Javi wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2017 3:30 pm
4.3 The Second tetrad
The instructions for the second tetrad in the 16-step practice model delineated in the Ānāpānasati-sutta describe the progression of practice to be undertaken while remaining aware of breathing in and out as follows:
5. Experience joy
6. Experience happiness
7. Experience mental formation
8. Calm mental formation
With step (7), awareness of joy and happiness leads on to becoming aware of any other mental formation or activity present in the mind. This and the next step in this tetrad are similar to the last two steps in the preceding tetrad, inasmuch as in each case meditation proceeds from awareness of bodily or mental formations to their calming (step 8).
In steps 7 & 8, the Pali is 'citta sankhara', which refers to the
vedana (feelings) of rapture & happiness, as defined in MN 44:
Assāsapassāsā kho, āvuso visākha, kāyasaṅkhāro, vitakkavicārā vacīsaṅkhāro, saññā ca vedanā ca cittasaṅkhāro”ti
In-&-out breaths are bodily sankhara (conditioning agent). Initial & sustained thought are verbal sankhara. Perceptions & feelings are the mind sankhara. MN 44
Feelings as the mind sankhara are well described in MN 148:
When one is touched by a pleasant feeling, if one delights in it, welcomes it, and remains holding to it, then the underlying tendency to lust lies within one. When one is touched by a painful feeling, if one sorrows, grieves and laments, weeps beating one’s breast and becomes distraught, then the underlying tendency to aversion lies within one. When one is touched by a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, if one does not understand as it actually is the origination, the disappearance, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in regard to that feeling, then the underlying tendency to ignorance lies within one. MN 148
Thus, Analayo's reference to '
citta sankhara' as '
other mental formations' is very questionable scholarship. While the presence of some mental formations may exist here, as described in MN 148, which are subtle defiled reactions to rapture & happiness, these reactions are not the literal meaning of citta sankhara, as described in MN 44. The meaning of 'experiencing citta sankhara' is experience how rapture & happiness, which are the mind conditioning agents, give rise to different mental moods or subtle reactions. While not relevant to my point, I would assume or guess 'citta' is a noun meaning 'mind' rather than an adjective meaning 'mental'. Vedana (feelings) are mind-conditioning-agents (citta-sankhara), as defined in MN 44. They are obviously not the "mental formation". If steps 7 & 8 were about mental formations (sankhara khandha), they would be part of the 3rd tetrad.