Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

waryoffolly wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 12:16 am
Can you or someone else point me to some scholarly work discussing the common (ie cultural) usage of kaya in the time of the Buddha? (Discussing usages of kaya external to the canon. I know where to look if I want to see it’s usages inside the canon!)
As far as I am aware "kāya" is not found in the pre-Buddhist literature (the Vedas and Upanishads). It is found in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, where Pāṇini gives it's root as √ci, which means "to arrange in order, heap up, pile up, construct". On the whole it seems to be an innovation of the Buddha. I think this is significant, since we do have another well attested word for the physical body in "śarīra/sarīra", which always seems to mean the physical body proper. Given that kāya has to do with "that with parts" it seems the adoption of this word was a means via which the Buddha could stress the not-self of the body proper. The same then with nāmakāya, which would stress that the mind is also not one whole, and so a potentially static thing. The point then, it seems, is to stress that that by which you know the physical world and that by which you know the mental world are both made of parts that stand in a conditional relation to each other, thus being stamped with the 3 marks. Returning then to how "body" was used in the pre-Buddhist literature, certainly śarīra/sarīra pops up there, which always means the physical body proper, but we also find instances where where "body" is used in a difference sense. For example, the ātman can mean either the True Self or it can mean "body", and it's not all that clear if the True Self ātman was not also thought of as being of body. If we think back to puruṣa, we can see in the Vedic creation myth the act of creation being connected to the sacrifice of puruṣa, who's many parts become the basis for the world. For example his fat become wild beasts, and so on (RV 10.90). This myth harks back to the ancient Indo-Europeans, where the creation of the world is tied to the sacrifice and dismemberment of a cosmic giant into many different parts. This crops up again in the Upanishads, namely the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, although this time it is a cosmic horse which is sacrificed:
Verse 1.1.1

उषा वा अश्वस्य मेध्यस्य शिरः । सूर्यश्चक्षुः, वातः प्राणः, व्यात्तमग्निर्वैश्वानरः, संवत्सर आत्माश्वस्य मेध्यस्य । द्यौः पृष्ठम्, अन्तरिक्षमुदरम्, पृथिवी पाजस्यम्, दिशः पार्श्वे, अवान्तरदिशः पर्शवः, ऋतवोऽङ्गानि, मासाश्चार्धमासाश्च पर्वाणि, अहोरात्राणि प्रतिष्ठाः, नक्षत्राण्यस्थीनि, नभो मांसानि । ऊवध्यं सिकताः, सिन्धवो गुदाः, यकृच्च क्लोमानश्च पर्वताः, ओषधयश्च वनस्पतयश्च लोमानि, उद्यन् पूर्वार्धाः निम्लोचञ्जघनार्धः, यद्विजृम्भते तद्विद्योतते, यद्विधूनुते तत्स्तनयति, यन्मेहति तद्वर्षति, वागेवास्य वाक् ॥ १ ॥

uṣā vā aśvasya medhyasya śiraḥ | sūryaścakṣuḥ, vātaḥ prāṇaḥ, vyāttamagnirvaiśvānaraḥ, saṃvatsara ātmāśvasya medhyasya | dyauḥ pṛṣṭham, antarikṣamudaram, pṛthivī pājasyam, diśaḥ pārśve, avāntaradiśaḥ parśavaḥ, ṛtavo'ṅgāni, māsāścārdhamāsāśca parvāṇi, ahorātrāṇi pratiṣṭhāḥ, nakṣatrāṇyasthīni, nabho māṃsāni | ūvadhyaṃ sikatāḥ, sindhavo gudāḥ, yakṛcca klomānaśca parvatāḥ, oṣadhayaśca vanaspatayaśca lomāni, udyan pūrvārdhȧḥ nimlocañjaghanārdhaḥ, yadvijṛmbhate tadvidyotate, yadvidhūnute tatstanayati, yanmehati tadvarṣati, vāgevāsya vāk || 1 ||

