KN Snp 5.14 Just found another sutta where someone (the Buddha!) is sitting in jhāna, hearing sounds

 

KN Snp 5.14 Udaya-māṇava-pucchā: The Questions of Udaya

(2022 SP-FLUENT translation by frankk‍)

“Jhāyiṁ virajam-āsīnaṁ,	To the one sitting in jhāna— without dust,
(iccāyasmā udayo)	(said Venerable Udaya,)
Kata-kiccaṁ an-āsavaṁ;	Done the task, [an arahant with] no more asinine-inclinations.
Pāraguṁ sabba-dhammānaṁ,	Gone beyond all dharmas—
Atthi pañhena āgamaṁ;	I’ve come here with a question.
Aññā-vimokkhaṁ pabrūhi,	Please speak about the emancipation of final knowledge,
Avijjāya pa-bhedanaṁ”.	ignorance breaking up.

(Buddha says:)

“Pahānaṁ kāma-c-chandānaṁ,	the abandoning of both sensual-desires
(udayāti bhagavā)	(replied the Buddha),
Domanassāna cūbhayaṁ;	and distressed mental states,
Thinassa ca panūdanaṁ,	Dispelling of Sloth,
Kukkuccānaṁ nivāraṇaṁ.	regrets being warded off. [These are referencing the five hindrances]
Upekkhā­-sati­-s­aṁ-sud­dha­­ṁ,	[fourth jhāna is] equanimous observation, Remembering-and-applying-☸Dharma purified,
dhamma-ta­k­ka-pu­re­java­ṁ;	with ☸Dharma-thoughts [of first jhāna] preceding that.
Aññā-vimokkhaṁ pabrūmi,	this is the final knowledge emancipation that I speak of,
Avijjāya pa-bhedanaṁ”.	ignorance breaking-up..

In contrast to 

KN Ud 3.3 Buddha and 500 monks in imperturbable samadhi can’t hear Ānanda talking to them

KN Ud 3.3 if they could hear, buddha would have responded to Ānanda talking to him.

♦ tatiyampi kho āyasmā ānando abhikkantāya rattiyā, nikkhante pacchime yāme, uddhaste aruṇe, nandimukhiyā rattiyā uṭṭhāyāsanā ekaṃsaṃ uttarāsaṅgaṃ karitvā yena bhagavā tenañjaliṃ paṇāmetvā bhagavantaṃ etadavoca — “abhikkantā, bhante, ratti; nikkhanto pacchimo yāmo; uddhasto aruṇo; nandimukhī ratti; ciranisinnā āgantukā bhikkhū; paṭisammodatu, bhante, bhagavā, āgantukehi bhikkhūhī”ti.	Then a third time, when the night was far advanced, at the end of the last watch, as dawn was approaching and the face of the night was beaming, Ven. Ānanda got up from his seat, arranged his robe over one shoulder, stood facing the Blessed One, paying homage to him with his hands placed palm-to-palm over his heart, and said to him, “The night, lord, is far advanced. The last watch has ended. Dawn is approaching and the face of the night is beaming. The visiting monks have been sitting here a long time. May the Blessed One greet them.”
♦ atha kho bhagavā tamhā samādhimhā vuṭṭhahitvā āyasmantaṃ ānandaṃ āmantesi — “sace kho tvaṃ, ānanda, jāneyyāsi ettakampi te nappaṭibhāseyya VAR . ahañca, ānanda, imāni ca pañca bhikkhusatāni sabbeva āneñjasamādhinā nisīdimhā”ti.	Then the Blessed One, emerging from his imperturbable concentration, said to Ven. Ānanda, “Ānanda, if you had known, not even that much would have occurred to you (to say).1 I, along with all 500 of these monks, have been sitting in imperturbable concentration.”

Summary of KN Ud 3.3:

This sutta is closely related to AN 10.72 sutta on sound being a thorn to the four jhānas.

