AN 10.72 real example of loudest thunder I've ever heard

 

On what it means for sound to be thorn WHILE IN the 4 jhanas:

https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=41782&p=653417#p653417

BrokenBones wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 5:01 pm...
If I'm wearing a simple coat and someone prods me with a stick it's a 'thorn'.

If I'm wearing a super thick coat and they prod me then I'm still aware of it going on but it no longer bothers me.

Entering first jhana and the early stages of settling into it is the simple coat... becoming established in first jhana is the super thick coat.

That's exactly how it is. If people were serious meditators and had personal experience, they would come to a fascinating discovery that the suttas mean what they say, in plain simple terms.

I once was in Asia meditating in a group in the large meditation hall. A loud thunderstorm snuck up on us, where you never knew it came, no sound of rain, no visual of lightning, the first moment we knew of the storm, was the loudest thunder I've ever heard.

Large meditation hall, lots of people in it, I opened my eyes when the thunder struck, I was completely calm and unperturbed. I heard it, understood it was loud, but was not startled in the least. Exactly like the simile above with muted response with progressively thicker coat. All around me I can see and feel people jump out of their seats and visibly startled by the thunder, loudest I've ever heard that suddenly came out of nowhere with no warning.

Lots of meditation charges up your jhana battery, and it's like you get air bags that cushion you from large shocks,

That's why those war elephant similes work in MN 125, how they train in jhanas 1-4 to be resilient and imperturbable to the physical trauma of war.

When the suttas talk about imperturbability where they wouldn't have heard that loud thunder, those meditators would have been in an arupa samadhi at the time, or the 9th attainment. But if they were IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO ATTAIN those formless states, then they would hear the thunder, and that's the distinction made in AN 10.72 that almost no one seems to notice.

also, another real example my story of my taiji teacher colliding with a speeding vehicle.

http://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/20 ... rt-vs.html

Someone on the thread claiming that AN 10.72 is talking about perception and feeling arising in the 9th attainment being thorns and interrupting that attainment (which isn't possible)

I"ve made this point many times, I don't understand why people don't remember or just can't grok it.

from my article on hearing sounds in all 4 jhanas comments on AN 10.72
https://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi/sound/index.html

but why is samādhi attainment 9 on the list?
(9) saññā-vedayita-nirodha-samāpattiyā
(9) (for) perception-(and)-feelings'-cessation-attainment,
saññā ca vedanā ca kaṇṭako
perception and feeling (is a) thorn,
for cessation of perception and feeling, it’s the ”attainment of” (samāpattiyā), not the activity within that samadhi itself that is a thorn.

in this case, sounds are thorns while one is in the process of trying to attain. Note that same qualifer of “attainment” is not applied to the 4 jhanas, and note once again the 4 formless attainments are missing.

if the 4 jhanas were uninterruptible frozen states like the 9th attainment, then they would also need that qualifier of the ”attainment of” (samāpattiyā) to indicate that the thorn is happening before the freeze, not during.