auto wrote
Pulsar doesn't buy the three: desire, form and formless realms
Thanks auto, I appreciate that. Formless as in Arupa samapatthis of Jains et al were a later addition to
the canon.
Then again It depends on what one mean by "formless"???
Forms that appear in the mind??? is the larger issue. Buddha's advice to Bahia, "ignore the seen, heard, sensed, cognized" (i.e. forms that appear to the mind). Bahia understood it right away, and listened. Some complain jhana is not needed, because Bahia got nibbanized without jhana. But once you get rid of form that easily, that is buddhist jhana. But maybe some in the tradition failed to notice this.
The meditator involved in right Satipatthana as in SN 47.42, can avoid forms that appear in the mind in the
very first satipatthana, by not feeding them. The first Satipatthana in SN 47.42 is discussing the 4 nutrients. "Do not feed the consciousness" is the message. (There is no teaching like this in the first Satipatthana of MN 10. It refers to bodies, body parts and corpses. How would you get rid of rupasanna by this method?)
The result of first Satipathana of
Samudaya sutta is
formlessness.
we don't have to chase after Arupa samapatthis to do that, like the Jains did.
- V. Sujato in the checklist does say that Arupa samapatthis are extraneous, not relevant to liberation.
To get back to the narrative, One who is free of forms that appear in the mind (one who is free of mental proliferation) does not enter the form and designate them.
- There ends the consciousness
i.e. attached consciousness. why worry anymore? What remains in jhana or in an Arahant is an
- unattached or unplanted consciousness
This is the goal of Satipatthana which culminates in jhana. An unplanted consciousness!
If one can maintain the state arrived in first satipatthana in Samudaya sutta, that itself is jhana temporary for those who can manage that. Jhana definitely is not a mode where one feels like one is in a 21st century fantabulous Jacuzzi. Pardon my phrase here.
Love and hugs my Dear auto