The Miseducation of Pīti in Theravada

[DooDoot]

Thank you. The large font and use of colour was helpful. keep on breathing, Guru DooDoot. Breath until your root chakra finally bestows rapture and serenity in you. Breath until that last grain of consciousness leaves the middle of your head

Avoid non-sense

[Pondera]

Thank you. The large font and use of colour was helpful. keep on breathing, Guru DooDoot. Breath until your root chakra finally bestows rapture and serenity in you. Breath until that last grain of consciousness leaves the middle of your head

Avoid non-sense

Pursue “non-sense” - as in “Consciousness connects faculty and object. Cut off consciousness and the four great existences will lose their foot hold”

[frank k]

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2 ... e-and.html

Missing mudita reference found
KN Iti 104 shares some common passage with SN 46.3, the portion about the benefits of being inspired by monks and associating with them. I was puzzled for a long time, why SN 46.3 never explicitly used the magic words, mudita, pamojja, and piti, for describing the effects of coming into contact with the monks.

altruistic-mirth = modati, pamojja, mudita: they are all the same meaning, just different conjugations.
rapture = pīti, a jhana factor and the 4th awakening factor of 7sb as you know.

In the suttas, piti-pamojja often appear as a compound word, they're so closely linked.
Unlike the later Theravada redefinition of jhana, and the hard boundary between samatha and vipassana, in EBT, piti is something you actively develop, along with mudita, to develop gladness, altruistic-mirth, and rapture from consciously thinking about and doing things Dhamma related that are inspiring.

[DooDoot]

As already posted from sutta, piti occurs in at least three situations:

#1. From the arising of faith when hearing & learning there is an end to suffering (SN 12.23).

#2. From clearly knowing one's own virtue is proper, harmless & the only & right way to live (AN 11.2)

#3. From the tranquilisation of the breathing & body, which includes the cleaning of the five hindrances (MN 118; jhana). The suttas say when the five hindrances are overcome, the result is joy & rapture, as follows:....

Adding to #1 above, unambiguous; no room, it seems, for speculations of overestimation...

Five opportunities for freedom.

Pañca vimuttāyatanāni.

Firstly, the Teacher or a respected spiritual companion teaches Dhamma to a mendicant.

Idhāvuso, bhikkhuno satthā dhammaṃ deseti aññataro vā garuṭṭhāniyo sabrahmacārī.

That mendicant feels inspired by the meaning and the teaching in that Dhamma, no matter how the Teacher or a respected spiritual companion teaches it.

Yathā yathā, āvuso, bhikkhuno satthā dhammaṃ deseti aññataro vā garuṭṭhāniyo sabrahmacārī tathā tathā so tasmiṃ dhamme atthapaṭisaṃvedī ca hoti dhammapaṭisaṃvedī ca.

Feeling inspired, joy springs up. Being joyful, rapture springs up. When the mind is full of rapture, the body becomes tranquil. When the body is tranquil, one feels bliss. And when blissful, the mind becomes immersed.

Tassa atthapaṭisaṃvedino dhammapaṭisaṃvedino pāmojjaṃ jāyati, pamuditassa pīti jāyati, pītimanassa kāyo passambhati, passaddhakāyo sukhaṃ vedeti, sukhino cittaṃ samādhiyati.

This is the first opportunity for freedom.

Idaṃ paṭhamaṃ vimuttāyatanaṃ.

https://suttacentral.net/dn33/en/sujato