Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
With the subsiding of applied thought and sustained thought he enters and dwells in the second jhāna, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without applied thought and sustained thought, and is filled with rapture and happiness born of concentration.
With the fading away of rapture, he dwells in equanimity, mindful and discerning; and he experiences in his own person that happiness of which the noble ones say: ‘Happily lives he who is equanimous and mindful’ – thus he enters and dwells in the third jhāna.
With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, he enters and dwells in the fourth jhāna, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and has purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.
This, bhikkhus, is right concentration.1 (Wr. tr.).
Right concentration, however, can be either mundane or supramundane. That the right concentration here defined as the four jhānas is supramundane becomes clear from the Mahācattārīsaka Sutta (MN. No. 117), a discourse exploring the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path. In this discourse, rather than presenting the path in its own name, the Buddha discusses it under the name of “noble right concentration with its supports and accompaniments.” He begins by asking the monks: “What, monks, is noble right concentration with its supports and accompaniments?” The answer he gives himself:
There are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, and right mindfulness. The one-pointedness of mind accompanied by these seven factors – this is noble right concentration with its supports and accompaniments.2 (Wr. tr.).
Each of the path factors in turn is said to have two forms, a mundane form which is
“subject to the cankers, pertaining to the side of merit, maturing in the foundations of existence,”3 (Wr. tr.), and another form which is “noble, free from cankers, supramundane, a factor of the path.”4 (Wr. tr.). The latter is found in “the noble state of consciousness, the cankerless state of consciousness, in one equipped with the noble path, in one developing the noble path.”5 (Wr. tr.). Since these factors accompanying right concentration of the noble path are defined as supramundane, it follows that the four jhānas making up right concentration in the Noble Eightfold Path are also supramundane.
1. DN. 2:313.
2. “Katamo ca, bhikkhave, ariyo sammāsamādhi sa-upaniso saparikkhāro? SeyyathīdaJ: sammādi::hi sammāsaJkappo sammāvācā sammākamanto sammā-ājīvo sammāvāyāmo sammāsati. Yā kho, bhikkhave, imehi sattaKgehi cittassa ekaggatā parikkhātā; ayaJ vuccati, bhikkhave, ariyo sammā samādhi sa-upaniso iti pi, saparikkhāro iti pi.” MN. 3:71.
3. “Sāsavā puññabhāgiyā upadhivepakkā.” MN. 3:72.
4. “Ariyā anāsavā lokuttara maggaKgā.” Ibid.
5. “Ariya cittassa anāsavacittassa ariyamaggasamaKgino ariyamaggaJ bhāvayato.” Ibid.
In the Abhidhamma system of explanation this connection between the jhānas, paths, and fruits comes to be worked out with great intricacy of detail. The DhammasaKgaLi, in its section on states of consciousness, expounds each of the path and fruition states of consciousness as occasions, first, of one or another of the four jhānas in the tetradic scheme, and then again as occasions of one or another of the five jhānas in the pentadic scheme.1 Standard Abhidhammic exposition, as formalized in the synoptical manuals of Abhidhamma, employs the fivefold scheme and brings each of the paths and fruits into connection with each of the five jhānas. In this way the eight types of supramundane consciousness – the path and fruition consciousness of stream-entry, the once-returner, the non-returner, and arahatship – proliferate to forty types of supramundane conscious-ness, since any path or fruit can occur at the level of any of the five jhānas. This procedure is elaborated in the Abhidhammattha Sa/gaha:
The First Jhāna Sotāpatti Path-consciousness together with initial application, sustained application, joy, happiness, and one-pointedness,
The Second Jhāna Sotāpatti Path-consciousness together with sustained app-lication, joy, happiness, and one-pointedness,
The Third Jhāna Sotāpatti Path-consciousness together with joy, happiness, and one-pointedness,
The Fourth Jhāna Sotāpatti Path-consciousness together with happiness and one-pointedness,
The Fifth Jhāna Sotāpatti Path-consciousness together with equanimity and one-pointedness.
So are the Sakadāgāmi Path-consciousness, Anāgāmi Path-consciousness, and Arahatta Path-consciousness, making exactly twenty classes of consciousness.
