@Sunyo wrote:
...
But although it is not intuitive to read the cessation of bodily sukha in the third jhana in SN48.40
as a reinforcement of the cessation of bodily sukha in all jhanas like I suggest,
this does actually have a common precedence.
This precedence is the standard fourth jhana formula, which says that dukkha is abandoned there
(dukkhassa ca pahānā).
Dukkha (here usually understood to mean any kind of pain, whether mental or bodily) has already been abandoned earlier, in the first jhana.
Yet this is restated at the fourth jhāna to emphasize its neutral quality.
I suggest something similar is happening in SN48.40 with the faculty of (bodily) sukha.
Its cessation reinforces that the sukha that is the sole object of the third jhana is mental.
...
@frankk response
Two major problems
1. That's not what 'dukkha' is referring to from fourth jhāna formula.
2. SN 48.40 is the (corrupt sutta) text claiming that physical sukha disappears in 3rd jhāna, not the standard 3rd jhāna formula, where the Buddha says "sukham ca kāyena patisaamvediti" (pleasure is experienced with the kāya (body)).
Addressing point 2 first,
@Sunyo is trying to use standard 4th jhāna as a precedent, but it is SN 48.40 that (wrongly) asserts that physical sukha dissappears in 3rd jhāna, not the third jhāna formula making erroneous claims.
It's not clear if @Sunyo is just having a hard time following his own convoluted reasoning, or is just using sophistry to just make complicated but smart sounding reasoning and hope the audience believes it.
Point 1, is that 'dukkha' from fourth jhāna is referring to physical pain, not mental pain.
I explain in detail, with proof, here:
The main reason 'dukkha' is mentioned in 4th jhāna, is because it's being mentioned along with the other 5 vedana/indriya in the set, to establish that when 'sukha' and 'dukkha' are used in all 4 jhānas in the formula, they are referring not to sukha vedana, which is ambiguous, (sukha vedana = sukha indriya + somanassa indriya), but to sukha-indriya, which is unambiguous, physical pleasure faculty.
In other words, by mentioning all 5 of those vedana-indriya, the Buddha is establishing short hand nomenclature to remove ambiguity.
Just as when we see this sequence, which occurs over 70 times in the suttas:
(7sb awakening factors)
(7sb → 1-3 🐘💭🕵️🏹) Tassime pañca nīvaraṇe pahīne attani samanupassato | (7sb → 1-3 🐘💭🕵️🏹) Seeing that the hindrances have been given up in them, |
pā-mojjaṃ jāyati, | rejoicing [in skillful Dharmas] is born. |
(7sb → 4. 😁) pa-muditassa pīti jāyati, | (7sb → 4. 😁) For one rejoicing [in skillful Dharmas], rapture (is) born. |
(7sb → 5. 🌊) pīti-manassa kāyo passambhati, | (7sb → 5. 🌊) (with) en-raptured-mind (the) body (is) pacified. |
(7sb → 5.5 🙂) passaddha-kāyo sukhaṃ vedeti, | (7sb → 5.5 🙂) (with) pacified-body, {they experience} pleasure. |
(7sb → 6. 🌄) sukhino cittaṃ samādhiyati. | (7sb → 6. 🌄) (For one in) pleasure, (the) mind becomes undistractible-&-lucid. |
I've added comments showing that 7 awakening factors are being referred to.
The point being most of the time, the Buddha doesn't explicitly call out each factor as a bojjhanga awakening factor, he simply refers to the short hand (sati, dhamma-vicaya, viriya), instead of sati-sambojjhanga, dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhanga, etc..
Similarly, what 4th jhāna formula is establishing the shorthand that
dukkha and sukha, are referring to dukkha-indriya and sukha-indriya (both physical),
and not referring to sukha vedana and dukkha vedana (ambiguously physical AND mental).
From the same 7 awakening factor formula, we see that pīti is always qualified as manassa, mental.
and that kāya is always qualified as following a pacified physical body, so that the sukha that follows is first and foremost the sukha-indriya, physical pleasure faculty.
KN Pe, the earliest jhāna formula commentary,
confirms this.
They explicitly gloss pīti in the first two jhānas as somanassa indriya (mental joy faculty)
and sukha as sukha-indriya (physical pleasure faculty).
(second jhāna gloss)...
yā pīti, taṃ so-manass-indriyaṃ, | whatever rapture, that (is) good-[happy]-mental-state-faculty. |
yaṃ sukhaṃ, taṃ sukh-indriyaṃ. | whatever pleasure, that (is) [bodily] pleasure-faculty. |
In other words, KN Pe is using a standard Buddhist dictionary, using standard suttas like SN 48.37 make standard reasonable and straightforward interpretations.
Conclusion
@Sunyo on the other hand, is using the Vism. and Ajahn Brahm dictionary which redefines
kāya (physical body in all meditation contexts), as "not a physical body, but a mental body".
So the followers of Ajahn Brahm end up with convoluted justifications and interpretations that they have trouble following themselves, let alone the people who need to be persuaded.
When I say that line of reasoning @Sunyo is convoluted, I'm being very generous.
By ignoring the 5 faculty disambiguation, they are deliberately ambiguating all the terms so that you have no idea which ones are mental faculty and which ones physical.
The problem is, if you ambiguate all the terms in the jhāna formula like that, there's not enough information (from all the suttas) to establish any meaning.
In other words, if it was truly as ambiguous as they would like you to believe,
there's no way to prove any interpretation of whether pīti and sukha are each physical, mental, or both.
@Sunyo and Ajahn Brahm's jhāna interpretation are objectively wrong because it's incoherent.
It only works with their redefined dictionary, and only on a few suttas, but fails on the majority of the suttas relevant to jhāna.
On the other hand, if you use a standard dictionary, disambiguate sukha and dukkha according to the 5 indrya scheme in SN 48.37 (as KN Pe and any reasonable scholar would do), then the terse jhāna formulas resolves cleanly and easily regarding what is physical and mental.
Monks trained under Ajahn Brahm have this weird fixation with disembodied states.
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