What Ven. Anālayo gets wrong about samādhi, part II

[Christopher]

Hello again Bhante and Dhamma friends. Last week I took Venerable Anālayo to a doctor appointment, and we had a lot of time for conversation on the long drive there and back. Among the things we discussed was your response here in your OP and his thoughts on some of your points.

Because he spends five days of every week in retreat, leaving him only two days to work on his articles and books, he’s understandably reluctant to make a habit of participating in an online forum. But he said that I could summarize his thoughts, if I wished, and post them as a reply. I felt that it might be of interest and potential benefit to those reading this thread to do so, so I’ll pass them along here.

@Brahmali

@Christopher

This is indeed the case, but then the gradual path concerns arrival at the three higher knowledges and thus the realization arahant-ship, rather than the cultivation of the eightfold path by a stream-enterer.

I cannot see any difference between these two. The purpose of both the noble eightfold path and the gradual training is awakening. Indeed, the gradual training is little more than a detailed expansion of the noble eightfold path, with the results of the practice added at the end.

Venerable Anālayo said that he discussed this in his first satipaṭṭhāna book (Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, 2003) on p. 81ff (how he knew the page number I have no idea). There are three suttas in the Aṅguttara Nikāya that say that a stream-enterer and a once-returner have not fulfilled samādhi, while a non-returner and an arahant have fulfilled it. This makes it clear that there is a difference between a stream-enterer and an arahant in terms of their samādhi requirement.

We can also look at this from the perspective of cosmology. The difference between a once-returner and a non-returner is that the once-returner is reborn once more in this world (the kāmaloka), while the non-returner is not reborn again in this world, but is reborn in the Brāhma realm (namely, the Pure Abodes). So if, as Venerable Brahmāli would argue, all once-returners are jhāna-attainers (and have not lost that ability by the time of their death), they would all be reborn in the Brāhma realm. This means that the very concept of the once-returner would be meaningless if we were to argue that all once-returners are jhāna-attainers.

@Brahmali

Because the most important meaning of samādhi in the suttas is jhāna - and this is by a large margin - we should assume that this is the main meaning in such instances.

In reply to this point, Venerable Anālayo said that when encountering the term samādhi in the suttas, there are several possibilities for interpreting it:

1. Samādhi does not equate to jhāna (e.g., when it refers to walking meditation)

2. Samādhi includes jhāna but also includes other meditation practices (e.g., the threefold division of the path into sīla, samādhi, and paññā, where samādhi covers right effort, restraint of the sense doors, etc.)

3. Samādhi includes jhāna but also includes what the commentaries call access concentration

4. Samādhi just means jhāna

Because samādhi has this broad range of possible meanings, each time we must determine from the context which of these cases fits. So it’s not possible to just say that samādhi = jhāna.

@Brahmali

@Christopher

A task mentioned in the “refrain” part of the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta then is to contemplate the nature of arising and passing away (and both), which would be relevant to the concentrated mind and to the awakening factor of concentration. On the understanding that the term jhāna refers to a deeply absorbed mental condition—a point on which the venerable Ajahn and I agree—it is difficult to imagine how such contemplation could be undertaken by someone who has attained jhāna.

I do not think this is difficult. Like all mind states, jhāna attainments have a beginning and an end. This can be contemplated. Moreover, the arising and passing away “refrain” is preceded by a refrain referring to internal and external observation. The internal observation seems a likely candidate for deep samādhi, a suggestion that is confirmed by DN 18:

It’s when a mendicant meditates by observing an aspect of the body internally—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world.
As they meditate in this way, they become rightly immersed in that, and rightly serene.

Idha, bho, bhikkhu ajjhattaṁ kāye kāyānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ.
Ajjhattaṁ kāye kāyānupassī viharanto tattha sammā samādhiyati, sammā vippasīdati.

Regarding these comments, he seemed uncertain as to the point you were trying to make. The passage you quoted from DN 18 shows that satipaṭṭhāna practiced internally can lead to samādhi, something that he feels you’re both in agreement on. And I believe he felt that contemplating the samāhitaṃ cittaṃ arising and passing (as per the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta) can only be prior to entering jhāna or after emerging, which he feels shows that the word samādhi cannot be confined to jhāna. Instead, it must include more than jhāna because it’s included in the state both before and after jhāna.

@Brahmali

@Christopher

even the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta fails to communicate this

The use of the word “even” suggests to me a bias on the part of Ven. Anālayo. It suggests that this sutta should somehow be given priority.

In reply to this, the Venerable said that he said “even” because this part of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is the most detailed description of the purpose of satipaṭṭhāna that he knows.

@Brahmali

The argument has been made that eka in ekāyana in fact refers to samādhi. This would hardly be surprising considering how often compounds with eka (ekaggata, ekodibhāva, etc) or derivations from eka (ekatta) refer precisely to samādhi.

Venerable Anālayo acknowledged that there are quite a number of interpretations of this term, but if we go by the suttas, the only other occurrence of this term is in MN 12, where it refers to a path that is straight or direct.

I hope that sharing Venerable Anālayo’s thoughts here might help to enrich the discussion and provide a valuable perspective on these topics. If any of the above fails to make sense or misrepresents his viewpoints, that is undoubtedly due to my own shortcomings!