It even ends with the udāna verse about 3 thorns ended by an arahant,

The sutta starts with monks making very loud noises and the Buddha being disturbed by the noise, implying that the Buddha was experiencing sound as thorns in the 4 jhānas, just as in AN 10.72 the merchants in their carriages making a loud noise traveling.

The Buddha sends away the 500 noisy monks.

Those 500 monks meditate diligently, and all attain the 3 higher knowledges and imperturbable formless attainments.

The Buddha summons those monks.

Those 500 monks notice that the Buddha is in imperturbable samādhi, and sit down and also enter imperturbable samādhi.

Ānanda goes to the Buddha to announce the arrival of the 500 monks, but the Buddha doesn’t hear him and doesn’t respond.

Ānanda asks a few more times, over the course of the night (about a 4 hour period).

Same results, Buddha doesn’t respond.

Then next morning, the Buddha tells Ānanda, “if you had known that I and the 500 monks were in formless samādhi, you would not have talked to me expecting me to hear and respond to you.”

So to reiterate the two important points:

1. earlier when the 500 monks were not yet arahants, they were noisy and disturbing the Buddha with the noise. Since the Buddha is always in suññata or samādhi (4 jhānas can be a mode of suññata), then the Buddha would obviously be in one of the four jhānas when he heard the monks making loud noises.

2. at the end of the sutta when the Buddha and the 500 monks are in imperturbable samādhi and can not hear Ānanda talking to them, they are in the formless attainments and can not hear sounds. This is why AN 10.72 lists four jhānas as having sound be a thorn, but omits the 4 formless attainments.

3. Important implication: The fact that Ānanda saw the Buddha sitting quietly over the 4 hours entire night, and several times tried to talk to him, means that Ānanda generally expects the Buddha not to be in imperturbable samādhi. Instead, Buddha would typically be in four jhānas the majority or at least a good portion of the typical nightly four hour period. Otherwise Ānanda wouldn’t try to talk to him!

4. Deduction: the imperturbable samādhi here must be the formless attainments, rather than 4th jhāna, since they couldn’t hear Ānanda talking to them.

DN 21, another sutta where Buddha explicitly hears sound while in "jhāna"

 DN ²¹ – DN 21 Sakka-pañha: Sakka’s Questions
    DN ^21.0 - (Sakka doesn’t want to disturb Buddha’s jhāna)
        DN ^21.0.1 - (fire burning is also called ‘jhāna’)
        DN ^21.0.2 - (Sakka convinces musician to pull Buddha out of jhāna retreat with poem)
    DN ^21.1 – Pañcasikha-gīta-gāthā: Pañcasikha’s Song
    DN ^21.2 – Sakk’-ūpasaṅkama: The Approach of Sakka
        DN ^21.2.0.1 - (Sakka visits Buddha but sees him in ‘samādhi’)
        DN ^21.2.0.2 - (Lady requests vistors including Sakka to not disturb Buddha’s meditation)
        DN ^21.2.0.3 - (sound of Sakka’s chariot pulls Buddha out of ‘samādhi’)
    DN ^21.2.1 – Gopaka-vatthu: The Story of laywoman reborn to higher deva realm than monks
        DN ^21.2.1.1 - (scolded by laywoman, deva remember life as monk)
        DN ^21.2.1.2 - (Sakka Q1: what fetters bind the gods, humans, demons, dragons? Envy and stinginess )
        DN ^21.2.1.3 - (Sakka Q2: what is the source of envy? The liked and disliked )
        DN ^21.2.1.4 - (Sakka Q3: what is source of liked and disliked? Desire/chanda )
        DN ^21.2.1.5 - (Sakka Q4: what is source of desire? Thought )
        DN ^21.2.1.6 - (Sakka Q5: what is source of thought? Identity and proliferation of perceptions )
        DN ^21.2.1.7 - (Sakka Q6: how to cease identity and proliferations of perceptions? Meditation on sensations)
    DN ^2.2 – Vedanā-kammaṭṭhāna: Meditation on sensations
        DN ^21.2.2.1 - (two kinds of mental joy – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.2.2 - (pīti and pamojja are the mental joy, 2nd jhāna is better than 1st jhāna)
        DN ^21.2.2.3 - (two kinds of mental distress – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.2.4 - (could be referring to asubha here, 2nd jhāna is better than 1st jhāna)
        DN ^21.2.2.5 - (two kinds of equanimous-observation – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.2.6 - (upekkha of 2nd jhāna and higher is better than 1st jhāna)
    DN ^21.2.3 – Pātimokkha-saṃvara: Restraint in the Monastic Code
        DN ^21.2.3.1 - (two kinds of bodily behavior – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.3.2 - (two kinds of vocal behavior – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.3.3 - (two kinds of search – ones that cause skillful Dharmas to increase, ones that don’t)
    DN ^21.2.4 – Indriya-saṃvara: Sense Restraint
        DN ^21.2.4.1 - (Buddha explains two kinds of guarding 6 sense doors – in brief)
        DN ^21.2.4.2 - (Sakka expands in detail two kinds of guarding 6 sense doors – those that increase skillful Dharmas, those that don’t)
        DN ^21.2.4.3 – (do all ascetics and brahmins have the same doctrine, ethics, desires, and attachments?)
        DN ^21.2.4.4 – (have all ascetics and brahmins reached the ultimate end?)
        DN ^21.2.4.5 – (sakka asked many teachers: Passion, a disease...drags a person to be reborn)
    DN ^21.2.5 – Somanassa-paṭilābha-kathā: On Feeling Happy
        DN ^21.2.5.1 - (6 reasons Sakka is happy involve stream enterer only having a few more lives left)
        DN ^21.2.5.2 - (Sakka gave musician promotion, and 80,000 devas become stream enterers)

