by Keren Arbel
27 See DN I.182–3 where the Buddha describes the nature of perception in the jhānas as ‘true and subtle’ (sukhumasaccasaññī). In other words, perception operates in the jhānas but conceptuality does not.
28 We can say that, in the fourth jhāna, subtle forms of perception operate since the defilements do not hinder seeing, hearing so on, and one has the perception of impermanence and not-self (anicca-saññā, anattā-saññā).
29 Olendzki 2011, 68.
30 An example of such mode of consciousness and its relation to the attainment of nibbāna appears in SN III.53–4 and in SN II.67. Note also that the term vimutti appears in different contexts in the Nikāyas and apparently signifies different spiritual achievements; some are permanent and ‘unshakable’ (akuppā) and some are temporary (sāmayika). See De Silva 1978, 120.
31 AN II.25: Iti kho bhikkhave tathāgato daṭṭhā daṭṭhabbaṃ diṭṭhaṃ na maññati. Adiṭṭhaṃ na maññati. Daṭṭhabbaṃ na maññati. Daṭṭhāraṃ na maññati. Sutā sotabbaṃ sutaṃ na maññati. Asutaṃ na maññati. Sotabba na maññati. Sotāraṃ na maññati. Mutā motabbaṃ mutaṃ na maññati. Amutaṃ na maññati. Motabbaṃ na maññati. Motāraṃ na maññati. Viññātā viññātabbaṃ viññātaṃ na maññati. Aviññātaṃ na maññati. Viññātabbaṃ na maññati. Viññātāraṃ na maññati. Iti kho bhikkhave tathāgato diṭṭhasutamutaviññātabbesu dhammesu tādīyeva tādī. Tamhā ca pana tāditamhā añño tādī uttaritaro vā paṇītataro vā natthīti vadāmīti.
32 Note that according to MN I.293, the purpose of paññā is not only special knowledge (abhiññā) and full knowledge (pariññā); most importantly, it is abandoning (pahāna) (the unwholesome).
33 E.g., SN IV.78.
34 SN II.31–2: saddhūpanisaṃ pāmujjaṃ. Pāmujjūpanisā pīti. Pītūpanisā passaddhi. Passaddhūpanisaṃ sukhaṃ. Sukhūpaniso samādhi. Samādhūpanisaṃ yathābhūtañāṇa dassanaṃ. Yathābhūtañāṇadassanūpanisā nibbidā. Nibbidūpaniso virāgo. Virāgūpanisā vimutti. Vimuttupanisaṃ khaye ñāṇanti. See also DN III.288.
35 Sn 855: upekkhako sadā sato na loke maññate samaṃ, na visesī na nīceyyo, tassa no santi ussadā. Upekkhā, as an important quality of a ‘true brahmin’, appears also in Sn 911–2.
36 If we look at the fourth jhāna from the perspective of the five aggregates, which are a way to describe the ‘how’ of experience, we can say that in the fourth jhāna the aggregate of consciousness (viññāṇa) is not shaped by a psychological setting or conceptual construction; this is because the latent and active aspects of ignorance are not present. We know that the aggregate of viññāṇa is operative from the simple fact that without contact with some objects of experience, one will not experience feelings (vedanā). Yet, in the fourth jhāna one feels neither-painful-not-pleasant feeling (vedanā); this means that there is a conscious experience. According to DN I.182–3, the perception (saññā) of the jhāna is ‘subtle and true’ (i.e., not coloured by unwholesome latent tendencies and not added by affective and cognitive overlays). As to the saṅkhāra aggregate, the associated mental factors present in the fourth jhāna are purified upekkhā and sati. While saṅkhāras are that which shape the experience; we might say that the presence of purified upekkhā and sati in the fourth jhāna means that the experience has the least possibility of being fabricated.
37 Gethin 1998, 192. Gethin explains that the path-moment (magga) according to the Theravada sources, ‘is understood as being immediately followed by a transcendent jhāna of similar qualities, this time termed ‘fruit’ (phala)’ (Ibid.). Note that this model of the path is not evident in the Nikāyas. Vin I.11.1 suggests that the Four Noble Truths are the content of the Buddha’s liberating insight. Vin I.1.4 states that the doctrine of dependent origination was discovered soon after his awakening.
38 A full discussion of this issue appears in Anderson (2001, 15–21). See also Williams and Tribe, who point out the anomaly of the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta; that is, this sutta does not mention the idea of anattā, which is considered to be the unique discovery of the Buddha at awakening (Williams and Tribe 2000, 57).
