Vitakka vicāra (Jhana-factors)

What do you mean by this?

That might lead us to discuss the differences between citta and mano

But I am more interested in knowing if you would contend that kaya also means the 6 salayatanas in

passambhayaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ assasissāmīti sikkhati

Heaven forbid, no! The breath in MN 118 is not DN 2’ s body. The latter persists in the 4th Jhana, where the kaayasankhara/breath is supposed to have ceased.

For want of a more precise correspondence to Western psychology, I’ve opted to read kaayika feelings as “hedonic tone” and cetasika feelings as "affective tone/emotion ". See how SN 36.6 describes cetasika feelings, and how the same description is used in MN 148’s discussion on how anusayas give rise to emotional responses.

It would be more statisfying if two very similar expressions also had very similar meanings, wouldn’t it?

But then do you contend that kaya in imameva kayam as well as in the jhana similes means the 6 salayatanas? Quid of the fact that one doesn’t feel body in jhana then?

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So I take it you consider that kaayasankhara = breath

What about this (DN 18) with the triad body-speech-mind:

tassa ariyadhammassavanaṃ āgamma yonisomanasikāraṃ dhammānudhammappaṭipattiṃ oḷārikā kāyasaṅkhārā paṭippassambhanti, oḷārikā vacīsaṅkhārā paṭippassambhanti, oḷārikā cittasaṅkhārā paṭippassambhanti

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for 3rd jhana, i believe sukha is inclusive of both mental and physical aspects, but i believe the “kayena” in the wording is intended to highlight the presence of the physical aspect, lest people think the anatomical body has already been transcended as in imperturbable attainment or a formless attainment.

otherwise, the buddha could have simple stated “sukham ca patisamvedeti” without mentioning kaya at all. What value, what nuance is added by stating “he personally experiences sukha?”

where is wijestkra’s discussion on kaya you suggest i read?

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Thanks.

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This used to puzzle me. If the six bases is a plural phenomenon(a), then why mention the six bases at all in the context of attainments that are supposed to be bereft of 5 of the sense bases (or at least their external counterparts)?

But is “saḷāyatana” actually plural? At least for the nominative, I’ve not located the plural form saḷāyatanā.

What we do have is saḷāyatanaṃ in the formal listing of the components of Dependant Origination. Now, this is not an accusative singular declension, but a nominative of label. It is not common, but the most famous example I can think of is the All - sabbaṃ. Within the catechismal listings for Dependant Origination, other such nominatives ending in an would be viññāṇaṃ and nāmarūpaṃ. Of course, every sutta is described as a nominative of label - suttaṃ.

In this case, saḷāyatanaṃ is simply a proper name to describe an abstract group. It does not entail that all the six bases must be present, as long as a representative is there.

A similar case would be seen in nāmarūpaṃ. Even if form were absent, name would qualify to represent nāmarūpa on either side of the Dependant Origination linkages.

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What is your view on this? Is that DN 18 triad the MN 44 triad or the more common SN 12 triad (eg SN 12.25)?

I’ve actually summarised it for you in post No 207 above.

By the same token, we could ask why these are framed as such with kāyena -

kāyena paṭisaṃvedeti - 3rd jhana perciope
kāyena phusati - touching all the jhanas and formless attainments and Cessation
kāyena paramasaccaṃ sacchikaroti : realising the highest reality
aṭṭha vimokkhā kāyena sacchikaraṇīyā : the eight emancipations are to be realised

I think the burden would be on the naysayers to argue that kāyena in the 3rd jhana pericope is adnominal, when everywhere else it is adverbial.

Could you remind me from which passages you conclude that kaya = salayatana?

I think they don’t need to be different. Kayasankhara seems to me like an umbrella term for all bodily activities, including the breath, the many actions that it can make, and perhaps importantly in the case of meditation, physical responses to mental activities (including hormonal, i.e. what may still “move inside” when the body is immobile).

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I think it’s No.249, although I did not explicitly say that kāya in kāyo passambhati means the 6 sense bases. It is an inference to be drawn out - given that the sample of suttas I’ve given show that there is nothing in that formula that is not connected with samatha, and sense restraint is an important component of samatha. That must be the whole point about indriyabhāvanā?

You’re not a fan of Ven Nanavira, are you? I think enough has been said by others to dispel the notion that both triads are the same. If they were the same, it would mean that breathing has kammic potency and can lead to rebirth as per the forward order of Dependant Origination. Ditto for speech and perception and feeling. What about the arahants who breathe etc?

