“Substitution of the doctrine momentariness in which whatever arises disappears immediately for the early Buddhist view the something arisen may persist for some time as a changing process before it disappears.”
Here Analayo follows others in misinterpreting the Visuddhimagga’s view of impermanence, because in describing impermanence of materiality (XX 74) it gives the example of a tree shoot and how it goes through the cycle of birth, growth, maturity/ ageing, decline and death over a period of weeks or months.
This trend of misinterpretation is due to the millennial preference for mentality over materiality, leading to a selective reading.
Great summary of a summary @KevinK . I can’t comment on it directly because I’ve only just reached the beginning of the chapter in question.
The book is written in an interesting style: somewhat that of an encyclopedia entry, which will be useful as a sort of super-index to a subset of his works. I wish the Kindle editors had been more generous with the number of live links.
So, are you saying that because the Vsm uses the tree example that you reference, it nowhere else talkings about momentary arising and falling away? Logically this is possible, but not necessary; the two could co-occur.
How about the Abhidharma; what does it say about momentary arising and falling away? …
If both answers are negative, @Paul, can you say where you think the Burmese traditions sourced the idea of momentary rising and falling?
@Gillian
The Vism mentions momentariness in the context of mentality, being a partner in the duality of mentality/materiality. The differentiation between the two is the challenge in the first stage of insight. The exercises given for recognizing materiality are physical in nature, the stages of the cycle of impermanence of a leaf being just one example. The Vism states what should be obvious when it says that recognition of impermanence in materiality is easier than in mentality, however materiality is not fashionable post-millennium, and the materiality section of the Vism is never mentioned. Yet in understanding impermanence, it is necessary to do so by means of material examples first, as Burmese monks would have done in their training. Western Buddhism in its immature stage has the characteristic of cherry-picking the teachings.
Can you supply a reference to the section you are referring to please? Or if not, could you suggest some good search terms? I‘be been wanting to read the source material on this for some time.
It is suggested to look at Vism chapter XVIII in its entirety, then to XX beginning at v 22, where the theme of mentality/materiality is taken up again. Note that “Knowledge of Rise and Fall I” (XX 93) focuses on impermanence in materiality only, whereas in “Knowledge of Rise and Fall II” (XXI 3-34) the consciousness associated with a material object is introduced. This shows that for impermanence, materiality is the beginning subject.
I take knowledge of impermanence in natural materiality to be a preliminary stage, which nevertheless may take a considerable time to internalize.
Do be clearer on this. Rejection of the vipassana-jhana and the jhana lite should mean deep Jhanas. Is it that in context of stream winning don’t need jhanas? Cause there’s the sutta of MN 64: SuttaCentral
I humbly suggest a careful reading of the Theravāda chapter in the book to get a sense of Ven. Anālayo’s nuanced views on these perennially-controversial topics, as well as following up on the references given there to important academic papers of which the book is a concise summary. One such publication that is especially relevant to the questions you pose is this one:
“A Brief History of Buddhist Absorption”, Mindfulness, 2020, 11.3: 571–586.
It’s clear to me from reading both the book and many of the papers referenced that Ven Anālayo does view quite deep states of concentration as what the suttas have in mind for jhāna practice, and that such practice, while not necessarily required for stream entry, is essential for full awakening.
As I mentioned earlier as a simple lay practitioner not a scholar I most value Ven. Anālayo’s practice manuals and the one on mindfulness of breathing is all about creating the causes and conditions for deep states of jhāna in the service of liberating insight to arise.
His view is quite subtle actually. I forgot where I read this, but he also mentions that there are passages in the canon where jhana is mentioned and yet people can hear sounds or do other things that are not necessarily compatible with a “deep” jhana.
His solution is that it is possible to be only partially submerged in first jhana, somewhat like how one can be halfway submerged in a pond. This allows for a kind of spectrum of meditation experiences, from proto-jhana, to 25% in jhana, halfway in, and “full first jhana”.
I agree with this and I suspect this is why there are so many passages that seem to conflict with one another regarding jhana (causing endless debates on the topic).
Unfortunately I can’t recall where I read this, but it was surely Analayo. If anyone remembers and has a citation that would be helpful.
