The Ubiquitousness of Samādhi

Essays
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There is rarely any reference to just how commonly and easily samādhi arises in discourses. Many of us learn, as beginning meditators, a special technique to induce a meditative state: Typically, we pick a meditation “object” (like the sensation of the breath, a kasiṇa or an imagined sound), fix our attention right there and keep it there for a while. Although this settles the mind and produces profound experiences, there is almost no hint of the employment of such techniques in the early texts.1

Instead, in the early texts we repeatedly find a natural transition into samādhi from some underlying condition apparently unassisted.

Monks, for a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous, no volition need be exerted, “Let satisfaction [non-regret] arise in me.” It is natural that satisfaction arises in one who is vir­tuous, one whose behavior is virtuous.**

… It is natural that delight arises in one with satisfaction.**

… It is natural that rapture arises in one who is delighted**

… It is natural that the body of one with a rapturous mind is tranquil.**

… It is natural that one who is tranquil in body feels plea­sure.**

… It is natural that the mind of one feeling pleasure is composed [in samādhi]. (AN 11.2)**

The arising of samādhi while practicing remembrance of the triple gem is likewise attested in similar terms:

When a noble disciple recollects the Buddha, on that occasion his mind is not obsessed by lust, aversion, or delusion; on that occasion his mind is simply straight, based on the Buddha. A noble disciple whose mind is straight gains inspiration in the meaning, gains inspiration in Dhamma, gains delight connected with Dhamma. When he is delighted, rapture arises. For one with a rapturous mind, the body becomes tranquil. One tranquil in body feels pleasure. For one feeling pleasure, the mind becomes composed [in samādhi]. … You should develop this recollection of the Buddha while walking, standing, sitting and lying down. You should develop it while engaged in work and while living at home in a house full of children. (AN 11.12)**

Notice that in each of these passages we begin with some recognized Buddhist practice, then the same series of antecedent states unfolds before samādhi blooms. This series is found often in the suttas:2**

PRACTICE → delight (pāmujja) → rapture (pīti)→
tranquility (passaddhi)→pleasure (sukha) → samādhi.

In some texts only two of these antecedent factors are mentioned:

PRACTICE → rapture→ tranquility→ samādhi.**

We find this same stepwise unfolding of samādhi in the context of learning Dhamma through group or private recitation** :

In whatever way …, he experiences inspiration in the meaning and inspiration in Dhamma. As he does so, delight arises in him. When he is delighted, rapture arises. For one with a rapturous mind, the body becomes tranquil. One tranquil in body feels pleasure. For one feeling pleasure, the mind becomes composed [in samādhi]. (AN 5.26)

The seven factors of awakening provide the best known example of this same series of antecedent states leading to samādhi:

proficiency→ investigation of dhammas → energy → rapture → tranquility → samādhi → equanimity. (summarized from SN 46.1, etc.)

The “PRACTICE” here is constituted in the first three links, which correspond to the fourth satipaṭṭāna, contemplation of dhammas. It is abundantly clear in the early texts that satipaṭṭhāna is practiced almost always in conjunction with samādhi.3

These examples show that samādhi is conditioned, but none of its conditions is a specific technique for inducing samādhi.4 At least some practices give rise to samādhi as an organic result, but each of the practices is undertaken for its own sake, with its own functions independent of samādhi. Likewise, within samādhi we proceed from one jhāna to the next spontaneously: the mind simply lets go of what it is holding onto in one jhāna when it is ready, “you don’t even have to wish” for it.5

This gives us some insight into the meaning of the following statement:

The Buddha awakened to [discovered] jhāna.6 (SN 2.7 i48)

‘Awakened’ (bujjhā) means figuratively ‘discovered’ in some contexts. Either way, it suggests that he did not invent jhāna, but appropriated something already present in human cognition, ready to arise under certain circumstances. It required no special technique. In fact, this is exactly what is described when, as a young child, the Bodhisatta entered the first jhāna spontaneously while sitting under a rose apple tree.7

If samādhi is already a natural faculty, what makes the fourfold jhāna uniquely Buddhist? I think the answer is that he refined it: he recognized its potential and the processes whereby it could bear fruits, and then developed and cultivated it accordingly. He made it into an art and a science. “Feeding” similarly comes naturally to humans, but through development and cultivation we get haute cuisine and table manners.8

This text was extracted from my recent paper “The miracle of samādhi.” References can be found HERE.

