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Jhana and Lokuttarajjhana

by Ajahn Brahmali

1. Introduction

When reading the (1) Suttas of the Pali Canon it is difficult not to be struck by the central importance of samādhi and jhāna on the Buddhist path, (2) Samādhi and jhāna appear in Sutta after Sutta, often as the pivotal condition that allows deep insight into the nature of existence. In spite of this, there appears to have been an historical tendency to underestimate the importance of these states.(3) Perhaps the most potent of the many factors that have lead to such underestimation was the early post-Nikāya rise of the Abhidhamma concept of 'lokuttarajjhāna'. In this paper I wish to examine this concept, to investigate whether it has any counterpart in the Suttas, to discuss the implications of using it to interpret the Suttas, and finally to look more closely at the Abhidhamma's treatment of lokuttarajjhāna. I will argue that the common Commentarial practice of using lokuttarajjhāna to define jhāna is misleading.

2. The Concept of Lokuttarajjhāna

The very name 'lokuttarajjhāna' suggests a connection to jhāna and by implication to sammāsamādhi and samādhi in general. However, whereas jhāna and samādhi are important doctrinal terms of the Pali Suttas, lokuttarajjhāna first appears in the Abhidhamma. To avoid any confusion between these various terms it is necessary to look more closely at the Abhidhamma's definition.(4)

According to Abhidhamma theory each stage of Enlightenment is experienced through two types of consciousness, known as magga (path) and phala (fruit). The first type of consciousness, the magga, which lasts only one mind moment, has the function of cutting off mental fetters. The second type, the phala, is the experience of bliss that results from the cutting off of the fetters by the magga consciousness.(5) Again according to the Abhidhamma, these two types of consciousness are experienced together with a particular set of jhāna factors that correspond to each of the four jhānas respectively.(6) Thus they are called 'lokuttarajjhānas', 'transcendent jhānas',(7) because they combine the jhāna factors with an Enlightenment experience.

From this it emerges that the Abhidhamma term lokuttarajhāna is a name for the particular moment one attains one of the various stages of Enlightenment. The Suttas have their own terminology for describing these attainments, terminology that does not refer to momentary experiences and that never explicitly relates to samādhi or jhāna.(8) Consequently, it seems from the outset that lokuttarajjhāna and jhāna/samādhi refer to very different types of experience.(9)

3. Ariyo Sammāsamādhi

In spite of the above, it has been argued that lokuttarajjhāna, in its momentary Abhidhamma sense, is implicitly referred to in the Suttas but using different terminology. Of all the Sutta terminology it is perhaps 'ariyo sammāsamādhi', 'noble right samādhi', which is most often identified as lokuttarajjhāna.(10) It appears it is the qualifier 'ariya' which has made this identification common. 'Ariya', 'noble', is a Sutta term usually referring to the persons who have attained one of the stages of Enlightenment. Therefore, when it is used as a qualifier, it is likely to signify some connection to the stages of Enlightenment. To discover what this connection is we need to look at how this phrase is used in the Suttas.

Ariyo sammāsamādhi is only found on five separate occasions in the Suttas.(11) Two of these occasions are simply the same bare definitions:

"There are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness. The one-pointedness of mind equipped with these seven factors is called noble right concentration (sammāsamādhi) 'with its supports', and also 'with its accessories'."(12)

This is not enough to give a precise idea of the phrase, but at least it makes it clear that only a person practicing the Noble Eightfold Path can have this kind of samādhi.

The third occasion is found at M117 where 'ariyo sammāsamādhi' is initially explained in the same way as above, but then expanded on considerably. Of particular importance here is that the factor of sammāditthi, one of the seven 'equipments' mentioned above, can be either the Noble Right View of the Sotāpanna or it can be ordinary right view possessed by the person who is not yet a Sotāpanna.(13) Thus it seems that it is possible to possess ariyo sammāsamādhi without yet having attained to Sotāpatti. If this is correct, it is impossible that this samādhi is the 'lokuttarajjhāna' of the Abhidhamma.(14)

