notes on the Dhamma

from Dhammawheel forum thread Re: Passaddhi; and a more general question I respond: https://lucid24.org/sted/7sb/5passaddhi ... ml#flink-8 in SN 36.11 look at how the 6 passaddhi's are used to describe 9 samadhi attainments, but deliberately omitting the formless attainments, in contrast to the 9 nirodhas and 9 vupasamas. This is incontrovertible evidence that kaya-passaddhi refers to pacification of the physical body, the sutta is the Buddha's own commentary on passaddhi. citta passaddhi has a straightforward meaning, again noticing what physical and mental elements would have to be pacified through those 9 samadhi attainments in SN 36.11 first jhana pacifies unskillfull thoughts with skillful ones. second jhana sublimates skillful verbal thoughts into subverbal mental activity (most commonly described as paying attention to Dharmic perceptions). 3rd jhana the mental trigger for piti is discarded as being an unnecessary expenditure of energy, 3rd and 4th jhana equanimous obse...

From a private conversation, the questioner is in italicized font: If vitakka means thinking, why in the suttas Buddha would teach to use vitakka to get to jhana? Isn't the whole point of meditation to get away from thinking? https://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi/smd1/index.html 4👑☸j1🌘 First Jhāna #2 addresses your question pointedly, but you should read the whole introductory section there (should only take a few minutes). we use desire to end desire, so should you be surprised you use skillful thoughts to remove unskillful thoughts, and then more skillful thoughts to phase itself out to enter 2nd jhana? Thank you. I read the article. Can you give an example of how you work your mind in a typical anapanasati session and what you classify as vitakka? (quoting excerpt from) https://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi/vitakka/index.html V&V💭 lucid24.org vitakka & vicāra in 1st Jhāna🌘 is intrinsically the same in 1st jhāna as it is outside of it, with 2 conditions. 1. The con...

  STED  Right Remembering (Eng.) ( SN 45.8 )   kāye kāyā-(a)nu-passī viharati,  "Monks, what is right remembering [of  ☸Dharma ]?" 1. He meditates continuously seeing the body as a body [as it actually is]... ... A picture from Ajahn Maha Boowa's manual on asubha practice. It's in Thai, so I don't know what the instructions actually say, but from what Thai Forest meditation masters with strong samadhi say from their personal experience, when you walk around seeing people and living beings, samadhi is so strong that in real time you can superimpose xray vision of what's under their skin. Even without supernormal imperturbable fourth jhana level of samadhi, you can mentally visualize what's under the skin from images of body parts you've previously memorized. What's most helpful about this practice, is you get in the habit of doing jhana, samadhi, asubha all the time, on whatever living beings come into your field of vision, and it starts to become ...

from sutta central forum:  How Early Buddhism differs from Theravada: a checklist Below I include a copy of the essay here, a snap shot on 1/17/2022. It's a good article, except his views on jhana and samadhi remain wronger than wrong. Forum discussion dhammawheel: Re: How Early Buddhism differs from Theravada: a checklist by Bhante Sujato   frank k » Tue Feb 01, 2022 3:18 am I get really sick of well informed and educated people like yourself, Mike, continuing to bury your head in the sand and pretend that everyone is good, everyone is sincere and made valid but differing arguments and provided evidence to support their positions [on jhana and samadhi]. They did not. Not only did they not provide sufficient evidence and reasoning, they deliberately cherry pick a small percentages of the relevant passages, and fail to address the incontrovertible evidence from the passages that contradict them, fail to explain why their interpretation does not need to take those passages int...