1The absence of such a mechanism in the early texts has been pointed out by Vetter (1988, xxv), Arbel (2017, especially 46, 156), Polak (2011, 206). I will draw some contrasts between what the early texts tell us and the highly influential Visuddhimagga (Buddhaghosa 2003) as we go along, which forms the basis of modern Vipassanā meditation, and in which attainment of s**amādhi depends on elaborate specialized method, and even then with great difficulty. It is now widely acknowledged in modern scholarship that the meaning of samādhi in this later tradition had become something quite distinct from the early meaning (Shankman 2008, esp. 101-4; Kumāra 2022, 10-22; Thanissaro 1996, 248-51; Polak 2011).

2In addition to the examples above, we have AN 11.1, MN 40, MN 7, SN 54.13, SN 54.14, MN 118, SN 47.10, SN 47.8, SN 42.13, SN 35.246, SN 35.97, AN 11.1,1 AN 6.10, AN 11.15, AN 3.95. These are heavy on ethics, faith and sense restraint, in addition to wisdom, all leading to samādhi.

3This association is not mentioned in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta itself. However, the suttas repeatedly depict satipatthana practice in close association with samādhi and the jhānas, e.g., MN 44 i301, SN 47.8, 47.40, AN 4.94, AN 4.170, Dhp 372. AN 8.63 iv 300-1 even refers to each satipaṭṭhāna as “a samādhi.”

4Polak (2011, 30, 206).

5Gunaratana (2009, 142, 149).

6Jhānam bujjhā buddho.

7MN 36 i246.

8I would venture to speculate that the meditations in which the Bodhisatta later trained were heavy on technique and that this turned the natural capacity for samādhi into something less integrated into other aspects of practice. An analogy might be replacing natural feeding with intravenous feeding. Notice that Sujāto (2012, 155) suggests that the Buddha uniquely discovered deep absorption, which is exactly to opposite of what is suggested here.

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This is a great post and I look forward to reading the linked article.

my strong impression is that these naturalistic arguments, often presented as a sequence of terms each of which is a natural refinement of the other, precede the what I take to be the later reification of attainments into “mystical experience” type states, which tend to obfuscate the natural connectedness of the dhamma in its early presentations, and make of meditation some kind of magical and distant achievement, very often reserved for those to who we cede authority.

As I was saying in another thread, I think this picture of mental development is dangerous and tends to make of it’s holder a weak-minded believer in what the heroes they worship say, and to interpret all sorts of phenomena they experience in meditation as “proof” of their advancement, almost always without a coherent and articulate cognitive or philosophical capacity.

Basically it doesn’t matter how luminous your interior life is in sitting, if it doesn’t lead to a concrete and articulable and coherent capacity to explain and point out the dhamma (in non-irrationallist) terms.

This is why it’s no good breathing to the point of bliss if you cannot wrap your head around the abayakata with regards to the phenomena of breath.

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FYI: Your https certificate is invalid and Chrome blocks insecure PDFs linked from a secure domain… Chrome users hoping to download this PDF will need to manually copy the link address into a new tab.

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Bhante, thank you for your essay. Perhaps this piece of information will be useful for your next or further research:

When mental speech/recitation of Buddhānussati (itipi so bhagavā…) or the word “Buddho” is done properly, I think it can be considered as vacīsaṅkhāra. Interestingly, the Indonesian word wicara literally means speech. It is originated from the Sanskrit word vicāra and their pronunciations are basically the same.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/wicara

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Thank you for this, Bhante. Is there an ebook version of this available (epub, mobi, etc)?

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Thanks for alerting me to this, Bhante. I was not aware of this problem. I’ll look into it.

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This essay is very new, and sill “officially” a draft subject to revision. I’ve managed to get my earlier books into various e-book formats, but this is not yet available as such.

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I was a cognitive scientist before I became a monk, so my approach to these issues is inclined to be naturalistic as far as this provides meaningful explanations of the early teachings.

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@cintita , Thank you very much for your post regarding Samadhi.

I will also read your paper, thanks very much for posting.

What a wonderful resource.

With gratitude,

Be well :pray: :blush:

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Im inclined to believe that “natrualistic” explinations, taken the right way, are the only explinations possible.

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A related and recent essay on this topic by Ven. Anālayo can be found here:

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Hi Venerable and others,

This omission/reduction of deep states of mind from the practice isn’t a new idea, of course, but in my opinion it is quite detrimental to the dhamma, so it’s worth having a closer look at. Let me share some quick thoughts. I’ll focus on the part of the paper summarized here, the part that says samādhi develops naturally, that we don’t really need a specific object of focus.

The statements on samādhi coming naturally occur only in AN10/11.2, so are actually rarer in the Pāli canon than even the kasinas, let alone mindfulness of breathing. So to say “there is almost no hint of the employment of such [kasina/breath focus] techniques” seems to be applying a double standard. Also, on mindfulness of breathing, no matter how we interpret it, it includes phrases like “He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in samādhi-ing the mind’.” That is to say, we have to put forth some form of effort for samādhi to happen. It is the sixth factor of the noble eightfold path, right effort, on abandoning the unwholesome and so forth by applying the mind to it.

Some texts mentioned in the paper actually do mention an “object” as well. “When a noble disciple recollects the Buddha”, this is their object of meditation, something that takes some effort to focus on. That recollection doesn’t stay the object of focus, though, because it eventually develops (when done properly) into rapture (piti), as the text says, which then becomes the focus of the mind. This is just like in mindfulness of breathing, where we are told to train ourselves to gladden the mind and to train to experience rapture (pītipaṭisaṃvedī). That is to say, after focusing on the breath, the rapture becomes the primary focus. And that is said to be something that is to be trained.

Along another line of reasoning, if from AN10/11.2 we conclude samādhi is simply “an organic result” of prior practices, then we have to follow through on the logical implications. We must then conclude that each step mentioned is an organic result of the former, hence enlightenment is in the end simply an organic result of the steps before. Ergo, if we are just virtuous (step 1), “no volition need be exerted” for anything else, and “it is natural” that we’ll become enlightened (step 11). But is enlightenment such a “natural faculty”? Not as I see it, or half the world would be enlightened! That’s not the message here.

So how do we interpret these suttas? We can consider AN7.71:

Bhikkhus, when a bhikkhu is not intent on development, even though he forms the wish: ‘May my mind be liberated from the taints by non-clinging!’ yet his mind does not get liberated from the taints by non-clinging. For what reason? Because he lacks development. […]

When a bhikkhu is intent on development, even though he does not form the wish: ‘May my mind be liberated from the taints by non-clinging!’ yet his mind does get liberated from the taints by non-clinging. For what reason? Because of his development. Development of what? Of the four establishments of mindfulness, the four right strivings, the four bases for psychic potency, the five spiritual faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the noble eightfold path.

I think it’s obvious what this means. It’s not that things come naturally, that we don’t have to do very much. The point is that if we are intent on development of these things (many of which include or are almost solely about samādhi), i.e. if we actually do the practice, then we don’t have to have an additional intent or volition for these things to happen.

  • Intent + no development = no results
  • Development + no intent = results regardless

The same message is what I get from suttas like AN11.2. If we practice meditation properly, we don’t need to exert additional will for jhānas to happen. It doesn’t mean jhānas just fall out of the sky, that we don’t have to actually sit down and focus on something like the breath. It’s like, if somebody goes to the gym daily to lift weights, there’s no need for them to intent to get muscles. It’s natural that they will. But they still need to go and lift the weights!

So why did the Buddha say these things? Just like developing muscles takes time, developing samādhi also takes time. A lot more time, usually. While it’s clear to all that wishing for muscles doesn’t create muscles, if we’re talking about the mental realm, things aren’t that obvious. Many people tend to start doubting themselves or get frustrated. They tthink they should be in control of their own minds, able to attain jhāna when then want. When it then doesn’t happen, they think they have to put forth more willpower. The Buddha says, no, just stick with the practice and results will come naturally. But they only come IF you actually do the practices, such as mindfulness on the breathing. They don’t come completely out of nowhere, just like a couch potato is not going to grow muscles, whether they wish to or not.

Also, once we do attain samādhi, insight isn’t a given either, even though AN10/11.2 say “it is natural” it’ll happen. In DN1 and elsewhere people get stuck exactly there, thinking jhāna is some sort of ultimate self. So even after jhāna you still need to do certain practices and put forth effort. It’s the same with each step in those suttas.

