by Keren Arbel
[A]s it really is the origin and the passing away, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these feelings (painful and pleasant), the underlying tendency to not-know (avijjānusayo) in regard to neither-painful-norpleasant feeling lies behind this.96
We might say that when one does not understand the impermanent and conditioned nature of vedanā, the underlying tendency to ignorance lies behind all three types of feelings. However, it seems that the preceding passage wishes to emphasize something particular about neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings: this type of feeling does not create strong reactions in the mind such as strong aversion and desire; hence, the skilful way to relate to this type of feeling is to observe and know its impermanent and conditioned nature.97 We can also say that this type of feeling is very subtle; thus, it can arise and pass away unnoticed. When one does not recognize the arising and passing away of this subtle feeling, it perpetuates a lack of clarity and ignorance with regard to experience; therefore, ignorance (avijjā) will lie behind this type of feeling.
It is interesting to note a further point made by the Pahāna Sutta: if one finds delight even in that ‘peaceful feeling of neither-painful-nor-pleasant’ (adukkhamasukhaṃ santaṃ), one is not free from dukkha.98 In other words, when subtle delight arises as conditioned by this type of feeling (it seems that delight arises when the experience is not painful or unpleasant and not only when the experience is obviously pleasant), the underlying tendency to desire can lie behind it as well. We might articulate this process by saying that when a person is not observant enough, this subtle feeling of neither-painful-nor-pleasant can arise and pass away unnoticed and unrecognized. When this occurs, one cannot see the subtle reactivity that might arise as a result of that feeling tone. Not knowing that a certain type of feeling is present in a certain moment of experience means that ignorance as to the nature of experience is functioning and further implanted in the mind. This, it would seem to me, is the reason why the Nikāyas associate ignorance or ‘no-recognition’ (avijjā) specifically with the arising of neither-painful-norpleasant feeling.
What is particularly significant in the exploration of the nature of jhānic ‘feeling-tones’ is the assertion made in the Cūḷavedalla Sutta that these underlying tendencies – the underlying tendency to desire, to aversion and to ignorance – do not underlie all pleasant, painful and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings.99 There are certain kinds of pleasant, painful and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings that do not sustain or create desire, aversion and ignorance, and these feelings do not embody these tendencies. We can imagine that feelings felt by an awakened person do not condition any unwholesome reactions; this is because these feeling are not rooted in desire, aversion and ignorance but in seeing clearly. When feelings arise in an awakened person due to various causes and conditions,100 they do not condition any (new) underlying tendencies; they do not produce any unwholesome mental patterns;101 they do not produce new kamma. This seems a plausible depiction of an awakened mind-set, since one becomes an arahant only when the underlying tendencies are completely eradicated.102
The second experiential context in which these three underlying tendencies do not underlie pleasant, painful and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings is, according to the Cūḷavedalla Sutta, the attainment of the jhānas. I would suggest that the account from the Cūḷavedalla Sutta aims at clarifying the abstruse process of how the mind becomes purified and free. It points out that by attaining the jhānas one can abandon desire, aversion and ignorance by actualizing profound wholesomeness.103 This description further deepens our understanding of the liberative value of jhānic states. We now know that the jhānas are completely wholesome; moreover, when one abides in them, the mind does not produce desire, aversion and clinging both on the surface of the mind and in its deeper levels. Given that, I would argue that the notion that the jhānas have delusive power is quite problematic. On the contrary, they seem to have the uttermost potential to eradicate delusion completely.
We have seen in previous chapters that jhānic feelings are very different from ordinary feelings. I have shown that jhānic sukha originates from insight into the nature of experience and not from pleasant sense experience. More so, jhānic sukha (and pīti) aids the process of de-conditioning the tendency to desire by familiarizing the practitioner with a different mode of being in the world. I discuss this issue at length in Chapter 2 on the first jhāna, so I shall not repeat the argument here. As to the liberative function of painful (dukkha) feelings in the attainment of the jhānas, this is more problematic. It is clear that the first three jhānas are physically pleasurable, while the last jhāna is neither-painful-nor-pleasant. That is to say, one does not experience any physically (kāyika) painful sensations while in the jhānas. However, we might suggest that jhānic domanassa (discontent or sadness) can be classified as an unpleasant mental (cetasika) vedanā, 104 an unpleasant feeling that in an ordinary cognitive-emotive context can arouse aversion (and originate from ignorance). However, we have seen that jhānic domanassa, contrary to domanassa based on ‘worldly life’ (gehasitāni), is a wholesome discontent that arises from wholesome longing for liberation when one understands the unreliable nature of sense experience. This wholesome discontent is connected, according to the Cūḷavedalla Sutta, with the abandonment of aversion; this is because, when this type of discontent arises in the jhānic mind, aversion – obvious and latent – is not present.105 In other words, in the jhānas one does not recondition the tendency to reject the unpleasant.