If Buddha's jhāna was like Ajahn Brahm or Vism.'s disembodied frozen stupor where mind is divorced from body (and ability to hear sounds)

Then why is Sakka worried about disturbing Buddha's jhāna ?

You can't disturb a deaf person, a dead person, or someone in Ajahn Brahm and Vism.'s redefined "jhāna" because they can't hear sounds.

    DN ^21.0 - (Sakka doesn’t want to disturb Buddha’s jhāna)
        DN ^21.0.1 - (fire burning is also called ‘jhāna’)
        DN ^21.0.2 - (Sakka convinces musician to pull Buddha out of jhāna retreat with poem)
    DN ^21.1 – Pañcasikha-gīta-gāthā: Pañcasikha’s Song
    DN ^21.2 – Sakk’-ūpasaṅkama: The Approach of Sakka
        DN ^21.2.0.1 - (Sakka visits Buddha but sees him in ‘samādhi’)
        DN ^21.2.0.2 - (Lady requests vistors including Sakka to not disturb Buddha’s meditation)
        DN ^21.2.0.3 - (sound of Sakka’s chariot pulls Buddha out of ‘samādhi’)

And if Buddha hears sound and language and understands that speech... that means vitakka is

Vitakka (directed thoughts) and vicāra (evaluation) are linguistic, verbal, communicable language that the Buddha understands, and lucidly discerns with sati & sampajāno. 

That means vitakka are verbal thoughts.

Sakka and Udaya (from Snp 5.14 at beginning) talked to the Buddha who was in Jhāna,

and Buddha understood.

When he heard, he was probably in 4th jhāna.

The fact that he understood what he was hearing, means sati and sampajāno correctly decoded the sound and understood the meaning of their speech in the form of verbal thoughts (vitakka and vicāra).

When Buddha was formulating how to respond, he would have downshifted from 4th jhāna into 1st jhāna to form verbal thought (vitakka).

When the Buddha spoke out loud his response, he technically exited first jhāna (SN 36.11),

because vāca (vocalizing, vibrating your vocal cords and flapping your lips to emit sound as communicable language) is a boundary condition of first jhāna.