arupa jhanas

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by daverupa »

kirk5a wrote:I find your line of reasoning totally speculative
Oh, certainly. Any time one delves into the Nikayas with an eye to parsing its chronology, hard and fast conclusions are simply impossible.
relying on logic in which the conclusion you reach is not "forced" in any way.
Well, the conclusion piggybacks on the fact that the Nikayas took at least a century to form up in the shape we have them; but, as above, saying only this one idea is true would be a fools gambit. Nevertheless, to take the Nikayas in toto is a rather uncritical approach...
For it amounts to the idea that the earliest reciters of the suttas, those closest to the teachings as they came from the Buddha himself, just added them in willy nilly.
:strawman:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
User avatar
kirk5a
Posts: 1959
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:51 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by kirk5a »

daverupa wrote:
For it amounts to the idea that the earliest reciters of the suttas, those closest to the teachings as they came from the Buddha himself, just added them in willy nilly.
:strawman:
I think they're additions, splices if you will, which the reciters felt were good fits as time went on but which started life among the ocean of methodologies and meditational exegeses floating around the Gangetic plain in those days.
Sounds "willy nilly" to me. Worse than that. Some suttas would have had to be drastically altered from their original content, or be complete fabrications, in order to have the arupa jhanas be a later addition.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10154
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by Spiny Norman »

kirk5a wrote: However, there is a difference between using the facility of visual imagination, and focusing on a mental perception unto the point of meditative absorption. Which is what I believe the formless jhanas are about.
I agree that there is a distinction. I think imagination is a way of accessing these perceptions, but also that they can arise spontaneously with the right conditions.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by daverupa »

kirk5a wrote:Some suttas would have had to be drastically altered from their original content, or be complete fabrications, in order to have the arupa jhanas be a later addition.
The garudhammas are that sort of fabrication, the mundane-supramundane distinction is late but also put in the Buddha's mouth, there's the addition of the attainment 'cessation of perception and feeling', there's the fifth factor of first jhana - and this is just to name a few examples - so there's nothing which makes it inherently impossible. The tradition seems to have been quite comfortable playing around with & adding to the texts, for a time.

But, it could also be as you say. :shrug:

:heart:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
User avatar
kirk5a
Posts: 1959
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:51 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by kirk5a »

daverupa wrote:
kirk5a wrote:Some suttas would have had to be drastically altered from their original content, or be complete fabrications, in order to have the arupa jhanas be a later addition.
The garudhammas are that sort of fabrication, the mundane-supramundane distinction is late but also put in the Buddha's mouth, there's the addition of the attainment 'cessation of perception and feeling', there's the fifth factor of first jhana - and this is just to name a few examples - so there's nothing which makes it inherently impossible. The tradition seems to have been quite comfortable playing around with & adding to the texts, for a time.
So you say. But where do we find the evidence for all those conclusions?
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by daverupa »

kirk5a wrote:But where do we find the evidence for all those conclusions?
Nothing conclusive, of course, as has been mentioned already. Reasoned acceptance of a view still turns out in one of two ways, neh?

Nevertheless, the garudhammas have been discussed thoroughly, here and elsewhere, as being late. The mundane-supramundane distinction is largely seen as part of the Nikaya-Abhidhamma transition, if not solidly housed within the Abhidhamma stratum, known to post-date the Buddha. The fifth jhana factor is part of the same layer, as is the cessation attainment.

The arupas are necessarily earlier than talk of the cessation attainment, for example, and some form of the arupas seem to have been practiced before the Bodhisatta was born, while the jhanas the Buddha taught do not seem to have been. Certainly the awakening factors were not, which amounts to the same thing.

