by Keren Arbel
However, just from reading the formulaic description of the jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis, one can see a clear difference between the two. As I see this, the formulaic description of the four jhānas points at the quality of awareness and the feeling tone (vedanā) of each jhāna experience; moreover, this is done without referring to a specific content or object of mind. In contrast, the formulaic descriptions of the four arūpa samāpattis describe a specific mental content and object of perception. This is evident by the fact that each one of the ‘formless attainments’ is called by the name of its objective sphere: the ‘sphere of Infinite Space’ (ākāsānañcāyatana), the ‘sphere of Infinite Consciousness’ (viññāṇañcāyatana), the ‘sphere of nothingness’ (ākiñcaññāyatana) and the sphere of ‘neitherperception-nor-non-perception’ (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana). What is more, there is no indication in the Nikāyas either that one is cut off from sense stimuli while abiding in the four jhānas, or that one attains the jhānas by fixing the mind on an unchanging object of awareness; nevertheless, there is clear evidence in the Nikāyas that for attaining the arūpa samāpattis the meditator must transcend all perception of form and diversity of sense contact. The arūpa samāpattis are said to be based on unity of perception, meaning the mind is fixed on single unchanging object of consciousness while being disconnected from sense experience.13 Hence, in contrast to the process of the four jhānas, the process expressed by the four arūpa samāpattis is one in which the meditator is detached from external stimuli, and constructs an experience that has a specific abstract content. Sarbacker offers a keen observation of these attainments; he notes that in this meditative practice the meditator suppresses the content of consciousness in order to concentrate on a particular object.14 He further adds that in this practice, the meditator ‘brings stability due to its condensing and habitual formation of energy’.15
Given the obvious dissimilarities between the formulaic descriptions of the four jhānas and the four formless attainments, and the fact that the Nikāyas never name the latter as jhānas, the question that needs addressing is why the tradition has associated – and continues to associate – the two sets of attainments by considering them both as part of the same meditation system? This question is especially intriguing when we acknowledge that the fourfold jhāna model is described in the Nikāyas as the unique discovery (and teaching) of the Buddha, while the last two arūpa samāpattis are clearly depicted as attainments Gotama learned from other teachers before his awakening.
I think that the main reason for the problematic association of the jhānas with the arūpa samāpattis is due to the fact that some suttas describe the attainment of the four arūpa samāpattis immediately after the four jhānas.16 Importantly, this does not necessarily mean that the two sets of attainments have a similar nature. However, I would suggest that for Buddhaghosa, and subsequent generations of Buddhist thinkers and meditation teachers, this implied that the arūpa samāpattis and the jhānas do in fact have similar natures and are part of the same meditation process. Consequently, since the last two arūpa samāpattis were taught to Gotama before his awakening by other teachers, the association of the arūpa samāpattis with the jhānas led to the view that both sets of attainments originated from non-Buddhist meditative sources; hence, both are not really necessary for the attainment of nibbāna, the summum bonum of the Buddhist path. I would also postulate that the fact that, quite early in the history of the Theravāda tradition, the rigorous practice of meditation became primarily an ideal for most monastics contributed to this association. Since most Buddhist scholars did not practice meditation intensely (i.e., did not practice satipaṭṭhānas intensely), meditative attainments became mainly a matter of theoretical conceptualization. I will discuss this issue more at length later.
