Vossagga, what does it mean in samādhi-indriya, and as the culmination of 7 awakening factors?

SN 48.9 samādhi-indriya

( 4🌄 Samādhi: undistractible-lucidity)

♦ “katamañ-ca, bhikkhave, samādh-indriyaṃ?	"{And}-what, monks, (is) undistractible-lucidity-faculty?
idha, bhikkhave, ariya-sāvako	Here, monks, (a) noble-ones'-disciple

vossagg-ārammaṇaṃ karitvā	{having made} release-(as the)-object
labhati samādhiṃ,	(he) obtains undistractible-lucidity,
labhati cittassa ek’-aggataṃ —	(he) obtains (the) mind’s singular-preoccupation -

idaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, samādh-indriyaṃ.	this (is) called, *********, undistractible-lucidity-faculty.

B. Sujato trans.: 

And what is the faculty of immersion? 
Katamañca, bhikkhave, samādhindriyaṃ? 

It’s when a noble disciple, relying on letting go, gains immersion, gains unification of mind. 
Idha, bhikkhave, ariyasāvako vossaggārammaṇaṃ karitvā labhati samādhiṃ, labhati cittassa ekaggataṃ— 

This is called the faculty of immersion. idaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, samādhindriyaṃ.

B. Bodhi has:

“And what, bhikkhus, is the faculty of concentration? Here, bhikkhus, the noble disciple gains concentration, gains one-pointedness of mind, having made release the object.194 
This is called the faculty of concentration.

B. Thanissaro has:

“And what is the faculty of concentration? There is the case where a monk, a disciple of the noble ones, making it his object to let go, attains concentration, attains singleness of mind. 

There are 3 possibilities:

1) vossagga/relinquishment is something one USES as a means to attain samādhi.

2) vossagga/relinquishment, as a synonym for nirvana, is the GOAL, that one attains samādhi as a means to reach the goal of complete relinqushment of nirvana. 

3) vossagga is both the means and the goal. Just as in AN 9, the Buddha defines each of the 9 gradual stages of samadhi (starting from 1st jhana) as a 'relative' nirvana, until the real nirvana is attained upon emerging from the 9th. Similarly, vossagga here could be used like 'nirvana' in that relative sense. That one uses 'relinquishment' as a means to attain gradual deeper stages of samadhi-indriya until the final release of vossagga as nirvana is realized.

translation and interpretation:

B. Bodhi and B. Thanissaro both translate the passage very literally, leaving it somewhat ambiguous. B. Sujato, has committed to the 1st possibility and eliminated the other 2 possibilities. 

Now if B. Sujato happens to be right in his interpretation, then perhaps no harm done, and you could say he's doing a service in making an ambiguous statement clear. But if he's wrong? He could be doing some harm and damage to how people understand and interpret Dhamma.

B.Bodhi footnote on his SN 48.9 translation

Vossaggārammaṇaṁ karitvā. 

It is not clear whether the absolutive should be taken in apposition to the noble disciple or the concentration, but I understand it in the latter sense. 

Spk glosses: “having made Nibbāna the object.” At AN I 36,20-24 it is said that few beings gain the concentration that makes release its object, compared to the greater number who do not gain it. Not much else is said in the Nikāyas about vossaggārammaṇa samādhi, but the expression occurs in Paṭis, and this text and its commentary shed light on how the Pāli exegetical tradition interprets it. 

Paṭis II 96-97 uses the expression in explicating the phrase, “[one] develops serenity preceded by insight” (vipassanāpubbaṅgamaṁ samathaṁ bhāveti; AN II 157,10-11): “Insight has the sense of contemplation as impermanent, as suffering, as nonself. Concentration is nondistraction, one-pointedness of mind having as object release of the phenomena produced therein (tattha jātānaṁ dhammānañ ca vossaggārammaṇatā cittassa ekaggatā avikkhepo samādhi). Thus first comes insight, afterwards serenity.”