In short, to say these things happen “spontaneously, naturally and effortlessly” I think is misunderstanding the intent behind these texts. The intent is that no extra will is required beyond putting forth the effort—which, in my view, does include focusing practices.

Some words on the depth of samādhi, while I’m at it.

How often does the Buddha tell his followers to sit down and meditate? He also told them how he was able to sit without moving, feeling exclusively pleasure for seven days straight. He said when he was in samādhi he could not hear a severe thunderstorm that killed people nearby. He wouldn’t have shared these stories if he didn’t mean to encourage the same experiences in his audience. These states also aren’t ubiquitous: them being uncommon is actually a key point the Buddha makes when he talked about these experiences. That is also why he repeatedly called the jhānas superhuman/extraordinary qualities (uttarimanussadhamma), distinctions in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones, on par with psychic powers and enlightenment itself.

Nowadays many people think that such deep states of mind are unnecessary, that they’re later ideas, or Hindu influences on Buddhism, or that we can skip them, etc. I’ve even seen some suggestions that jhānas are little more than a form of sense restraint. To me, all such ideas are trying to take shortcuts which in actuality are just cul-de-sacs. But more detrimental, perhaps, it’s underestimating the capabilities and power of the mind. My advice for every meditator would be: don’t sell yourself short like that. If you do, you’ll be selling yourself short on insight as well.

I plan to post some more about the kasinas (lit. perceptions of wholeness, aka nimittas) and other objects of meditation after the vassa. These aren’t as marginal in the suttas as people tend to think.

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There is also another argument which i find is reasonable. The argument is that if one wants to guide beings spiritually one needs special abilities like the Buddha had. Abilities like the heavenly eye and ear, clairvoyence, maybe healing abilities. One has to be able to look into beings and situations very deeply. It is said that such special abilities arise because of samadhi, especially one-pointedness of mind. It is very penetrative, like seeing in a special way.

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Will you be taking the Theravadin view that they are a means to enter the Jhanas, or the Sarvastivadin view that they are developed after attaining the 4th Jhana?

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Sunyo. Surely the most direct teaching about how to reach jhana is found in SN 48.9, as mentioned by Ajahn Brahm in his famous book. It’s when a noble disciple, relying on letting go, gains immersion, gains unification of mind.

rarer in the Pāli canon than even the kasinas , let alone mindfulness of breathing.

Is this change the goal posts from Sutta to Canon? Is not kasina only mentioned once or twice in the Suttas?

So to say “there is almost no hint of the employment of such [kasina/breath focus] techniques” seems to be applying a double standard.

MN 118 says mindfulness matures as letting go. It’s when a mendicant develops the awakening factors of mindfulness, which rely on seclusion, fading away, and cessation, and ripen as letting go.

Also, on mindfulness of breathing, no matter how we interpret it, it includes phrases like “He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in samādhi-ing the mind’.”

The term “trains” starts at Step 3 and obviously refers to developing the Three Trainings (as the Patisambiddhamagga says), including a degree of samadhi. Samadhing the mind is Step 11 and is merely a natural non-volitional samadhiing of the mind. Also, Step 11 is not jhana because there is no knowing of breathing in jhana.

That is to say, we have to put forth some form of effort for samādhi to happen… on abandoning the unwholesome

“Abandoning” is a type of inverse effort. This very abandoning sounds like the essence of Bhikkhu Cintita’s hypothesis.

This is just like in mindfulness of breathing, where we are told to train ourselves to gladden the mind and to train to experience rapture (pītipaṭisaṃvedī).

This sounds backwards. Gladdening the mind is step 10. Rapture is step 5. We are not “told” to volitionally do anything. The mind is training in “letting go”. We do not train in volitional laughter to gladden the mind. Step 10 is not referring to Osho’s “Smile & Be Happy”.

Ergo, if we are just virtuous (step 1), “no volition need be exerted” for anything else, and “it is natural” that we’ll become enlightened (step 11).

The volition is the volition to let go. This is why Ajahn Chah taught. This is what Ajahn Brahm says. It is an inverse type of volition. Volition takes many forms. Ajahn Brahm has said there is no overt volition manifesting the jhana. The only volition in jhana is the volition to remain in the jhana rather than to volitionally emerge from it.

But is enlightenment such a “natural faculty”?

