🔗📝SN 41.8 Jain founder, Buddha's first jhāna, Jain's first jhāna scripture

 Jain's Jhāna scripture excerpted from Gabriel's article

Why should we assume that Jains practiced a meditation with thought and investigation?

 Arbel (2016, 34) observes that of the Buddhist meditation vocabulary 

 only vitakka and vicāra appear in ancient Jain texts.

 The Jain Tattvārtha Sūtra, describing different kinds of dhyāna (Pāli Jhāna),

says in sutras 9.43-44 that 

vitarka (Pāli vitakka) is scriptural knowledge (śruta) and that 

vicāra is a shifting between the object, its word, and its activity (Tatia 1994, 242). 

In 9.42 it also states,

however, that there is meditation without vicāra.

 It has not been sufficiently researched how old the ancient Jain literature is, 

 but this could be another hint that meditation with vitakka and vicāra 

 were common among ascetics of the Buddha’s time.

Frank comment

That's exactly how it works in the EBT.

sati ("mindfulness") remembers Dharma scriptural language in the form of verbal thoughts (vitakka), a communicable language.

SN 46.3 (7sb☀️)

This is one of the most important models in the EBT. You should have it memorized and know it by heart forwards and backwards. This is the canonical definition of "bhāvana", meditation, every method of meditation that generates samadhi and jhanas, uses this model. It appears as part of many 16 APS suttas, it often appears without the explicit "bojjhanga" suffix attached, but a partial causal sequence is unmistakable. 

(implied: pamojja and pīti would result from contact with inspiring monks)
(0. 👂 Bhikkhūnaṃ dhammaṃ sutvā)	0. 👂 listen to Dhamma [teaching] from a monk [and memorize it]
(1. 🐘 Sati: taṃ Dhammaṃ anus-sarati anu-vitakketi)	1. 🐘 that Dhamma [teaching] (he) recollects and thinks about
(2. 💭 Dhamma-vicaya: taṃ dhammaṃ paññāya, pa-vicinati pa-vicarati pari-vīmaṃsam-āpajjati )	2. 💭 that Dhamma discerning; he discriminates, evaluates, investigates
(3. 🏹 Vīriya: āraddhaṃ hoti vīriyaṃ a-sallīnaṃ.)	3. 🏹 his aroused vigor is not-slackening
(4. 😁 Pīti: Āraddha-vīriyassa uppajjati pīti nir-āmisā,)	4. 😁 his aroused vigor leads to arising of rapture not-carnal (of jhana)
(5. 🌊 Passaddhi: Pīti-man-assa, kāyo-pi passambhati, cittam-pi passambhati )	5. 🌊 with enraptured-mind, his body becomes pacified, his mind becomes pacified
(6. 🌄 Samādhi: Passaddha-kāyassa sukhino, cittaṃ samādhiyati.)	6. 🌄 with pacified body, he is in pleasure, mind becomes undistractable and lucid.
(7. 👁 Upekkha: so tathā-samāhitaṃ cittaṃ, sādhukaṃ ajjh-upekkhitā hoti)	7. 👁 he of such undistractable & lucid mind, thoroughly looks-upon-it-with-equanimity
(7 types of fruits, Nirvana)	Seven different levels of awakening results from proper practice of 7sb.

vitakka role in vāca (speech) and oral traditions

I don't know if Gabriel read any of my blog articles on SN 41.8, 

the earliest one I could find on my blog predates his article by more than a year.

He's never communicated with me outside of suttacentral, 

so I'm assuming he made his findings independently of mine, which is great!

It means there are sensible people out there who read suttas carefully,

come to a rational conclusion that in Indian oral traditions,

vitakka & vicāra are verbal thoughts.

It has to be that way for an oral tradition to work. 

If vitakka and vicāra were as Sujato and Vism. claim, "placing the mind" (on a visual kasina),

You couldn't build vaci-sankhara (speech fabrications) into vāca (vocalized speech).

You'd just have babbling idiots mumbling incoherently to each other. 

I browsed through the thread on suttacentral where Gabriel shared his article,

Sujato was not tagged, but pretended he didn't see it and didn't participate.

Just as he pretended not to see all the articles I posted on suttacentral from 2017-2019

examining the EBT suttas and other literature that incontrovertibly show that vitakka must be verbal thought,

not "placing the mind" (on a visual kasina).

