walshe’s translation of DN 34 passage regarding samma samadhi that is nonpercipient of 5 senses
(8) ‘Which five things are to be made to arise? The fivefold knowledge of right concentration (pañcañāṇiko sammā samādhi): the knowledge that arises within one that: (a) “This concentration is both present happiness and productive of future resultant happiness” (āyatiñ ca sukha-vipāko), (b) “This concentration is Ariyan and free from worldliness” [2791 (nirdmiso),1144 “” (c) “This concentration is not practised by the unworthy” (akāpurisasevito), 1145 “” (d) “This concentration is calm and perfect, has attained tranquillisation, has attained unification, and is not instigated,1146 “” it cannot be denied1147 “” or prevented”, 1148 “” (e) “I myself attain this concentration with mindfulness, and emerge from it with mindfulness.”
ariyans are disciples who have the meditative attainment of directly experiencing nibbana. not just unenlightened disciples who are doing samma samadhi. this is consistent with the AN 9.37 passage where what the nun describes sounds like while she, an Aryiyan, is experiencing nibbana, she’s percipient of something but not of those 5 sense base activities. Whether it’s an arahant, a stream enterer, whether it’s similar to animitta samadhi, in any of those cases it sure isn’t the ordinary four jhanas. it sounds more like the nonpercipience of nibbana that is described in AN 10.6 and AN 10.7 regarding earth, wind, fire.
on the grammar arguments, i can only defer to the experts, but ven. thanissaro’s translation seems more coherent to me.
is DN 34 even EBT?
in the AN 3.101 goldsmith passage, it doesn’t say jhanas explicitly. the ekaggata we can infer second jhana or higher. the attainment of 6 abhinna follow fourth jhana typically. so without the buddha specifically saying which jhana, it’s not so clear to me how much asaṅkhāraniggayhavāritagato can be pressed into service to support your argument from this passage.
I don’t have much time to respond in full to your post as I’m rushing off to surgery. I’ll try to reply when the GA wears off.
In the above, I use kāmā as a lemma, not an inflected form. Kāmehi would therefore be “from the kāmā”. Hope to do justice to the rest of your queries later.
i’m not sure what is ridiculous about that. to describe the process in words may seem slow and clumsy, but unless we have an arahant here to explain for us, how do we know whether it can’t be done very quickly? an arahant is able to experience physical pain and pleasure, so clearly they’re percipient of the 5 sense activity by default and it takes SOME amount of time and intention to enter that special samadhi.
Actually, the Vsm cited the Vibhanga of the Abhidhamma on this, so that kāmā was defined as the 3 types of kāma.
You might recall that this was puzzling enough that in both the Vsm and Vimuttimagga, both asked why the need to specify a separate seclusion clause for sensual desires, when it’s already covered by the 2nd seclusion passage.
Do you find their justification for the Abhidhamma definition compelling, such that sensual desire is singled out for mention under the intensified seclusion pericope?
PS - thanks for your well wishes. I’m out and now craving morphine.
This is not so surprising, provided we relook SN 22.48’ distinction between the aggregates simpliciter and the “clinging-aggregates”. This calls for a robust examination of its sāsavā. Does the sa import the meaning of "being bound up with asavas " or the sense of "being liable to give rise to asavas " ?
I prefer the latter; see the definition of the first member in the compound upādānakkhandha as being the adjective upādāniyā (clingable) , rather the substantive noun “clinging”.
This is consistent with the standard exposition that an arahant does not cling at all.
These are the four modes of being addicted and devoted to pleasure, Cunda, which conduce absolutely to unworldliness, to passionlessness, to cessation, to peace, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna.
What are the four?
[The four jhanas]
…
If then it happen, Cunda, that wanderers teaching other doctrines should declare: ‘The Sākyan recluses live addicted and devoted to these four modes of pleasure, to them ye should answer: ‘Yea.’
Rightly would they be speaking of you, nor would they be misrepresenting you by what is not fact, by what does not exist.’
Are the “easy jhanas” really pleasurable enough to make one addicted and devoted to them?
