Zom wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:10 pm
The sutta speaks for itself. Buddha says "impossible". So it's up to you to decide if the sutta lies or not ,)
not really. Just be aware about what the Sutta shows:
"what is the path and method, to dispel the lower bonds of the sensual world?"
that teaching was born from that specific basis in where the cultivation of jhanas was taught to be followed by many monks in that assembly.
However, we find later inside SN 35.95, how the same Malunkyaputta asked to the Buddha:
"It would be good, lord, if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief so that, having heard the Dhamma from the Blessed One, I might dwell alone in seclusion: heedful, ardent, & resolute."
and then, the Buddha taught to Malunkyaputta a path different from a cultivation of jhanas:
"Then, Malunkyaputta, with regard to phenomena to be seen, heard, sensed, or cognized: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed...... When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
and at the end of the Sutta, we read how Malunkyaputta was succesful with this different teaching without cultivating jhanas:
"Then, dwelling alone, secluded, heedful, ardent, & resolute, he in no long time reached & remained in the supreme goal of the holy life for which clansmen rightly go forth from home into homelessness, knowing & realizing it for himself in the here & now. He knew: "Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world." And thus Ven. Malunkyaputta became another one of the arahants."
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
The conclussion is seeing Malunkyaputta in the first Sutta, although for some reason he was not succesful or akin to the cultivation of jhanas. Because we find him again in SN 35.95 asking to the Buddha for a "total" or "speedy" teaching. And the reason for that petition appears inside the same SN 35.95:
"Here now, Malunkyaputta: What will I say to the young monks when you — aged, old, elderly, along in years, come to the last stage of life — ask for an admonition in brief?"
Malunkyaputta was old and still not succesful, despite he knew the jhanas cultivation as we read in the other sutta. And then the Buddha taught him a different path without a cultivation of jhanas. By the way, this is the same teaching that we read in the popular Bahiya Sutta. This is a path of wisdom/insight.
The Buddha taught in different ways, not only Jhanas. This is a fact.
It is interesting the "complaint" of the Buddha, about what he will say to the young monks. It seems like if the Buddha preferred the jhana cultivation for young monks, although in many cases he taught another ways. A plausible speculation can be the worldly benefits associated to the mastery of jhanas like the supranormal ones. Because at those times it was quite necessary in example to demonstrate the superiority of Dhamma teaching in front other teachings also exhibiting supranormal powers.
Although for nibbana purposes this is no relevant, and the Buddha was compassive to liberate all the possible people.