Exciting news: Honest EBT scholars like Venerables Sujato, Brahm, Brahmali, Sunyo have overturned ancient EBT scholars
Ven. @Sunyo wrote
[about "deep jhāna" as a disembodied mental paralysis vs. Buddha's jhāna as embodied experience where thinking and vipassana happens during jhāna]
...
Other discourses that were brought up (and likely most that will still be brought up below) to argue against certain interpretations of jhanas, have been discussed quite extensively before.
In short, the deep interpretation of jhanas is held by honest scholars with extensive knowledge of the suttas and Pali,
and by the commentaries whose job it is to comment upon the discourses,
so it’s not like the discourses clearly disprove them.
And there’s lots of stuff in their favor as well in the discourses.
SN48.40 being, in my view, one of them.
In short, the deep interpretation of jhanas is held by honest scholars with extensive knowledge of the suttas and Pali,
and by the commentaries whose job it is to comment upon the discourses,
so it’s not like the discourses clearly disprove them.
And there’s lots of stuff in their favor as well in the discourses.
SN48.40 being, in my view, one of them.
Frankk response
This is indeed exciting news, if it's proven to be true.
I would be very interested to hear how Ven.'s Sujato, Sunyo, Brahmali explain how they overturn the ancient EBT commentators who claimed the sutta Jhānas were an embodied, not formless attainment, shown clearly in
According to EBT timeline, the honest scholarship would overturn ancient commentaries and scholarship from about 2150 years ago.
KN Pe is canonical, part of the Theravdaa sutta pitaka, so it's not just commentary, it's part of the sutta pitaka.
- BCE milestone EBT events
- CE milestone EBT events
- 1 CE Vimt. = Vimutti-magga kāya in 4 jhānas is physical
- 500 CE Vism = Visuddhi-magga LBT Theravada redefines jhāna as a disembodied, mental paralysis.
Entire message from Ven. Sunyo 2024 in May:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/how-to-reconcile-these-2-suttas-with-absorption-jhana/34061/20
Hi Venerable, we discussed this issue before here 3. But to clarify my take on this, because these are interesting discourses that are often overlooked:
SN48.40 I actually deem more problematic for the interpretation of jhanas in which sukha is felt “with the body”, because it says the faculty of sukha has ceased in the third jhana, where there still is sukha.
With this in mind, the faculty of sukha (which SN48.36-38 indeed define as bodily)
cannot refer to the sukha of the third jhana itself.
The sukha that still exists in the third jhana is actually part of the somanassa faculty,
defined in SN48.36-38 as “mental pleasure (sukha)”.
This faculty is said in SN48.40 to not exist in the fourth jhana, indicating quite clearly that the sukha of the third jhana is this mental pleasure.
As Bhikkhu Bodhi writes in his footnote:
“The pleasure faculty (sukhindriya) here is bodily pleasant feeling, not the happiness (also called sukha) the meditator is said to “experience with the body” in the third jhāna.
The latter sukha is actually mental happiness, identical with somanassa.”
(Note that his “with the body” for kāyena is translated by Ven. Sujato as “personally”, which is what I agree it actually means.)
But how then are we to make sense of the statement about the third jhana, that bodily pleasure has ceased there?
In the earlier discussion some people wondered whether SN48.40 may be inauthentic,
but it seems very unlikely the Pali editors would have accidentally put an error so obvious and serious in the canon.
“Parallels” that were brought up to support this supposed inauthenticity are not really parallels at all,
but later summary texts that seem to attempt to try to fix this “problem” of the third jhana.
(Yet in doing so they create new problems.)
The name of the discourse, “Irregular Order [of the faculties]”,
also indicates that the Pāli compilers were well aware of what they were doing.
Whoever named the text wouldn’t call it “irregular order” and then not seriously consider the order of the faculties!
So this somewhat strange, irregular use of faculties wasn’t an accident.
It was intended, of that I’m sure.
Alternatively, the definition of the faculties in SN48.36-38 may not apply to SN48.40, but that seems to me equally far-fetched.
The easiest way I can see to reconcile the texts is as follows.
The point that is being made with the third jhana in SN48.40 is exactly to indicate that the sukha that exists there (and therefore in the first and second as well) is not bodily.
All bodily sukha has ceased there, is what the discourse says directly, after all.
When you say that in SN48.40 “the first 2 Jhānas still has feelings of pleasure from the physical body”, this is not true.
Technically, the discourse just says this bodily pleasure has ceased in the third.
It doesn’t actually say that it still existed in the first two jhanas.
Point being, it has ceased in the first and second as well, but that is not the relevant point being made in the discourse.
It is quite clear that the discourse tries to creatively map the four faculties of happiness/pleasure/pain/sadness onto the four jhanas.
But the problem is, they don’t map on precisely.
This is also clear from the domanassa faculty, which the discourse says has ceased in the second jhana, while other discourses (e.g. AN5.176) say it already ceased in the first.
In sum, we should not read SN48.40 as a sequential cessation of the faculties in the sequential jhanas, where one ceases in the first jhana, another in the second, and so forth.
Because the faculties just don’t cease that way.
We should instead read it as a clarification that certain faculties don’t exist in certain jhanas.
But in some cases they may also not exist in earlier jhanas either.
It may not be the most natural reading at first glance, but this seems to me the only way to read the discourse.
Otherwise, we run into problems regardless of how we interpret the jhanas.
Either way, the bodily jhana intepretation runs into more problems with this discourse, it seems to me.
It’s actually a strong indication that the sukha of the jhanas is mental.
I’ll probably leave it at that for this discussion.
Other discourses that were brought up (and likely most that will still be brought up below) to argue against certain interpretations of jhanas, have been discussed quite extensively before.
