[Buddha-l] Re: there he goes again (samharris)

[L.S. Cousins]

Vicente,

I wrote:
>LSC> I don't think this has anything to do with what this discourse is
>LSC> talking about. Both of the two that you describe would be
>LSC> jhaayins in terms of this discourse.

You wrote:
>yes if we assume that these Dhamma-devotee monks where not able to
>reach arhantood because they were not jhana monks.
>However, (and I hope you can know better than me, so I write you)
>there is not exclusivity of a jhana progression to reach arhantood
>because also one can reach this state in a sudden way (lokuttara?).

Those who reach the fourth formless attainment are said to be 'two 
ways liberated'; so there must be some similarity with enlightenment. 
But no-one ever says that actual awakening occurs in jhaana. Rather 
it can occur at any time and in any place.

To put it another way, the path has three aspects: siila, samaadhi 
and paññaa. The first concerns what we do, the second what we are and 
the third how we understand. So precepts are part of the task of 
improving our actions, concentration i.e. samaadhi and jhaana is the 
way in which we work on improving our mental state and wisdom is to 
make our manner of knowing more profound.

>Well, it's sounds really impossible to accept that Buddha established
>such division in the Sangha, creating one group of monks who were
>simple memory machines without any possibility to reach arhantood.

Remember that I think that the discourse we are discussing is from a 
time a century or two after the Buddha. It is not attributed to the 
Buddha.

>Beside this, inside the Pali Canon there are enough episodes showing
>monks reaching arhantood without be in seated meditation.
>So my doubt is if that practice in Dhamma would be a different thing
>than a simple memorizing and studying.

Memorizing and studying would be the beginning. The kind of thing 
that Buddhadaasa was doing in the dhamma talk you quote below would 
be a much more advanced level. I never met Buddhadaasa, but he seems 
to have been a monk experienced in both aspects: jhaana and 
dhammayoga.

>  >>Discussions with this same polarity appears centuries later in Chinese
>>>Buddhism
>LSC> That is a different (and complex) issue.
>
>it's different, although the similarities are quite sonorous.
>Same Buddhadhasa has some speeches in this issue. He distinguish
>that practice of the "formal meditation".
>http://dharmaavenue.com/avenues/02/Three-Characteristics/BDB024.htm
>
>In this talk, again he find the support of those Chinese masters.
>Why it's so?. Obviously because he cannot find that view inside his
>own companions of tradition, although he know his own understanding
>doesn't have error.

What he says about emptiness seems quite normal Theravaada teaching to me.

>Then I wonder if maybe there is not some misunderstanding about
>that Dharma-devotee practice which supposedly consist in memorize
>and study, without any hope to reach arhantood because there is not
>a jhana practice. I think Buddha never would have allowed such loss of
>time without fruit. This contradict his own teaching.
>Logical thing it's when the only way to reach arhantood would be as a
>jhana monk, then the other group would never have existed.

All three aspects of the path are important. Following Buddhaghosa, 
study is the soil in which insight grows.

Also, people differ. For some people at particular stages, study gets 
in the way of practice. For others, perhaps at different stages, it 
is rather necessary.

>LSC> Most of what you give here comes from the commentary. There is
>LSC> nothing in the original verse to suggest that Mahaanaama had not
>LSC> previously attained jhaana.
>
>While he was thinking in suicide because he thought his dirty thoughts
>were the cause of his failure?.

The commentary first talks about his not being able to still the 
manifestation of defilements (kilesa) and therefore becoming 
disgusted/disenchanted with the body/mind (attabhaava), thinking 
'what is the use of living with this defiled mind'. Later it refers 
to his being 'full of thoughts' and not able to settle to his 
meditation object.

So Dhammapaala understands that he was unable to settle to his 
meditation and became frustrated with it. This produced a kind of 
nibbidaa, similar to the early stage of strong insight - a kind of 
rejection of mind and body. So he turned towards suicide, but further 
stimulated by the imminence of death as he stood on the brink, 
insight arose i.e. the more balanced, advanced stage of insight which 
leads to awakening.

Nothing here says anything about whether he had previously practised 
jhaana, but I would assume he had. As most meditators discover, there 
is nothing more frustrating than going to an ideal environment for 
meditation and finding it impossible to still the chimpanzee mind in 
the way you have done on some previous occasion.

Lance Cousins