Early Buddhist Meditation

by Keren Arbel

  89 MN I.477–8: idha bhikkhave ekacco puggalo ye te santā vimokkhā atikkamma rūpe āruppā te na kāyena phassitvā viharati, paññāya cassa disvā āsavā parikkhīṇā honti. Ayaṃ vuccati bhikkhave puggalo paññāvimutto.

  90 Although the text does not explicate what kind of liberations we are talking about, it is plausible to assume that his question refers to the last five ‘liberations’ of the ‘eight liberations’ (aṭṭha vimokkha) mentioned before in this chapter; that is, the four formless attainments and the ‘attainment of cessation’.

  91 SN II.121–7.

  92 SN II.123: api nu tumhe āyasmanto, evaṃ jānantā evaṃ passantā ye te santā vimokkhā atikkamma rūpe āruppā, te kāyena phusitvā viharathā’ti? No hetaṃ āvuso. Etthadāni āyasmanto, idañca veyyākaraṇaṃ imesañca dhammānaṃ asamāpatti. Idaṃ no āvuso kathanti? Paññāvimuttā kho mayaṃ āvuso susīmā’ti.

  93 E.g., SN I.48.

  94 SN IV.298–9.

  95 SA II.126–7: paññāvimuttā kho mayaṃ, āvusoti āvuso, mayaṃ nijjhānakā sukkhavipassakā paññāmetteneva vimuttāti dasseti.

  96 Katz 1982, 83; Sarbacker 2005, 33–4.

  97 Saṃyutta Nikāya, Bhikkhu Bodhi trans. (2000), 785 no. 210). We should bear in mind that while some arahants (including the Buddha) did possess the five abhiññās, only the sixth abhiññā – ‘the extinction of all taints’ (āsavakkhaya) – is that which constitutes in the Nikāyas teaching the attainment of complete liberation.

  98 Gombrich 2002, 125.

  99 Gombrich 2002, 97. Gombrich has maintained that both the Susīma Sutta and Kosambī Sutta should be seen as presenting a debate within the Theravāda tradition between the ‘cognitivists’ (those who think that one can be liberated by a process of intellectual analysis) and the ‘meditators’ (Gombrich 2002, 96, 133).

  100 Gombrich 2002, 126.

  101 Gombrich 2002, 124.

  102 Gombrich 2002, 126.

  103 Gombrich 2002, 127.

  104 See, for example, AN IV.451–6 where none of the spiritual attainments are envisioned without the attainment of the jhānas. These are the attainment of – kāyasakkhi, paññāvimutta, ubhatobhāgavimutto, sandiṭṭhiko dhammo, sandiṭṭhikaṃ nibbānaṃ, nibbāna, parinibbāna, diṭṭhadhammanibbāna, khemappatto, amata and so on.

  105 Ye te santā vimokkhā atikkamma rape āruppā, te kayena phusitvā viharathā. See also AN II.86–7 that a person can attain ‘liberation by wisdom’, ‘liberation of mind’ (cetovimuttiṃ paññāvimuttiṃ) by eradicated the āsavas but without dwelling and touching with the body in the ‘eight liberation’.

  106 I think that Bodhi’s conclusion in his article about the Kosambī Sutta is relevant for our discussion as well. Bodhi seems to point out that paññāvimutta do indeed attain the jhānas. He concludes, ‘All arahants arrive at their goal through the same threefold training in virtue, concentration and wisdom. They never bypass the training in concentration but merely differ in the degree to which they pursue this phase of the path. The principle division is between those arahants who gain mastery over the formless attainments (technically called ubhatobhāgavimutta, “both-ways-liberated-arahants”) and those settle for a lower degree of concentration (technically called paññāvimutta, “liberated-by-wisdom-arahants”)… regardless of their route of arrival at the goal, all arahants gain access to a meditative state in which they can experience nibbāna with a fullness and immediacy that surpasses the capacity of the sekha’ (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2003, 64–5).

  107 See, for example, Katz 1982, 82–3.

  108 Gombrich 2002, 130.

  109 AN III.356: ye amataṃ dhātuṃ kāyena phūsitvā viharanti.

  110 AN III.356: ye gambhīraṃ atthapadaṃ paññāya ativijjha passantīti.

  111 E.g., SN V.181–2, 184.

  112 Gombrich 2002, 130.

  113 Contrary to the rarity of the term dhamma-yoga, the term jhāyin appears in various places in the Nikāyas, such as Sn 719, 1009, 1105.