l. Om. The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn, its eye the sun, its vital force[7] the air, its open mouth the fire called Vaiśvānara, and the body of the sacrificial horse is the year. Its back is heaven, its belly the sky, its hoof the earth, its sides the four quarters, its ribs the intermediate quarters, its members the seasons, its joints the months and fortnights, its feet the days and nights, its bones the stars and its flesh the clouds. Its half-digested food is the sand, its blood-vessels the rivers, its liver and spleen the mountains, its hairs the herbs and trees. Its forepart is the ascending sun, its hind part the descending sun, its yawning is lightning, its shaking the body is thundering, its making water is raining, and its neighing is voice.
Notice here that we have ātman being used as "body". It seems that when the Brahmins and Rishis wished to speak of the physical body proper śarīra was used, whilst ātman was used when discussing a body of a more metaphysical nature. An interesting thing about this creation myth is that the cosmic giant, puruṣa, is very much composed of a body, for he has parts which are divided, but exists before creation as a complete whole. This is interesting because to say "whole" in sanskrit we would say "sarvām", which in Pāli is "Sabbaṁ". In the Upanishads we do find a metaphysical conception of sarvām. It is tied to Brahman. Brahman then should not be seen as "all" as in everything here in the phenomenal world but rather as "whole", the complete one behind the universe. This ties Brahman back to puruṣa, the cosmic giant, and I believe this connection is made in either the Upanishads themselves or in later commentary. As Jan Gonda has shown, sarvām in the Vedas means "whole" which is tied to being "complete" and "healthy", which stands in opposition to that which is a part, thus being broken and so ill-health. Incidentally this would mean that when we read Sabbaṁ atthi in the suttas, such as in SN 12.15, we should read it as "Brahman exists" and indeed this is strongly hinted as in SN 12.48 and in other suttas (MN 74 comes to mind). With all this in mind then, to the Brahmins body had two senses. There was the physical body, which is śarīra, and there is the metaphysical and transcendent body of ātman which is tied to the complete whole of Brahman, who we may say is complete in all his parts (this reminds us of the mind-made body perhaps in the suttas). In opposition to them we have the Buddha who used "kāya". We can see that with all of it's connection to "parts", it would stress that the physical body and the mental body are not whole but are broken and ill-health (we might say dukkha) and within them no whole body, complete in all of its parts (reminding us again of the mind-made body/mind made acquisition of self in DN 9), can be found. The Buddha's use of the word "kāya" seems then to have been chosen for it's polemical value, as a means to attack the Brahmins metaphysical notions of body and parts. With all this in mind, we can see then that "body" was not used to simply refer to the physical body, but rather the concept of bodies and parts was suffused with metaphysical speculation during the time of the Buddha. It is this cultural, religious and philosopohical background we should be aware of when we read the Buddha discussing "kāya" for it seems it carries more meaning than simply the physical body, for which he seems to prefer to use the standard and more philosophically neutral word "sarīra".

In relation to further reading I can recommend the following:

"The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World"

"Indian Linguistics: Journal of the Lingusitic Society of India" Volume XVI, 1955 (this is for Jan Gonda's discussion of Sarvam. If you can't get it PM me and I can email it).

"The Early Upanishads: Annotated Text and Translation" by Patrick Olivelle

The Rig Veda

The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad & Chāndogyopaniṣad

"The Religious, Political, and Medical Roots of Personhood in Pre-Classical India" (I've just started reading this myself, but looks promising)
In ancient India, however, the human body was invested with unparalleled cosmological significance, and parts of the body were homologized with cosmic phenomena. I have made reference to the ancient cosmogonic hymn found in the Rgveda (10.90) and predating the Upanisads by several centuries, a hymn that depicts the creation of the universe through the sacrificial dismemberment of the body of a primeval man (purusa). From the parts of his sacrificed body, there emerged not only the varnas of society but also the parts of the cosmos: sun from the eye, moon from the mind, wind from the breath, sky from the head, earth from the feet, and so on. I will deal in greater detail with these cosmic connections in the next section; here I want to briefly describe the Upanisadic assumptions about human physiology and psychology. In these documents, the term most frequently used with reference to a living, breathing body is atman, a term liable to misunderstanding and mistranslating because it can also mean the spiritual self or the inmost core of a human being, besides functioning as a mere reflexive pronoun. The body which is the object of investigation, moreover, is primarily the male body; the female body enters the discussion infrequently and then mostly within the context of male sexual activity. The term yoni used in these contexts can mean both the vagina in which the semen is deposited and the womb in which the fetus develops...

