Anapanasati, Samatha, and Vipassana, from: insight requires access concentration?

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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2600htz
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Anapanasati, Samatha, and Vipassana, from: insight requires access concentration?

Post by 2600htz »

From viewtopic.php?f=19&t=32203

Hello:

"Mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, fulfills the four kinds of mindfulness meditation. The four kinds of mindfulness meditation, when developed and cultivated, fulfill the seven awakening factors. And the seven awakening factors, when developed and cultivated, fulfill knowledge and freedom."

If we take this statement of mindfulness of breathing, the meditation (by itself), fulfills samatha and vipassana. There should be no need to separate this two, they go together (and i don´t know if there is any sutta that states they are different practices).

Regards.
budo
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by budo »

That quote is a bit tricky 2600hz. You grabbed that from the anapanasati sutta. The last tetrad of anapanasati is focusing on dispassion, cessation, relinquishment, 5 aggregates, etc.

However, if 'right' jhana is involved that means the 5 hinderances are involved and that is insight because you see first hand how much better you feel when the 5 hinderancs are suppressed.

There are right and wrong forms of anapanasati, there's a sutta where the Buddha tells a monk that anapanasati he is doing is not useful because it doesn't involve the 5 hindrances.

Good meditation involves overcoming the 5 hinderances and seeing how the 5 aggregates work together to create suffering when perceived wrongly, as it's the perception that is the issue and not the aggregates themselves. By going through jhanas over and over and over, you can see how shrinking your perception to cessation results in less dukkha.

It's why in the last tetrad the Buddha speaks of abandoning (permanently) rather than putting aside (suppressing).

"He who sees with discernment the abandoning of greed & distress is one who watches carefully with equanimity"

Seeing how dukkha works is the ultimate insight of the 4 nobel truths.

If you lack discernment then you will miss the boat on figuring out how jhanas work with the 5 hinderances and 5 aggregates, and you won't attain insight.

Which is why alara kalama and udekka ramaputta didn't have nobel insight via anapanasati because they didn't know what to look for in the end, they didn't understand it's perception with moha, lohba and dosa leading to tahna that's the issue.
2600htz
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by 2600htz »

budo wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:01 am That quote is a bit tricky 2600hz. You grabbed that from the anapanasati sutta. The last tetrad of anapanasati is focusing on dispassion, cessation, relinquishment, 5 aggregates, etc.

However, if 'right' jhana is involved that means the 5 hinderances are involved and that is insight because you see first hand how much better you feel when the 5 hinderancs are suppressed.

There are right and wrong forms of anapanasati, there's a sutta where the Buddha tells a monk that anapanasati he is doing is not useful because it doesn't involve the 5 hindrances.

Good meditation involves overcoming the 5 hinderances and seeing how the 5 aggregates work together to create suffering when perceived wrongly, as it's the perception that is the issue and not the aggregates themselves. By going through jhanas over and over and over, you can see how shrinking your perception to cessation results in less dukkha.

It's why in the last tetrad the Buddha speaks of abandoning (permanently) rather than putting aside (suppressing).

"He who sees with discernment the abandoning of greed & distress is one who watches carefully with equanimity"

Seeing how dukkha works is the ultimate insight of the 4 nobel truths.

If you lack discernment then you will miss the boat on figuring out how jhanas work with the 5 hinderances and 5 aggregates, and you won't attain insight.

Which is why alara kalama and udekka ramaputta didn't have nobel insight via anapanasati because they didn't know what to look for in the end, they didn't understand it's perception with moha, lohba and dosa leading to tahna that's the issue.
Hello Budo:

Here is another:
The Blessed One said, "Monks, Sariputta is wise, of great discernment, deep discernment, wide... joyous... rapid... quick... penetrating discernment. For half a month, Sariputta clearly saw insight[1] into mental qualities one after another. This is what occurred to Sariputta through insight into mental qualities one after another:

"There was the case where Sariputta — quite secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful qualities — entered & remained in the first jhana...
My point is that insight happens during jhana (and this seems to be the "Classical progress of insight" in the suttas).
Im not going to say insight can´t happen outside of jhana, i don´t know about that, its just that there is no need to separate jhana from insight.
That quote is a bit tricky 2600hz. You grabbed that from the anapanasati sutta. The last tetrad of anapanasati is focusing on dispassion, cessation, relinquishment, 5 aggregates, etc.
But the words in the last tetrad of anapanasati are "i will breath in, i will breath out focusing on dispassion, cessation, relinquishment,etc"
It doesn´t say: "i will stop paying attention to the breath and focus on dispassion, cessation, etc".

