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- Anguttara Nikaya IX.36
- Jhana Sutta
- Mental Absorption
- For free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma
"I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first
jhana...the second jhana...the third...the fourth...the sphere of the infinitude of
space...the sphere of the infinitude of consciousness...the sphere of nothingness. I tell
you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the sphere of neither perception
nor non-perception.
"'I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first jhana.'
Thus it has been said. In reference to what was it said? There is the case where a monk,
withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in
the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed
thought & evaluation. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with
form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a
disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, a void,
not-self. He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his
mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite -- the resolution
of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all the acquisitions; the ending of craving;
dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.'
"Suppose that an archer or archer's apprentice were to
practice on a straw man or mound of clay, so that after a while he would become able to
shoot long distances, to fire accurate shots in rapid succession, and to pierce great
masses. In the same way, there is the case where a monk...enters & remains in the
first jhana: rapture & pleasure born of withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought
& evaluation. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form,
feeling, perceptions, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a
disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, a void,
not-self. He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his
mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite -- the resolution
of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all the acquisitions; the ending of craving;
dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.'
"Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental fermentations. Or, if
not, then -- through passion & delight for this very property [the discernment
inclining to deathlessness] and from the total wasting away of the first of the five
Fetters [self-identity views, grasping at precepts & practices, uncertainty, sensual
passion, and irritation] -- he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be
totally unbound, never again to return from that world.
"'I tell you, the ending of the mental fermentations depends on the first jhana.'
Thus it was said, and in reference to this was it said.
[Similarly with the other levels of jhana up through the sphere of nothingness.]
"Thus, as far as the perception-attainments go, that is as far as
gnosis-penetration goes. As for these two spheres -- the attainment of the sphere of
neither perception nor non-perception & the attainment of the cessation of feeling
& perception -- I tell you that they are to be rightly explained by those monks who
are meditators, skilled in attaining, skilled in attaining & emerging, who have
attained & emerged in dependence on them."