The fourth occurrence of ariyo sammāsamādhi does not add anything of interest but the fifth occurrence is important: it is a statement of what this samādhi consists of.(15) Not surprisingly it is said to consist of the four jhānas and also "the reviewing sign which is well-grasped, well-attended to, well-considered, and well-penetrated by wisdom".(16) Note that there is nothing here about attaining any of the stages of Enlightenment, just the standard passage on the four jhānas together with the usual similes. If there ever was a time for clearly defining 'lokuttarajjhāna', if that were what is meant by ariya sammāsamādhi, this would seem to be the ideal opportunity. Each time an obvious opportunity for an explicit definition is missed, any claim that lokuttarajjhāna is what is meant is severely undermined. Even the Commentary does not seem to define ariyo sammāsamādhi here as anything but 'ordinary' jhāna.(17) In conclusion, there is no evidence in the Suttas that ariyo sammāsamādhi refers to lokuttarajjhāna, but the evidence to the contrary is sufficient to throw serious doubts on this interpretation.(18)

It thus appears that even the most promising candidate-term from the Suttas has nothing to do with the Abhidhamma's lokuttarajjhāna. If this is correct, then it is unlikely that there is any terminology at all in the Suttas that is equivalent to lokuttarajjhāna. If the most promising terminology fails to hit the mark, then any other terminology is even less likely to do so.

However, it is still necessary to investigate whether the terms 'jhāna' or 'samādhi' in themselves, as they occur in the Suttas, have a twofold meaning, sometimes refering to ordinary jhāna but at other times referring to lokuttarajjhāna.(19) This takes us to the Commentaries, which often assert that particular instances of jhāna or samādhi in the Suttas actually refer to lokuttarajjhāna.

4. Commentarial Interpretations

An important aspect of the Commentaries' method is the use of later concepts, especially from the Abhidhamma, to explain the Suttas. In practice this means that when jhāna or samādhi occur in the Suttas, the Commentaries decide whether 'ordinary' jhāna is meant or lokuttarajjhāna.(20) The result is that the Commentaries back-read a later concept into the Suttas themselves. To find out whether this is reasonable, it is instructive to investigate a few examples of such Commentarial interpretations.

4.1 Samanamandika Sutta, M78 (21)

This Sutta contains a, for our purposes, interesting discussion on the ending of intentions. The Sutta states that all unwholesome intentions cease without remainder in the first jhāna and that all wholesome intentions cease without remainder in the second jhāna.(22) The Commentary then goes on to define both instances of jhāna here as lokuttarajjhāna: the first being equivalent to the state of Anāgāmī and the second that of Arahant.(23)

There are several issues here. Firstly, one might ask why the Sutta speaks of jhāna when in fact, according to the Commentary, it means the attainment of Anāgāmī and Arahant respectively. There are several standard ways in which the Suttas describe the attainments of Anāgāmī and Arahant, but 'jhāna' is not one of them. One may then wonder why this Sutta does not apply one of these standard ways of describing such attainments rather than use a term, i.e. jhāna, which ordinarily has a completely different meaning. According to the Suttas the "brahmacariya is endowed with all aspects, fulfilled in all aspects, not deficient, with nothing superfluous, well-proclaimed, fully complete, well-expounded",(24) but if the Commentary is right, then one could rightfully question whether this Sutta is indeed "well-proclaimed". The fact is that using jhāna in this context while meaning the attainments of Anāgāmī and Arahant would obscure the passage considerably and one would be totally dependent on outside expertise, i.e. the Commentaries, to unravel the meaning.(25) The Buddha never said that one needed to depend on outside expertise to understand his teachings, quite the contrary according to the above quote.(26)

Even more problematic for the Commentary's interpretation is the differentiation in the present Sutta between the use of the first jhāna to describe the ending of unwholesome intentions and the second jhāna to describe the ending of wholesome intentions. If indeed, as the Commentary holds, this refers to the attainments of Anāgāmī and Arahant respectively, then the level of jhāna is in fact completely irrelevant as far as the ending of the corresponding intentions is concerned. Again, one can only wonder whether such a presentation could be considered "well-proclaimed".