It is also important to bear in mind that although the arūpa samāpattis appear in various suttas after the four jhānas, the formless attainments also appear as part of a meditation model in which the four jhānas are absent completely. This meditative process is called ‘the eight liberations’ (aṭṭha vimokkha) and is described in many suttas:
Ānanda, there are these eight liberations. What are they? Possessing form, one sees form. That is the first. Not perceiving material forms in oneself, one sees them outside. That is the second. Thinking: ‘It is beautiful’, one becomes intent on it. That is the third. By completely transcending all perception of matter… thinking: ‘Space is infinite’, one enters and abides in the sphere of Infinite Space. That is the fourth. By transcending the sphere of Infinite Space, thinking: ‘consciousness is infinite’, one enters and abides in the sphere of Infinite Consciousness. That is the fifth. By transcending the sphere of Infinite Consciousness, thinking: ‘There is no thing’, one enters and abides in the sphere of Nothingness. That is the sixth. By transcending the sphere of Nothingness, one reaches and abides in the sphere of Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception. That is the seventh. By transcending the sphere of Neither Perception-Nor-Non-Perception, one enters and abides in the Cessation of Perception and Feeling.17 That is the eighth liberation.18
As we can see from this description, the four arūpa samāpattis are attained through a meditational process that does not involve the attainment of the four jhānas. That is, the account of the ‘the eight liberations’, affirms that one can attain the four formless attainments without going through the four jhānas at all.
A key difference in the representation of the four jhānas and the four formless attainments in the Nikāyas is self-evident, when we read the Buddha’s own spiritual journey as depicted in the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta. This sutta tells us that Gotama attained the last two formless attainments before his awakening while practicing with two teachers, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta.19 Āḷāra Kālāma taught Gotama the ‘sphere of nothingness’ (the third arūpa samāpatti);20 Uddaka Rāmaputta taught him the sphere of ‘neither-perception-nor-non-perception’ (the fourth arūpa samāpatti).21 What is of interest to our discussion is the obvious fact that there is no reference in the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta (or in any other sutta for that matter) that Gotama (or his teachers) attained the two higher ‘formless states’ by going through the four jhānas. It is not possible to determine what the specific practices were that Āḷāra Kālāma or Uddaka Rāmaputta taught the Bodhisatta. Nevertheless, it is plausible to presume that they did not achieve these attainments based on the four jhānas. This is evident from the simple fact that it is not mentioned in this sutta (or in other sutta);22 moreover, the fourfold jhāna model appears in the Nikāyas as the unique discovery and teaching of the Buddha. Persuasive also is Wynne’s argument that these two teachers taught early Brahminic goals23 based on the practice of ‘element meditation’ and the kaṣinas practice.24
The different representation of the jhānas and the formless attainments is also seen in the Buddha’s affirmation in the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta that the seventh and eighth formless attainments do not lead to nibbāna;25 rather, they merely lead to reappearance in a corresponding cosmological realm, which implies that the other two formless attainments do not lead to nibbāna either.26 This statement is in complete opposition to various declarations in the Nikāyas that the four jhānas are conducive to awakening.27 The experience of the seventh and eighth formless attainments did not lead the Bodhisatta to nibbāna, although they did enable him to understand that these lofty states are not nibbāna, contrary to his two teachers, who presumably thought that these attainments constituted complete liberation. Nevertheless, his memory of spontaneously attaining the first jhāna, years before, had a crucial and transformative impact on his spiritual path and his understanding of what would lead him (and others) to complete freedom. After years of unfruitful practice, this particular memory steered him to the correct path to awakening; that is, it allowed him to attain the first jhāna again, and then, for the first time, the other three jhānas and finally nibbāna. This is depicted in a well-known story from the Mahāsaccaka Sutta.28
; The last statement in the preceding description, combined with other statements in the Nikāyas about the conducive nature of the four jhānas, 29 indicates clearly the difference between the role and significance of the four jhānas in the Nikāyas’ teaching compared to that of the four arūpa samāpatti. The latter ‘do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to awakening, to nibbāna’;30 in contrast, the former do indeed ‘slant, slope, and incline [the practitioner’s mind] towards the [the attainment] of nibbāna’.31 Most importantly, the four jhānas are delineated in the Nikāyas as the unique discovery of the Awakened One and as something taught only by him.32 SN I.48 declares this very clearly:
The one with great wisdom,
have found an opening in the obstruction;
The Buddha, the withdrawn, the bull among men, the sage,
awakened to the jhānas’ (jhānambujjhā buddho).33