39 Schmithausen 1981, 206.
40 Schmithausen 1981, 207.
41 Schmithausen further maintains that in the first truth, the relation between the realization and the ending of craving is evident: the understanding that all existence is suffering can be understood as stopping all craving to such existence. However, the cessation of craving as a result of the understanding of the set of the four truths appears to be unnecessary for that purpose (Schmithausen 1981, 208). Schmithausen points out that insight into the āsavas, their origination, their cessation and the path leading to their cessation is incoherent. He explains that since avijjā seems to be the origin of the āsavas but, at the same time, it is also one of them (Schmithausen 1981, 205).
42 Schmithausen 1981, 211.
43 Schmithausen 1981, 205. See also Bronkhorst 1993, 103.
44 E.g., MN I.23; DN I. 83–4 AN I.165 etc.
45 Bronkhorst 1993, 104). See also Schmithausen’s conclusion that this description is not the original account of awakening (Schmithausen 1981, 205).
46 Bronkhorst 1993, 99.
47 Bronkhorst 1993, 108. Schmithausen also points out that the association of paññā and the Four Truths indicates the motivation of the early Buddhists to find a psychologically plausible relation between the content of liberating insight and its effect (Schmithausen 1981, 214).
48 Bronkhorst 1993, 104.
49 Bronkhorst 1993, 104–5.
50 Bronkhorst 1993, 108. Bronkhorst also suggests that the Buddhist texts leave the possibility that originally, the liberating insight was not described in any explicit form (Bronkhorst 1993, 100). Alexander Wynne also concludes that ‘we can discount the notion that the earliest conception of liberating insight was the insight into the Four Noble Truths.’ He further states that ‘the content of liberating insight in the earliest teaching is unclear’ (Wynne 2007, 107).
51 Bronkhorst 1993, 100.
52 Bronkhorst 1993, 108.
53 Bronkhorst 1993, 108–9.
54 Anderson 2001, 148–9.
55 While I cannot argue the case fully here, I will also contend that the identification of paññā with understanding dependent origination is also problematic. There are at least three places in the Nikāyas that identify the understanding or dependent-origination – the understanding that ‘whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation’ (yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodhadhammaṃ) – with the dhamma-cakkhu and the attainment of stream-enterer and not with the attainment of Arahantship. See, for example, SN IV.423, MN I.501 and AN IV.209–10. Note that Carol Anderson also points out that it is only once that the commentaries define the dhamma-cakkhu, as the elimination of the āsavas, meaning the attainment of Arahantship (Ps III 92 [on MN I.380]) (Anderson 2001, 149).
56 Both Schmithausen and Bronkhorst conclude that the four truths were not central in the earliest period of Buddhist teaching (Bronkhorst 1993, 107; Schmithausen 1981, 203). Carol Anderson, who studied the Four Truths in the Pāli Canon, suggests that ‘the four noble truths are a vehicle for the establishment of the Buddha’s teaching (sāsana) in the cosmos – and they come to symbolize the moment of enlightenment that is possible for anyone who follows the Buddha’s teachings’(Anderson 2001, 21).
57 Bronkhorst 1993, 111.
58 Wynne 2007, 125.
59 See, for example, DA II.511 and MA to MN I 477. Also, the notion that the first jhāna is a sufficient basis for the attainment of nibbāna appears, to the best of my knowledge, only in two places in the Nikāyas: in MN I.435 and in AN IV.423. In both suttas, the first jhāna (as the other three jhānas) is a basis for seeing (samanupassati) impermanence, suffering and not self with regard to the five aggregates. From this, it might be inferred that there is a possibility of achieving nibbāna on the basis of the first jhāna alone (or the second or third jhānas). However, although this option s
eems theoretically possible, since the first jhāna is a state in which one is detached from what obstructs clear seeing (i.e., the nīvaraṇas), I could not find a description in the Nikāyas where someone actually attained nibbāna by only gaining the first jhāna. Even more to the point, although the young Gotama attained the first jhāna while sitting under the cool shade of the rose-apple tree, this attainment was not sufficient for him to attain nibbāna, although it showed him the correct path – the path to complete awakening. A plausible interpretation of the description of the first jhāna as a point where one understands the impermanence of the five aggregates, might well be a description of eliminating sakkāyadiṭṭhi but not the elimination of māna, which seems to need the purification of upekkhā and sati (Sn 855); this occurs only in the attainment of the fourth and final jhāna. In this regard it is interesting to mention Khemaka’s observation that he himself does not regard any of the five aggregates as ‘I am’, but there is still a residue of māna in him: the desire ‘I am’ and the underlying tendency ‘I am’ in connection to the five aggregates (pañcasupādānakkhandhesu aṇusahagato ’asmi’ti māno ’asmi’ti chando ’asmi’ti anusayo asamūhato). In other words, it is possible to eliminate this last defilement and become an arahant only when ignorance and the underlying tendency to ignorance are absent; this seems to occur in the fourth jhāna.
