..续本文上一页mmentarial interpretations are reasonable. In many instances it would in fact be impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion because of a lack of revealing contextual evidence. In these circumstances one is left with the Commentarial interpretation without any way of validating the Commentary”s assertions. This is surely not satisfactory, particularly when there is no convincing evidence from the Suttas that jhāna or samādhi ever refers to the attainment of the stages of Enlightenment.(38) There appears to be only one possible solution to this problem and that is to assume that jhāna and samādhi in the Suttas always refer to ”ordinary” jhāna and samādhi even if this goes directly against the Commentarial view.(39)

　　5. The Danger in Reduced Respect for samādhi and jhāna

　　If the analysis so far, on the whole, is accepted, it might reasonably be asked why the Commentaries would mistakenly reinterpret the jhāna/samādhi of central Sutta passages in terms of the later Abhidhamma concept of lokuttarajjhāna and thereby significantly distort the message of the former. There are in fact several Sutta passages that relate to this question. These passages concern the future of the Dhamma and, in particular, they mention how a reduced respect for samādhi is a condition for the decline of the Buddha”s teaching as a whole. Consider the following:

　　"Just as, Kassapa, gold does not disappear so long as counterfeit gold has not arisen in the world, but when counterfeit gold arises true gold disappears, so the true Dhamma does not disappear so long as a counterfeit of the true Dhamma has not arisen in the world, but when a counterfeit of the true Dhamma arises in the world then the true Dhamma disappears. ...

　　It is senseless people who arise right here who cause the true Dhamma to disappear.

　　The true Dhamma does not disappear all at once in the way a ship sinks. There are, Kassapa, five detrimental things that lead to the decay and disappearance of the true Dhamma. What are the five

　　 Here the bhikkhus, the bhikkhunis, the male lay followers, and the female lay followers dwell without reverence and deference towards the Teacher ... towards the Dhamma ... towards the Sangha ... towards the training ... towards concentration [samādhi]. These are the five detrimental things that lead to the decay and disappearance of the true Dhamma."(40)

　　Thus it appears that over time there is a natural tendency for the Dhamma to get distorted, that the distorters are members of the Sangha itself, and finally that one of the factors that lead to the gradual confusion and disappearance of the Dhamma is a lack of reverence and deference for samādhi.(41) It is easy to see why the Triple Gem and the training as a whole are mentioned here, because lack of respect for any of these is tantamount to a repudiation of the entire Dhamma. But it is quite remarkable that samādhi is the one aspect of the training that is singled out here, not wisdom, not the four satipatthānas or any other aspect of the path. And this is only one among many instances where samādhi is singled out in this way.(42) This is surely highly significant and says much about the central importance of samādhi in the Dhamma.

　　So it seems that it is to be expected that the important role of samādhi is undermined over time, and therefore one should perhaps not be surprised that this is exactly what seems to happen in the Pali Commentaries.(43) Maybe this is because samādhi can appear so difficult to achieve. But this is obviously not a sufficient reason to downgrade its importance. Samādhi is an integral part of the Buddhist path and any attempt to reduce its importance because it is hard to achieve, will only result in the exact opposite, making the true goal of the path, Enlightenment, even more diffi…

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