THE JHĀNAS AND THE LAY DISCIPLE ACCORDING TO THE PĀLI SUTTAS – PART IV: WHEN DO THE JHĀNAS BECOME NECESSARY?
THE JHĀNAS AND THE LAY DISCIPLE ACCORDING TO THE PĀLI SUTTAS – PART IV: WHEN DO THE JHĀNAS BECOME NECESSARY?
While there seem to be no suttas that impose an inflexible rule to the effect that a lay noble disciple must possess the jhānas, there are at least two texts that explicitly ascribe all four jhānas to certain householders. One, found in the Citta-saṃyutta (SN 41:9/IV 300-2), features Citta the householder, the foremost lay preacher, in a conversation with a naked ascetic named Kassapa. Kassapa was an old friend of Citta who had embraced the life of renunciation thirty years earlier, and this is apparently their first meeting since that time. Kassapa confesses to Citta that in all these years he has not achieved any “superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision befitting the noble ones” (uttarimanussadhammā alamariya-ñāṇadassanavisesa); all he does is go about naked, with a shaved head, using a feather brush to sweep his seat. He then asks Citta whether, as a lay disciple of the Buddha, he has reached any distinguished attainments. Citta says that he has, and then declares his ability to enter and dwell in the four jhānas (he uses the standard formula). To this he adds: “Further, if I were to die before the Blessed One, it would not be surprising if the Blessed One would declare of me: ‘There is no fetter bound by which Citta the householder might come back to this world.'”[32] Through this bit of coded text, partly a stock formulation, Citta is informing his friend that he is a non-returner with access to the four jhānas.
The other sutta is AN 7:50/IV 66-67 and concerns the lay woman Nandamātā. In the presence of the Venerable Sāriputta and other monks, Nandamātā has been disclosing the seven wonderful and marvellous qualities with which she is endowed. The sixth of these is possession of the four jhānas, again described by the stock formula. The seventh is as follows: “As to the five lower fetters taught by the the Blessed One, I do not see among them any as yet unabandoned in myself.”[33] This too is a coded way of declaring her status as a non-returner.
Such are the reports that have come down in the Sutta Piṭaka about two lay followers who possess both the four jhānas and the status of non-returner. Whether these two achievements are inseparably connected or not is difficult to determine on the basis of the Nikāyas, but there are several texts that lend support to this conclusion. One sutta (AN 3:85/I 231-32) ranks the four classes of noble disciples in relation to the threefold higher training consisting of the higher virtue, the higher mind, and the higher wisdom. Just below, the Buddha explains the training in the higher virtue (adhisīla-sikkhā) as the restraint of the Pātimokkha, the code of monastic rules; the training in the higher mind (adhicitta-sikkhā), as the four jhānas (defined by the usual formula); and the training in the higher wisdom (adhipa????-sikkhā), as either the knowledge of the four noble truths or liberation from the taints (AN 3:88-89/I 235-36). Although the Buddha’s treatment of this topic is governed by a monastic context, the principles of classification can easily be extended to lay disciples. Returning to AN 3:85, we learn that the stream-enterer and the once-returner have fulfilled the training in the higher virtue (which for a lay disciple would mean possession of “the virtues dear to the noble ones”) but have accomplished the other two trainings only partly; the non-returner has fulfilled the trainings in the higher virtue and the higher mind but accomplished the training in the higher wisdom only partly; and the arahant has fulfilled all three trainings. Now since the non-returner has fulfilled the training in the higher mind, and this is defined as the four jhānas, he is probably an attainer of the jhānas.
It might still be questioned, however, whether he must possess all four jhānas. While a literal reading of the above sutta would support this conclusion, if we bear in mind my earlier comments about interpreting stock formulas, we might conjecture that the training in the higher mind is fulfilled by the secure attainment of even one jhāna. This seems to be confirmed by the Mahāmāluṅkya Sutta (MN No. 64/I 434-37), which shows how the attainment of jhāna figures in the preliminary phase of the path to the stage of non-returner. At a certain point in his discourse, the Buddha announces that he will teach “the path and way for the abandoning of the five lower fetters” (yo maggo yā paṭipadā pancannaṃ orambhāgiyānaṃ saṃyojanānaṃ pahānāya). He underscores the importance of what he is about to explain with a simile. Just as it is impossible to cut out the heartwood of a great tree without first cutting through the bark and softwood, so it is impossible to cut off the five lower fetters without relying on the path and practice he is about to make known. This lays down categorically that the procedure to be described must be exactly followed to win the promised goal, the eradication of the five lower fetters (the defining achievement of the non-returner).
