continuing discussion with @mikenz66 regarding MN 125 vs. MN 19 discrepancy
relevant comments to MN 125 are here:
In MN 19, they could have gone either way, taking out first jhana (like MN 125), or leaving it in and it doesn’t make a big difference, because the key point is that how one gets into jhana is from attenuating V&V, to a point where it can coexist with kaya passaddhi (body pacification/tranquility/relaxastion) to allow second jhana to happen.
In practice, the first 3 jhanas are fuzzy and change on you over time, because meditation, cummulative in a lifetime, sublimates the refined energy in our body/mind, so that what used to be strong vibrations and full body orgasms keep getting smoother and smoother, the the transitions between first 3 jhanas start to become super subtle.
So really, the only objective criteria that everyone can agree on and concretely differentiate is rupa vs. arupa, and the breath stopping in 4th jhana. Where perceptions/vedana transition into vitakka & vicara, is kind of fuzzy and not so easy to always say for sure if you’re in undirected (2nd jhana or higher) or “downshifted” into directed samadhi of first jhana with thinking & evaluation.
Now if you understand V&V as VRJ (vism. redefintion of jhana, V&V, etc.), which in practical experience is the same as B.Sujato’s “placing the mind and keeping it connected”, then what I just said in the above paragraph doesn’t make sense (if you plug in B. Sujato’s V&V definition for thinking &evaluation).
Even reading MN 125 where first jhana is skipped, and it goes into second jhana doesn’t make sense (for B.Sujato’s translation).
Why would “keeping the mind connected” drop out between first and second jhana? If the mind is no longer connected, what does that mean?
- are you dead?
- asleep?
- unconscious?
- in wrong samadhi? (where S&S is not possible to do)