  114 E.g., SN V. 59, AN II.10; DN III.230. The four yogas are similar to the four ogha (e.g., SN V.59; DN III.230).

  115 E.g., DN III.123, 125; MN I.117, 349; SN I.173.

  116 Gombrich 2002, 132.

  117 Pariyatti nu kho sāsanassa mūlaṃ udāhu paṭipatti (AA, 52). Ibid., 158, note 3.

  118 AA, 53–3. Rahula Walpola, History of Buddhism in Ceylon, 158.

  119 Rahula 1956, 158–9 (AA, 53). Rahula cites also from the commentaries to the Majjhima and Dīgha Nikāyas that state, ‘[T]here may or may not be realization (paṭivedha) and practice (paṭipatti); learning is enough for the perpetuation of the Sāsana… Therefore, the Sāsana (religion) is stabilized when learning endures’ (DA, 654; MA, 881).

  120 E.g., AA I, 37 and AA III, 379. A search for the two types, i.e., gantha-dhura and vipassanā-dhura in the VRI CD-ROM (Vipassanā Research Institute, CD-ROM edition), produces references only in the commentaries.

  121 It is noteworthy that the differentiation between the jhāyins and the dhamma-yoga monks in AN III.355–6 was replaced by the differentiation between ganthadhura and vipassanādhura. In other words, the term jhāyin was converted to the term ‘practitioners of vipassanā’.

  122 Rahula 1956, 160. Rahula further points out that initially, ‘gantha-dhura meant only the learning and teaching of the Tripiṭka; as time went on, the connotation of the term widened, and it begun to embrace language, grammar, history, logic, medicine and other field of study as well’ (Rahula 1956, 161). A situation in which meditation practice was rare in Sri Lanka is reflected in Buddhaghosa’s open remarks in the Visuddhimagga in the section on the earth kaṣina and the jhānas. Buddhaghosa begins with a description of possible disturbances in the monastery for developing concentration (samādhi). This is a list of eighteen faults, such as a monastery that is large, new, near a road, disturbance to the fact that people bring flower or fruits, because the monastery is a place of pilgrimage (Vism IV.2). As noted by Ray, it is hard to imagine a settled monastery without any of these faults (Ray 1994, 38, note 20).

  123 Ray 1994, 17–18.

  124 Stuart-Fox 1989, 103.

  125 The anthropologist Martin Southwold found that amongst the Sri Lankan lay people he interviewed, meditation was a euphemism for sleeping, and that many ‘village Buddhists, especially men, and including some of the clergy, regard the practice with derision’ (Southwold 1984, 102, cited in Shravaski 2001, 52). Dhammika adds his own observation and writes, ‘I know that at least some monks in Sri Lanka see meditation as having more a punitive than spiritual value. In one monastery where I used to stay, the abbot would punish the little monks when they misbehaved by making them ‘do meditation’… Not a few monks have confided to me the embarrassment and discomfort they felt when they first got to the West and were asked to teach meditation’ (Shravaski 2001, 52).

  126 Sarbacker 2005, 101.

  127 Sarbacker 2005, 106.

  Final Reflections

  There is no jhāna for the one without wisdom,

  no wisdom for the one without jhāna;

  the one who has jhāna and wisdom

  he indeed is in the presence of nibbāna.1

  This study has tried to look into the question of how the mind can be transformed from ordinary to liberated, according to the Pāli Nikāyas. What is the role of the four jhānas in this transformation? Here I wish to reflect briefly on a question that seems to have no definitive answer when reading the Pāli Nikāyas alone but is worthy of reflection nonetheless: does the attainment of the jhānas transform one into a ‘noble person’ (ariya) or can one enter and abide in the jhānas more than once as an ‘ordinary person’ (puthujjana)? If the four jhānas can be attained repeatedly before one attains nibbāna (either as an ordinary person or as a ‘stream-enterer’, ‘once-returner’ or ‘non-returner’), what do they do for the unawakened practitioner and what is their relation to the awakening event? The last question was present in almost every chapter of this book interwoven in the different discussions,
so here I wish to summarize my position and research conclusions in this regard.