The Buddha then explains the method. The meditator enters into one of the four jhānas or the lower three formless attainments (the text takes up each in turn) and dissects it into its constituents: form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness in the case of the four jhānas; the same, but omitting form, for the three formless attainments.[34] He next contemplates these phenomena in eleven ways: as impermanent, suffering, a disease, a boil, a dart, misery, affliction, alien, disintegrating, empty, and non-self. Then, when his contemplation reaches maturity, he turns his mind away from these things and directs it to the deathless element (amata-dhātu), i.e., Nibbāna. “If he is firm in this he reaches arahantship right on the spot, but if he holds back slightly due to attachment and delight in the Dhamma, then he eliminates the five lower fetters and becomes a spontaneous ariser, who attains final Nibbāna there (in a celestial realm) without ever returning from that world.”[35]
The Mahāmāluṅkya Sutta thus makes the attainment of jhāna a necessary part of the preparatory practice for attaining the stage of non-returner. Though the sutta discusses the practice undertaken by a monk, since the Buddha has declared this to be “the path and practice for abandoning the five lower fetters,” we are entitled to infer that lay practitioners too must follow this course. This would imply that a once-returner who aspires to become a non-returner should develop at least the first jhāna in the preliminary phase of the path, using the jhāna as the launching pad for developing insight.
While the Mahāmāluṅkya Sutta and its parallel (AN 9:36/IV 422-26) imply that prior attainment of the first jhāna is a minimum requirement for reaching the fruit of non-returning, we may still query whether this is an invariable rule or merely a general stipulation that allows for exceptions. Several suttas suggest the latter may in fact be the case. In two consecutive texts the Buddha extols the “eight wonderful and marvellous qualities” of two lay followers named Ugga. In the first (AN 8:21/IV 211), he declares that Ugga of Vesālī has abandoned all five fetters (as for Nandamātā above); in the second (AN 8:22/IV 216), he says that Ugga of Hatthigāma has no fetters bound by which he might come back to this world (as for Citta). Yet, though he thus confirms their standing as non-returners, the Buddha does not mention jhānic attainments among their eight wonderful qualities. This, of course, need not be taken to mean that they lacked attainment of jhāna. It may have been that their jhānic skills were less remarkable than the other qualities they possessed, or they may have been adept in only one or two jhānas rather than in all four. But it does leave open the possibility that they were non-returners without jhāna.
Still another suggestive text is the Dīghāvu Sutta (SN 55:3/V 344-46). Here, the Buddha visits a young lay follower named Dīghāvu, who is gravely ill. He first enjoins the sick boy to acquire confirmed confidence in the Three Jewels and the virtues dear to the noble ones, that is, to become a stream-enterer. When Dīghāvu declares that he already possesses these qualities, the Buddha tells him that since he is established in the four factors of stream-entry, he should “strive further to develop six qualities that partake of true knowledge” (cha vijjābhāgiyā dhammā): “You should dwell contemplating the impermanence of all formations, perceiving suffering in what is impermanent, perceiving non-self in what is suffering, perceiving abandonment, perceiving dispassion, perceiving cessation.”[36] Dīghāvu assures the Blessed One that he is already practising these contemplations, and the Master leaves. A short time later Dīghāvu dies. On hearing the news of his death, the monks approach the Buddha to ask about his future rebirth. The Buddha declares that Dīghāvu the lay follower had eradicated the five lower fetters and was spontaneously reborn as a non-returner. Here the transition from stream-entry to non-returning occurs entirely through a series of contemplations that pertain to insight. There has been no exhortation to develop the jhānas, yet through the practice of the “six things partaking of true knowledge” Dīghāvu has severed the five fetters and gained the third fruit of the path.
A theoretical foundation for Dīghāvu’s approach might be gleaned from another sutta. At AN 4:169/II 155-56, the Buddha contrasts two kinds of non-returners: one who attains final Nibbāna without exertion (asaṅkhāra-parinibbāyī), and one who attains final Nibbāna with exertion (sasaṅkhāra-parinibbāyī). The former is one who enters and dwells in the four jhānas (described by the stock formula). The latter practises instead the “austere” meditations such as the contemplation of the foulness of the body, reflection on the repulsiveness of food, disenchantment with the whole world, perception of impermanence in all formations, and recollection of death.[37] Again, there is no categorical assertion that the latter is altogether bereft of jhāna, but the contrast of this type with one who gains the four jhānas suggests this as a possibility.
Though the possibility that there might be non-returners without jhānas cannot be ruled out, from the Nikāyas we can elicit several reasons why we might normally expect a non-returner to have access to them. One reason is inherent in the very act of becoming a non-returner. In ascending from the stage of once-returner to that of non-returner, the meditator eradicates two fetters that had been merely weakened by the once-returner: sensual desire (kāmacchanda) and ill will (byāpāda). Now these two fetters are also the first two among the five hindrances, the defilements to be abandoned to gain the jhānas. This suggests that by eradicating these defilements the non-returner permanently removes the main obstacles to concentration. Thus, if his mind so inclines, the non-returner should not find it difficult to enter upon the jhānas.
Another reason why non-returners should be gainers of the jhānas, while stream-enterers and once-returners need not be so, pertains to their future destination in saṃsāra. Though all three types of disciple have escaped the plane of misery — rebirth in hell, the animal realm, and the sphere of ghosts — stream-enterers and once-returners are still liable to rebirth in the sensuous realm (kāmadhātu), while non-returners are utterly freed from the prospect of such a rebirth. What keeps the former in bondage to the sensuous realm is the fetter of sensual desire (kāmacchanda), which remains inwardly unabandoned by them. If they succeed in attaining the jhānas, they can suppress sensual desire (and the other mental hindrances) and thus achieve rebirth in the form or formless realms. But this is not fixed for noble disciples at the lower two stages, who normally expect only a fortunate rebirth in the human realm or the sense-sphere heavens. Non-returners, on the other hand, are so called precisely because they never again return to the sensuous realm. They have eliminated sensual desire, observe celibacy, and enjoy a high degree of facility in meditation. At death, the non-returner takes rebirth spontaneously in the form realm (generally in the Pure Abodes) and attains final Nibbāna there without ever returning from that world.
The non-returner severs all connection with the sensuous realm by eliminating the fetter of sensual desire, and this establishes a certain correspondence between the non-returner and the ordinary jhāna-attainer. The texts sometimes speak of the worldling jhāna-attainer as “an outsider devoid of lust for sensual pleasures.”[38] If he retains mastery over a jhāna at the time of death, his sublime kamma leads him to rebirth in the form realm, the specific plane of rebirth being determined by his degree of mastery over the jhānas. However, while both the ordinary jhāna-attainer and the non-returner are devoid of sensual desire and bound for rebirth in a non-sensuous realm, the two are divided by deep and fundamental differences. The ordinary jhāna-attainer has not fully eliminated any fetters and thus, with a slip of mindfulness, can easily fall victim to sensuality; the non-returner, in contrast, has cut off sensual desire and ill will at the root, ensuring that they will never again arise in him. He is not reborn in the form realm merely through the wholesome kamma generated by the jhānas, like the ordinary jhāna-attainer, but because he has eradicated the two fetters that bind even the once-returner to the sensuous realm.
This difference implies still another difference concerning their long-term fate. The ordinary jhāna-attainer, after being reborn in the form realm, eventually exhausts the powerful meritorious kamma responsible for this sublime rebirth and might then take rebirth in the sensuous realm, even in the nether world. The non-returner, on the other hand, never falls away. Set firmly on the path of the Dhamma, the non-returner who is reborn in the form realm continues to develop the path without ever regressing until he attains final Nibbāna within the form realm itself.
Notes:
32. Spk IV 301: Sace kho pan’āhaṃ bhante Bhagavato paṭhamataraṃ kālaṃ kareyya anacchariyaṃ kho pan’etaṃ yaṃ maṃ Bhagavā etaṃ vyākareyya, Natthi taṃ saññojanaṃ yena saññojanena saṃyutto Citto gahapati puna imaṃ lokaṃ āgaccheyyā ti.
33. AN IV 67: Yānīmāni bhante Bhagavatā desitāni panc’orambhāgiyāni saṃyojanāni, nāhaṃ tesaṃ kinci attani appahīnaṃ samanupassāmī ti.
34. According to the commentary, the fourth formless state, the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, is not mentioned because its constituents are too subtle to be comprehended by insight. But a parallel text, AN 9:36/IV 422-26, teaches a method by which the fourth formless attainment, as well as the cessation of feeling and perception, can be used to generate insight and thereby reach arahantship or non-returning.
35. MN I 435-36: So tatthaṭṭhito āsavānaṃ khayaṃ pāpuṇāti; no ce āsavānaṃ khayaṃ pāpuṇāti ten’eva dhammarāgena tāya dhammanandiyā pancannaṃ orambhāgiyānaṃ saṃyojanānaṃ parikkhayā opapātiko hoti tatthaparinibbāyī anāvattidhammo tasmā lokā.
36. SN V 345: C’a vijjābhāgiye dhamme uttariṃ bhāveyyāsi. Idha tvaṃ Dīghāvu sabbasaṅkhāresu aniccānupassī viharāhi, anicce dukkhasaññī dukkhe anattasaññī pahānasaññī virāgasaññī nirodhasaññī ti.
37. AN II 156: Idha bhikkhu asubhānupassī kāye viharati, āhāre paṭikkūlasaññī, sabbaloke anabhiratasaññī, sabbasaṅkhāresu aniccānupassī, maraṇasaññā pan’assa ajjhattaṃ sūpaṭṭhitā hoti.
38. MN III 255: Bāhiraka kāmesu vītarāga.