Yes. When the mind is free from defilements/hindrances, enlightenment is a natural faculty. Are you suggesting the mind must make an effort to make various sense object act in an “impermanent” & “not-self” manner?

When a bhikkhu is intent on development , even though he does not form the wish : ‘May my mind be liberated from the taints by non-clinging!’ yet his mind does get liberated from the taints by non-clinging.

This quote sounds like it negates your own argument. Do you believe a Self is required for bhavana? As an example, when a tree is grown, do you believe a Self-God is required to make the tree grow & bear fruit, rather than merely the volitional planting & watering of the tree? When the Amazon Rainforest “developed”, do you believe a Self-God performed the development? Of course you don’t.

The point is that if we are intent on development

We are intent on letting go. The Dhamma itself does the development; similar to if we let go of an apple and gravity makes the apple fall to the ground. If we were required to do the development, why would the Buddha have used the word “stream” and compared the stream to the Ganges River flowing to the Great Ocean?

Development + no intent = results regardless

Again, unless I am misreading your post, this sounds again like refuting your own argument.

There must be intent prior to development. But the intent is to abandon the unwholesome and abide & remain in the wholesome that is developing on its own; just as there is the intent to water a small tree but the small tree grows into a big tree developed by the Dhamma (Nature) itself.

But they only come IF you actually do the practices, such as mindfulness on the breathing.

The same problem of “more willpower” also applies to Anapanasati (which means “mindfulness with breathing” rather than mindfulness “on” breathing). The word mindfulness means recollection. It does not mean observing. The idea of mindfulness “on” the breathing sounds like wrong effort.

in my view, does include focusing practices.

The Suttas may not support the above idea; which sounds like a Thanissaro translation.

They don’t come completely out of nowhere, just like a couch potato is not going to grow muscles, whether they wish to or not.

I never read Cintita infer to sit like a couch potato.

These states also aren’t ubiquitous: them being uncommon is actually a key point the Buddha makes when he talked about these experiences.

If I read Cintita accurately, I sense “ubiquitous” referred to the presence of samadhi in the Teachings rather than in humanity.

In DN1 and elsewhere people get stuck exactly there, thinking jhāna is some sort of ultimate self.

Getting stuck in jhana demonstrates its natural development.

So even after jhāna you still need to do certain practices and put forth effort.

Yes, this what the unique path of the Buddha , of directing the purity of the 4th jhana to Truth. But this does not negate the natural development prior to this. MN 140 has the Buddha telling the monk the 4th jhana will naturally develop into the immaterial spheres if it is (naturally) allowed to.

In short, to say these things happen “spontaneously, naturally and effortlessly” I think is misunderstanding the intent behind these texts.

I think the opposite. The profundity of the Dhamma is how the Dhamma itself does the development, which is the insight into not-self & dhatu as soon as the development starts. To me your ideas run the risk of invoking Self.

Nowadays many people think that such deep states of mind are unnecessary, that they’re later ideas, or Hindu influences on Buddhism

My intuition is the above theory is pushing wrong view & wrong practice. The above sounds like it is saying jhana is the 1st necessity and there is no enlightenment, no stream-entry, no insight, prior to jhana. For me your post continues to defeat its own purpose; it keeps falling back towards Visuddhimagga style Hindu practices.

My advice for every meditator would be: don’t sell yourself short like that. If you do, you’ll be selling yourself short on insight as well.

I don’t see the relevance of this. Its like a pretty girl who does not believe she is beautiful enough but a discerning person says to her: “don’t sell yourself short”. But the difference between the pretty girl & the jhana-wanna-be is the pretty girl is already pretty. There is no “entitlement” to jhana for a practitioner not yet adept at letting go to sell themselves short of. The Buddha taught to let go. The Buddha did not teach to focus or there is a uniquitousness of jhana a puthujjana sells themself short of.

I plan to post some more about the kasinas (lit. perceptions of wholeness , aka nimittas) and other objects of meditation after the vassa. These aren’t as marginal in the suttas as people tend to think.

I will try to watch out for your post about these ubiquitous kasina suttas. They sound super Hindu, like watching a candle flame. Thinking about them is already causing a headache. :melting_face:

Yutta single suppress

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Thanks for your reply. :slightly_smiling_face:

It either shows I’m misunderstanding the paper I replied to profoundly, or that I should try better to get my point across clearly, because you’re missing my line of reasoning multiple times. I’ll just address a couple points. If that doesn’t help, then I think we should just let it be, and I hope others do get the intent behind what I posted.

