DooDoot wrote: ↑Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:16 pm
AgarikaJ wrote: ↑Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:58 pm
The mind was upheld by the vitakka and vicāra, and stabilized by the bliss. At that moment, you could say it was dependent on the power of absorption (jhāna) if you like, I don’t know. That’s just how it was. If you want to call it absorption, then go ahead. Before long, vitakka and vicāra were abandoned, rapture disappeared and the mind had a single focus (ekaggatā), samādhi was firmly established, and the lucid calm that is a foundation for wisdom had arisen.
The above text appears contrary to the suttas. If Ajahn Chah spoke it, it appears he was mistaken. Otherwise, it could simply be a mistranslation from Thai into English. The suttas say ekaggatā is in every jhana yet the text above appears to say ekaggatā appears when rapture ends, i.e., in the 3rd jhana.
To my understanding, while Ajahn Chah was extremely strict in his study of the Vinaya and its implementation, he was very much less interested in Sutta study for the sake of it. He made a very strong point that continuous practice and and meditation would open up the knowledge of the Dhamma, while book studies on its own were fairly useless, maybe evebn counter-productive. See p.109:
https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/617-stillness-flowing
Don’t be hesitant in your practice. Give it everything you’ve got. Make the mind resolute. Keep practising. However much you listen to Dhamma talks, however much you study, although the knowledge that results may be correct, it doesn’t reach the truth itself. And if that’s the case, then there’s no end to doubts and hesitation. But when the truth is realized, there’s completion. Then whatever anyone might say or think on the subject is irrelevant, it is naturally and irrevocably just that way.
As such he was quite unconcerned, or so I gathered from reading his biography, how things might be 'properly' named. This he has in common with a large number of monks in the Thai Forest tradition, whose exact orthodox roots remain unknown, not least due to the wholesale destruction of Thai Buddhist writings with the sacking of Ayutthaya in 1767.
This already starts with Ajahn Sao Kantasilo, the teacher of Ajahn Mun and the oldest known spiritual father of the Thai Forest tradition, born 1859 (so 92 years after the sacking of Ayutthaya and still 35 years after the later King Mongkut (Rama IV) ordained as a monk and started revitalizing the Thai Sangha by founding the Dhammayuttika Nikaya).
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/phut/sao.html
Following my understanding, he must have been influenced quite heavily by Mahayana and Tantric Buddhist thought, as he emphasized the mantra-like repetition of 'Buddho' as start into the practice of any meditationer, from which only later followed enough mental immersion to go on with Vipassana practice as minutely described in the Satipatthana Sutta.
However -- and that is the very big however! -- both this meditation practice and the path to directly realizing the Dhamma did create results. This might go totally against anything you believe, @DooDot, but it is actually the exact way the Buddha once reached enlightenment: by following various meditation practices, until his mind was sharpened by Vipassana and he realized the inherent truth of the Dhamma.
So contrary what you say, this is actually an imminent reflection of the Noble Eightfold Path (note: Sutta studies are not mentioned in it, but Right Effort and Right Mindfulness are).
And while you might be arguing about minor points, eg if Ekkagata is part of the first or third Jhana, for some of those who were able to directly realize the truth of the Dhamma, it quite literally was not important at all. In my quote above, Ajahn Chah even quibs:
At that moment, you could say it was dependent on the power of absorption (jhāna) if you like, I don’t know. That’s just how it was. If you want to call it absorption, then go ahead.
I, personally, do not know, so I hold my judgement on this until I myself will have direct experience of the Dhamma in a way that would make me confident that I know better than everybody else (not to be too subtle, I wrote it intentionally this way).
As Ajahn Chah was convincing enough to single-handedly bring the Thai Forest tradition to the west -- with many of his later disciples quite well-read in Sutta studies -- I would never dare to write an abrupt and uncompromising statement like: "he was mistaken" or, with regard to others, "certain ideas posted in this topic by certain posters cannot be practised and they cannot be realised because they are not real."
Until you can tell us decisively that your direct experience of the Dhamma surpasses that of the arguably eminent teachers of our age by so much that you can brand them as "promoting false messages", your word as that of an anonymous poster in a web forum will rather attract outright derision, with many not even reading through your words.
This is a shame, because as the Buddha told us, instead of using speech that is meant to divide, using Right Speech is the proper way of communicating one's ideas.
It heralds frankly little good that your Sutta studies have not opened this very simple and basic concept to you, as without it Right Concentration and therefore the reaching of any Jhana would be impossible.
I would once more wish to appellate to you, @DooDot, that you refrain from the outright divisive and harsh speech I have had to read now so often from you (however correct your ideas are and however wrong you think others to be). It is the only way so that you might progress further, something I truly wish you to be able to achieve.
With metta.
The teaching is a lake with shores of ethics, unclouded, praised by the fine to the good.
There the knowledgeable go to bathe, and cross to the far shore without getting wet.
[SN 7.21]
Regardless, please post this Abhidhamma so we can review it.
The Buddha mostly emphasised truthful speech. The Buddha did not always speak in ways to unite people (such as not uniting with Devadatta or Mara). Ajahn Chah explanation of jhana you offered definitely appears wrong.
