Skip to main content

DN 21, MA 134, DA 14: Smoking out the chinese gophers, hearing sound in 4 jhānas, two agama parallels to DN 21

As a followup to my recent post:

AN 10.72 and KN Ud 3.3 smoking out the gophers, you can hear sounds in the four jhānas


I've just added to lucid24.org two DN 21 chinese agama paralles:   || MA 134, DA 14  :

upon my first reading of these suttas, they seem to agree with DN 21. You can hear sounds (both human and divine), think, evaluate/ponder in first jhāna.

How did those 80,000 devas become stream enterers hearing the Buddha give a dharma talk?

They must have had at least first jhāna quality of samādhi while listening (even though the sutta doesn't explicitly say that).

Otherwise, you'd have to conclude some beings can become stream enterers with samādhi lower than first jhāna. 

But then where are the other suttas that talk about this special loophole for people who don't have to work hard for regular first jhāna to become stream enterers and arahants?

Now how would the Vism. redefinition of jhāna work here for those 80K devas? 

One crazy Vism. conspiracy theory for Sariputta, is that he's so talented in Jhāna he can quickly go into and emerge from frozen disembodied stupor of Vism. "jhāna" many times per second, allowing him to hear sounds coherently (compared to ordinary jhāna masters who typically remain in a disembodied frozen stupor for 20min, 60min, before they can emerge). 

But what about Sakka (king of devas in heaven of 33) and these 80,000 devas? Are we to assume they all have the same talent as Sariputta, to go into and out of disembodied frozen stupor while listening to the Buddha talk and attain stream entry? 

If only 1 in a million serious practioners can attain Vism. "Jhāna",

and Sariputta is one in maybe 10,000 human jhāna masters during the Buddha's time who can quickly enter and emerge from disembodied frozen stupor vism. "jhāna",

Then Sakka and each of those 80,000 devas who attained stream entry are each one in 10 trillion odds of having the skill to attain stream entry while listening to a Dharma talk. 

Does that seem likely to you? 


Or how about we assume the Buddha was sane, 

used words in the lexicon like it was commonly accepted (body = physical body, thinking = thinking, hearing means hearing).

Then all of these suttas on hearing sound and comprehending Dharma while in jhāna doesn't have to require complicated contortions and logical absurdities that Vism. resorts to.






hearing in jhāna👂🌄  : all the suttas where hearing in various samādhis occur

🔗📝 : many articles analyzing DN 21


        DN 210 - (Sakka doesn’t want to disturb Buddha’s jhāna)

            DN 210.1 - (fire burning is also called ‘jhāna’)

            DN 210.2 - (Sakka convinces musician to pull Buddha out of jhāna retreat with poem)

            DN 212.0.1 - (Sakka visits Buddha but sees him in ‘samādhi’)

            DN 212.0.2 - (Lady requests vistors including Sakka to not disturb Buddha’s meditation)

            DN 212.0.3 - (sound of Sakka’s chariot pulls Buddha out of ‘samādhi’)

            DN 212.2.2 - (pīti and pamojja are the mental joy, 2nd jhāna is better than 1st jhāna)

            DN 212.2.4 - (could be referring to asubha here, 2nd jhāna is better than 1st jhāna)

            DN 212.2.6 - (upekkha of 2nd jhāna and higher is better than 1st jhāna)

Can you really see someone becoming stream enterer without at least a finger snap’s time worth of first jhāna?

            DN 212.5.2 - (Sakka gave musician promotion, and 80,000 devas become stream enterers)



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex