..續本文上一頁gest that it was never meant to be used apart from the Abhidhamma itself. The idea of lokuttarajjhāna may very well be a reasonable description of attainments on the Buddhist path, but this does not mean that it has any direct counterpart in the Suttas: in fact it seems clear that it does not. Because lokuttarajjhāna concerns the goal of the path, and not the path itself, the Commentaries” redefinition of jhāna/samādhi in terms of lokuttarajjhāna has the effect of shifting the reality of jhāna from being a factor of the path to becoming a result of the practice of the path. Thus the Suttas” insistence on the centrality of jhāna/samādhi as a path factor is undermined, an undermining which only serves to seriously distort the timeless message of the Buddha.
Brahmāli Bhikkhu
Perth, April 2005
References: All references are to volume number, page number, and line number of the Pali texts published by the Pali Text Society.
Abbreviations: Vin: Vinaya Pitaka; D: Dīgha Nikāya; M: Majjhima Nikāya; S: Samyutta Nikāya; A: Anguttara Nikāya; Dhs: Dhammasangani; Vibh: Vibhanga; DA: Dīgha Nikāya Commentary; MA: Majjhima Nikāya Commentary; AA: Anguttara Nikāya Commentary.
Notes
(1) The term ”Sutta” in this paper generally refers to the four main Nikāyas of the Sutta Pitaka: the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima Nikāya, the Samyutta Nikāya, and the Anguttara Nikāya.
(2) By samādhi I generally understand the four jhānas, sometimes a slightly broader concept.
It might be thought that this is a narrow understanding of samādhi because the Suttas contain many instances of samādhi that are clearly not jhāna. These samādhis can broadly be classified into two types: samādhi that can arise prior to jhāna and samādhi that comes after jhāna and that depends on jhāna. Into the latter category fall the formless attainments, the samādhi that leads to Arahantship (see A.II.45,23-33) and also the samādhi that is the result of Arahantship (see A.V.7,7 - 10,2). Because these samādhis are based on jhāna their existence confirms the importance of jhāna on the path.
Into the former category fall such samādhis as animittasamādhi, suññatasamādhi and appanihitasamādhi (see e.g. D.III.219,21-22), samādhi gained from walking meditation (see A.III.30) and possibly samādhi in conjunction with satipatthāna (see S.V.144,19 - 145,19 & A.IV.300,24 - 301,15). But even with these samādhis it is far from clear that they do not, or at least cannot, rely on jhāna. In the case of (A.IV.300,24 - 301,15), if one is to follow the sequential presentation in the Sutta strictly (which presumably one must), jhāna precedes the samādhis based on satipatthāna. The same is quite possibly true of (S.V.144,19 - 145,19). As for the first three samādhis of animittasamādhi etc., it seems that they also are normally practised after jhāna (see M.III.111), although the evidence may not be conclusive that they have to be.
The most important fact about the various types of samādhi, however, is that by far the most frequently occuring type is jhāna. The three samādhis of animittasamādhi, suññatasamādhi and appanihitasamādhi occur very rarely in the Suttas compared to jhāna, and the same is true for "satipatthāna samādhi". Thus the relative importance of jhāna far outweighs the importance of any of the other types of samādhi and jhāna is therefore the preeminent type of samādhi on the Buddhist path. Thus when the Suttas only speak of samādhi, without further qualification, it seems reasonable to conclude that this is predominantly a reference to jhāna.
(3) By historical tendency I primarily mean the shift in focus from the Nikāyas to the Commentaries. Where the Nikāyas put great emphasis on samādhi and jhāna, even saying that full Enlightenment is impossible without …
《Jhana and Lokuttarajjhana》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…