prasrabdhi = passadhi in pāli, pacification/relaxation 7sb awakening factor that causes sukha.
dhy ̄ana = jhāna in pali.
Excerpts from CLARIFICATION ON FEELINGS IN BUDDHIST
CLARIFICATION ON FEELINGS IN BUDDHIST
authenticity
of a s ̄utra (attributed to the Sarv ̄astiv ̄adins by Puguang56) that
defines the sukha faculty as pleasant bodily and mental feeling:57
This
text is interpolated. Why? (1) Because in all other schools the text
only reads ‘bodily’. (2) And because the [canonical] statement in its
own words is ‘‘And he feels sukha with the body (k ̄ayena)’’. If [one
interprets ‘with the body’ as]: ‘‘with the body of the mind’’ (manask
̄ayena), what merit [should be] by saying so?58
As
Yoshifumi (2003: 322–324) points out, the name ‘Sautr ̄antikas’ come
from their position towards the scripture on which they depend most,
i.e. the s ̄utras, and they recognise the authority of the Vinaya as
well as s ̄utras, but do not recognise the authority of the Abhidhar-
mas ́ ̄astra. The Sautr ̄antikas, sticking to the earliest canonical
texts, reject the Sarv ̄astiv ̄ada theory that sukha as a factor of the
third dhy ̄ana is a mental feeling which is to be experienced by the
‘body of the mind’. It is obvious that the Sautr ̄antika opinion also
disagree with the Therav ̄ada view that sukha in the third dhy ̄ana is a
mental feeling which is to be experienced by the three incorporeal
aggregates or is associated with the ‘mental body’ (n ̄amak ̄aya) as
mentioned above. The Sautr ̄antikas also criticise the Sarv ̄astiv
̄adins for inter- preting sukha in the first two dhy ̄anas as prasrabdhi
(tranquillity), saying, ‘‘Sukha is not stated in the fourth dhy ̄ana,
where prasrabdhi is even greater.’’59 This implies that if sukha in the
first two dhy ̄anas referred toprasrabdhi, the even higher degree
ofprasrabdhiin the fourth dhy ̄ana would also be referred to as sukha,
but sukha is not there according to the usual dhy ̄ana formula and the
Avipar ̄itaka S ̄utra.
The
Sautr ̄antikas object that the five kinds of consciousness related to
the body are absent in one who has entered dhy ̄anas and conse- quently
bodily feeling is also absent. They say, ‘‘If [the Sarv ̄astiv ̄adins
ask]: ‘How is there bodily consciousness in one who has attained ab-
sorption?’ [There is bodily consciousness] because the body is pervaded
by the wind which is born of special concentration, which is named
prasrabdhi and to be felt as sukha.’’60 For the Sautr ̄antikas it is not
a
problem to have bodily sukha in the dhy ̄anas as they
do not accept that the five classes of consciousness pertaining to the
body are absent in one who enters the dhy ̄anas. Like the Sarv ̄astiv
̄adins, a Therav ̄ada Abhid- hamma text, the Kath ̄avatthu, holds that
the five senses do not work in the jh ̄anas.61 However, the Nik ̄ayas
suggest that the first three formless attainments, which are higher than
the jh ̄anas, are to be perceived by a mind free from the functioning
of the five senses.62 There does not seem to be any passage in the
earliest texts saying that the five senses or the five classes of
consciousness stop working in the jh ̄anas. Therefore, the Sautr
̄antikas may be right in arguing that there is bodily consciousness and
hence bodily sukha in the first three dhy ̄anas. To sum up, the Sautr
̄antikas only recognise sukha mentioned in the three dhy ̄anas as bodily
feeling, and identify it with the sukha faculty, and thus avoid those
complexities and even contradictions found in the Sarv ̄astiv ̄ada and
Therav ̄ada exegeses. Their understanding of sukha of the dhy ̄anas
accords with both the usual jh ̄ana formula and the Avipar ̄itaka S
̄utra account. The views of different schools compared with the usual jh
̄ana formula and the Avipar ̄itaka S ̄utra are summarised in Table 2.
...
315
CLARIFICATION ON FEELINGS IN BUDDHIST
only
from emotional disturbance, but also from the disturbance of bodily
feelings. Thus proceeding through the four jh ̄anas involves a reduction
in affective and hedonic experiences to a state of equani- mity, upekkh
̄a.
CONCLUSION
The
foregoing passage of the Avipar ̄itaka S ̄utra preserved in the
Sanskrit and Chinese literature provides a plausible account of the
order in which specific feelings cease in different jh ̄anas, which fits
in quite well with the usual jh ̄ana formula. Its Pali counterpart in
the Uppat.ip ̄at.ika three respects Sutta, and however, has caused
contradicts difficulties the to usual Therav ̄ada jh ̄ana formula
exegesis. in
Similarly, some
doctrines of the Sarv ̄astiv ̄ada Abhidharma also con- tradict the usual
jh ̄ana formula. The two schools use the same approaches to iron out
their respective contradictions, but by so doing they get into other
inconsistencies and complexities, and unsurprisingly the two schools
sometimes arrive at different conclu- sions although using the same
approaches. In contrast, the Sautr ̄antika interpretation of sukha
appears to be consistent with the earliest texts. Such a ‘Sautr ̄antika’
approach, i.e. taking s ̄utras as criteria, adopted by this essay shows
that the earliest accounts suffice to elucidate each other regarding
the issue of feelings in jh ̄ana, and that a plausible and consistent
interpretation can be drawn from the earliest texts rather than from
some later literature. In conclusion, we can accept the Avipar ̄itaka S
̄utra account that domanassa, dukkha, somanassa, sukha and upekkh ̄a
cease successively as one proceeds from lower to higher meditative
attainments, and these five terms in this account are not different from
those in the usual jh ̄ana formula. It is not necessary to equate sukha
of the first three jh ̄anas to somanassa as the Therav ̄adins do, or to
identify sukha of the first two jh ̄anas with prasrabdhi (a volitional
formation, not a feeling) as the Sarv ̄astiv ̄adins do. Neither is it
necessary to interpret upekkh ̄a in the jh ̄anas as a volitional
formation as the two traditions do. The process of reducing feelings as
prescribed in the stated feeling and in the eliminating Sal.
̄ayatanavibhan
unpleasant scheme .
ga
of jh ̄ana conforms with what is Sutta: first developing pleasant
feeling; then abandoning pleasant feeling and achieving upekkh ̄a.
What are EBT Jedi?
When Abhdhamma (Theravada school) or Abhidharma (Sarvastivada school) promote a doctrine that contradicts the EBT (early buddhist text suttas/sutras), The EBT Jedi step in to resolve the contradiction.
See
- Where do Jedi's come from?
- MN 66 upekkha-sukha CST4 pāli error, fixed.
- SN 48.40 Corrected version, CST4 Pāli fixed (VRJ v...
- SN 48.40 (S V 213) is a corrupt sutta
- MN 138 upekkha-sukha error in the Pāli source CST,...
You can see the corrected pali version I restored, is almost exactly the same as the Agama counterpart , Avipar ̄itaka S ̄utra, the Sautrantika EBT Jedi supported above.
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