Similarly there are twenty classes of Fruit-consciousness. Thus there are forty types of supramundane consciousness.2
The medieval Ceylonese commentator Sāriputta glosses this passage thus: “Stream-entry path-consciousness accompanied by the five-factored first jhāna with initial thought, etc. is called ‘the first jhāna sotāpatti path-consciousness’.”3 (Wr. tr.). And so for the rest.
1. Dhs., pp. 74-86.
2. Nārada, Manual., pp. 63-64. “Vitakka-vicāra-pīti-sukh’ekaggatā-sahitaJ Pa:hamajjhāna-Sotāpattima-ggacittaJ,
Vicāra-pīti-sukh’ekaggatā-sahitaJ Dutiyajjhāna-SotāpattimaggacittaJ, Pīti-sukh’ekaggatā-sahitaJ Tatiyajjhāna SotāpattimaggacittaJ, Sukh’ekaggatā-sahitaJ Catutthajjhāna SotāpattimaggacittaJ.
Upekkh’ekaggatā-sahitaJ Pañcamajjhāna SotāpattimaggacittaJ c’ati.
…Tathā Sakadāgāmimagga, Anāgāmimagga, Arahattamaggacittañ c’āti, samavīsati maggacittāni. Tathā phalacittāni c’ati samacattāXīsa lokuttaracittāni bhavantī’ti.” Ibid, pp. 62-63.
3. Pa:hamajjhānena vitakkādipañcaKgikajjhānena sampayuttaJ sotāpattimaggacittaJ pa:hamajjhāna-sotāpattimaggacittaJ.” AS., p. 37. Vibhāvanī )īkā, pp. 36f. Dhs.A., pp. 272-73.
It should be noted that there are no paths and fruits conjoined with the immaterial attainments (āruppas). The reason for this omission is that supramundane jhāna is presented solely from the standpoint of its factorial constitution, and the formless attainments have the same factors as the fifth jhāna – equanimity and one-pointedness.
They differ only in regard to the object, a consideration here irrelevant since the paths and fruits all take nibbāna as their object.
The fullest treatment of the supramundane jhānas in the authoritative Pāli literature can be found in the DhammasaKgaLi’s exposition of the supramundane states of consciousness, read in conjunction with the commentary on these passages in the Dhammasa/ga5i A((hakathā. The DhammasaKgaLi opens its analysis of the first wholesome supramundane consciousness with the words:
On the occasion when one develops supramundane jhāna which is emanci-pating, leading to the demolition (of existence), for the abandonment of views, for reaching the first plane, secluded from sense pleasures... one enters and dwells in the first jhāna.1 (Wr. tr.).
It then goes on to enumerate the various wholesome mental phenomena present on the occasion of that consciousness, defining each of these by their standard synonyms. We will consider the most significant auxiliary constituents of the supramundane jhānas shortly, but first it is instructive to look at the introductory phrase itself in the light of its commentarial elucidation.
The Dhammasa/ga5i A((hakathā explains the word lokuttara, which we have been translating “supramundane,” as meaning “it crosses over the world, it transcends the world, it stands having surmounted and overcome the world.”2 (Wr. tr.). It glosses the phrases “one develops jhāna” thus: “One develops, produces, cultivates absorption jhāna lasting for a single thought-moment.”3 (Wr. tr.). This gloss shows us two things about the consciousness of the path: first that it occurs as a jhāna at the level of full absorption, and second that this absorption of the path lasts for only a single thought-moment. The word “emancipating” (niyyānika) is explained to mean that this jhāna goes out (niyyāti) from the world, from the round of existence, the phrase “leading to demolition” (apacayagāmi) that it demolishes and dismantles the process of rebirth.4 This last phrase points to a striking difference between mundane and supramundane jhāna. The DhammasaKgaLi’s exposition of the former begins: “On the occasion when one develops the path for rebirth in the fine material sphere... one enters and dwells in the first jhāna.”5 (Wr. tr.). Thus, with this statement, mundane jhāna is shown as
1. “YasmiJ samaye lokuttaraJ jhānaJ bhāveti niyyānikaJ apacayagāmiJ di::higatānaJ pahānāya pa:hamāya bhūmiyā pattiyā vivicceva kāmehi… pa:hamaJ jhānaJ upasampajja viharati.” Dhs., p. 72.