4.9-10 the Whole: the exact sense of the term sarva, here translated as "the Whole," has been much debated. As Gonda 1955a has shown, the term in its earliest usage did not mean "everything" but carried the sense of completeness, wholeness, and health. It is, thus, opposed to what is partial, broken, sick, or hurt. In the Upanisads the term is used to indicate not all things in the universe but a higher-level totality that encompasses the universe. Gonda (1955a, 64) observes that the phrase sarvam khalv idam brahma at CU 3.14.1 does not mean "'Brahman is everything here,' but 'Brahman is the complete here, this whole (one),' or: 'Brahman is what is the whole, complete here, is what is entire, perfect, with no part lacking, what is safe and well etc., i.e. Completeness, Totality, the All seen as the Whole.'" Unless the context dictates otherwise, I translate sarvam throughout as "the Whole" and the phrase idam sarvam as "this whole world." To the English reader the term "whole" should evoke the senses of totality and
The Early Upanishads: Annotated Text and Translation.

So you can see I cannot help raise an eyebrow when someone tells me we should simply read "kāya" as the physical body, because its common sense and obvious that it means "body". To me said person is reading said passages from the perspective of a 21st Century, usually European, person rather than from the perspective of Iron Age India where, as we have shown, discussions about "body" and "parts" are not so simple and are, rather, pregnant with metaphysical debates. It is my proposal that in order to understand the Buddha we should do our best to think like he did, by placing ourselves as much as possible in his cultural worldview. To bring this back to my own arguments then somewhat, I think it is entirely consistent to interpret "kāya" in the Jhāna pericope as not being the physical body but rather the nāmakāya, since the use of "kāya" seems to be simply a means by which the Buddha stresses the impermanence, dukkha and not-self of such lofty attainments. That which knows Jhāna then, namely nāma, is not some Whole, some Sarvām/Sabbaṁ, but rather that which is made of parts and so is inherently impermanent, ill-health (or dukkha) and so not-self. The same when we read passages which state one comes to know nibbāna via the kāya, which seem to be stressing how nibbāna is separate from yet known by that which is marked with the 3 marks. That is to say, known not via a True Self but simply via conditioned phenomena yet is itself free of them.


शरीर [ śarīra ] [ śárīra ]
- the body
- bodily frame
- solid parts of the body (pl. the bones) Lit. RV.

चि [ ci ] [ ci ]1 Root cl. [5]
- to arrange in order
- heap up
- pile up
- construct

“Manomayaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, attānaṁ paccemi sabbaṅgapaccaṅgiṁ ahīnindriyan”ti.
“Sir, I believe in a mind-made self which is complete in all its various parts, not deficient in any faculty.”
- DN 9
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
BrokenBones
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by BrokenBones »

Polar Bear wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 8:28 pm The quote below suggests to me the Visuddhimagga accepts the idea of bodily pleasure in jhana-
So uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body, make it spring up into the air.
98. But when pervading (rapturous) happiness arises, the whole body is completely pervaded, like a filled bladder, like a rock cavern invaded by a huge inundation.
99. Now, this fivefold happiness, when conceived and matured, perfects the twofold tranquillity, that is, bodily and mental tranquillity. When tranquillity is conceived and matured, it perfects the twofold bliss, that is, bodily and mental bliss. When bliss is conceived and matured, it perfects the threefold concentration, that is, momentary concentration, access concentration, and absorption concentration.
Of these, what is intended in this context by happiness is pervading happiness, which is the root of absorption and comes by growth into association with absorption.

- pg 138 Nanamoli’s translation

.
:anjali:
I'm sure the grammar fairies will rearrange its meaning. The Visuddhimagga gets somethings right (like this) but then backflips elsewhere in the tome.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

BrokenBones wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 11:01 pm

No need to resort to personal attacks... again.
Sorry where was the personal attack? If it was the westerner comment, this is simply a fact.
You never did explain the head to toe simile and why the Buddha would use such a physical expression to convey (in your opinion) a purely mental experience.
I went through it with you in detail.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

Polar Bear wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 8:28 pm The quote below suggests to me the Visuddhimagga accepts the idea of bodily pleasure in jhana-
So uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body, make it spring up into the air.
98. But when pervading (rapturous) happiness arises, the whole body is completely pervaded, like a filled bladder, like a rock cavern invaded by a huge inundation.
99. Now, this fivefold happiness, when conceived and matured, perfects the twofold tranquillity, that is, bodily and mental tranquillity. When tranquillity is conceived and matured, it perfects the twofold bliss, that is, bodily and mental bliss. When bliss is conceived and matured, it perfects the threefold concentration, that is, momentary concentration, access concentration, and absorption concentration.
Of these, what is intended in this context by happiness is pervading happiness, which is the root of absorption and comes by growth into association with absorption.