That quote doesn’t contradict what I’m saying, though. This means letting go of all that stands in the way of jhana, i.e. of the hindrances and sensual objects. This letting go includes letting go of all else but the object of meditation, which in the case of jhānas is the pītisukha.

Such abandoning (i.e. letting go) is also a type of effort, as the Buddha defined as the third of the four types of effort (AN4.14). At that point, when distractions are let go, the fourth right effort comes in, that of sustaining/preserving, about which the Buddha said:

And what, mendicants, is the effort to preserve? It’s when a mendicant preserves a meditation subject that’s a fine foundation of immersion: the perception of a skeleton, a worm-infested corpse, a livid corpse, a split open corpse, or a bloated corpse. This is called the effort to preserve.

This is not jhāna proper, but it’s another example that there is a certain effort to focus on a meditation object when developing samādhi: a meditation subject (or object) that is a foundation (or cause) for immersion (samādhi). Venerable Cintita argues “there is almost no hint of the employment of such techniques” in the suttas. I think that’s incorrect; that’s what I’m saying.

You’re not following my argument here either. The argument was, Ven. Cintita says objects of meditation are mentioned rarely (which is true for kasinas although I wouldn’t say it’s true for mindfulness of the breath). But then he bases his arguments for things being natural on passages which are even more rare, but which he says “we repeatedly find”. That is not a breakdown argument against his points, of course, but it may unveil a certain bias.

It doesn’t negate it. I’m trying to explain here that those suttas on things coming naturally have to be seen in a wider context of practicing meditation. Things come naturally without intention, but only if we put the right causes in place, and one of these causes, in my opinion, is to focus on the breath, as an example of an object.

I’m not sure why you think that’s me introducing a Self into the equation. This seems to be semantics, and rather a straw man as well, for I never posed such a thing. :pensive:

Neither did I. :smile: But I’m sure he also isn’t practicing to grow muscles, which is the analogy I was making. You’re mistaking the analogy for the actual argument.

My intuition is the above theory is pushing wrong view & wrong practice.

Well, perhaps we can argue based on suttas instead of intuition. (And perhaps also without reference to authorities like Ajahn Brahm, who, by the way, teaches the same kind of samādhi I’m talking about, which may show --since you agree with him and so do I —that you’re probably not understanding what I’m saying.)

They’re in the suttas, though, including the Āgamas, with no real indication (that I can tell) for them being late. I don’t think anybody has ever conclusively proven that such practices exited in Hinduism before the canon was closed. But let’s not get sidetracked by this.

Either way, this is no argument either, for some people claim the four jhanas themselves are Hindu too, dismissing them altogether. But such ways of reasoning are just opinion, or, as you say “what it sounds like”, not based on much facts.

Perhaps we’re talking past another. So le tme say this, which you may agree with to some limited extent. Both with the breath and with nimittas (which I think, like Ven Sujato notes, are what the kasinas in the suttas actually are) the aim is not to focus with willpower. The practice is to let go of all else, so that these things stay in your awareness naturally. Objects of meditation can come naturally as well.

But the way I read the arguments in the paper, “naturally” is interpreted in a different sense, with different connotations as to what it means for meditation. To me the suttas quoted do not intend to say there isn’t any meditation object we focus on.

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AN 5.21 supports this nicely, I think. Referring to your intial post. :pray:

Blockquote“(1) But, bhikkhus, when a bhikkhu is reverential and deferential, and his behavior is congenial to his fellow monks, it is possible for him to fulfill the duty of proper conduct. (2) Having fulfilled the duty of proper conduct, it is possible for him to fulfill the duty of a trainee. (3) Having fulfilled the duty of a trainee, it is possible for him to fulfill virtuous behavior. (4) Having fulfilled virtuous behavior, it is possible for him to fulfill right view. (5) Having fulfilled right view, it is possible for him to fulfill right concentration.”

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Venerable Sunyo,
We meet again here. Thank you for your comments. We had already agreed that our understandings of the early texts are quite different, but I think we have a common purpose, which is the new challenge of understanding the EBT in its own terms. This requires airing out diverse viewpoints before we are likely to reach a consensus. Let me respond to your post; I think I might not have provided enough clarity on some key points.