60 Olendzki 2011, 64.
61 Olendzki 2011, 65.
62 Olendzki 2011, 65.
63 Olendzki 2011, 65.
64 Note that my interpretation of the fourth jhāna experience is not ‘mystical’ in the sense of direct contact with ultimate reality or with reality beyond the perceived world. It is direct contact with reality as it is: the reality of the world of the sensed but free from craving, aversion, identification and ignorance.
65 This interpretation of the nature of awareness of the fourth jhāna finds resonance in the way the Dzogchen tradition describes natural awareness. In a paper presented in the 11th Annual Conference of Asian Studies in Israel, Eran Laish describes this mode of awareness in the writings of the Dzogchen teacher Longchen Rabjampa as ‘essentially open and primordially pure from all conceptual designations and perceptual limitations it transcends the dualistic structure of grasping intentionality, in which a subject is directed toward an object which absorbs open awareness into a grasping relation’ (Laish 2012, 3). According to Laish, in Dzogchen practice, one returns to this natural mode of being as an open space in which the expressions of the livelihood of awareness are spontaneously present. Such a return, Laish argues, ‘is possible only through a radical shift of being, moving from the desiring and reactive fragmented subject to a receptive and spacious subjectivity which is given to itself immediately in its wholeness, both self and other, inner and outer alike’ (Laish 2012, 10). Although Dzogchen language is quite different than that that of the Nikāyas, it seems to bear some resemblance to an awakened awareness and the way one can realize it.
66 MN III.244.
67 SN II.66: no ceva ceteti, no ca pakappeti, no ca anuseti, ārammaṇametaṃ na hoti viññāṇassa ṭhitiyā… evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa nirodho hotī’ti.
68 Note that according to MN I.293, the purpose of paññā is not only special knowledge (abhiññā) and full knowledge (pariññā) but most importantly, abandoning (pahāna).
69 MN I 113: ettha ce natthi abhinanditabbaṃ abhivaditabbaṃ ajjhosetabbaṃ, esevanto rāgānusayānaṃ esevanto paṭighānusayānaṃ. Esevanto diṭṭhānusayānaṃ. Esevanto vicikicchānusayānaṃ. Esevanto mānānusayānaṃ. Esevanto bhavarāgānusayānaṃ. Esevanto avijjānusayānaṃ. Esevanto daṇḍādānasatthādāna kalahaviggahavivāda tuvantuvampesuññamusāvādānaṃ. Etthete pāpakā akusalā dhammā aparisesā nirujjhantī’ti.
8
Reconsidering Samatha-bhāvanā, Vipassanā-bhāvanā and Paññā-vimutti
In that case, Vaccha, develop further two qualities: serenity (samatha) and insight (vipassanā). When these two things are developed further, they will lead to the penetration of many elements.1
And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Serenity and insight: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned.2
In earlier chapters I mentioned the prevalent view of the jhānas as not liberative or distinctively Buddhist. This view is based on the premise that the jhānas are a borrowed element from Indian contemplative traditions, a meditative technique (samatha-bhāvanā) that yields various mystical experiences and spiritual powers, but which is not conducive (or necessary) to liberation. A common supposition, shared by Theravāda thinkers and most Buddhologists, is that the jhānas are diametrically opposed to the practice of vipassanā (vipassanā-bhāvanā). This supposition considers vipassanā as the only Buddhist innovation and therefore the only practice that brings about the attainment of awakening. Stuart Sarbacker defines this division in his book Samādhi: The Numinous and the Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga:
In samatha one is approximating the qualities of a divinity, the very basis of the idea of the numinous. In theory, through meditative powers, the yogin ascends the very divine hierarchy, gaining along the way numerous experiences and ultimately a range of powers of perception and action… In vipaśyanā, we have the understanding or wisdom… yielding the cessation of suffering and the state of nirvāṇa in all its ineffability.3
This idea is rooted in classical Buddhist phenomenology of meditation. However, an in-depth analysis of the jhānas in the Pāli Nikāyas shows there is a solid basis for arguing that the jhānas are essential for attaining liberation in the Nikāyas’ theory of spiritual cultivation. The fourfold jhāna model cannot be found in any early non-Buddhist texts.4 A phenomenological analysis of the fourfold jhāna model demonstrates that it embodies a distinct Buddhist view of mental cultivation; that is, by progressing through the jhānas, insight (vipassanā) becomes deeper and experience is perceived more and more clearly until an awakened awareness is anticipated by an unawakened practitioner.
