I have been reading the patipada passage at DA20 in close comparison with the same passage at DN2 (where it is given in full, where it occurs in DN3, it’s original location it is truncated).
It always used to bother me how weak the metaphor for the fourth jhana seemed in comparison to the others.
Now I have had a “sudden insight” and it all makes sense.
There aren’t four metaphors for the four jhanas, its just one, extended metaphor.
(1) the bath powder is prepared.
The “bathroom attendent” sprinkles the bath powder with water, thinking good thoughts over and over until the mind is happy and the body becomes pleasant.
(2) the bath is filled
The happiness and pleasure fill the mind and body like a spring filling a pool.
(3) you take the bath.
The pure lotus of your body/mind emerges from the mud of pain and you experience unadulterated pleasure. pure physical pleasure is the bath.
(4) you get out of the bath!
The fourth jhana is the leaving behind of the pleasure, it is the getting out of the bath! the metaphor is not some weird analogy of white cloth wrapped around a person like a mummy, it’s the metaphor of getting our of the bath and drying yourself off with your towel!.
The idea is that having experienced the pure pleasure (or comfort, or ease, or whatever english you like) that is a complete “contact” (worst english ever) with “sukkha” you get out of it because with right understanding you have used “sukkha” to cleanse yourself of “dukkha” and now that the bath has served it’s purpose you get out of the bath and experience actaully being clean and dry, i.e adukkhamasukhaṁ, upekkhāsatipārisuddhiṁ.
This extended metaphor of the purifying bath makes perfect sense in the context of the time, when ritual purification through bathing was a well understood idea to the brahminical culture at the time.
So there you go, the four jhanas are like the four stages of taking a bath.
Does anyone know if this observation has been made before, and if there is a source for better understanding the brahminical practice of ritual purification through bathing (especially if it involves discussion of soap?)