2. “LokaJ taratīti lokuttaraJ, lokaJ uttaratīti lokuttaraJ, lokaJ samatikkamma abhibhuyya ti::hatīti lokuttaraJ.” Dhs.A., p. 259.
3. “Jhānam bhāvetīti ekacittakkhaLikaJ appanājhānaJ bhāveti janeti vaYYheti.” Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “YasmiJ samaye rūpūpapattiyā maggaJ bhāveti vivicceva kāmehi… pa:hamaJ jhānaJ upasampajja viharati.” Dhs., p. 44.
sustaining the round of rebirths; it is a wholesome kamma leading to renewed existence.
But the supramundane jhāna of the path does not promote the accumulation of the round; to the contrary, it brings about the round’s dismantling and demolition. The Dhammasa/ga5i A((hakathā underscores this difference with an illustrative simile:
The wholesome states of the three planes are said to lead to accumulation because they build up and increase death and rebirth in the round. But not this.
Just as when one man has built up a wall eighteen feet high another might take a club and go along demolishing it, so this goes along demolishing and dismantling the deaths and rebirths built up by the wholesome kammas of the three planes by bringing about a deficiency in their conditions. Thus it leads to demolition.1 (Wr. tr.).
The jhāna is said to be cultivated “for the abandoning of views.” This phrase signifies the function of the first path, which is to eradicate the fetters. The supramundane jhāna of the first path cuts off the fetter of personality view (sakkāyadi((hi) and all speculative views derived from it. The Dhammasa/ga5i A((hakathā points out that here we should understand that it abandons not only wrong views but other unwholesome states as well, namely doubt, clinging to rites and rituals, and greed, hatred, and delusion strong enough to lead to the plane of misery. The phrase “for reaching the first plane” the commentary explicates as meaning for attaining the fruit of stream entry.2
Immediately after this passage the DhammasaKgaLi lists the constituting phenomena comprised in the supramundane jhāna, followed by their definitions. The elaborate and complex expository method of the canonical Abhidhamma word has been streamlined in the Abhidhammattha Sa/gaha. By avoiding repetitions of the same factor under different headings the manual assigns thirty-eight mental factors (cetasikas) to the first jhāna state of consciousness, whether of any of the four paths and fruits. These are the seven factors common to all states of consciousness, the six general variables, the nineteen universal beautiful factors, wisdom, and three abstinences – right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Two immeasurables – compassion and sympathetic joy – are always excluded from the paths and fruits.3
We saw earlier that the Abhidhammattha Sa/gaha attributes thirty-five possible mental factors to the first mundane jhāna.4 This invites a comparison between the composition of the two states. Firstly it will be noticed that compassion and sympathetic joy can be present in mundane jhāna but not in the supramundane. The reason is that those mental
1. “Yathā ca pana tebhūmakakusalaJ vattasmiJ cutipa:isandhiyo ācināti vaYYhetīti ācayagāmi nāma hoti.
Na tathā idaJ. IdaJ pana yathā ekasmiJ purise a::hārasahatthā pākārā cinante aparo mahamuggaraJ gahetvā tena citacita::hānaJ apacinanto vidhaJsento eva gaccheyya. Evameva tebhūmakakusalena cita cutipa:isandhiyo paccayavekallākārena apacinantaJ vidhaJsentaJ gacchatīti apacayagāmi.” Dhs.A., p. 259.
2. Dhs.A., pp. 259-60.
3. Nārada, Manual., pp. 127-29. NB: The higher jhānas have respectively thirty-seven, thirty-six, and thirty-five components as applied thought, sustained thought, and rapture are abandoned at these levels.