This characteristic is reflected in both the Pahāna Sutta and the Salla Sutta that associate both the abandonment of aversion and its underlying tendency with nonreactiveness to unpleasant feelings. What I am trying to suggest is that, when ‘domanassa based on renunciation’ arises in the attainment of the first jhāna, the mind which is now wholesome and non-reactive does not harbour aversion towards this type of feeling. Since one does not harbour aversion towards this type of discontent, the underlying tendency to aversion (paṭighānusayo) does not lie behind this feeling. This, I would argue, aids significantly to the de-conditioning of the tendency to push away the unpleasant.
Having said that, let me offer some concluding reflections, specifically on the nature and liberative value of neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling that accompanies the fourth-jhāna experience. As previously pointed out, the Cūḷavedalla Sutta indicates that the underlying tendency (anusaya) to ignorance (avijjā) does not underlie this type of feeling.106 This statement is not surprising in light of the analysis of the jhānas thus far and from the analysis of the opening statement from the formulaic description of the fourth jhāna. I have already demonstrated that the use of the term pahāna in the opening statement suggests that before entering into the fourth jhāna, what one abandons are the unwholesome reaction-patterns to pleasant and painful feelings. One does not abandon the sensations themselves but the desire for pleasant feelings and aversion to painful ones. This process is delineated in greater detail in the Salla Sutta, which explains that
[When] one knows as it really is the origin and the passing away, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these feelings (painful and pleasant), the underlying tendency to ignorance (avijjānusayo) in regard to neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling does not lie behind this.107
It would seem to me that this description specifies the jhānic process implicitly and corresponds with the Cūḷavedalla Sutta account of the jhānas. It points out that abandoning the unwholesome habitual reaction-patterns to pleasant and painful experiences is the proximate cause for entering into the fourth and final jhāna, which is characterized as neither-painful-nor-pleasant. I have suggested that the description concerning the process through which one attains the fourth jhāna implies that this attainment can be recognized as the moment when one actually breaks ignorance: the latent tendency to ignorance does not underlie the type of feeling that is present in the fourth108 jhāna while the active aspects of ignor
ance are also abandoned (i.e., desire and aversion). Hence, one actualizes and embodies wisdom (paññā).109 Although this wisdom (as any other wisdom) is conditioned and impermanent, it has the potent ability to finally purify and awaken the mind.
VI Conclusion
From a Buddhist perspective, each moment of experience, as experienced by an unskilled ordinary person, can potentially sustain and recondition the underlying tendencies (anusaya) and other unwholesome mental and physical patterns. However, when one does not react to sense experience according to these tendencies and patterns of behaviour, a moment of experience holds the potential to liberate the mind. I wish to emphasize two points: first, the feeling of neither-painful-norpleasant, as experienced in the fourth jhāna, is the embodiment of seeing experience as it is (as expressed in the earlier passage from the Salla Sutta). Second, since sati and upekkhā are purified in the fourth jhāna, one does not perpetuate or recondition ignorance as one has grounded a specialized form of awareness: non-reactive and lucid awareness of the phenomenal field. Thus, in the fourth jhāna one does not find delight in its accompanied feeling since one has seen the impermanent and conditioned nature of all phenomena, including neither-painful-nor-pleasant vedanā.110 What I am suggesting is that the fourth jhāna is characterized as neitherpainful-nor-pleasant feeling because this instance reflects the embodiment of nonreactivity. It can be conceptualized as the embodiment of non-wanting, the embodiment of wisdom; it does not condition ignorance, confusion or lack of clarity; it is the bodily manifestation of an un-preferential attitude towards experience. Furthermore, the attainment itself seems to be the best possible situation for abandoning ignorance completely; this is because one has actualized a clear, lucid and non-reactive field of awareness, free from emotional and cognitive overlays.