At one time, the Buddha was abiding in Rājagṛha in the Kalandaka Bamboo Garden. At that time, Venerable Ānanda was alone in a solitary place, contemplating in dhyāna, and thinking, “The Bhagavān has spoken of three types of sensations: sensations of pleasure, sensations of pain, and sensations of neither pleasure nor pain. Moreover, all of these sensations are spoken of as suffering. What does this mean?”
This type of “absorption” doesn’t ever seem to be given a name or number, and seems to be used in the very loose and general sense of being absorbed in any sort of contemplation.
He spoke of this in one of his comparative study courses of the Agamas and Pali discourses back 2011–2104 through the University of Hamburg. The links for those lectures are available on line (and have been posted on this forum too), but offhand I don’t have them.
To expound a bit on what @Javier said, my recollection of what Ven Analayo said in the lecture is that one could be fully inside a jhana but then inadvertantly pop out for a moment, so to say, upon for example, hearing a loud sound if the state was not fully stable (and he gave an example from the discourses of a time this happenned to Ven Moggallana). He then said it was kind of like someone being fully submerged in a pool of water, both head and body, vs. being completely out of the water on the shore, but then asked what if one’s head pops out for a moment but the body remains under the water, and said that it’s a little difficult to say whether the person is in the water or out of the water. So while the person is clearly not fully submerged in the water(i.e. fully inside the jhana at that moment of popping out due to some temporary disturbance/instability in the state) she’s also not fully out of the water and may then return to fully submerged (i.e. fully inside the jhana).
In the introduction to Knowledge of Rise and Fall- 1 (XX, 93) the Vism says that the preceding pages including knowledge of impermanence in natural materiality, are comprehension knowledge, and contempltion of Rise and Fall is a particular kind of contemplation. Knowledge of Rise and Fall is a momentariness practice and is different to the preceeding exercises on impermanence which are based on normal time spans. So it is a case of two different practices, the first being appropriate for beginners.
Another widely held view is that momentariness is included in suttas such as this. The ‘unfabricated’ section refers to nibbana:
"Monks, these three are fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated. Which three? Arising is discernible, passing away is discernible, alteration (literally, other-ness) while staying is discernible.
"These are three fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated.
"Now these three are unfabricated characteristics of what is unfabricated. Which three? No arising is discernible, no passing away is discernible, no alteration while staying is discernible.
“These are three unfabricated characteristics of what is unfabricated.”—AN 3.47
Impermanence must be consistent across all life cycles from the long to the short, even though the suttas do not place special emphasis on the latter.
Someone showed me this review, which I think is balanced, well-written and an accurate representation of the book. So I’m sharing it here in case of interest to anyone.
I would highly recommend Ven Analayo’s book.
If so, this would be consistent with SN 12.61, where the Buddha says the body lasts a lifetime while the mind is constantly changing like a monkey between branches. The Buddha also says it’s easier for a “run of the mill” person to recognize the impermanence of the body than the mind.
Yes. Most of the material in the Vism has its source in the suttas, but because it becomes extended into practical exercises, many find it unrecognizable. The vism is a specialized meditation manual and often wrongly compared with the suttas.
Great video. Thanks for sharing. Analayo seems to differentiate what did the Buddha say vs authentic renderings, interpretations, and implementations of those teachings. The subsequent equivocation of all variations because they have something to offer is a bit tenuous, but understood if one considers alignment.
True, and the reason for the attempted alignment is post-millennial Buddhism has an agenda broadened with the addition of social concern. Formerly it was only about personal awakening, but the millennial influence determines there is awareness populations like the Chinese will eventually be entering Buddhism, and the bulk of ordinary people will not achieve the full goal of awakening, so it’s a creation of a new class of teaching for laypeople.
That makes sense. Practicing buddhism naturally results in the views shared. But this does not necessarily establish authenticity from other views. The dharma is only one tool is my rather large toolkit. I’d rather not apply it to questions and issues where other tools are a better fit. But in an era of western psychology that is more focused on adjustment, individuation, and goal acquisition the vision for happiness is often lost if not completely misunderstood. It seems the marketing funnel to any spiritual ideology involves small steps…