4. See above, Chapter IV, pp. 149-50.
factors have sentient beings for object, while the paths and fruits objectify nibbāna.1 Secondly we should note that the three abstinences are present in the supramundane jhānas but not in the mundane. This is because in mundane consciousness an abstinence (virati) is only present on an occasion when one is deliberately exercising restraint of speech, body, or livelihood. In mundane jhāna no such restraint is being applied; it is only applied in wholesome sense sphere consciousness when one is resisting the impulse towards moral transgression. Even then only one abstinence can occur at a time, and only with respect to one violation covered by the abstinence – for right speech abstaining from lying, slander, harsh speech, or idle chatter; for right action abstaining from killing, stealing, or sexual misconduct; for right livelihood abstaining from one or another form of wrong livelihood. But in the supramundane states the three abstinences occur simultaneously, and they occur with respect to all the violations covered by the abstinence. In the supramundane jhānas of the path they have the function not merely of inhibiting immoral actions, but of destroying the tendencies for these transgressions to occur. For this reason the DhammasaKgaLi describes each abstinence as setughāta,
“breaking the bridge,” which the commentary explains as meaning that the abstinence uproots the condition for misconduct of speech, action or livelihood.2
In the DhammasaKgaLi’s enumeration of states, the factor of wisdom enters into the supramundane jhānas as three new faculties spread out over the four paths and fruits.
These three are the faculty of “I shall know the unknown” (anaññātaññassāmitindriya), the faculty of final knowledge (aññindriya), and the faculty of the completion of final knowledge (aññātavindriya).3 The first is present in the first path, the second in the six intermediate states from the first fruition through the fourth path, and the third in the fourth fruition, the fruit of arahatship. The faculty of “I shall know the unknown” is the wisdom-faculty of one standing on the path of stream-entry, the “unknown” being, according to the commentary, the deathless state of nibbāna or the Four Noble Truths, neither of which has been known before in beginningless sa.sāra.4 The faculty of final knowledge is the same faculty of wisdom in those at the intermediate stages of progress, while the faculty of the completion of final knowledge is the fully matured wisdom of the arahat. None of these faculties is present in mundane jhāna.
A good number of constituent factors present in mundane jhāna are repeated again in the analysis of supramundane jhāna, but to these the DhammasaKgaLi adds two qualifying phrases not given in the definitions of their mundane counterparts. These are the phrases “path factor” (magga/ga) and “enlightenment factor” (bojjha/ga). The former attaches to all those states which, under one or another of their different names, enter into the Noble Eightfold Path as right view, right intention, right speech, right
1. The other two immeasurables – loving kindness and equanimity – are particular modes of the mental factors “non-hatred” and “specific neutrality.” Since their parent factors do not necessarily have sentient beings for object they can be present even with other objects and are, in fact, universal concomitants of wholesome states of consciousness.
2. Dhs.A., p. 264.
3. Dhs., pp. 77, 91, 138.
4. Dhs.A., p. 261.
action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.1 Though five of these states – right view, right intention, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration – are present in mundane jhāna, they are not present as path factors (magga/ga) for on those occasions they do not pertain to the noble path leading directly to the cessation of suffering.
The phrase “enlightenment factor” attaches to the states belonging to the seven factors of enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. This collection of states is called “enlightenment” or
“awakening” (bodhi) because, when it arises at the moment of the supramundane paths, it enables the noble disciple to awaken from the sleep of the defilements.2 Its components can be present in the mundane jhānas but they are not present there as enlightenment factors. They function as enlightenment factors only in the supramundane jhānas of the noble paths and fruits, for only then do they contribute immediately to the attainment of enlightenment.
Besides these several other differences between mundane and supramundane jhāna may be briefly noted. Firstly, with regard to their objects, the mundane jhānas have a conceptual entity (paññatti) as object; for the kasi5as, impurities, mindfulness of breathing, etc. the object is the counterpart sign (pa(ibhāganimitta), for the divine abodes (brahmavihāra) it is sentient beings. In contrast, for the supramundane jhāna of the paths and fruits the object is exclusively nibbāna, a truly existent state (sabhāva-dhamma).
