Vitakka vicāra (Jhana-factors)

[Sylvester]

@Erika_ODonnell

Edit: And from one of my favorite suttas, AN9.34:

"Now there is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.
If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with sensuality, that is an affliction for him.
Just as pain arises as an affliction in a healthy person for his affliction, even so the attention to perceptions dealing with sensuality that beset the monk is an affliction for him.

So, attention to perceptions of sensuality, is like pain is to a healthy person, from the standpoint of a first jhana. This may shed some light on the thorn analogy as well

That’s a good one, Erik, but it would be considerably clearer if we just chuck Ven Thanissaro’s translation of kāmā in this pericope and go straight to the CPD.

Instead of translating the word as the singular “sensuality”, we should just accept that kāmā is plural as follows -

kāma, m. [ts., cf. BHSD, SWTF, Encyclop. of Bud-
dhism VI, 1 1996 s.v.; Hôb. s.v. ai], 1. (mostly in sg.)
wish, desire, pleasure; 2. (in pl.) the objects of sensual
> pleasure viz. rūpa, sadda, gandha, rasa, phoṭṭhabba,
cf. kāmaguṇa,

See especially how MN 75 distinguishes the “cords of sensual pleasure” (kāmaguṇā) from plain old kāmā.

It’s only in Ven Thanissaro’s translation of the First Jhana pericope that the meaning of being secluded from the objects of the 5 senses is completely obscured by his rendering kāmā as singular, when it is plainly plural.