Lastly, the Sutta is perfectly well explainable in terms of 'ordinary' jhāna without having to bring in an explanation from the Abhidhamma. The first jhāna is throughout the Suttas qualified as "secluded from unwholesome states",(27) which would include unwholesome intentions. In the second jhāna the vitakka and vicāra aspects of first jhāna cease. In the first jhāna these aspects are the movement of the mind onto the object and the holding on to the object respectively. It is easy to see how this could be regarded as the last vestige of intention, the mind intending towards the wholesome object of the first jhāna. In the second jhāna the mind is perfectly concentrated,(28) all movement has been abandoned, and therefore all intention, wholesome and unwholesome, has "ceased without remainder".(29)

4.2 So Vata Sutta (30)

This Sutta is of particular importance because it gives a sequence of conditions without which a given effect cannot occur. The most interesting relationship for the purposes of this paper is the one between "sammāsamādhi" (i.e. jhāna) and "the abandoning of the fetters", where the latter is said to be impossible ("thānam n'etam vijjati") without the former. This is clearly an important statement as it gives a fixed sequence of how the Buddhist path must be developed.

It is therefore highly significant when the Commentary to this passage states that what is meant here by sammāsamādhi is in fact lokuttarajjhāna.(31) It is not difficult to see how this Commentarial interpretation undermines the vital necessity of jhāna on the path and potentially has a significant impact on our understanding of the Suttas. It is therefore necessary to investigate whether there are any grounds for the Commentary's assertion.

The first thing to note is that if sammāsamādhi here really is a reference to lokuttarajjhāna, this passage in effect says that the necessary condition for lokuttarajjhāna (i.e. "the abandoning of the fetters", which in Abhidhamma terminology is a lokuttarajjhāna mind moment) is lokuttarajjhāna itself. Thus the whole purpose of the causal sequence is defeated.(32) Moreover, as the sammāsamādhi here is defined by the Commentary as including both path and fruit, whereas "the abandoning of the fetters" is just a path moment, one ends up with a situation where the effect precedes the cause.(33) This clearly makes no sense.

At this point it seems worthwhile to quote a larger portion of the passage we are concerned with:

" 'Not grasping the sign of the mind, one will fulfill right view', this is not possible. 'Not having fulfilled right view, one will fulfill sammāsamādhi', this is not possible. 'Not having fulfilled sammāsamādhi, one will abandon the fetters', this is not possible. 'Not having abandoned the fetters, one will realize Nibbāna', this is not possible."(34)

Of interest here is that sammāditthi must be fulfilled before sammāsamādhi can be fulfilled. In Sutta usage the fulfilment of sammāditthi is equivalent to the attainment of Sotāpatti. The attainment of Sotāpatti in turn is a lokuttarajjhāna moment according to Abhidhamma terminology. Thus, once again, if one is to follow the Commentarial interpretation, one arrives at a situation where lokuttarajjhāna (i.e. sammāditthi) is the cause for lokuttarajjhāna (i.e. sammāsamādhi). Thus the conditional relationship expressed in the Sutta is apparently reduced to something quite trivial. To summarise, both "the abandoning of the fetters" and "the fulfillment of right view" are redundant if sammāsamādhi (as lokuttarajjhāna) encompasses both of them.

The final question we need to answer is whether reading sammāsamādhi in the present passage as 'ordinary' jhāna is confirmed or negated by other Suttas. It is well known that jhāna and sammāsamādhi occur very frequently in the Suttas as part of the training leading to the attainment of Arahantship. Perhaps the most significant of these occurrences is the listing of the four jhānas in the gradual training immediately prior to the attainment of the three higher knowledges (tevijjā). This sequence is found countless times throughout the Suttas.(35) However, this does not establish that attaining Arahantship is impossible without 'ordinary' jhāna, as the So Vata Sutta seems to imply. To find such a passage we need to turn to M64:

"There is a path, Ānanda, a way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters; that anyone without relying on that path, on that way shall know or see or abandon the five lower fetters - this is not possible. Just as when there is a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, it is not possible that anyone shall cut out its heartwood without cutting through its bark and sapwood ...