With regard to their predominant tone, in mundane jhāna the element of serenity (samatha) prevails. Though the factor of wisdom enters into the mundane jhānas it does not do so with any special prominence. In contrast, the supramundane jhāna of the paths and fruits brings serenity and insight into balance. Wisdom is present as right view (sammādi((hi) and serenity as right concentration (sammāsamādhi). Both function together in perfect harmony. As the Visuddhimagga explains, paraphrasing a passage from the Pa:isambhidāmagga:
At the time of developing the eight mundane attainments the serenity power is in excess, while at the time of developing the contemplations of imper-manence, etc., the insight power is in excess. But at the noble path moment they occur coupled together in the sense that neither one exceeds the other.3
1. It should be noted that in the paths and fruits occurring at the level of the second through fifth jhānas, only seven path factors are present. This is because right intention (sammāsa.kappa) is a form of vitakka, which is made to subside with the attainment of the second jhāna. Similarly, in the paths and fruits of the fourth and fifth jhānic levels only six enlightenment factors are present, rapture having been abandoned with the attainment of the fourth jhāna of the fivefold system.
2. See Dhs.A., p. 262.
3. PP., p. 798. “Lokiyānañ ca a::hannaJ samāpattīnaJ bhāvanākāle samathabalaJ adhikaJ hoti;
aniccānupassanādīnaJ bhāvanākāle vipassanābalaJ. AriyamaggakhaLe pana yuganaddhā te dhammā pavattanti aññamaññaJ anativattana::hena.” Vism., p. 586.
This difference in prevailing tone leads into a difference in function or activity between the two kinds of jhāna. Both the mundane and supramundane are jhānas in the sense of closely attending (upanijjhāna) but in the case of mundane jhāna this close attention issues merely in an absorption into the object, an absorption that can only suppress the defilements temporarily. In the supramundane jhāna, particularly of the four paths, the coupling of close attention with wisdom brings the exercise of four functions at a single moment. These four functions each apply to one of the Four Noble Truths, representing the particular way that noble truth is penetrated at the time the paths arise comprehending the truths. The four functions are full understanding (pariññā), abandonment (pahāna), realization (sacchikiriya), and development (bhāvanā). The path penetrates the first noble truth by fully understanding suffering; it penetrates the second noble truth by abandoning craving, the origin of suffering; it penetrates the third noble truth by realizing nibbāna, the cessation of suffering; and it penetrates the fourth noble truth by developing the Noble Eightfold Path, the way to the end of suffering. The Visuddhimagga quotes a passage from the ancients to clear away doubts that one experience can perform four functions simultaneously:
For this is said by the Ancients ‘just as a lamp performs four functions simul-taneously in a single moment – it burns the wick, dispels darkness, makes light appear, and uses up the oil – so too, path knowledge penetrates to the four truths simultaneously in a single moment – it penetrates to suffering by penetrating to it with full-understanding, penetrates to origination by penetrating to it with abandoning, penetrates to the path by penetrating to it with developing and penetrates to cessation by penetrating to it with realizing.
What is meant? By making cessation its object it reaches, sees and pierces the four truths.1
Filling in the simile, Buddhaghosa explains that as the lamp burns the wick the path knowledge understands suffering; as the lamp dispels darkness the path abandons craving; as the lamp makes light appear the path develops the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path; and as the lamp consumes the oil, the path realizes nibbāna, which destroys the defilements.2 Though this fourfold function is peculiar to the path-consciousness and is not fully shared by fruition, the latter still exercises a decisively cognitive function in that it is said to “closely attend to the real characteristic, the truth of cessation.”3 (Wr. tr.).
1. PP., p. 808. “VuttaJ h’etaJ porāLehi: ‘Yathā padīpo apubbaJ acarimaJ ekakkhaLena cattāri kiccāni karoti, va::iJ jhāpeti, andhakāraJ vidhamati, ālokaJ pavidaJseti, sinehaJ pariyādiyati, evaJ eva maggañāLaJ apubbaJ acarimaJ ekakkhaLena cattāri saccāni abhisameti, dukkhaJ pariññābhisamayena abhisameti, samudayaJ pahānābhisamayena abhisameti, maggaJ bhāvanābhisamayena abhisameti, nirodhaJ sacchikiriyābhisamayena abhisameti. KiJ vuttaJ hoti? NirodhaJ ārammaLaJ karitvā cattāri pi saccāni pāpuLāti passati pa:ivijjhatī ti.’” Vism., p. 593.
2. PP., p. 809. Vism., p. 593.
3. “PhalaJ pana nirodhasaccaJ tathalakkhaLaJ upanijjhāyati.” Dhs.A., p. 211.