I’ve reviewed those sutta passages cited in your link and they do nothing to disprove or add to what I already concisely summarized. Ekagga and Ekodibhava in the general sense can refer to the four jhanas, but the only sutta passages that explicitly say ekaggata is a “jhana factor” of first jhana are non-ebt passages spoken by Sariputta. “Jhana-factor”, as one of the 5 jhana factors late Theravada loves to talk about and emphasize (while trying to supress 7sb-bojjhanga). 5 jhana factors are not EBT, in the way late Theravada teaches.
The point of my nitpicking ekaggata here, for now, is not to debate which interpretation is more likely to be correct, but to show how you have a tendency to authoritatively cite sutta passages phrased in a way that assumes a much greater degree of certainty than is justified. (“the evidence…first jhana is ekaggata is actually quite strong”)
What seems obvious to me, is not clear to you. This is one of the reasons I doubt we will be able to discuss this fruitfully.
Let me restate the question again in explicit detail so you have no excuse to reply with a deflection tactic.
It seems like you’re saying since 2nd jhana has no V&V, as a logical consequence, we can deduce therefore first jhana is most likely to be subverbal mental movement. And my response to that was, this does not seem like any kind of natural logic to me. What the evidence of the actual words of the Buddha in EBT tells us, such as in MN 19, is that first jhana V&V has a spectrum of possible activity in intensity and frequency, but absolutely no text that would suggest the fundamental nature of V&V itself has shifted to become noverbal or preverbal.
This is also the case if you see them as a mere movement of the mind. Even the most subtle movement of the mind is on the same spectrum as gross thinking, albeit on the opposite end.
If Bhante Sujato is willing to translate V&V as preverbal mind movement everywhere, including outside of first jhana, then at least it would show conviction in your own explanation. As it is, it just sounds like sophistry to me.
Please stick to real arguments. This is just an appeal to emotions.
Please don’t use emotional tone as an excuse to dodge the real argument underlying the tone, and expressed clearly immediately prior to that, without the tone.
A mountain of evidence has been collected below, in the link you might not have reviewed yet, already given in the prior response.
(this message has been edited a few times to sort out formatting to more clearly differentiate who is saying what)