This is another of those prime examples of terms serving double duty. In the MN 44 triad, as BB notes, the 3 ­saṅ­khāras are typically used as a schema to contrast the “contents” of the different attainments. On the other hand, the ­saṅ­khāras in SN 12.25 are volitions (sañ­ceta­nā) which then become the hetu (cause) for experience. Unsurprisingly, the experiences caused by sañ­ceta­nā is said to be feelings, which are part of MN 44’s cittasaṅkhāra. Won’t expressing it in this manner -

MN 44’s cittasaṅkhāra are dependant on the SN 12.25 ­saṅ­khāras

be consistent with the 2nd Noble Truth?

You may be interested in this phrase “passad­dha­kāya­saṅ­khāro” from AN 10.19.

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Not particularly, although I think he does have some points.

I would contend that breathing has kammic potency but in the case of arahants, with results limited to their last human life, as everything else they do. I don’t even see how it could be otherwise.

That is indeed interesting. “passad­dha­kāya­saṅ­khāro” refers to the fourth jhana, which is said (MN 44, SN 41.6) to be where ­kāya­saṅ­khāras understood as breath cease. In that case, it would consolidate the idea that “kāyo passambhati” refers to the body as related to the breath. Hence kāya in the 1st and 4th jhana similes would also refer to the body and/or the breath, which would be completely consistent with an analysis of their tenor vs vehicle, both referring in that case to something physical, or even explicitly (4th jhana) to the physical body.

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You guys are really world-transcending :yum:
It’s hilarious that this thread goes on and on, but is there still a connection to ‘Vitakka-vicára’?
IMHO it would be helpful to outsource parts of the discussion, after all there are many interested readers who follow the discussions and take the titles as a clue to decide if to plug-in or not.
Just a suggestion & glad for our discussions!

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I think the conversation started bifurcating around post 34 (see below). In short and certainly in an oversimplifying manner, there were the contenders of Vsm-style where vitakka doesn’t mean thought and you can’t hear sound or feel the body against those who think that vitakka still means thought and you can hear sounds and feel the body in jhana. So the debate has been redefined a few times, since the “battlefront” translates to other areas, like: does kaya refer to the physical body in DN 2’s jhana similes? etc.

Cool image by the way.

Fair enough :slight_smile:

I’d like to eventually get around to rewinding the tape here and incorporating a narrative of sorts into the wiki here.

I also do intend to deliver on the report on “abhisandeti, parisandeti, paripūreti, parippharati” so that we might eliminate the possibility of “imameva kāyaṃ” as adverbial, take kāyaṃ as reflexive but pronominal and anaphorical, and therefore take kāyaṃ as referring back to “kāyo passambhati” and further take “kāyo passambhati” as a process that culminates with the cessation of breath in the fourth jhāna.

However, not to be dismissive of your fine suggestion, I’d like to perhaps put forth a potential dissenting argument in response to @silence’s last one:

[MN 64]

Idhānanda, bhikkhu upadhivivekā akusalānaṃ dhammānaṃ pahānā sabbaso kāyaduṭṭhullānaṃ paṭippassaddhiyā vivicceva kāmehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati.

So @silence, how would you reconcile the fact that here we have it that first jhāna seems to require the “complete tranquilization of bodily inertia” (sabbaso kāyaduṭṭhullānaṃ paṭippassaddhi)?

How should we understand the three phrases in the three suttas, namely “oḷārikā kāyasaṅkhārā paṭippassambhanti” (DN 18), “passad­dha­kāya­saṅ­khāro” (AN 10.19) and “sabbaso kāyaduṭṭhullānaṃ paṭippassaddhi” (MN 64)?

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How would you infer that kāyo passambhati refers to passad­dha­kāya­saṅ­khāro? Could you explain how you derive a connection between the (1) kāya in kāyo passambhati with (2) kāya­saṅ­khāra as breath, and the connection between (2) with (3) the kāya in the 4 jhana formulae?

I know (1) and (3) are connected thru the anaphora, but (2) and (3) don’t seem amenable to any connection. If you say that the kāya in the 4 jhana formulae refers to breath, that conflicts with the presence of a kāya in the 4th jhana. There’s no kāya­saṅ­khāra/breath in the 4th jhana.

The connection between (1) and (2) also seems tenuous, despite the tranquilisation verb applied to the breath in MN 118. In MN 118, tranquilisation of the breath occurs before rapture. This does not conform to the kāyo passambhati schema, where rapture occurs before and as the cause of kāyo passambhati. The reversals of such a major training sequence militate any correspondence between the kāya in “kāyo passambhati” with MN 118’s kāya­saṅ­khāra.

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Why wait? I thought the questions were relevant.

Just a quick answer as I must leave. This doesn’t seem to be a regular first jhana. It is labelled as “the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters” and is immediately followed by Nibbana.

I’ll see the rest later.

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aka “hijacking” the thread…

To clarify my last, brief note. In some contexts users are encouraged to “fork-off” divergent topics into new threads; in some cases the moderators will take that on themselves.

It can be irksome for the OP (original post) contributor, when others “hijack” the thread to suit their own interests.