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The Jhana of Foul Things may be developed in Sixteen Combinations.

[Here ends the Chapter on] Good in relation to the Universe of Form.

skeleton" meditation, a e prescribed in connexion with the sambojjhangas of mindfulness and equanimity. And the same five are given in the Jhana Vagga of A. i, 42 (cf. A. iii, 323). The ten here given are said in the Cy. (pp. 197-9) to be prescribed for such as were proved to be passionately affected by the beauty of the body-of the figure, skin, odour, firmness or continuity, plumpness, limbs and extremities, symmetry, adornment, identifying self with the body, or complacency in the possession of it (? kaye mamatta m; cf. SN. 951), and teeth respectively. A dead body is not essential to this kind of mindculture, the Cy. citing the cases of those Theras who obtained the requisite Jhana by the glimpse of a person's teeth, or by the sight of a rajah on his elephant. The essential procedure lay in getting a clear and courageous grasp of the transience of any living organism.

[CHAPTER III.

Good in relation to the Universe of the Formless (a rūpāva cara-kusala m).

The Four Jhānas connected with Formless Existence (cattari aru pajjhānāni).1

1. The Sphere of Unbounded Space (ā kā sāna ñ căya tanam).]

[265] Which are the states that are good?

When, that he may attain to the Formless heavens, he cultivates the way [thereto], and so, by passing wholly beyond all consciousness of form, by the dying out of the consciousness of sensory reaction,2 by turning the attention

1 These often appear in the Nikayas as the fourth to the seventh of the Eight Vimokhas or Deliverances (cf. §§ 248-50; Dialogues of the Buddha, ii, 119 f.; A. iv, 306). They are treated of in the Visuddhi Magga (chap. iii), but here Buddhaghosa only makes comparison with the account of them given in the Vibhanga. In S. iii, 237, and frequently in M., they occur in immediate sequence to the four Jhanas without any collective title, and not as concomitants of the Fourth Jhāna. There, too, the formulæ also have this slight variation from those in the present work, that the conscious attainment of each stage of abstraction is expressed by a brief proposition of identification, e.g.ananto ākāso ti...n'atthi kiñcīti (It is boundless space! . . . There is nothing whatever!). The Cy. explains this (p. 204) as follows: It was the wish of the Buddha to carry out, as in previous procedure so in this, the study of the Four Objects of Thought [a rammaṇāni; see above, passim, under (d)]. And the first of these is that one's object is "limited ". But if the student, in attaining to an undifferentiated consciousness of unbounded space, realize its nature by the, so to speak, exclamatory thought, "It is boundless!" he cannot logically proceed to consider it as limited.

2 The student is to withdraw all interest in and attention to the world of rūpa, to cease so entirely to differentiate the plenum of external phenomena (including his own form) which impinge on his senses, that sensations cease, or resolve themselves into a homogeneous sense of extended vacuum. Paṭigho,

from any consciousness of the manifold,1 he enters into and abides in that rapt meditation which is accompanied by the consciousness of a sphere of unbounded spaceeven the Fourth Jhana, to gain which 2 all sense of ease has been put away, and all sense of ill has been put away, and there has been a dying out of the gladness and sorrow he was wont to feel (the rapt meditation)

rendered by sensory reaction, is explained to be sight-perception, sound-perception, smell, taste, and touch-perception. "Thought is (here) not sustained by way of the five doors" (Asl. 201, 202). Hardest of all was it to abstract all attention from sounds. Ālara Kāļāma, one of Gotama's teachers, and proficient in these rapt states, at least so far as the sixth Vimokha (M. i, 164), was credited with the power of becoming so absorbed that he failed to see or hear hundreds of carts passing near him (D. ii, 130; Asl. 202). On the psycho-physiological use of paṭigho, the theory of sense in the book on form, infra, § 597 et seq.

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1 Nanattasaññām a manasik ārā. On the latter term, see above, p. 5, n. 1. On na nattam, see S. ii, 140 f.; also M. i, 3, where, in a series of concepts, it follows "unity and precedes "the whole" (Neumann renders by Vielheit); also S. iv, 113, 114, where it is explained to refer to the various kinds of sensation, the corresponding viñ ñāņa, and the resulting feeling. In the Vibhanga, quoted by Buddhaghosa (p. 202), it is explained to mean cognition of the mutual diversity or dissimilarity ( a ñ ñ a mañ ñ am a sadisā) of nature in the eight kinds of good thoughts, the twelve bad thoughts (below, § 365), as well as in those ideas of good and bad results which are taken next to these. For cittani, however, sa ññā is substituted, possibly limiting the application of the discernment of diversity to the sensuous basis of all those "thoughts". The context, nevertheless, seems to point to a certain general, abstract, re-representative" import in s a ñ ñ ã as here applied. It is said to be the consciousness of one who is occupied with manodhātu or with ma noviññāņa dhā tu—with, let us say, representative or with re-representative cognition-with ideas or with cognition of those ideas. The ideation in this case is about sensuous phenomena as manifold, and the abstract nature of it lies, of course, in considering their diversity as such.

