pitithefool wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 4:42 pm
So you're saying that having the thoughts of letting go because of insight into the three marks takes you farther away from concentration?
You do not think "now I will let go". You just let go after insight (which is the result of discursive thought) due to understanding (pañña). In MN 19 there is normal discursive thinking which is beneficial but even this is seen as disturbing and so is given up, abandoned, brought to a halt, is stilled. It is only then that access concentration or Jhāna can occur. There is no normal thinking in Jhāna. No using thinking to aid Jhāna. You have to understand that even good thoughts are preventing the Jhāna from arising. What is left are noble intentions (vitakka-vicāra) of renunciation, non-ill will and harmlessness which are of course the very opposite of the hindrances. Upon leaving the 1st Jhāna there is then reviewing via discursive thought, followed by insight followed by understanding. The noble vitakka-vicāra themselves are seen as being disturbances to the stillness of the mind, and so now there is an understanding that these too should be given up, abandoned, brought to a halt, tranquilised. The 2nd Jhāna now becomes possible with this new understanding.
Also, saying that you aren't controlling the process is equally absurd.
For there to be Jhāna you need to stop trying to control the meditation. You simply become mindful of the breath and allow it to calm your mind and your mind to calm the breath, until there is stillness. If a hindrance arises due to inappropriate attention you attend back to the breath. This is energy, which is sense restraint and is too letting go. You remember (sati) to let go of the hindrance and attend back to that which starves it, namely the breath. As the hindrances subside, rapture appears. None of this involves normal thinking and pondering about it.
Letting go is a fabrication, it's willed. As long as we are willing actions, there is becoming and the taking on of a self, even when that action has the characteristic of realizing non-self.
If this were true nibbāna would be impossible.
“But, bhikkhus, when one does not intend, and one does not plan, and one does not have a tendency towards anything, no basis exists for the maintenance of consciousness. When there is no basis, there is no support for the establishing of consciousness. When consciousness is unestablished and does not come to growth, there is no descent of name-and-form. With the cessation of name-and-form comes cessation of the six sense bases…. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.”
SN 12.39
Only when the raft has been abandoned at the far shore is Anatta fully realized. Jhana is not free from that process nor is it meant to be and it would be ludicrous to say so.
The underling tendencies do not underlie the spiritual vedanā of Jhāna, so there is no sense of self in Jhāna. This is part of the insight which occurs outside of Jhāna. To see that there was no self, no controller there, and that a sense of self is not a concrete thing but merely a mistaken notion that arises due to conditions.
The path is fabricated.
Yes.
Again, if you were actually reading anything that I said, you would have noticed that under most circumstances it would be better to fabricate an intention in a non-verbal way, however as MN 20 points out (unless that's a fake sutta too), you can and should use verbal fabrications when they are necessary in order to settle the mind.
Addressed above.
Again, are you listening to anything I'm saying or are you just arguing because you enjoy wallowing in disagreement?
I'm listening, but I'm not agreeing. I'm certainly not "wallowing" in the disagreement. It would be better if we all sung from the same hymn sheet, but since the master is gone that is always going to be just an ideal.
Again, MN 20 lays this out perfectly clearly. Whether or not that's occuring in jhana is a rather arbitrary assessment at this point, but again I argue that it is jhana so long as the jhana factors are present.
This is wrong understanding. You can't make the mind halt by thinking it into stillness. There is thinking prior to access concentration and the Jhāna, but these are seen as being burdensome and so are given up. Only then can there be any hope of Jhāna occurring, along with the need of other factors.
Also, how the heck does a sotapanna have right concentration and it isn't the four jhanas? The canon defines right concentration as nothing other than the four jhanas. Nowhere in the canon is there special sotapanna concentration. No if we go be the sutta pitaka's definitions, if it is right concentration, it is jhana. Haven't we gone over this before?
The sotāpanna & sakadāgāmi still have lust for sense objects because they have not experienced the bliss and sukha that lies close to the edge of the world, i.e. Jhāna. Their concentration is looser. An anāgāmī has attained the Jhāna but they have not given up desire for these states and the formless. The Arahant has attained these states, gained insight into them, has then an understanding regarding their conditionality and so has abolished ignorance. AN 3.86 would be worth a read. Only the anāgāmī & Arahant have fulfilled the Higher Mind, i.e. the jhānāni. Not then having fulfilled the Higher Mind, yet having some insight, it follows the sotāpanna & sakadāgāmi have a lower form of Right Concentration. This is access concentration.