- pg 138 Nanamoli’s translation

.
:anjali:
I doubt Ven. Buddhaghosa has departed from the Abhidhamma:
“Born of detachment” means: Initial application, sustained application, rapture, pleasure, one-pointedness of consciousness; they in this detachment are born, begotten, existent, fully existent, apparent. Therefore this is called “born of detachment”.

“Rapture and pleasure” means: There is rapture; there is pleasure.

Therein what is rapture? That which is rapture, gladness, rejoicing, rapture, mirth, merriment, felicity, elation, delight of consciousness. This is called rapture.

Therein what is pleasure? That which is mental ease, mental pleasure, easeful pleasant experience born of mental contact, easeful pleasant feeling born of mental contact. This is called pleasure. This pleasure is accompanied by, co-nascent with, conjoined with, associated with this rapture. Therefore this is called “rapture and pleasure”.

“First” means: First in serial order; this is first because it is attained first.

“Jhāna” means: Initial application, sustained application, rapture, pleasure, one-pointedness of consciousness.
https://suttacentral.net/vb12/en/thittila
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
BrokenBones
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by BrokenBones »

Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 10:47 pm
BrokenBones wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 11:01 pm

No need to resort to personal attacks... again.
Sorry where was the personal attack? If it was the westerner comment, this is simply a fact.
You never did explain the head to toe simile and why the Buddha would use such a physical expression to convey (in your opinion) a purely mental experience.
I went through it with you in detail.
No you didn't. You rambled on about similes not being literal (of course they're not) but failed to explain why such a 'physical' simile is used... similes are designed to make something clear... not muddy the waters... and require a whole new lexicon to understand what the Buddha 'meant'.

The four jhana similes are so physically based it's embarrassing that educated people can see them as anything else.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

BrokenBones wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:05 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 10:47 pm
BrokenBones wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 11:01 pm

No need to resort to personal attacks... again.
Sorry where was the personal attack? If it was the westerner comment, this is simply a fact.
You never did explain the head to toe simile and why the Buddha would use such a physical expression to convey (in your opinion) a purely mental experience.
I went through it with you in detail.
No you didn't. You rambled on about similes not being literal (of course they're not) but failed to explain why such a 'physical' simile is used... similes are designed to make something clear... not muddy the waters... and require a whole new lexicon to understand what the Buddha 'meant'.

The four jhana similes are so physically based it's embarrassing that educated people can see them as anything else.
Once again, to take one of them, what is being compared is being enveloped/pervaded. Just like how a cloth pervades the entire body, so does equanimity pervade the entire namakaya. It’s not equating the physical body to the physical body anymore than it’s equating a lotus to the body, or a lake to the body (the other similes that you casually ignore).
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Polar Bear
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Polar Bear »

Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:00 pm
I doubt Ven. Buddhaghosa has departed from the Abhidhamma:
“Born of detachment” means: Initial application, sustained application, rapture, pleasure, one-pointedness of consciousness; they in this detachment are born, begotten, existent, fully existent, apparent. Therefore this is called “born of detachment”.

“Rapture and pleasure” means: There is rapture; there is pleasure.

Therein what is rapture? That which is rapture, gladness, rejoicing, rapture, mirth, merriment, felicity, elation, delight of consciousness. This is called rapture.

Therein what is pleasure? That which is mental ease, mental pleasure, easeful pleasant experience born of mental contact, easeful pleasant feeling born of mental contact. This is called pleasure. This pleasure is accompanied by, co-nascent with, conjoined with, associated with this rapture. Therefore this is called “rapture and pleasure”.

“First” means: First in serial order; this is first because it is attained first.

“Jhāna” means: Initial application, sustained application, rapture, pleasure, one-pointedness of consciousness.
https://suttacentral.net/vb12/en/thittila
I fail to see where this abhidhamma definition precludes the possibility of rapture having a bodily component. But putting that aside, it seems pretty clear that Buddhaghosa is referring to the body, hence the suggested possibility of uplifting happiness to literally lift the body up into the air. The quote also talks about how bodily and mental bliss are both components of bliss. And it is pervading happiness inundating the whole body which is called the root of absorption.


:anjali:
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."