Edit: Or AN 9.36:
“’I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first jhana.’ Thus it has been said. In reference to what was it said?
…
“Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental fermentations. Or, if not, then—through this very dhamma-passion, this very dhamma-delight, and from the total wasting away of the first five of the fetters—he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world.
“’I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first jhana.’ Thus was it said, and in reference to this was it said.
Can the “easy jhanas” really be a basis for arahatship or for non-returning?
fair enough, but the main point is, you were saying it is ridiculous for the arahant to go through that sequence of steps when by definition the arahant doesn’t cling. my point is by default, the arahant still feels pain and pleasure. if they want a temporary respite, they have to go through some sequence of steps to enter a samadhi where they are percipient yet not percipient of the 5 sense activities to escape pain and pleasure. so in that sense there is a clinging and a desire to be free of the pains of having a physical body. just as the bliss of nibbana doesn’t have vedana yet is described as being a kind of happiness.
This concentration is both present happiness and productive of future resultant happiness.
ok, let’s say it’s not an arahant’s special samadhi, but what about a stream enterer ? the main point is that the “samma samadhi” was being practiced by an “ariya”, not just any person doing samma samadhi (AN 5.27 also has the “ariya”). thus, i can’t see how it can be used to support an ordinary first, second, third jhana by default being non percipient of 5 sense activities.
i personally don’t believe so. but jhana controversies is not just a choice between “easy” and “hard”. there’s a huge spectrum of stuff in between that overlap each other. ajahn lee’s method 1 and method 2 for example, i wouldn’t not consider “easy”.
can you share your translation of standard first jhana formula? let’s say for the sake of argument the majority of pali experts believe “vivicceva kamehi” is seclusion from 5 sense organ activity.
but how do you make the leap to complete sensory nonpercipience with regard to those 5 sense activities as one would experience in imperturbable samadhis (formless attainments and 4th jhana)?
one can still be secluded from 5 sense activities yet still percipient of them.
Thanks @Linda. I was fortunate this time round. The last time I had GA, I ended up projectile vomiting like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. For 4 days in the ward!
The notion that an arahant can cling and crave (desire?) worries me. Aren’t arahants incapable of generating any volition whatsoever (a sutta in SN 12. Edit - it’s SN 12.51)? Isn’t the residue of clinging what sets apart non-returners from arahant’s?
Certainly, the Buddha rested His back, but did He cling?
Everywhere else in the suttas, non-clinging is always the outcome of the Trainee’so meditative attainment. If Ven T’s translation is correct, this is the only sutta that puts non-clinging as the outcome of an arahant’s meditative attainment. The simpler explanation would be to get in line with the standard model that non-clinging culminates in arahanta, and not the other way round.
I don’t think that the “ariya” predicate is meant to be in apposition to the attainment. See Bhante Sujato’s comments in the thread parsing the Third Jhana pericope, including the scope of “ariya” therein.
If ariya is interpreted to be exclusive to Sekhas and arahants, that would contradict the other suttas that Worldlings become Brahmas through jhana attainments.
I would say that the “ariya” in DN 34 simply means “accessible to the ariyans” , much like the ariya in ariyasacca (the reality known by the ariyans).
Hmm, this would mean that the word “seclusion” in the 2 seclusion formulae means different things (leaving aside the emphatic eva) in the kāmā seclusion formula.
If you are correct that seclusion in the 1st formula implies continued presence of the 5 sense objects, then the 2nd seclusion formula must also imply the continued presence of the hindrances, no? That does not seem plausible, given how the anusayas are silenced in the Jhanas : MN 44.
The difference in the degree of seclusion is marked by eva/quite. This “quite” is emphatic, like saying “She’s quite a hottie!” where the “quite” functions more like “verily”.
So, what you have being emphasised in the First Jhana pericope is that the seclusion from the kāmā is being emphasised; I think emphasis is not placed on seclusion from the hindrances as that has already been achieved in the establishment of mindfulness.
Is there any EBT evidence that sensual desire needs to be more subdued than its 4 other colleagues to access the First Jhana?