Alright I'm gonna say this one more time, It does require vitakka-vicara to set it up, but once in jhana, it's free standing as long as the jhana is maintained. The type of vipassana that happens in the first jhana is something like "sensuality is course, impermanent, an arrow etc, the first jhana is blissful, peaceful, a shelter" when the fabrications leading to that jhana are an act of discernment. We see the drawbacks of the five aggregates (vipassana), see the rewards in jhana (also vipassana), and choose to fabricate the path (panna). For the second jhana, we see the drawbacks of vitakka-vicara (vipassana), the reward of unification (vipassana), and choose to fabricate the path (panna). For the third jhana, we see the drawbacks of piti (vipassana), the rewards of equanimity (vipassana), and choose to fabricate the path(panna). This process continues until there is no further escape and we've abandoned everything we can abandon.
In order to have insight you require paṭisañcikkhati. This would require normal thinking and pondering. If we accept that vitakka-vicāra in the 1st Jhāna means this normal discursive thought (it doesn't) then there can be insight whilst in this Jhāna. From the 2nd Jhāna onwards this thinking and pondering is gone, which means there can be no paṭisañcikkhati which in turn means no insight. You cannot have insight without normal discursive thought:
At Savatthī. “Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still a bodhisatta, not yet fully enlightened, it occurred to me: ‘Alas, this world has fallen into trouble, in that it is born, ages, and dies, it passes away and is reborn, yet it does not understand the escape from this suffering headed by aging-and-death. When now will an escape be discerned from this suffering headed by aging-and-death?’
“Then, bhikkhus, it occurred to me: ‘When what exists does aging-and-death come to be? By what is aging-and-death conditioned? ’ Then, bhikkhus, through careful attention, there took place in me a breakthrough by wisdom: ‘When there is birth, aging-and-death comes to be; aging-and-death has birth as its condition.’
This is normal thinking. In an absorbed model this cannot happen since vitakka-vicāra are intentions, not thoughts, and so there is no paṭisañcikkhati. For the Jhāna-lite folk there is no thinking past the 2nd Jhāna, so there is no paṭisañcikkhati and so no insight there. The problem you are having is that the suttas state that insight involves paṭisañcikkhati. How can you have paṭisañcikkhati without normal thinking and pondering? You can't. The Jhāna-lite model thus collapses under the weight of it's own contradictions. If you are a follower of Jhāna-lite you either have to abandon the notion of any thinking or pondering in any Jhāna, in which case insight becomes impossible, or you have to only have it in the 1st Jhāna, which is contradictory for that model since subsequent insight would be outside of the Jhāna despite claims to the contrary.
How on earth can you have insight, which requires paṭisañcikkhati, without normal thinking? Please do not simply refer to sañña, because the sutta clearly states that paṭisañcikkhati is required.
This statement is self contradictory. You say insight isn't necessarily will, but the requisite condition for the second jhana is the absence of skillful resolves. If both of these statements are true, then it does NOT follow that insight is not present in the jhanas hogher than the first.
Insight isn't willed. It is the result of wise reviewing. Once there is insight there is then the condition necessary for understanding, for pañña which is simply jñā. However, I feel you missed the crux of my criticism. It's what I've said above. Insight is the outcome of paṭisañcikkhati. Paṭisañcikkhati requires normal thinking and pondering. If we come down to the level of Jhāna-lite and state that vitakka-vicāra in the 1st Jhāna is thinking and pondering then, on the basis of it's own definitions, insight is impossible from the 2nd Jhāna onwards since thinking and pondering have been given up, so there isn't any chance of there being paṭisañcikkhati. I'm merely pushing the Jhāna-lite model to its ultimate conclusion, using it's own terms. The Jhāna-lite person would then either have to say that vitakka-vicāra in Jhāna simultaneously means intentions and normal thoughts, although there is no evidence for this and it still doesn't save them from having no insight post the 2nd Jhāna, or they have to admit that insight occurs outside of Jhāna from the 2nd Jhāna onwards which would make their whole theory contradictory and convoluted.
We don't need to fabricate vipassana directly, as it's inherent to concentration. Nor do we need to leave the jhana to "see things as they are". The mind is already doing so.
This is wrong understanding. You require paṭisañcikkhati. If liberating insight were inherent to Jhāna then the ascetics of Buddha's time and the practitioners of the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali would also have liberating insight. Liberating insight requires Right View and paṭisañcikkhati in line with that view, based off what has been just experienced.
One last question, why does it specify in MN 111 that the last two attainments must be emerged from in order to have insight on them, while it does not specify this for the other 7 attainments?
The sutta has the opposite. Insight in MN 111 occurs
after all of the attainments, since it is only there that he understood their rise and fall.
I’ll be taking a break from this forum for a while soon, so I’ll only post a few more replies.