Another interesting example of the different status of the four jhānas and the four arūpa samāpattis in the Nikāyas’ teaching is seen in the Anāthapiṇḍikovāda Sutta. In this example, the jhānas are clearly distinguished from the arūpa samāpattis (and other experiences, ordinary or lofty). In this sutta, Sāriputta instructs Anāthapiṇḍika in the most profound teaching, the practice of non-clinging to any type of experience or attainment. In his instructions, Sāriputta lays out all the possible experiences and objects that one can cling to: sense organs, corresponding objects, six types of consciousness, six types of sense contact, six types of feelings, the five elements, the four arūpa samāpattis and so forth. Although Sāriputta mentions that one should train (sikkhitabba) not to cling (na upādiyissāmi) to any of the these, there are three things that are missing from his comprehensive list of objects of clinging: the four jhānas, the ‘attainment of cessation’ and nibbāna. This is interesting and illuminating. It seems to suggest that these three attainments can be the object of clinging when they arise as an idea in the mind; in spite of this, when one abides (viharati) in these states, they do not contain any type of clinging. In other words, one does not need to ‘practice non-clinging’ when one abides in these states, since clinging is completely absent. To put the matter a little differently, from this sutta we can surmise that the four jhānas, the attainment of cessation and certainly nibbāna are special attainments. That is, they are devoid of clinging by their nature; hence, they are very different from any other possible attainments and experiences that can be accompanied by clinging (upādāna).34 The difference between the three, however, is that the first two are conditioned and impermanent while the latter is not. Yet, even though the four jhānas are conditioned and impermanent states, it does seem that both the jhānas and the attainment of cessation aid the process of de-conditioning the habitual tendency to cling to experience; they contribute to the cessation of dukkha – something that cannot be said about the attainment of the arūpa samāpattis.35 What I am trying to suggest, then, is that one can cling to the memory of the jhānas (if the jhānas can be attained more than once before awakening) or to the idea of the jhānas, but one is free from clinging (and any other unwholesome states) while abiding in the these attainments.
These observations should be added to important historical studies that explore the origin of the arūpa samāpattis in the setting of early Indian contemplative traditions. Although these studies offer different suggestions, all agree that the arūpa samāpattis, in contrast to the four jhānas, are not originally or distinctively Buddhist.36 Bronkhorst has suggested that the four formless attainments have similar features to Jain meditation. He observes that this list of meditational states agrees well with what he calls ‘mainstream meditation’, namely, a process which aims to stop mental activity. He distinguishes the jhānas from the arūpa samāpattis and argues that the formless attainments entered Buddhism from the Jain tradition or related circles.37 Because they entered Buddhism from an outside tradition, they had to be integrated into the Buddhist canon; hence, they were placed on top of the four jhānas in the ‘nine successive states’ (anupubbavihāra).38
Alexander Wynne, however, offers a compelling and interesting argument that connects the formless attainments with kaṣinas practice and ‘element meditation’.39 He suggests that formless attainments were borrowed from early Brahminism40 (not Jainism) as a form of meditation that aims to reverse the process of cosmic creation through inner concentration.41 Wynne has also maintained that the four jhānas appear to be in accordance with the teaching of the Buddha; in particular, Wynne states that ‘this scheme (i.e., the four jhānas) must go back in substance, and perhaps in word, to the Buddha.’42 Tilmann Vetter, who also studied early Buddhist meditation, claims that the path of the four jhānas contains elements belonging to an early period;43 Vetter maintains that the four arūpa samāpattis are more artificial forms of meditation that originated in non-Buddhist circles.44 Vetter bases his argument upon Bronkhorst’s article ‘Dharma and Abhidharma’, which shows that the four arūpa samāpattis do not appear in the oldest Abhidharma lists; these lists are older than the Abhidharma Piṭaka of the various schools and appear in the suttas.45 In a more recent article, Daniel Stuart makes preliminary observations about the jhānas and the attainment of cessation from studying the Pṛṣṭhapālasūtra of the (Mūla-) Sarvāstivādin Dīrghāgama. He points out that in the Pṛṣṭhapālasūtra, the attainment of cessation is attained immediately after the four dhyānas; he concludes that, later on, the set of the four arūpa samāpattis separated the jhānas from the attainment of cessation. He makes this conclusion:
The practice of the four dhyānas was one of the fundamental practices of the early tradition. Thus, the idea that liberation was attained directly from the fourth dhyāna is probably as old as the tradition itself.46
All this seems to imply that the association of the four jhānas with the formless attainments is questionable and even dubious; it might even be an artificial product. It is quite obvious that there was a way to attain the arūpa samāpattis without going through the four jhānas, and unlike the jhānas, the arūpa samāpattis have a non-Buddhist origin; moreover, they seem to reflect a different meditative direction.