It can be concluded at this point that since the jhānic mind is free from any unwholesome reactivity, the underlying tendencies do not lie behind these feelings. This, I would suggest, is what ameliorates the link between an ordinary mind that is dominated by deeply rooted mental and physical patterns of reactivity and an awakened mind that is permanently free from all unwholesome tendencies and predispositions. In other words, the fourth jhāna anticipates an awakened awareness for an unawakened practitioner.
To sum up, I am propounding that the fourth jhāna is the optimal experiential event for the utter de-conditioning of unwholesome tendencies of mind and for the transformation of deep epistemological structures. This is because one embodies and actualizes an awakened awareness of experience. Given that the fourth jhāna is not momentary but an attainment in which one enters into (upasampajja) and abides (viharati) in it for a sustained period of time, this means that the mind can become intimately familiar with an awakened and free mode of being. It is, therefore, the threshold of awakening.
Notes
1 MN I.174 : puna ca paraṃ bhikkhave bhikkhu sukhassa ca pahānā dukkhassa ca pahānā pubbeva somanassadomanassānaṃ atthagamā adukkhaṃ asukhaṃ upekkhāsatipārisuddhiṃ catutthaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati.
2 MN I.174 : puna ca paraṃ bhikkhave bhikkhu sukhassa ca pahānā dukkhassa ca pahānā pubbeva somanassadomanassānaṃ atthagamā… catutthaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati.
3 See SN V.210. In SN IV.208–10 the Buddha proclaims that there are two types of vedanā: physical and mental (dve vedanā vediyati kāyikañca cetasikañca).
4 Note also that according to AN III.207, when ‘pīti of solitude’ (pavivekaṃ pītiṃ) arises, which quite obviously refers to pīti of the first jhāna (also according to AA III.303), there is no physical or mental pain associated with the wholesome and unwholesome.
5 E.g., SN V.213–6.
6 E.g., MN I.60; MN III.4; SN IV.7.
7 MN I.303–4.
8 MN I.304: idhāvuso visākha bhikkhu sukhassa ca pahānā dukkhassa ca pahānā pubbeva somanassadomanassānaṃ atthagamā adukkhaṃ asukhaṃ upekkhāsatipārisuddhiṃ catutthaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati. Avijjaṃ tena pajahati. Na tattha avijjānusayo anusetīti.
9 Sn 1106–7: pahānaṃ kāmacchadānaṃ, (udayāti bhagavā) domanassāna cūbhayaṃ; thinassa ca panūdanaṃ, kukkuccānaṃ nivāraṇaṃ, upekkhāsatisaṃsuddhaṃ, dhammatakkapurejavaṃ; aññāvimokkhaṃ pabrūmi, avijjāya pabhedanaṃ. Note that this seems to describe the attainment of the first jhāna, where one abandons the hindrances and kāma and still has vitakka and vicāra as the faculties that investigate phenomena, and the fourth jhāna, where sati and upekkhā are purified. Although it does not correspond verbatim to the formulaic description of these two attainments, it nonetheless seems to describe them all the same.
10 MN I.174 : upekkhāsatipārisuddhiṃ catutthaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati.
11 See SN V.209 for an explanation on each of these faculties.
12 According to SN V.215 the upekkhā indriya ceases without a remainder in saññāvedayitanirodha. Gethin has pointed out that the Abhidhamma (and other Buddhist Sanskrit sources) classify upekkhā in two ways: as upekkhindriya and tatramajjhattatā (‘balance of mind’). The first is defined as adukkhamasukhā and treated as a vedanā, while the second is defined as a skilful mental equilibrium and treated as a saṅkhāra. The later was associated with the jhānas, the four brahma-vihāras and the awakening factors. This clear-cut distinction between two types of upekkhā is not evident in the Nikāyas. However, I believe, Gethin has observed correctly that, in the Nikāyas, upekkhindriya is a type of vedanā (adukkhamasukhā), while in other contexts, to understand upekkhā as simply not-painful-and-not-pleasant feeling would seem to be inadequate. It is obvious, then, that upekkhā as a ‘jhāna -awakening’ factor is a skilful mental equilibrium classified under the aggregate of saṅkhāra (Gethin 2001, 157). Note that according to Buddhaghosa, there are several other kinds of upekkhā. There is upekkhā in samatha and upekkhā in vipassanā. When calm is developed or when there is right understanding of the present moment, upekkhā performs its function. See Vism IV.157–71; XXI.18. However, this classification is also absent from the Nikāyas.
