He is engaged in an exercise which, if successful, will lead him to a temporary abandonment of unwholesome thoughts, but not to their permanent eradication. Later they will come back again. This is samatha-bhāvanā — the mental development of a state of calm consisting in the mind's temporary remoteness from unwholesome dhammas. If such bhāvanā is developed to an advanced level it will culminate in the attainment of jhāna. What it won't in itself lead to is the permanent abandoning of unwholesome dhammas by cutting them off.Cormac Brown wrote:Venerable, does the existence of a thought such as, "Oh, here is a desire I must remove it" mean that the practitioner has fallen off the path leading to insight?
So my answer to your question would be no, he hasn't fallen off the path to insight. He hasn't yet even arrived at the path to insight.
Just pick any where the Buddha describes jhāna-attainers as having more work to do; the two Sāropama Suttas, for example. Then look at:Cormac Brown wrote:Where in the suttas is there evidence for such a view?
1. What the Buddha says about them if they remain satisfied with what they have already attained.
2. What it is that remains for them to do.
Look also at any suttas (the Brahmajāla, for example) that describe how yogis practising outside of the Buddha's dispensation become highly accomplished in samatha-bhāvanā but then fall into wrong views of one sort or another.
The conclusion is inescapable: the ways of practice that samatha-bhāvanā entails are not in themselves adequate for developing insight or permanently cutting off the kilesas. They effect only a temporary liberation from unwholesome thoughts. This point is really quite uncontroversial; so much so that even Ajahn Thanissaro —whose modern commentaries you seem to prefer over the ancient ones— seems to agree with it. In the annotation to his translation of the Māhāsāropama Sutta the ajahn says:
"Occasional liberation/release is the temporary release from such things as the hindrances, attained when entering right concentration, or the temporary release from some of the factors of lower states of jhāna, attained when entering higher states of jhāna. This release lasts only as long as the necessary causal factors are still in place."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html