  In the Buddha’s own story it is clear that, before he became a Buddha, he attained the first jhāna twice and the other three jhānas only once.2 Furthermore, most of the descriptions of the jhānas in the context of the Nikāyas’ map of spiritual progress give the impression that one might progress through the four jhānas once, before one becomes an ariya or an arahant.3 The Nikāyas tell us, for example, about Citta, the householder, who was not an arahant but was still able to enter the jhānas as he wished.4 Yet the Nikāyas indicate that Citta was in fact a nonreturner and seem to link his ‘nobility’ with the attainment of the four jhānas.5

  Thus, it seems that the jhānas are signposts in the spiritual process signalling that one is on the threshold of awakening. If this indeed is the case, we might hypothesize that this experiential event is the jumping point into nibbāna.

  However, since nibbāna is ‘unconditioned’ (asaṅkhata), meaning nothing can ‘automatically’ condition its unfolding, it will be problematic to uphold that attaining any conditioned state will automatically bring about the ‘unconditioned’. From reading the Nikāyas, my overall impression is that the attainment of the four jhānas should be regarded as a turning point in the spiritual path. In many suttas it seems that these attainments mark the moment when a practitioner becomes ‘noble’ (ariya), although not necessarily an arahant. Yet, this is only a conjecture that cannot be proven. Still, even if we cannot argue unequivocally that this is indeed the case, the preceding pages have demonstrated that, according to the Nikāyas, the attainment of the jhānas is the way to effect wholesome changes in the makeup of the conditioned mind; it facilitates transformation of the mind from ordinary to awakened.6 We have seen in the course of this book that by going through the jhānas, the practitioner becomes intimately familiar with a clarified perception and free mode of being, allowing one to see through the illusory nature of phenomena. The jhānas, I argue, exemplify the aim of the Buddhist path: a progression from ordinary mind, filled with many moments of unwholesome states, to a purified mind, wholesome and free. When one progresses from one jhāna to the next, insight (vipassanā) becomes deeper and one actualizes the aim of Buddhist meditation.7

  Thus, if the fourth-jhāna -awareness is attained repeatedly before one attains awakening (either as an ordinary person or as a stream-enterer, once-returner or non-returner), we might hypothesize that the unawakened practitioner strengthens and establishes what I have called ‘wisdom-awareness’ – a wholesome and lucid awareness that knows directly the emptiness of all phenomena, knowing that is free from affective and cognitive overlays – thereby weakening the unwholesome tendencies and wrong perceptions of experience, until these mental and cognitive obstructions do not arise any longer. This is a progressive development, although the focus of the awareness is on the immediate present.

  If we assume that the ‘mind’ does not become anything in the process of practice, the early Buddhist spiritual path actually aims at eradicating distorted conceptual structures and unwholesome tendencies and inclinations that obscure the natural wholesomeness and luminosity of awareness.8 What I wish to suggest here is that the Nikāyas’ teaching seems to imply that for this luminosity to be uncovered, the practitioner needs to actualize and stabilize the fourth-jhāna -mode-ofawareness, which resembles an awakened cognition. Even though this mode of awareness is temporary and conditioned (as all experiences and insights are), it might reset the mind to complete wholesomeness and, hopefully, awaken the mind.

  However, if the mind is not liberated at the first time one attains the fourth jhāna, it might allow the practitioner to experience a temporary (albeit prolonged) awakened awareness of reality, not conditioned by desire, aversion and ignorance, thereby enabling one to know directly what it ‘feels like’ to be without any of the deep rooted habitual conditioning that causes dukkha. In other words, though one might attain nibbāna the first time the fourth jhāna is attained (as in the Buddha’s case), if one is not awakened at this point in the spiritual path, it seems that the fourth jhāna restores the natural clarity and openness of mind that allows one to gradually release conditioned modes of perception by experiencing a different mode of knowing and being.

  It seems plausible to theorize, then, that each time a person experiences the four jhānas (either as an ordinary person or as a stream-enterer, once-returner or nonreturner’) the mind becomes more familiar and grounded in such mode of knowing. This, I wish to emphasize again, is what seems to ameliorate the connection between ordinary mind and awakened mind. It allows one to have a deep sense of ease and freedom in both body and mind, planting and nurturing the seeds for complete liberation. Abiding in such a mode of being, I suggest, merges or intermingles what is usually perceived as mutually exclusive categories: the conditioned and unconditioned.9

  *

  On a more personal note, and in the spirit of the Buddha’s teaching, I would like to remind myself and readers that this book contains mere thoughts, thoughts that arose in my mind and passed away (only to arise again and again). Having ‘caught’ them in these pages as letters, words and sentences, I wish to remember that they are impermanent phenomena, arisen from various causes and conditions. They have no substantiality and independent existence of their own. They do not ‘describe’ reality. They are only interpretation and conceptual constructions conditioned by my own perceptions, views and predispositions. Thus, these thoughts are offered to the readers with a reminder that they are evanescent events. Hopefully, they will help us understand better the Buddha’s teaching but without becoming an object of clinging or aversion. I am completely responsible for these words, ideas and arguments, but I now let them go.