And what Ānanda is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters? Here Ānanda a bhikkhu ... enters upon and abides in the first jhāna ... the second jhāna ... the third jhāna ... the fourth jhāna ...".(36)

Note that this passage is very clear that it is impossible to become an Anāgāmī without having attained at least the first jhāna. Also significant is that the Commentary does not define jhāna here as lokuttarajjhāna, and thus one has to assume that also the Commentary regards this as 'ordinary' jhāna.(37)

Again, given this evidence from the Suttas, one can only conclude that there is no evidence to support the Commentarial assertion that what is meant by sammāsamādhi in the So Vata Sutta is in fact lokuttarajjhāna. Quite the contrary, the standard Sutta explanation of sammāsamādhi, as referring to the (ordinary) four jhānas, fits the situation perfectly.

4.3 Other Suttas

The above examples are only two among a large number where the Commentaries claim that jhāna or samādhi in the Suttas actually refer to lokuttarajjhāna. It would be an enormous amount of work to investigate each one of these occurrences to evaluate whether the Commentarial interpretations are reasonable. In many instances it would in fact be impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion because of a lack of revealing contextual evidence. In these circumstances one is left with the Commentarial interpretation without any way of validating the Commentary's assertions. This is surely not satisfactory, particularly when there is no convincing evidence from the Suttas that jhāna or samādhi ever refers to the attainment of the stages of Enlightenment.(38) There appears to be only one possible solution to this problem and that is to assume that jhāna and samādhi in the Suttas always refer to 'ordinary' jhāna and samādhi even if this goes directly against the Commentarial view.(39)

5. The Danger in Reduced Respect for samādhi and jhāna

If the analysis so far, on the whole, is accepted, it might reasonably be asked why the Commentaries would mistakenly reinterpret the jhāna/samādhi of central Sutta passages in terms of the later Abhidhamma concept of lokuttarajjhāna and thereby significantly distort the message of the former. There are in fact several Sutta passages that relate to this question. These passages concern the future of the Dhamma and, in particular, they mention how a reduced respect for samādhi is a condition for the decline of the Buddha's teaching as a whole. Consider the following:

"Just as, Kassapa, gold does not disappear so long as counterfeit gold has not arisen in the world, but when counterfeit gold arises true gold disappears, so the true Dhamma does not disappear so long as a counterfeit of the true Dhamma has not arisen in the world, but when a counterfeit of the true Dhamma arises in the world then the true Dhamma disappears. ...

It is senseless people who arise right here who cause the true Dhamma to disappear.

The true Dhamma does not disappear all at once in the way a ship sinks. There are, Kassapa, five detrimental things that lead to the decay and disappearance of the true Dhamma. What are the five? Here the bhikkhus, the bhikkhunis, the male lay followers, and the female lay followers dwell without reverence and deference towards the Teacher ... towards the Dhamma ... towards the Sangha ... towards the training ... towards concentration [samādhi]. These are the five detrimental things that lead to the decay and disappearance of the true Dhamma."(40)

Thus it appears that over time there is a natural tendency for the Dhamma to get distorted, that the distorters are members of the Sangha itself, and finally that one of the factors that lead to the gradual confusion and disappearance of the Dhamma is a lack of reverence and deference for samādhi.(41) It is easy to see why the Triple Gem and the training as a whole are mentioned here, because lack of respect for any of these is tantamount to a repudiation of the entire Dhamma. But it is quite remarkable that samādhi is the one aspect of the training that is singled out here, not wisdom, not the four satipatthānas or any other aspect of the path. And this is only one among many instances where samādhi is singled out in this way.(42) This is surely highly significant and says much about the central importance of samādhi in the Dhamma.

So it seems that it is to be expected that the important role of samādhi is undermined over time, and therefore one should perhaps not be surprised that this is exactly what seems to happen in the Pali Commentaries.(43) Maybe this is because samādhi can appear so difficult to achieve. But this is obviously not a sufficient reason to downgrade its importance. Samādhi is an integral part of the Buddhist path and any attempt to reduce its importance because it is hard to achieve, will only result in the exact opposite, making the true goal of the path, Enlightenment, even more difficult to achieve. By overlooking the absolutely central importance of samādhi one is in grave danger of making the supreme goal of the Buddhist practice unattainable.