Frank's collection of articles on SN 41.8

Saturday, January 25, 2020

vitakka and vicara are essential words/concepts in basic human communication 

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2020/01/vitakka-and-vicara-are-essential.html

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Concise Proof that Vitakka and Vicāra of first jhāna means 'thinking & evaluation' 

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2020/02/concise-proof-that-vitakka-and-vicara.html

Thursday, June 11, 2020

SN 41.8 Jain founder doesn’t believe 2nd jhana possible, B. Sujato interpretation of vitakka illogical and incoherent 

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2020/06/sn-418-jain-founder-doesnt-believe-2nd.html

Friday, October 1, 2021

SN 41.8 non Buddhist doing 1st jhana, MN 36 Buddha as a boy (was non Buddhist) doing first jhana 

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2021/10/sn-418-non-buddhist-doing-1st-jhana-mn.html

Gabriel's article on Jain first jhāna (full article)

THE FIRST JHĀNA, AN ASSIMILATED JAIN MEDITATION PRACTICE

https://www.academia.edu/45145533/The_First_Jhana_an_Assimilated_Jain_Meditation_Practice

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/the-first-jhana-as-an-assimilated-jain-meditation-practice/19263/30

Gabriel Ellis, PhD cand. Warsaw University, February 18th 2021

Abstract:

 The article explores the hypothesis that the first Buddhist Jhāna was not a novel

discovery of the Buddha but a meditative practice assimilated from techniques available at the

Buddha’s time.

 Some hints point to a Jain source, others to an early Buddhist emphasis on the

second Jhāna upward.

 The findings are inconclusive but maintain the hypothesis as valid.

To recall, the culmination of Buddhist meditation or Samādhi 

is typically described as having four progressive stages, the Jhānas.

The first Jhāna has four factors:

thought (vitakka),

investigation (vicāra), 

rapture (pīti), and 

happiness (sukha).

 Generally, the Buddhist tradition assumes that the Jhānas 

 are a novel contribution of the Buddha 

(see for a further discussion Arbel 2016).

In SN 41.8 Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta – commonly known as the Jain master and Buddha’s contemporary Mahāvīra – 

claims that there is no avitakka avicāra samādhi, 

i.e. a state of meditation without thought and investigation, 

and that it would be like catching the wind in a net.

Mahāvīra doesn’t mention a Samādhi with thought and investigation, but the plausible

implication of his incredulous comment is that he is very familiar with its practice, 

or at the very least knows of other religious professionals who practice it.

 What Buddhist texts call the ‘first Jhāna’ would, therefore, 

 be no Buddhist invention at all 

 but a meditation practice available to other ascetic practitioners as well.

Why should we assume that Jains practiced a meditation with thought and investigation?

 Arbel (2016, 34) observes that of the Buddhist meditation vocabulary 

 only vitakka and vicāra appear in ancient Jain texts.

 The Jain Tattvārtha Sūtra, describing different kinds of dhyāna (Pāli Jhāna),

says in sutras 9.43-44 that 

vitarka (Pāli vitakka) is scriptural knowledge (śruta) and that 

vicāra is a shifting between the object, its word, and its activity (Tatia 1994, 242). 

In 9.42 it also states,

however, that there is meditation without vicāra.

 It has not been sufficiently researched how old the ancient Jain literature is, 

 but this could be another hint that meditation with vitakka and vicāra 

 were common among ascetics of the Buddha’s time.

This interpretation also shines light on a story in MN 36, MN 85, and MN 100 according to

which the later-to-be Buddha experienced a state of rapture with thought and investigation, 

i.e. the first Jhāna.

 While the commentaries say that Gotama was still a boy at that time (Ñāṇamoli &

Bodhi 1995, 1230) nothing in the actual sutta confirms that he was that young – it merely

mentions that at that time his father was off working.

 The story also doesn’t claim that his state

was a novel discovery.

 In fact, there would be nothing unusual about a young man in his mid-

twenties with great spiritual talent to have spoken to wandering ascetics on their alms-round,

inquiring about their practices and then applying them successfully.

In short, the first Jhāna could well have been an already available meditation practice

incorporated by early Buddhism into its fourfold framework of Samādhi.