  Notes

  1 Natthi jhānaṃ apaññassa, paññā natthi ajhāyato. yamhi jhānañca paññā ca, sa ve nibbānasantike. (PTS Dhammapada v.372)

  2 MN I.247–8. After his awakening he of course attained the jhānas many times.

  3 In many suttas, after one attains the fourth jhāna, the mind is described as ‘unshakable purified, bright, unblemished, rid of the imperfections, malleable, wieldy, steady and attained to the imperturbability’ (e.g., MN I.247: evaṃ samāhite citte parisuddhe pariyodāte anaṅgaṇe vigatūpakkilese mudubhūte kammaniye ṭhite āneñjappatte). When the mind is thus purified, the practitioner attains the three types of knowledge, which means that one achieved complete liberation.

  4 SN IV.298–9. This implies that the jhānas can be attained before one achieves final liberation, although it might be that attaining the jhānas means that one is transformed from ordinary person into one of the three lower noble persons: stream-enterer, once-returner or non-returner.

  5 SN IV.301. Note that, although it is not clear if he became a ‘noble person’, after his attainment of the four jhānas, from this sutta, it does seem that this was indeed the case.

  6 SN V.308.

  7 This means that one abandons the unwholesome (akusala) and develops and fulfils wholesome qualities (kusala), specifically, the seven factors of awakening.

  8 This perspective is apparent in AN I.10. However, I wish to point out that ‘luminosity of awareness’ does not mean that ‘awareness’ is a ‘thing’ but only hints that awareness – as the faculty of knowing – can be free from conditioned psychological setting and deceiving conceptual structures.

  9 See Klein 1992, 295.

  Bibliography

  I have used the Pali Text Society editions for all citations from the Pāli Nikāyas. Quotations from the Aṭṭhakathās are taken from the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana CD-ROM Version 3 of the Vipassanā Research Institute.

  Primary sources (English translations)

  Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans). A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (Abhidhammatthasangaha). Seattle: BPS Pariyatti Editions, 2000a.

  Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans). The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Vols. I & II). Oxford: The Pāli Text Society, 2000b.


  Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans). The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012.

  Masefield, Peter (trans). The Udāna. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

  Ñāṅamoli, Bhikkhu (trans). The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga). Colombo: Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre, 1956.

  Ñāṅamoli, Bhikkhu (trans). The Path of Discrimination (Paṭisambhidāmagga). Oxford: The Pāli Text Society, 2002.

  Ñāṅamoli, Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995.

  Nathmal, Tatia (trans). That Which Is (Tattvārtha Sūtra): With the Combined Commentaries of Umāsvāti/Umāsvāmi, Pūjyapāda and Siddhasenagani. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

  Norman, K.R. (trans). The Group of Discourses (Sutta-Nipāta), 2nd edition. Oxford: The Pāli Texts Society, 2001.

  Olivelle, Patrick (trans). Upaniṣads. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

  Pe Maung Tin, M.A. (trans). Edited and revised by Mrs. Rhys Davids, D.Litt., M.A. The Expositor (Atthasàlinã: Buddhaghosa’s Commentary on the Dhammasangaṇī) (Vols. 1 & 2). London: The Pāli Text Society, 1976.

  Radhakrishnan, S. (trans). Dhammapada. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950.

  Radhakrishnan, S. (trans). The Principle Upaniṣads. New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers India, 1994.

  Shwe Zan Aung, B.A. (trans). Compendium of Philosophy. Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1995.

  Walsh, Maurice (trans). The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publication, 1987.

  Woodward, F.L. (trans). The Book of the Gradual Saying (Anguttara Nikāya) (Vol. 5). London: The Pāli Text Society, 2003.

  Secondary sources

  Akira, Sadakata. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origin. Tokyo: Kōsei Publishing Co., 1997.