---

Anyways, the main question was about "dry insight". If dry insight is supported by what they call "access concentration"(some level of samatha), then its not really that dry (i don´t know if this agrees with the suttas, but at least its logic).

Regards.
budo
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by budo »

@2600hz

The "I will breath in & out" is the samatha part, the part after that is the vipassana part.

For example:

"He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.'

The underlined part is samatha, the blue part is vipassana. In that quote you are discerning the frame of mindfulness and aggregate of feelings.

You can breah in and out without any vipassana and build very strong samadhi, but because there is no discernment involved then there is no vipassana.

If you stop focusing on the breath and only focus on frame of mindfulness then you are just doing vipassana without samatha.

Samatha is the scope of awareness, in anapanasati case, it's the breath. Vipassana is the movement within the scope, in anapanasati's case, it's the 16 steps traversing through the 4 frames of mindfulness. It's like Samatha is the vehicle that's taking you deep inside your mind, but if you just stare straight ahead you're not going to learn anything, so Vipassana is like you're looking around and examining while the vehicle of Samatha takes you deep inside.

Also if you notice in the 2nd and 3rd tetrads there is no more "discernment" that's because you can't discern in those jhana states, you can only focus but not discern. The Buddha even says there is no mindfulness in the formless jhanas:

". I don't say that there is mindfulness of in-&-out breathing in one of lapsed mindfulness and no alertness, which is why the monk on that occasion remains focused on the mind in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world.".

So he's telling you after that you should get out of formless jhana and bring back your mindfulness and then move to the 4th tetrad where you can discern the fourth frame of mindfulness (dhamma / mind quaities).

You can see this in detail in the Anupada Sutta: one after another, which you also quoted.. In 5th, 6th, 7th jhana there is discernment:

"He discerned, 'So this is how these qualities, not having been, come into play. Having been, they vanish.'"

In 8th and 9th jhana there is no more discernmet within jhana, only when you get out

"On emerging mindfully from that attainment, he regarded the past qualities that had ceased & changed: 'So this is how these qualities, not having been, come into play. Having been, they vanish.'"
2600htz
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by 2600htz »

Hello Budo:

I don´t agree with some of the things you are saying.

-Where did the Buddha said there is no mindfulness in the formless jhanas?
-Where did the Buddha said you should get out of jhana to bring back our mindfulness?
-What do you mean by "discernment"? (and by discernment not being present in arupa jhanas) (because i can give you sutta quotes that explicitly state that there is discernment and mindfulness in arupa jhanas -with the exception of neither perception nor non-perception and cessation of feeling & perception).

Regards.
budo
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by budo »

2600htz wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:00 pm Hello Budo:

I don´t agree with some of the things you are saying.

-Where did the Buddha said there is no mindfulness in the formless jhanas?
-Where did the Buddha said you should get out of jhana to bring back our mindfulness?
-What do you mean by "discernment"? (and by discernment not being present in arupa jhanas) (because i can give you sutta quotes that explicitly state that there is discernment and mindfulness in arupa jhanas -with the exception of neither perception nor non-perception and cessation of feeling & perception).

Regards.
In my opinion, to discern means to compare or to tell the difference between objects/things. When you're focused on one object you are not discerning because there are no other objects to compare and to take up your attention unless another object is trying to take your focus away. so it's focusing vs discerning. I will show you why this matters further down this post.


In Anupdata sutta - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

If you look at all the Jhanas up to 7th jhana, it lists the qualities Sariputta discerned, including mindfulness.

But in 8th Jhana it doesn't list any more qualities, and then it uses these words:

"He emerged mindfully from that attainment. On emerging mindfully from that attainment, he regarded the past qualities that had ceased & changed"

Emerging = to come out of. This is the case where you have to come out of 8th jhana.

Therefore he has mindfulness when he comes out of that 8th Jhana, but not within that 8th jhana. So he can only reflect on the past qualities instead of discerning in the moment the qualities from within that Jhana. If he had mindfulness within that jhana then it would use the same scheme of listing the qualities within that jhana.

Now this fills in the details that anapanasati is missing. If you go to Anapanasati sutta and look under "The four frames of mindfulness", just like I quoted it he says under fourth paragraph referring to the frame of Mind:

" I don't say that there is mindfulness of in-&-out breathing in one of lapsed mindfulness and no alertness, which is why the monk on that occasion remains focused on the mind in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world."

I take it that as the Buddha referring to the 8th jhana and leaving that 8th jhana to re-establish mindfulness of mind and also of greed and distress. Basically he's saying every time you move between jhanas, and especially the 8th jhana, you should reestablish mindfulness and measure the greed and distress you have in that moment, if there is still greed and distress it means you need to go further, which is parallel in anupada sutta after each Jhana he thinks: "'There is a further escape,' and pursuing it there really was for him." and then lastly after cessation "He discerned that 'There is no further escape,' and pursuing it there really wasn't for him."

