Vitakka vicāra (Jhana-factors)

[Sylvester]

@alaber

In jhana one for example, my experience of vitakka-vicara is : “woa, that’s so nice …”

@frankk

Erik, I have the same experience as Alaber for first jhana and would consider that to fall within a straightforward reading of EBT-OR first jhana.

I wonder how this ruminative experience can be consistent with the DN 9 injunction against thinking in a jhana -

Cetayamānassa me pāpiyo, acetayamānassa me seyyo. Ahañceva kho pana ceteyyaṃ, abhi­saṅ­kha­reyyaṃ, imā ca me saññā nirujjheyyuṃ, aññā ca oḷārikā saññā uppajjeyyuṃ.

Thinking is bad for me. Not thinking is better for me. If I were to think and will, these perceptions of mine would cease, and grosser perceptions would appear.
(correcting Ven Thanissaro’s mistranslations of the pronoun and verb into singulars, when they are plurals)

Echoed in its parallel DA 28 on the exact same terms. This surely is an EBT position, no?

The reason why I asked @chansik_park to put up the poll in post 305/342 was to demonstrate the dreadful inconsistency the ruminative interpretation of vitakkavicāra faces with these suttas which do not allow any form of thinking or verbalisation to occur within a jhana. Well, to be more precise, if one does think or verbalise, bye bye Jhana! Why else would speech have ceased in the First Jhana?

So, if vitakkavicāra are not thinking and pondering, what else could it be in the First Jhana, without violating the injunction against thinking in DN 9 and DA 28? I would have thought that this little gem would have pointed in the direction of another sutta usage of vitakka and vicāra -

@chansik_park

I’m actually a little surprised that you might say so. Here, slightly tangentially I’d point to the six-sensory enumerations of -vitakkas and -vicāras to be found in the extended Dhammānupassanā section of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and in AN 7.385 - AN 7.480. Clearly there’s plenty for vitakkavicāra to do outside of “breaking into verbal chatter” (MN 44).

Those suttas on the person who dwells “as a dhamma-contemplator with reference to rūpavitakka/ rūpavicāra” follow the sequence starting with the sense bases, then consciousness, then contact, then feeling, then perception, then volition, then craving, then vitakka, and then vicāra . Are these thoughts, or something somewhat different?

Take a look at these threads -

What the suttas teach us about the meaning of saṅkappa

I have for some time wondered what the actual meaning of saṅkappa is. Here are some renderings used by the main translators: thought, intention, aspiration, aim, resolve What I have done was simply use the search function in the DPR to list occurences of the word throughout the Vinaya and the four Nikayas. It seems that the word may sometimes be exactly equivalent to vitakka and sometimes has a connotation of wish, or desire, intention, purpose, aim, resolve… and I have come to the conclusion…

Interpreting the first Jhana

Here is a question for the grammarians among us: Part of the classic passage for the first Jhana is vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṁ savicāraṁ 1.Is it at all possible grammatically that vitakka vicara are not jhana factors but are meant as qualities of akusalehi dhammehi? Or would it necessarily be in that case savitakkehi? The meaning would then be “He seperates from unwholesome teachings that have as their quality thought and movement”… 2.Is it possible that it means “He seperates fr…

(post 7 onwards)

The clue given in MN 78 is quite unmistakable. This vitakkavicāra in the First and Second Jhana pericopes maps neatly onto MN 78’s kusalā saṅkappā (wholesome aims), insofar as both end in the Second Jhana.

Does one need to saṅkappaṃ saṅkappeti (he resolves on the resolve) continuously in the First Jhana to qualify as having vitakkavicāra ? Apparently not, since the mind has a certain momentum based on what one “think and ponder” frequently : MN 19 -

Bhikkhus, whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind.

Although the verbs used are anu­vitak­keti and anuvicāreti, I don’t think they detract from the point of the sutta in addressing kāmavitakka, vyāpādavitakka and vihiṃsāvitakka as being unhelpful.

I believe that vitakkavicāra of the First Jhana is that residual desire/wish/aim that are the opposites of the 3 types of wrong saṅkappa. What’s left for this phenomena to do may be connected to the bathman and soap simile.