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2 In the text the formula of the Fourth Jhana remains unaltered (cf. § 165). But it is sandwiched between the cumbrous adjectival compounds referring to space and to disinterestedness. Hence some modification was necessary to avoid uncouthness of diction.

which is imbued with indifference, and where no ease is felt nor any ill, but only the perfect purity that comes of mindfulness and indifference-then the contact, etc. . . . [cf. § 165] the balance that arises, these . . . are states that are good.

[2. The Sphere of Infinite Consciousness (v i ñ ñāṇañcāyatanam).]1

[266] Which are the states that are good?

When, that he may attain to the Formless heavens, he cultivates the way [thereto], and, having passed 2 wholly beyond the sphere of boundless space, enters into and abides in that rapt meditation which is accompanied by the consciousness of a sphere of infinite consciousness 3—even the Fourth Jhāna, to gain which all sense of ease has been put away, etc.

[Continue as in previous section.]

[3. The Sphere of Nothingness (ā ki ñ ca ñ ñ ã y a tana m).]

[267] Which are the states that are good?

When, that he may attain to the Formless heavens, he cultivates the way thereto, and, having passed wholly beyond the sphere of infinite consciousness, enters into and abides in that rapt meditation which is accompanied by the consciousness of a sphere of nothingness-even the Fourth

1 Strictly viññāņā nañ caya tanam. The usually elided syllable (rulhi-saddo) is noticed in the Cy. (205). 2 K., here and in the two following replies, has the gerund sa matikka m ma, following the usage in the Nikayas (see, e.g. D, MPS. 30; M. i, 174, 209; S. iii, 237, 238; A. iv, 306). Buddhaghosa apparently reads sa matikkamā (205), as is the unvarying case in the first only of these four arūpajjhānas. 3 The only explanation given of a term on which one would gladly have heard Buddhaghosa expatiate is, "There is no end for him in respect to that which has to be cogitated" (lit. minded; manasikātabba vasena) (Asl. 205). On the next stage (§ 267) he writes, nothingness is having nothing left, i.e. of the previous sphere, not even disruption remains.

Jhāna, to gain which all sense of ease has been put away, etc.

[Continue as in § 265.]

[4. The Sphere where there is neither Perception nor Non-perception (ne v a-s a ñ ñ ā-n ā s a ñ ñ ã y a ta na m). [268] Which are the states that are good?

When, that he may attain to the Formless heavens, he cultivates the way thereto, and, having passed wholly beyond the sphere of nothingness, enters into and abides in that rapt meditation which is accompanied by the consciousness of a sphere where there is neither perception nor nonperception 1—even the Fourth Jhāna, to gain which all sense of ease must have been put away, etc.

[Continue as in § 265.]

The Four Jhānas connected with Formless Existence may be developed in sixteen combinations.

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1 Buddhaghosa calls this mental state the cultivation of the functioning of the "subtle residuum of mental co-efficients," or synergies (sankhārāvases a sukhuma-bhāvam). In so far as perception (presumably understood as being wholly introspective) has become incapable of effective functioning (pāṭu-sañña-kiccam), the state is non-perceptual. In so far as those faint, fine conscious reactions are maintained, the state is not non-perceptual ". This oscillation about a zero-point in consciousness is illustrated by the similes quoted (not from this Cy.) by Hardy (op. cit. 264), namely, of the bowl containing just so much oil as suffices for cleansing purposes, but not to be poured out; also of the little pool, sufficient to wet the feet, but too shallow for a bathe. Both oil and water exist, or do not exist, according to what action can be taken with respect to them. The Cy. adds that this liminal point obtains not only in s a ñ ñ ã, but also in feeling, thought, and contact (208). The study of the "threshold" of consciousness, and of the supra- and sub-liminal grades clustering about it, is familiar enough to the investigator in psychophysics. What is unfamiliar to us is the exploitation of the borderland of consciousness in the interests of ethical growth. Leibnitz might have found in the neva-saññā - nās a ññāyatanam, had he had opportunity, the inspiration for his theory of petites perceptions.

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