 And indeed, there is

already established precedence for a very similar incorporation:

 a well-known part of Gotama’s biography is that 

 early in his spiritual quest he learned from two teachers the so-called ‘formless

realms’ – abstract meditation states with hardly any mental content at all (see Rai, 2017). 

And these ‘formless realms’ became part of Buddhist meditation, 

with the standard passages usually starting 

progressing from the four Jhānas to the four Formless Realms.

I want to highlight more aspects from Buddhist sources 

that the first Jhāna was not regarded that highly, 

which could be a consequence of an assimilation.

 As it is well known, the Noble Eightfold Path culminates in the eighth limb of Samādhi, 

 which then again is described with the four Jhānas.

 

 But when we look at the standard descriptions of the Jhānas 

the term samādhi actually only appears in the second Jhāna:

 The first Jhāna is ‘born out of separation’ (vivekaja),

and the second out of Samādhi (samādhija).

 Which means that the last limb of the Noble Eightfold Path 

 is actually named after the second Jhāna – 

 which again could be a hint that this is where the contribution of the Buddha was seen.

Another sutta might emphasize exactly this point.

 Snp 1.1, verse 7 (translation Bodhi) says:

“One whose thoughts (vitakka) have been burned out, entirely well excised internally:

1that bhikkhu gives up the here and the beyond as a serpent sheds its old worn-out skin.”

1 Yassa vitakkā vidhūpitā, ajjhattaṃ suvikappitā asesā;

So bhikkhu jahāti orapāraṃ, urago jiṇṇamivattacaṃ purāṇaṃ.

The implication of this verse is that the transcendence of vitakka 

(which could allude to the second Jhāna) 

would result in or lead to liberation.

 This claim is repeated in a parallel to this verse, in Udāna 6-7:

 Subhūtisuttaṁ (translation Ānandajoti):

“For he who has dispelled thoughts (vitakka), 

Totally cut (them) off within himself without remainder,

Perceiving the formless (nibbāna), 

beyond the shackle, 

Having overcome the four yokes - 

he 2surely does not come (to birth again).”

A text possibly critical of the first Jhāna 

is a poem that appears in the early Suttanipāta, in Snp 5.13, v. 1109 (also in SN 1.64). 

In this early material different Brahmin masters present their questions to the Buddha.

 And in the verse in question Udaya asks the Buddha what keeps the world in bondage.

 In his answer the Buddha identifies as the culprits some elements 

of the ‘first Jhāna’, namely thought and investigation (vitakka and vicāra), 

next to delight (nandi), which in this context could be a misguided version of the Jhāna factor pīti.

 A possible reading of this verse is, therefore, 

 that the meditation practice of other traditions essentially 

 leaves the system of existential bondage intact 

 since they investigate (vicāra) the wrong Dharma (vitakka) and as a

consequence get lost in delight (nandi) – 

the latter, however, doesn’t sound like a reference to Jain practitioners 

who were seen as ascetics who embrace pain in their practice.

In the end I cannot claim that there is hard proof 

for the hypothesis that the first Jhāna 

is actually an assimilation from a shared spiritual practice of the Buddha’s time.

 But there is enough supportive circumstantial evidence 

 in order to keep the idea in the back of our mind when contemplating the Buddhist Jhānas.

2 Yassa vitakkā vidhūpitā, Ajjhattaṁ suvikappitā asesā,

Taṁ saṅgam-aticca arūpasaññī, Catuyogātigato na jātu-m-etī” ti.

Abbreviations

MN Majjhima Nikāya

SN Saṃyutta Nikāya

Snp Suttanipāta

References

Ānandajoti, B.

 (2008). Udāna.

 Exalted Utterances.

 Revised version 2.2. Available Online:

https:

//www.

ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Texts-and-Translations/Udana/Exalted-Utterances.pdf

Arbel, K.

 (2016). Early Buddhist Meditation.

 London & New York:

 Routledge.

Bodhi, B.

 (Trans.). (2017). The Suttanipāta.

 Somerville:

 Wisdom Publications.

Ñāṇamoli, B.

 & Bodhi, B.

 (Trans.). (1995). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.

 A

Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya.

 Boston:

 Wisdom Publications.

Rai, S.

 (2017). The Curious Case of the Formless Attainments.

 Journal of the International

Association of Buddhist Universities, 6(2), 70-82.

Tatia, N.

 (Trans.). (1994). That which is.

 New York:

 HarperCollins Publishers.