13 Kuan 2005, 290–1.
14 MN III.215–22.
15 See, for example, verse 267 from the Dhammapada, which proclaims that a real monk is one who abandons unwholesome states: ‘But he who is above good and evil and lives the spiritual life; who wanders in the world with knowledge, he indeed, is called a bhikkhu’ (yo’dha puññaṃ ca pāpaṃ ca bāhetvā brahmacariyavā. Saṃkhāya loke carati, sa ve bhikkūti vuccati). See also MN I.282ff.
16 See MN III.217–8.
17 MN II.204.
18 MN III.217–8.
19 MN III.218.
20 MN I.303–4: idhāvuso visākha bhikkhu vivicceva kāmehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja virahati… idhāvuso visākha bhikkhu iti paṭisañcikkhati: ’kudassu nāmāhaṃ tadāyatanaṃ upasampajja viharissāmi, yadariyā etarahi āyatanaṃ upasampajja viharantī’ti. Iti anuttaresu vimokkhesu pihaṃ upaṭṭhāpayato uppajjati, pihappaccayā domanassaṃ. Paṭighaṃ tena pajahati. Na tattha paṭighānusayo anuseti.
21 MN III.218. This discontent arises from understanding all sense experiences). See also MA V.22.
22 MN I.304.
23 Note that SN V.213–14 also indicates that the grief faculty (domanassa-indriya) ceases when one enters the second jhāna.
24 MN III.220: atthi bhikkhave, upekkhā nānattā nānattasitā. Atthi upekkhā ekattā ekattasitā.
25 MN III.220.
26 MN III.220.
27 MN I.364.
28 MN III.220.
29 DN II.69: sattā sabbaso rūpasaññānaṃ samatikkamā paṭighasaññānaṃ atthaṅgamā nānattasaññānaṃ amanasikārā ’ananto ākāso’ti ākāsānañcāyatanūpagā.
30 See also MN I.293, where it is states that a purified mind-consciousness (manoviññāṇa) knows the four arūpa samāpattis when it has given up the five faculties (pañca indriya). This supports, again, the Saḷāyatanavibhanga Sutta an
alysis that the four arūpa samāpattis are attainments that one attains when sense stimuli are overcome. This is not said anywhere in the Nikāyas with regards to the four jhānas.
31 MN III.219.
32 MN III.219.
33 MN III.220.
34 MN III.220.
35 MN III.220: tatra bhikkhave, yāni cha nekkhammasitāni somanassāni, tāni nissāya tāni āgamma, yāni cha nekkhammasitāni domanassāni. Tāni pajahatha, tāni samatikkamatha. Evametesaṃ pahānaṃ hoti, evametesaṃ samatikkamo hoti. Tatra bhikkhave, yā cha nekkhammasitā upekkhā, tā nissāya tā āgamma yāni cha nekkhammasitāni somanassāni tāni pajahatha, tāni samatikkamatha. Evametesaṃ pahānaṃ hoti, evametesaṃ samatikkamo hoti.
36 MN III.219: evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya passato upapajjati upekkhā yā evarūpā upekkhā dhammaṃ sā ativattati.
37 MN III.219: upapajjati upekkhā bālassa mūḷhassa puthujjanassa anodhijinassa avipākajinassa anādīnavadassāvino assutavato puthujjanassa. Yā evarūpā upekkhā, rūpaṃ sā nātivattati.
38 See, for example, SN II.67 where the Buddha describes two layers of intending. When the obviously intended process ceases, the underlying tendency to prefer and intend can still operate and function as a basis for the proliferation of consciousness, and, therefore, sustain the existence of dukkha. For complete cessation of dukkha, all levels of intending must stop.