On this Paṭis-a III 586-87 comments: 

“The phenomena produced therein: the phenomena of mind and mental factors produced by that insight. Having as object release: here release is Nibbāna, for Nibbāna is called release because it is the releasing of the conditioned, its relinquishment. Insight and the phenomena associated with it have Nibbāna as object, Nibbāna as support, because they are established on Nibbāna as their support in the sense of slanting towards it by way of inclination.… Concentration is nondistraction distinguished into access and absorption (upacārappanābhedo avikkhepo), consisting in the one-pointedness of mind aroused by being established on Nibbāna, with that as cause by taking as object release of the phenomena produced therein. Concentration partaking of penetration (nibbedhabhāgiyo samādhi), aroused subsequent to insight, is described.”

B. Bodhi's  SN footnotes in the path factor awakening sequences that ripens in vossagga

The viveka-nissita formula is affixed to the path factors at

Vibh 236. Spk explains seclusion (viveka) in the light of the

commentarial notion of the fivefold seclusion: 

(i) “in a particular respect” (tadaºga, temporarily, by the practice of

insight); 

(ii) by suppression (vikkhambhana, temporarily, by attainment of jh›na); 

(iii) by eradication (samuccheda, permanently, by the supramundane path); (iv) by subsiding (pa˛ippassaddhi, permanently, in fruition); and 

(v) by escape (nissara˚a, permanently, in Nibb›na). 

In the next two paragraphs I translate from Spk.

“He develops right view dependent on seclusion (vivekanissita˙): dependent on seclusion in a particular respect,

dependent on seclusion by eradication, dependent on

seclusion by escape. For at the moment of insight this meditator, devoted to the development of the noble path,

develops right view dependent on seclusion in a particular

respect by way of function and dependent on seclusion by

escape as inclination (since he inclines to Nibb›na); at the

time of the path, he develops it dependent on seclusion by

eradication as function and dependent on seclusion by

escape as object (since the path takes Nibb›na as object).

The same method of explanation is also extended to the

terms ‘dependent on dispassion’ (vir›ganissita) and ‘dependent on cessation’ (nirodhanissita).

“Release (vossagga) is twofold, 

release as giving up (paricc›ga) and 

release as entering into (pakkhandana). 

‘Release as giving up’ 

is the abandoning (pah›na) of defilements: in a particular respect (tadaºgavasena) on the occasion of insight, by eradication (samucchedavasena) at the moment of the supramundane path.

‘Release as entering into’ 

is the entering into Nibb›na: by way of inclination towards that

(tadninnabh›vena) on the occasion of insight, and by making it the object (›ramma˚akara˚ena) at the moment of the path. 

Both methods are suitable in this exposition, which

combines the mundane (insight) and the supramundane

(the path). 

The path is maturing in release (vossaggapari˚›mi)

because it is maturing towards or has matured in release,

meaning that it is ripening towards or has ripened (in

release). The bhikkhu engaged in developing the path is

‘ripening’ the path for the sake of giving up defilements

and entering into Nibb›na, and he develops it so that it has

‘ripened’ thus.”

When I translate vossagga as “release,” this should be

understood as the act of releasing or the state of having

released rather than as the experience of being released.

Vossagga and pa˛inissagga are closely related, both etymologically and in meaning, but as used in the Nik›yas a subtle difference seems to separate them. Pa˛inissagga, here translated “relinquishment,” pertains primarily to the phase of insight and thus might be understood as the

active elimination of defilements through insight into the

impermanence of all conditioned things. Vossagga, as that

in which the path matures, probably signifies the final state

in which all attachment is utterly given up, and thus comes

close in meaning to Nibb›na as the goal of the path.

Pa˛inissagga occurs as a distinct contemplation, the last, in

the sixteen steps in the development of mindfulness of

breathing (see 54:1). Though Spk glosses it in the same way

as it does vossagga (see n. 293 below), in the suttas themselves the two terms are used with different nuances.