At this point we can conclude that the association of the fourfold jhāna model with the arūpa samāpattis contributed to two related misconceptions: first is the interpretation of the jhānas as an inherently non-Buddhist meditative technique; second is the characterization of the jhānas as ‘absorption concentration’ (appaṇā samādhi) – meditative states disengaged from sense experience. What becomes clear, then, is that this problematic association is the source of the prevailing idea of the jhānas as not relevant to ‘seeing [things] as they are’ (yathābhūta). This conduced to their marginal role in later theories of meditation in the various Buddhist traditions, theories that viewed the jhānas (along with the arūpa samāpattis), as attainments not relevant to the process of releasing conditioned modes of perception.47
II Samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā
Losing sight of the inherent phenomenological difference between the jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis and their distinct representation in the Nikāyas, resulted, as we have seen above, in their being set up into one process of meditation called samatha-yāna or samatha-bhāvanā. This meditation process is seen in the Theravāda and other Buddhist traditions as a meditative path which is separated, and distinguished from, the practice of satipaṭṭhāna, which is called vipassanā-bhāvanā or vipassanā-yāna. This polarized model of the meditative path aroused tension over the manner in which the jhānas can be combined and integrated into the practice of satipaṭṭhāna. While there is unanimous agreement in Buddhist scholarship, and within the Buddhist tradition, that the arūpa samāpattis are not necessary for liberation, the issue of the four jhānas is much more challenging due to the simple fact that sammā-samādhi, one of the factors of the Eightfold Path, is another designation for the attainment of the four jhānas.48 Hence, rendering the jhānas as similar in nat
ure to the arūpa samāpattis engendered an obvious problem: how a meditative absorption in one object of awareness, absorption disconnected from experience, can be integrated with a meditative technique that aims at seeing (vipassanā) the true nature of phenomena? In other words, how can we integrate sammā-samādhi with sammā-sati if these two path-factors are seen as two different types of meditation techniques, directed to two different perceptual aims?
This problem has produced different responses from early times until today. It created various theories and a large amount of research, and it is evident that quite a few modern scholars have come up with the theory that there appear to be at least two paths to liberation in the Nikāyas. Some have argued that one path is more ‘Buddhist’ than the other,49 while others have advocated that there are an old jhāna path, which was taught by the Buddha, and a new jhāna path, which is not the original teaching of the Buddha. Paul Griffiths for example has claimed that samatha meditation has a different aim from that of vipassanā meditation. According to Griffiths, the attempt to reconcile the two methods of meditation and to integrate them into a single process of liberation is especially difficult, since one is a meditative method of intense concentration, which leads to a total cessation of all physical and mental processes, while the other meditative method is an intellectual analysis, which leads to knowledge and to power over the world.50
Gimello has examined these two types of meditations through the types of ‘obstacles’ each of them removes. He has suggested that samatha meditation almost entirely removes obstacles such as anger, hate and desire, whereas vipassanā meditation removes the aforementioned obstacles as well as the intellectual obstacles – the misperceptions of self and reality. Nirvana, Gimello stated, is attained only when both kinds of obstacles are removed.51 However he has also argued that