"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by waryoffolly »

Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 9:11 pm
waryoffolly wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 12:16 am
Can you or someone else point me to some scholarly work discussing the common (ie cultural) usage of kaya in the time of the Buddha? (Discussing usages of kaya external to the canon. I know where to look if I want to see it’s usages inside the canon!)
As far as I am aware "kāya" is not found in the pre-Buddhist literature (the Vedas and Upanishads). It is found in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, where Pāṇini gives it's root as √ci, which means "to arrange in order, heap up, pile up, construct". On the whole it seems to be an innovation of the Buddha. I think this is significant, since we do have another well attested word for the physical body in "śarīra/sarīra", which always seems to mean the physical body proper. Given that kāya has to do with "that with parts" it seems the adoption of this word was a means via which the Buddha could stress the not-self of the body proper. The same then with nāmakāya, which would stress that the mind is also not one whole, and so a potentially static thing. The point then, it seems, is to stress that that by which you know the physical world and that by which you know the mental world are both made of parts that stand in a conditional relation to each other, thus being stamped with the 3 marks. Returning then to how "body" was used in the pre-Buddhist literature, certainly śarīra/sarīra pops up there, which always means the physical body proper, but we also find instances where where "body" is used in a difference sense. For example, the ātman can mean either the True Self or it can mean "body", and it's not all that clear if the True Self ātman was not also thought of as being of body. If we think back to puruṣa, we can see in the Vedic creation myth the act of creation being connected to the sacrifice of puruṣa, who's many parts become the basis for the world. For example his fat become wild beasts, and so on (RV 10.90). This myth harks back to the ancient Indo-Europeans, where the creation of the world is tied to the sacrifice and dismemberment of a cosmic giant into many different parts


.......
[middle edited out so I don’t quote the entire thing you posted and take up too much space]


शरीर [ śarīra ] [ śárīra ]
- the body
- bodily frame
- solid parts of the body (pl. the bones) Lit. RV.

चि [ ci ] [ ci ]1 Root cl. [5]
- to arrange in order
- heap up
- pile up
- construct

“Manomayaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, attānaṁ paccemi sabbaṅgapaccaṅgiṁ ahīnindriyan”ti.
“Sir, I believe in a mind-made self which is complete in all its various parts, not deficient in any faculty.”
- DN 9
Thanks for the detailed analysis and the references. It’s very interesting.
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by BrokenBones »

Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:08 pm
BrokenBones wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:05 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 10:47 pm

Sorry where was the personal attack? If it was the westerner comment, this is simply a fact.



I went through it with you in detail.
No you didn't. You rambled on about similes not being literal (of course they're not) but failed to explain why such a 'physical' simile is used... similes are designed to make something clear... not muddy the waters... and require a whole new lexicon to understand what the Buddha 'meant'.

The four jhana similes are so physically based it's embarrassing that educated people can see them as anything else.
Once again, to take one of them, what is being compared is being enveloped/pervaded. Just like how a cloth pervades the entire body, so does equanimity pervade the entire namakaya. It’s not equating the physical body to the physical body anymore than it’s equating a lotus to the body, or a lake to the body (the other similes that you casually ignore).
Nobody is ignoring them...

"... with the skies periodically supplying abundant showers, so that the cool fount of water welling up from within the lake would permeate and pervade, suffuse and fill it with cool waters, there being no part of the lake unpervaded by the cool waters; even so, the monk permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dha ... jhana.html


A beautiful simile of how the physical body 'feels' in jhana (as are the others).

I still don't see you addressing the 'toe' simile... it must be a hard one to subvert.
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Assaji
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Assaji »

Polar Bear wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 8:28 pm The quote below suggests to me the Visuddhimagga accepts the idea of bodily pleasure in jhana-
So uplifting happiness can be powerful enough to levitate the body, make it spring up into the air.
98. But when pervading (rapturous) happiness arises, the whole body is completely pervaded, like a filled bladder, like a rock cavern invaded by a huge inundation.
As described in the Pañcaṅgika Sutta (AN 5.28), the full development of rapture and happiness involves pervading the entire body with pleasant sensations:

Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu vivicceva kāmehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharati. So imameva kāyaṃ vivekajena pītisukhena abhisandeti parisandeti paripūreti parippharati; nāssa kiñci sabbāvato kāyassa vivekajena pītisukhena apphuṭaṃ hoti. Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, dakkho nhāpako vā nhāpakantevāsī vā kaṃsathāle nhānīyacuṇṇāni ākiritvā udakena paripphosakaṃ paripphosakaṃ sanneyya. Sāyaṃ nhānīyapiṇḍi snehānugatā snehaparetā santarabāhirā phuṭā snehena, na ca paggharinī. Evamevaṃ kho, bhikkhave, bhikkhu imameva kāyaṃ vivekajena pītisukhena abhisandeti parisandeti paripūreti parippharati; nāssa kiñci sabbāvato kāyassa vivekajena pītisukhena apphuṭaṃ hoti.