In this chapter, I wish to discuss several issues that emerge from the arguments I have made in the course of this study. These issues can be formulated in several questions: can we consider the arūpa samāpattis to be a type of jhāna, as the later Buddhist tradition has maintained? That is, are both sets of attainments, namely, the arūpa samāpattis and the four jhānas, similar in nature? Second, can we find in the Pāli Nikāyas concrete references to the view that one can attain nibbāna without the attainment of the four jhānas (a common view in the various Buddhist traditions)? In other words, what is the relation between the attainment of the jhānas and the attainment of Arahantship as a pannā-vimutti (‘liberated by wisdom’)?
In discussing these questions, I shall argue three points. First, I argue that the four jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis should not be considered as part of the same meditational process. They are not similar in nature: while the jhānas exemplify a distinctly Buddhist view of mental cultivation (as the fruit of what we call ‘insight practice’), the arūpa samāpattis do not – they are attained through some form of concentration exercise. Second and related, I will reason that the classical Buddhist division into the ‘path of serenity’ (samatha bhāvana) and the ‘path of insight’ (vipassanā-bhāvanā) is a later development that is not evident in the Pāli Nikāyas. This classical division seems to be the outcome of the misconceived idea that the jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis are part of the same meditation procedure. Third, we will see that the Nikāyas do not envision liberation without the attainment of the four jhānas. That is, while one can surely be liberated without attaining the four arūpa samāpattis, the Nikāyas do make it evident that one cannot become awakened without attaining the four jhānas. Put differently, we cannot find evidence in the Nikāyas to support the view that some pannā-vimutti arahants are liberated without attaining the complete set of the four jhānas as ‘dry insight’ (sukkha-vipassaka) arahants.5
I The jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis
The in
terpretation of the jhānas as uniquely Buddhist and essential to the attainment of awakening – the interpretation offered in this book – stands in opposition to the traditional Buddhist view that associates the four jhānas with the four arūpa samāpattis. In classical Buddhist meditation theory, the four arūpa samāpattis are usually seen as following the process of meditation that starts with the four jhānas; as a result, the jhānas are regarded as attainments one must pass through on the way to the ‘formless attainments’ (arūpa samāpattis).6 This view is based on the assumption that the jhānas are similar in nature to the arūpa samāpattis, where the only difference between the two is the intensity of concentration and abstraction attained. Linking the two sets of attainments into one process of meditation seems to be the main reason why the arūpa samāpatti are called arūpa jhānas in Buddhist commentarial literature. Indeed, this designation is maintained today by Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars.7 Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, this designation does not appear even once in the Nikāyas.
Since the jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis are set up in classical Buddhist meditation theory as one process, they are considered as belonging to the same ‘meditation vehicle’ called samatha-yāna. This is a meditative technique that aims at increased mental absorption and quietude of all mental events by means of maximal one-pointed concentrated absorption.8 For the Theravāda tradition, both sets of attainments are designated as ‘absorption samādhi’ (appaṇā samādhi),9 given that one is completely absorbed in one object of meditation (usually the kaṣina but not exclusively)10 and disconnected from sense experience.11 Winston King has provided a clear statement about the two sets that recapitulates the traditional Theravāda view:
The jhānas and the formless (immaterial) states… refer specifically to those meditative states most radically separated from ordinary consciousness by their deep inward abstraction from outer stimuli… the viewpoint adopted here is that the jhānic series of meditative attainments represent the Indian yogic heritage taken over and adapted by Buddhism… Indeed, ‘jhānic’ as a characterization adjective applies equally well to the four jhānas and to the four immaterial states.12