I give a long list of related sources in a footnote to my post, and the awakening factors stand out as the primary example. You don’t say why these don’t support my point, which is that samādhi arises in each of these many cases conditioned by some other Buddhist practice (satipaṭṭhāna in the case of the awakening factors, but also metta contemplation, etc.), without a step “now focus the mind.” The conditioning primary practice provides the focus. I have not tried to trace references to kasiṇa practice myself, but rely on what seems to be common knowledge that it is rare in the suttas.

Absolutely. There is common reference to a samādhinimitta. My view is that this is provided by the primary practice that gives rise to samādhi. The term “object” is misleading here. I prefer “theme.” For any task or practice there are some factors that are relevant to the task, and some that are irrelevant. The function of samādhi is to “shrink-wrap” attention about what is relevant and dispel distractions. This is an effortless process (as Nicklii puts it, it is a matter of abandoning, an “inverse effort.” This tends to offset the effort required for the primary task.) Reducing attention to a single object will disrupt the task and prevent samādhi from serving its natural function (discussed in my full paper).

Good, here we agree absolutely. Things arise through conditions, nothing “falls out of the sky,” certainly not jhānas. A vast network of conditionality is producing results continuously with or without intention. Intentional effort is a means of intervening in the natural flow of this network in order to produce certain results somewhere downstream in the network of conditionality. Otherwise the network is just following natural laws. The issue of our disagreement is where the intervention happens that results in jhāna. My point that the intervention generally happens further upstream than in your view, and in fact the intent of that intervention is generally not to produce jhāna, but to produce the results expected from the practice initiated there (gaining wisdom, developing metta, helping a stranger), not necessary to produce jhāna. From the point of intervention what plays out is natural, and the jhānas result through a series a factors. An intervention can specifically induce jhāna, but that is not necessarily or generally the case.

That is one account, for one with the advantage of arahattaphala. This does not mean jhāna is always like that.

For the untaught worldling these states are rare, mostly associated with people of high levels of skill or virtuosity (as in the literature on “flow”), but common in the suttas and presumably among the Buddha’s disciples. Through repeated and lengthy practice we cultivate samādhi so that it becomes more readily accessible and stable in the future.

I hope this provides some clarity about my perspective. It is motivated by a desire to remain faithful to the EBT (and you can certainly serve as a check on that), but also at the same time to understand how samādhi works, how it integrates with satipaṭṭhāna practice (in particular) and how it serves to produce knowledge and vision.

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Thanks for posting this and all your work putting this together. I started noticing this a couple years ago and was amazed at 1) how many times this repeats itself throughout the suttas and 2) how after many years of retreats no one in my recollection ever mentioned it.

This is also found in SN12.23 (Upanisa Sutta) where it is typically referred to as Transcendent Dependent Origination:

"…stress has birth as its prerequisite,
conviction has stress as its prerequisite,
joy has conviction as its prerequisite,
rapture has joy as its prerequisite,
calm has rapture as its prerequisite,
pleasure has calm as its prerequisite,
concentration has pleasure as its prerequisite,
knowledge & vision of things as they have come to be has concentration as its prerequisite,
disenchantment has knowledge & vision of things as they have come to be as its prerequisite,
dispassion has disenchantment as its prerequisite,
release has dispassion as its prerequisite,
knowledge of ending has release as its prerequisite.”

“Just as when the devas pour rain in heavy drops & crash thunder on the upper mountains: The water, flowing down along the slopes, fills the branches of the mountain ravines & gullies. When the branches of the mountain ravines & gullies are full, they fill the little lakes. When the little lakes are full, they fill the big lakes… the little rivers… the big rivers. When the big rivers are full, they fill the great ocean.

I like how this simile is used to describe the natural flow of the process.

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I do not see a problem when there can be more then one kind of samadhi. As i understand this, the samadhi of jhana is a one-pointed kind of samadhi. At least this is like the entrance, the doorway as it were.

One can experiment with this but there is a difference between a one-pointed focus, for example, on the airflow/feelings around the nostrils and how the breath moves through the body which is not really one-pointed. It has probably different effects.

The idea of happiness as condition for samadhi is, i believe, that an unhappy mind is a searching mind.
Also a body which is not tranquil is not a good condition.