Yet it's all in the Buddha's mouth - a thoroughly ahistorical result.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10154
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by Spiny Norman »

I have wondered about the purpose of the arupa jhanas - is it to experience higher levels of consciousness, and if so, how does that fit in with meditative practice as a whole?
Buddha save me from new-agers!
User avatar
kirk5a
Posts: 1959
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:51 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by kirk5a »

I find Ajahn Lee's explanation clarifying.
The four levels of arūpa jhāna are nothing other than the mind dwelling on the four types of mental phenomena (nāma).
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/craft.pdf
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10154
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by Spiny Norman »

kirk5a wrote:I find Ajahn Lee's explanation clarifying.
The four levels of arūpa jhāna are nothing other than the mind dwelling on the four types of mental phenomena (nāma).
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/craft.pdf
Thanks, this looks interesting. :reading:
Buddha save me from new-agers!
barcsimalsi
Posts: 385
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2011 7:33 am

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by barcsimalsi »

porpoise wrote:I have wondered about the purpose of the arupa jhanas - is it to experience higher levels of consciousness, and if so, how does that fit in with meditative practice as a whole?
Higher practice for higher happiness - according to Bahuvedaniya sutta. At least wiki says the same.

After all i will like to express my unsatisfactory and doubt for how come so many people are practicing meditation yet not even one appears to share his own experience regarding de arupas leaving us here with non-solid arguments and clarification. Or is it uninterpretable by text?
User avatar
kirk5a
Posts: 1959
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:51 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by kirk5a »

barcsimalsi wrote:
porpoise wrote:I have wondered about the purpose of the arupa jhanas - is it to experience higher levels of consciousness, and if so, how does that fit in with meditative practice as a whole?
Higher practice for higher happiness - according to Bahuvedaniya sutta. At least wiki says the same.

After all i will like to express my unsatisfactory and doubt for how come so many people are practicing meditation yet not even one appears to share his own experience regarding de arupas leaving us here with non-solid arguments and clarification. Or is it uninterpretable by text?
These states are significant feats of meditation skill, in my estimation. That they would be rare is not surprising, even amongst those who regularly meditate. But I have seen at least one Dhammawheel member give a credible 1st hand account.
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4625
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10154
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by Spiny Norman »

kirk5a wrote: But I have seen at least one Dhammawheel member give a credible 1st hand account.
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4625
Thanks - I must remember to use the search function in future. ;)
Buddha save me from new-agers!
Sylvester
Posts: 2204
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:57 am

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by Sylvester »

kirk5a wrote:I find Ajahn Lee's explanation clarifying.
The four levels of arūpa jhāna are nothing other than the mind dwelling on the four types of mental phenomena (nāma).
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/craft.pdf

Eeeks! This is based on the ghost of a (couple of?) Sarvastivada sutra in the Agamas (preserved in the Taisho) that departed from the standard definition of nāma in the Agamas and Nikayas. That problemmatic sutra(s) became the basis for the entire Sarva Abhidharmic edifice of explaining nāma-rūpa as being -

rūpa = the physical khandha associated with the 5 material senses
nāma = the 4 arūpa khandhas (including consciousness).

The Theravada Abhidhamma picked up this exegesis and it was adopted also in Mahayana sutras.

That is why Ajahn Lee is simply following the Comy in interpreting paṭighasaññā, as if paṭigha and rūpa cannot be associated with mind-contact.

Dmytro cited Sue Hamilton here-

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 99#p204077

It will be worthwhile picking up Prof Hamilton's exploration of the Aggregates and her critique of the Abhidhammic explanation of nāma-rūpa and paṭigha.

See also -

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 80#p203872
User avatar
kirk5a
Posts: 1959
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:51 pm

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by kirk5a »

Sylvester wrote:
kirk5a wrote:I find Ajahn Lee's explanation clarifying.
The four levels of arūpa jhāna are nothing other than the mind dwelling on the four types of mental phenomena (nāma).
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/craft.pdf

Eeeks! This is based on the ghost of a (couple of?) Sarvastivada sutra in the Agamas (preserved in the Taisho) that departed from the standard definition of nāma in the Agamas and Nikayas.
I'm more inclined to suppose it was based on Ajahn Lee's experience.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
User avatar
PadmaPhala
Posts: 169
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:22 am

Re: arupa jhanas

Post by PadmaPhala »

While on the fourth jhāna, the awareness can shift focus to one of the fourth arupa-jhānas.

AFAIK, this is helpful in keeping jhāna for a longer time (shifting to the arupa-jhānas, instead of "falling back")... but can become addictive.
Post Reply