6. Abhidhamma-bhājaniya & Suttanta-bhājaniya

In light of the above, it may prove useful to take a closer look at the Abhidhamma.(44) The first thing to notice about the Abhidhamma's treatment is that it is divided into two separate categories, the Sutta-exposition (Suttanta-bhājaniya) and the Abhidhamma-exposition (Abhidhamma-bhājaniya).(45) This is of great importance for this study because it suggests that the Suttas and the Abhidhamma must be kept strictly apart and, more particularly, that the Abhidhamma analysis is not applicable to the Suttas.

This conclusion is reinforced by a closer comparison of the Sutta-exposition with the Abhidhamma-exposition. The Suttanta-bhājaniya is a list of factors, together with definitions, of some of the most important doctrinal sets found in the Suttas.(46) The exposition is largely identical to that of the Suttas, as one would expect. In the Suttas these sets are concerned with the pragmatic problem of how to arrive at Enlightenment, and the various factors listed refer to qualities of mind that have to be developed for Enlightenment to be possible.(47) The Abhidhamma-bhājaniya, however, is a significant departure from the Sutta-exposition. It discusses the same sets, but the definitions of the individual factors are here quite different from those found in the Suttas. The emphasis is now on how these factors, when they are fully developed, take part in the experiences of the stages of Enlightenment.(48) The Abhidhamma's purpose, therefore, is to describe the contents of specific states of mind rather than the path by which one arrives at those states.(49) In other words, where the Suttas and the Abhidhamma speak of what appears to be the same sets, they are actually speaking of quite different things. It now becomes clear why the Sutta-exposition has to be kept apart from the Abhidhamma-exposition.(50)

The above can now be related to jhāna/samādhi and lokuttarajjhāna. Samādhi and jhāna are terms used in the Suttanta-bhājaniya and thus they refer to Sutta usage. In particular, as they are closely related to the above mentioned sets that constitute the path to Enlightenment, they are factors of that same path. Lokuttarajjhāna, on the other hand, belongs to the Abhidhamma-bhājaniya and is a term for the constellation of mental factors present at the moments of Enlightenment. Being a term peculiar to the Abhidhamma-bhājaniya, it only relates to the Abhidhamma and can therefore not be used to explain samādhi or jhāna as it appears in the Suttas. If this is correct, it follows that the Commentaries make a dangerous blunder when they explain jhāna and samādhi with Abhidhamma terminology that was never capable of being used in this way.

7. Conclusion

It is sometimes claimed that the Abhidhamma is simply a natural extension of the Suttas, and that its ideas flow without conflict straight out of concepts already established in the Suttas. This may be largely correct, but there is always a problem of unforeseen consequences when one elaborates on a body of texts of such fundamental importance for Buddhism as the original Suttas. I hope I have been able to show one such instance of unforeseen consequences, and an important one at that, in which the Suttas are effectively rewritten in line with later concepts and terminology.(51) It shows that one has to be careful about uncritically accepting the Commentaries' interpretations of the Suttas. This is particularly so when established Sutta concepts are redefined by the Commentaries in accordance with ideas that arose after the Suttas were composed.

As for the term lokuttarajjhāna, I suggest that it was never meant to be used apart from the Abhidhamma itself. The idea of lokuttarajjhāna may very well be a reasonable description of attainments on the Buddhist path, but this does not mean that it has any direct counterpart in the Suttas: in fact it seems clear that it does not. Because lokuttarajjhāna concerns the goal of the path, and not the path itself, the Commentaries' redefinition of jhāna/samādhi in terms of lokuttarajjhāna has the effect of shifting the reality of jhāna from being a factor of the path to becoming a result of the practice of the path. Thus the Suttas' insistence on the centrality of jhāna/samādhi as a path factor is undermined, an undermining which only serves to seriously distort the timeless message of the Buddha.

Brahmāli Bhikkhu

Perth, April 2005

 

References: All references are to volume number, page number, and line number of the Pali texts published by the Pali Text Society.

Abbreviations: Vin: Vinaya Pitaka; D: Dīgha Nikāya; M: Majjhima Nikāya; S: Samyutta Nikāya; A: Anguttara Nikāya; Dhs: Dhammasangani; Vibh: Vibhanga; DA: Dīgha Nikāya Commentary; MA: Majjhima Nikāya Commentary; AA: Anguttara Nikāya Commentary.
 

Notes

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