Here, monks, secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskilful modes of conduct, a monk enters and dwells in the first jhāna, which is filled with rapture and happiness born of seclusion and is accompanied by thought and evaluation. He drenches, steeps, fills, and pervades this body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of his whole body that is not pervaded by the rapture and happiness born of seclusion. Just as a skilful bath man or a bath man’s apprentice might heap bath powder in a metal basin and, sprinkling it gradually with water, would knead it until the moisture wets his ball of bath powder, soaks it, and pervades it inside and out, yet the ball itself does not ooze; so too, the monk drenches, steeps, fills, and pervades this body with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion, so that there is no part of his whole body that is not pervaded by the rapture and happiness born of seclusion.
This pervasion of the body is meant to be literal, as explained in the Commentary (Mp III 232):
imameva kāyanti imaṃ karajakāyaṃ. abhisandetīti temeti sneheti, sabbattha pavattapītisukhaṃ karoti. parisandetīti samantato sandeti. paripūretīti vāyunā bhastaṃ viya pūreti. parippharatīti samantato phusati.

“This body:” this body born of action [i.e. born of kamma]. “He drenches:” he moistens, he extends rapture and happiness everywhere. “Steeps:” makes flow all over. “Fills:” like filling a bellows with air. “Pervades:” reaches everything [in the body].

sabbāvato kāyassāti assa bhikkhuno sabbakoṭṭhāsavato kāyassa kiñci upādinnakasantatipavattiṭṭhāne chavimaṃsalohitānugataṃ aṇumattampi ṭhānaṃ paṭhamajjhānasukhena aphuṭaṃ nāma na hoti.

“His whole body:” in this monk’s body, with all its parts, in the place where produced [material] continuity occurs there is not even the smallest part consisting of skin, flesh, and blood that is not pervaded with the happiness of the first jhāna.
The Commentary similarly explains the pervasion in other jhānas.

:anjali:
ToVincent
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by ToVincent »

Notice here that we have ātman being used as "body". It seems that when the Rishis wished to speak of the physical body proper, śarīra was used, whilst ātman was used when discussing a body of a more metaphysical nature.


Snehajā attasambhūtā*
Born from attraction/subjugation - (is) what has become the self (atta)
SN 10.3 (Theravāda)

* lit. what has become atta (that is to say the atta as body - the "self body" - "自身").
(These selves) are manifold (puthu/pṛthu), "like a māluvā creeper stretched across the woods" - and cling to sensual pleasure.

“Those who understand their source (viz. the source of the existing selves = attasambhūtā),
They dispel it—listen, O yakkha!—
They cross this flood so hard to cross,
Uncrossed before, for no renewed existence** (bhava).”

Buddha knows that there is no permanent, and blissful atta in these atta-sambhūtā - in these selves made bodies.
The blissful atta is not in the bodily (existing) atta(s) of this world.
There is no atta or what belongs to atta (viz. permanence and bliss,) in these "self bodies" — might it be in the world, or more generally in paṭiccasamuppāda.

---

愛生自身長
Craving/desire (taṇhā - 愛 - also desire kāma) arises from the self body.

Note: 自身 = lit. self body.
SA 1324 (Sarvāstivāda)

---

愛從以我生
Craving/desire is born from my life - (lit. when I was born) .
SA 2.323 (Kāśyapīya)


_____________

Looks like Metoometoo pretender, is shooting a bullet in his foot, with his no self outside paṭiccasamuppāda - and his "**There is no being or existence to begin with".
viewtopic.php?p=622946#p622946.

Is there a bit of (somewhat) Saṃkhya in Buddhism? — But is there also a lot of the early Vedic creed in Buddhism?
That is the question I would definitely not ask Metoometoo, the jejune sciolist — (at best relying on his personally interpreted Vedic scholarship of the ... establishmentarianism).

Anyway, we haven't waited for Metoometoo's proposal, to put Buddha in his historical context. Have we?
______

Oh ! — and as seen here:
https://justpaste.it/19kjo
khandhas are indeed deficient.