So it's always Focusing vs Discerning, you move your focus away from the object, re-establish mindfulness and discern "is there still sufffering?" and then go further into jhanas and concentration until the answer is "no".
2600htz
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by 2600htz »

Hello Budo:

1)"When there is discernment" (from MN-43). As long as there is consciousness/cognition, the person is able to discern.
"Discernment & consciousness, friend: Are these qualities conjoined or disjoined? Is it possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them?"

"Discernment & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It's not possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them. For what one discerns, that one cognizes. What one cognizes, that one discerns. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference between them."
2)We agree that neither perception nor non-perception requires emerging from that attainment to be fully mindful of what happened (like reviewing a dream, it doesn´t mean we didn´t cognice anything during the dream, but only after coming out you can really tell how it was in detail). But you said: "there is no mindfulness nor discernment in the formless jhanas" right?, and thats a different story. You even said,
"If you look at all the Jhanas up to 7th jhana, it lists the qualities Sariputta discerned, including mindfulness.". So i don´t understand the meaning of your statement.

Regards.
budo
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by budo »

2600htz wrote: Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:41 am Hello Budo:

1)"When there is discernment" (from MN-43). As long as there is consciousness/cognition, the person is able to discern.
"Discernment & consciousness, friend: Are these qualities conjoined or disjoined? Is it possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them?"

"Discernment & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It's not possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them. For what one discerns, that one cognizes. What one cognizes, that one discerns. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference between them."
2)We agree that neither perception nor non-perception requires emerging from that attainment to be fully mindful of what happened (like reviewing a dream, it doesn´t mean we didn´t cognice anything during the dream, but only after coming out you can really tell how it was in detail). But you said: "there is no mindfulness nor discernment in the formless jhanas" right?, and thats a different story. You even said,
"If you look at all the Jhanas up to 7th jhana, it lists the qualities Sariputta discerned, including mindfulness.". So i don´t understand the meaning of your statement.

Regards.
Hey 2600,


1) That sutta is about Cognizing vs Discernment, not Focusing vs Discernment. I agree that cognizing and discerning cannot be separated. Withiin 8th jhana you are focusing without discerning/cognizing. Still I don't think this is a productive line of discussion because it's just speculation, better to actually meditate and get to 8th jhana ourselves so we can see for ourselves, until then it will always just remain speculation.

2) When I said about the formless, I said that's what the Buddha is saying in the formless section of anapanasati (3rd tetrad), not what I believe or what I said. I then said that Anupadda sutta is filling in the details and getting more specific that it's 8th jhana. There is also the interpretation by some that that Anapanasati sutta doesn't even deal with jhanas at all. So I can't say with certainty, I just quoted that line in that section of the sutta which is "Third frame of mindfulness: the mind" setion the Buddha says that there is a lapse in mindfulness, which I interpret to mean: when you notice that lapse in mindfulness you should re-establish mindfuness of greed and distress, and then move onto to the next thing which is either cessation or contemplations. This is in the formless section of the sutta, and that Anupadda sutta makes it more specific to 8th Jhana. So yes I would assume that there is mindfulness up to 7th jhana.
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DooDoot
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Re: insight requires access concentration?

Post by DooDoot »

budo wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:57 pm @2600hz

The "I will breath in & out" is the samatha part, the part after that is the vipassana part.

For example:

"He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.'

The underlined part is samatha, the blue part is vipassana. In that quote you are discerning the frame of mindfulness and aggregate of feelings.
The underlined part is samatha, the blue part is vipassana.
There is the case where a monk, secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born of seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, unsatisfying/unsatisfactory, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, not-self. He turns his mind away from those [rapture & pleasure] 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.'

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
:candle:
budo wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:57 pmAlso if you notice in the 2nd and 3rd tetrads there is no more "discernment" that's because you can't discern in those jhana states, you can only focus but not discern. The Buddha even says there is no mindfulness in the formless jhanas:

I didn't notice and the Buddha didn't say this (except for the 8th jhana). :roll:

There is "discernment" in stages 3 to 16 of anapanasati; as stated by the phrase: "He trains himself", which means training in higher morality, higher mind and higher discernment.
budo wrote: Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:46 amWhen I said about the formless, I said that's what the Buddha is saying in the formless section of anapanasati (3rd tetrad), not what I believe or what I said.
The Buddha never said anything about the formless in the 3rd tetrad.
There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand.

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