In short, the deep interpretation of jhanas is held by honest scholars with extensive knowledge of the suttas and Pali,
and by the commentaries whose job it is to comment upon the discourses,
so it’s not like the discourses clearly disprove them.
And there’s lots of stuff in their favor as well in the discourses.
SN48.40 being, in my view, one of them.
Would love to hear others’ takes on this text.
Forum discussion
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foowfoowfoow
what does your practice tell you frank?from experience, which interpretation is true?
unless you can comment from experience, i don’t see your current post (and similar other ones) clarifying things either way.
without experience, this is just an opinion.
Spirited_Ad8737
With all due respect, this isn't a question that can best be answered from experience, because both types of meditation can be done and experienced.
The EBT-relevant question is:
Which type is what the Buddha taught in the suttas?
That can be answered with textual and linguistic analysis.
Or at least strong arguments can be presented.
It appears IMO very likely that the Buddha's jhanas, as described in the Pali Canon and some commentarial literature, are one thing, and the Visuddhimagga jhanas, as also described in other commentarial literature, are another, quite different thing.
One reason is that when the Visuddhimagga camp try to find sutta support for their position,
they have to go to great lengths to redefine words and make highly speculative and improbable arguments.
For example, in the above quoted "entire message":
"Technically, the discourse just says this bodily pleasure has ceased in the third.
It doesn’t actually say that it still existed in the first two jhanas."
I mean, seriously?
That's how they have to argue, to try to get rid of the numerous problems with their idea.
The sutta-jhana interpretation is much more straightforward.
It's like pitting the Ptolemaic vs the Copernican solar system model.
Anyhow, I don't see why this has to be so controversial, because there are accomplished practitioners in both camps.
We all benefit from keeping the sutta-jhana system and the visuddhimagga-jhana system clearly and distinctly separated.
They use different terminology, and where they share terminology it's as if the terms were on different rulers, or the rulers are slid like a slide rule along a scale.
All the important landmarks are there, but they have different names.
Clarity about this is super important.
Scholars like the ones Frank is criticising are going out of their way, for whatever reason,
to reduce clarity about this, IMO.
foowfoowfoow
yes, i agree with you (and frank) regarding the concerns over textual analysis.however, the most convincing argument for the correctness of the suttas is practice that bears fruit.
someone who practices according to the suttas will undoubtedly attain to states and levels of practice that the buddha describes.
from that point, when they speak, it will be with the authority of experience rather than the authority of texts.
i do disagree with the interpretations that are inconsistent with the suttas, and i think frank makes good points here and in general, but the most convincing point to make is in the results of practice.
at that point one can clarify the suttas from experience.
when we hear someone like ajahn chah or ajahn dtun or ajahn lee speak it’s clear.
when we argue with others without having that experience, it’s like flinging feces at another.
if we understand something about the suttas, we should then practice it to the point of mastering it, and only then return to teach others about it.
we drastically need teachers whose words are informed by personal practice.
just my opinion - feel free to ignore :-)
Spirited_Ad8737
someone who practices according to the suttas will undoubtedly attain to states and levels of practice that the buddha describes.I agree overall, though there's one thing about the above.
In order to practice according to the suttas, one needs to know what they say.
So there's good reason to subject interpretations and translations to scrutiny, even if it's just at a textual/language level.
I hope that we can avoid it just being feces flinging by recognizing that there are great teachers using various different takes.
It's the same Dhamma, but there's been a bit of a game of telephone with the terminology because of 2600 years of language shift.
We're lucky that there are still teachers who understand the essentials and can teach.
They're in all camps.
So it's not about discrediting teachers.
Same caveat... just my opinion.
foowfoowfoow
yes agree.i’ve found that the best way to practice is to base myself on the suttas, and then experiment from there - figure out what works.
for example what does the buddha mean when he says ‘experiencing the whole body’.
people will have opinions - i’ve read books by people who are credited to be meditation experts, and thought what they suggested was out of keeping with the as suttas.
so i’ve put them aside and moved on to find teachers who do accord with the correct view of things.
the ones that are really bad, i just put aside entirely and don’t mention unless someone’s following them or trying to advocate for them.
if there are teachers we disagree with, it does no good to direct attention towards them - we’re inadvertently directing people to their arguments.
it’s better to find teachers that are sound and direct others to them.
again, my opinion - feel free to ignore :-)
Re: Exciting news: Honest EBT scholars like Venerables Sujato, Brahm, Brahmali, Sunyo have overturned ancient EBT schol
Post by BrokenBones » Thu May 23, 2024 3:35 am
I actually find the whole misrepresentation of the sutta teachings quite sad. Everybody is free to practice what they wish (including the venerables) but the torturing of the Pali language to make it say what they wish it said is not a good look.
I laboured one point a year or so ago in support of body jhana and I never received an answer....
4.3.2.8. Fourth Absorption
"Furthermore, giving up pleasure and pain, and ending former happiness and sadness, a mendicant enters and remains in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness. They sit spreading their body through with pure bright mind. There’s no part of the body that’s not spread with pure bright mind.
It’s like someone sitting wrapped from head to foot with white cloth. There’s no part of the body that’s not spread over with white cloth. In the same way, they sit spreading their body through with pure bright mind. There’s no part of the body that’s not spread with pure bright mind. This too, great king, is a fruit of the ascetic life that’s apparent in the present life which is better and finer than the former ones."
https://suttacentral.net/dn2/en/sujato? ... ript=latin
Now according to certain venerables the highlighted portion should be read as 'the body (of mind) is suffused with mind'... nonsense.
And as far as 'head to foot' is concerned; which part of this 'body of mind' contains the head and which part the feet.
Either the Buddha was talking about the physical body or he taught the most nonsensical and confusing simile imaginable... which of course is unthinkable.
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