The inherent deficiency of "having to be felt".
The debasement of (actual-ly) knowing - (in the Indian philosophy at large) — of which we are the "actual" gross & painful part, (as long as we don't escape).
.
.
In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by sphairos »

Ceisiwr wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 9:11 pm
waryoffolly wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 12:16 am
Can you or someone else point me to some scholarly work discussing the common (ie cultural) usage of kaya in the time of the Buddha? (Discussing usages of kaya external to the canon. I know where to look if I want to see it’s usages inside the canon!)
As far as I am aware "kāya" is not found in the pre-Buddhist literature (the Vedas and Upanishads). It is found in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, where Pāṇini gives it's root as √ci, which means "to arrange in order, heap up, pile up, construct". On the whole it seems to be an innovation of the Buddha.
This is highly unlikely as we have it in ancient Jaina inscriptions:

"...the famous
Hāthīgumphā inscription of king Khāravela of Kaliṅga at Udayagiri
(Orissa) from the second to first century BCE (Sircar 1965:213–21)
which offers what seems to be the first epigraphic evidence of bone
relic stūpa worship amongst the Jains, though no relic chamber was
found at the site of the “stūpa” which was excavated nearby.123 In line
14 of the inscription, the words kāyya-nisīdīya or kāya-nisīdiyā appear,
which Jayaswal and Banerji (1933:89) translated as “relic memorial,”
though the word kāya, corporeal, could also refer to the body of a living
monk and kāya-nisīdiyā to the caves at Udayagiri themselves,"

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/2791036.pdf

(All terminology you find in inscriptions is at least a few centuries older -- it is a highly conservative activity that follows ancient firmly established patterns)

in ancient Jaina texts

http://www.balcerowicz.eu/indology/balcerowicz2011b.pdf
http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gre ... Jainas.pdf

etc. It is more likely that the Buddha borrowed it from Jainism.

It does appear in the Vedic corpus, just not in the earliest layers. Nobody knows what is Pre-Buddhist and post-Buddhist.
How good and wonderful are your days,
How true are your ways?
ToVincent
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by ToVincent »

As already stated:
Here, sārīra is the physical body - and kāya is the ci in action, as breath.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39850&p=616605&hil ... on#p616605

I would say that, in the spirit of the Veda, "starting to pile up the first stratum", would make the atta (as self body,) an immortal body.

So I'm not so sure that kāya is a mere Jain concept.

______

On the side, I see no reason why kāya, as the ci in action, would not be responsible for both the physical and the mental body.
.
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In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

Polar Bear wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:53 pm
I fail to see where this abhidhamma definition precludes the possibility of rapture having a bodily component. But putting that aside, it seems pretty clear that Buddhaghosa is referring to the body, hence the suggested possibility of uplifting happiness to literally lift the body up into the air. The quote also talks about how bodily and mental bliss are both components of bliss. And it is pervading happiness inundating the whole body which is called the root of absorption.


:anjali:
Indeed, but he doesn't say said rapture based on the body (for the body itself feels no rapture of it's own) is experienced in jhāna. As you quoted, he wrote:
99. Now, this fivefold happiness, when conceived and matured, perfects the twofold tranquillity, that is, bodily and mental tranquillity. When tranquillity is conceived and matured, it perfects the twofold bliss, that is, bodily and mental bliss. When bliss is conceived and matured, it perfects the threefold concentration, that is, momentary concentration, access concentration, and absorption concentration.
This is referring to the satta bojjhaṅgā. Before absorption, yes, there is said happiness (piti). Such experience of the body however is not found when actually in the jhāna. Refer to my screen shot of the The Expositor (Atthasālinī) below, where the commentary states that in the 1st jhāna there is no experience of the physical body. This is quite in line with the core Abhidhamma texts.

The Atthasālinī can be found here: http://www.discoveringbuddha.org/wp-con ... D-1920.pdf
Attachments
Expositor Jhana.jpg
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Vism.'s Buddhaghosa says the sukha-pleasure is experienced by a physical body in third jhana!

Post by Ceisiwr »

Assaji wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 10:17 am

The Commentary similarly explains the pervasion in other jhānas.
The commentary appears to be saying the same thing as Ven. Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga, where said experiences precede but are not actually experienced within the jhāna. The Atthasālinī is clear that there is no experience of the physical body in jhāna, and so is in line with the Vibhaṅga where the piti & sukha of jhāna are stated to be mental only.
Attachments
Expositor Jhana.jpg
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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