to me 
Hi Cole,
I wouldn’t go so far, but sure, they are certainly hard to describe.
Apart from indirect approaches, I don’t think so. We can talk about what the texts say. But as far as personal experience goes, that’s something better shared between you and an experience teacher.
Well in this case the idea is an expression of the lack of substance and essance, so perhaps we could begin by looking at these things.
I mean, yes? But there’s an interesting difference you can see among those who discuss such questions. People who go “top down”, who start with the highest things, tend to either have some amazing new theory that will set the world on fire, or they get stumped and confused. those who start from the bottom up, on the other hand, focussing on what they can know and experience, find that things are pretty easy to understand, and the hard things? They’ll come in good time.
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Hi Sujato, thanks and while I have you, though I’m terribly slow at typing
Yes by all means. Are there any descriptions in the texts beyond those sparse labels?
Will try. Easier said than done. The absence of substance and essence is see through 
Obviously not! but I thought I had the outline…
Yep, sorry, you probbaly get that all the time
Could you please tell me: is MN121 an EBT, or EBT with later changes, or not EBT?
Thanks in advance for your time and scholarly approach, very much appreciated
The term EBT is used on this forum to refer to the Pali Tripitaka and it’s paralells in the Chinese Agamas, as well as parallels in the Tibetan, Sanskrit and various Prakrits. So all of MN is “EBT” by that definition.
As for what is “early” and what is “late” in the EBT’s that is a matter of some controversy, arguments are sometimes made where the Agama parallels lack content that is in the Pali that the Pali content is therefore late, some wiser heads than mine claim that changes in aorist tense or changes in poetic metre can indicate lateness, and some (myself included) claim that there is internal doctrinal evolution suggestive of strata of earliness and lateness in the Tripitaka.
Long story short it would be a brave soul who was willing to bet their home on the earliness or lateness of MN121 relative to the rest of the sutta pitaka.
That said, it does appear to be quite unique in its presentation of the meditative attainments it describes, for example I think it is much more common for the 4 jhanas to be given as the “basis” from which the formless attainments are achieved, and it is much more common to see “the cessation of perception and feeling” at the end of the sequence than the “signless immersion of heart”.
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In Patisambhidamagga, Treatise on Emptiness, §6, supreme emptiness (or voidness) is the same as Nibbana, Nibbana is supreme emptiness, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishment of all substrata of being, cessation, the exhaustion (destruction) of craving, the fading away of greed,
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Thank you for your very helpful and equanimous response, bringing news I’m glad to hear because it turns out I’ve been reading the Pali translation of the MN all along, by Bhikkhus Nanamoli and Bodhi, just never registered that for some reason.
I barely understand the early or late rationale as I’d worry more if Agama parallels contain something the Pali don’t, and I’m afraid I don’t accept doctrinal evolution theory of any kind, because it could turn out to be a kind of subconscious selective reporting of what I wanted it to be. I’m also very sensitive the amount of paraphrasing there is in translations; I once read Life is pain and found it to be a bit of a turn off. Twenty years later I read This is unsatisfactory, O monks, this, namely, birth, aging and death. Big turn on. Well, infinitely more inviting to my curiosity anyway. Thanks for backgrounding me.
I couldn’t agree more. Incidentally the very next sutra MN122, also about emptiness, actually does lead Ananda through the jhanas, but not to the formless attainments or cessation. Perhaps another little anomaly in the general schematic…
Little details like this pop up here and there in the sutras, have puzzled me for twenty years or more, and still searching for answers, thanks for yours.
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Many thanks for the pointer, I’ll dig out my DN; there’s a miniature version in there. Any other mention of emptiness in talk by the Buddha specifically that you know? 
I think, 4 formless attainments is a fourth jhana itself. They has all factors of fourth jhana, namely - onepointedness of mind, nor-pain-nor-pleasure feeling, but an object is changed to a formless things - space, consciousness, nothing, feeble perception.
Formless stait is’nt seperate level of a jhana(there is not 5th jhana) because an object doesn’t determine level of a jhana, but a factors does. One rupa object could give fuel for every of the four jhanas - that mean that object doesn’t determine it.
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In the book Compassion and Emptiness Anālayo gives the opinion that perception/ nonperception slipped into that text later during the transmission process and wasn’t there at all originally.