Aṅguttara Nikāya
VIII. Navaka Nipāta
IV. Mahā Vagga
Sutta 36
Jhāna-Nisasaya Suttaɱ
Mental Absorption
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Provenance, terms and conditons
[1][pts] "I tell you, the ending of the mental effluents depends on the first jhāna...
the second jhāna...
the third...
the fourth...
the dimension of the infinitude of space...
the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness...
the dimension of nothingness.
I tell you, the ending of the mental effluents depends on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.
"'I tell you, the ending of the mental effluents depends on the first jhāna.'
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There is the case where a monk, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first jhāna: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation.
He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, 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 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 and remains in the first jhāna: rapture and pleasure born of withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation.
He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, 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 acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.'
"Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the mental effluents.
Or, if not, then — through passion and delight for this very property [of deathlessness] and from the total wasting away of the first five of the Fetters [self-identity views, grasping at precepts and practices, uncertainty, sensual passion, and resistance] — 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 effluents depends on the first jhāna.'
Thus was it said, and in reference to this was it said.
[Similarly with the other levels of jhāna up through the dimension 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 dimension of neither perception nor non-perception and the attainment of the cessation of feeling and perception — I tell you that they are to be rightly explained by those monks who are meditators, skilled in attaining, skilled in attaining and emerging, who have attained and emerged in dependence on them."
