The Formless Attainments (Arūpasamāpatti)
MN 43 Mahāvedalla Sutta and AN 9.37 Ānanda Sutta state that it is only when abiding in the fully purified formless attainments that the mind is isolated from the five sense faculties and doesn’t experience any of the five external sensory spheres.
Both discourses speak directly in terms of the faculties (indriyas) and sense spheres (āyatanas). In AN 9.37 Venerable Ānanda states that when not experiencing the form, sound, odor, flavor, and tactual object āyatanas, one can be percipient of one of the three formless recognition attainments, or the fruitional aññāphala samādhi.
If it were the case that one cannot experience any of these āyatanas while abiding in the four jhānas, then this discourse — which specifically lists meditative states in this regard — would have included the four jhānas along with the first three formless attainments and aññāphala samādhi.
Add to this that AN 5.113 Sammāsamādhi Sutta states that one has to be able to tolerate sensory phenomena in order to both enter and remain in integral meditative composure. There is no sammāsamādhi without this tolerance:
A monk endowed with these five qualities is not capable of entering and remaining in integral meditative composure. Which five? He cannot tolerate visible forms, he cannot tolerate sounds... odors... flavors... tactual objects. A monk endowed with these five qualities is not capable of entering and remaining in integral meditative composure.
A monk endowed with these five qualities is capable of entering and remaining in integral meditative composure. Which five? He can tolerate visible forms, he can tolerate sounds... odors... flavors... tactual objects. A monk endowed with these five qualities is capable of entering and remaining in integral meditative composure.
And again, the suttas define integral meditative composure and the faculty of meditative composure as jhāna. If the meditator were in a state of fixed absorption where s/he wasn’t able to experience the external sensory spheres in jhāna then there would be no reason to maintain that one needs to be able to tolerate these phenomena while abiding in jhāna.1
In fact, in MN 152 Indriyabhāvanā Sutta, the Buddha criticizes the methods of contemplative development (bhāvanā) of the faculties (indriyani) taught by the brahmin Parāsariya whereby “one does not see forms with the eye, nor hear sounds with the ear.” Regarding such methods the Buddha replies:
If that were the case, Uttara, then a blind man would have developed faculties and a deaf man would have developed faculties, according to the words of the brahmin Parāsariya. For a blind man does not see forms with the eye, and a deaf man does not hear sounds with the ear.
Later in this same discourse the Buddha exhorts Ven. Ānanda and the other monks to go practice meditation (jhāyatha):
Over there are the roots of trees; over there, empty dwellings. Meditate Ānanda. Do not be heedless. Do not later fall into regret. This is our instruction to you.
In no explicit version of the jhāna formula, nor in any of the descriptions of jhāna factors found in the suttas, nor in any similes or graphic illustrations used to describe jhāna in the suttas is there any reference to the cessation of the experience of the five sensory spheres. If such cessation were a necessary and defining characteristic of the experience of jhāna, then the discourses would say so.
This understanding that the five external sensory spheres are only eliminated in the formless attainments also accords with the Vimuttimagga:
Q. Why doesn’t he continue to develop that [form samādhi]?
A. [Because it does not lead to] dispassion towards form. Because these [recognitions of impact and diversity] do not cease and stop therein. [Therefore] the Buddha taught that sound is a thorn to one who enters upon the first jhāna. By continuing to develop that [formless samādhi] one becomes dispassionate towards form. Therefore, there is abandoning [of these recognitions] in that [formless samādhi].
Because these [recognitions] are abandoned herein, the formless attainments are [said to be] imperturbable fabrications and recognitions, and are peaceful liberations (santā vimokkhā). It is like Ālāra Kālāma, who, when he entered upon the “concentration without recognitions [of form]” did not see or hear the five hundred carts going to and fro in front of him, and therefore it is taught as “the cessation of the [five] sense-bases.”
Notes
- Attending to a mental representation (nimitta) in jhāna doesn’t require that all the five senses are totally shut down. There is a difference between attending to a mental representation via mental consciousness, and the formless attainments wherein the mind is totally isolated from the five sense faculties. In commentarial terms, attending exclusively to a cognitive representation already occurs at the stage of access samādhi. Thus, the engagement is exclusively that of the recognition of the counterpart representation via mental consciousness. The difference between access samādhi and and the first jhāna is the degree of stability of the jhāna factors. The difference between the first jhāna and the formless attainments is indicated in both the Vimuttimagga and the Visuddhimagga when they discuss the formless attainments and mention Aḷāra Kālāma not seeing or hearing the five-hundred carts passing by when abiding in a formless attainment.
Sensual pleasures (kāmā) are either objects or defilements which arise in dependence upon those objects. As Nettippakaraṇa 4.22 states, “The five strands of sensual pleasure are the proximate cause (padaṭṭhāna) of passion for sensual pleasure. The five faculties with form are the proximate cause of passion for form. The sixth sense sphere is the proximate cause of passion for existence.”
Thus, if one is not attending to the five strands of sensual pleasure (kāmaguṇā) there is no proximate cause for the occurrence of passion for sensual pleasure (kāmarāga) with regard to any of those five strands of sensual pleasure. The five faculties (eye-, ear, nose-, tongue-, and body-) don’t serve as a proximate cause for the occurrence of sensual pleasure. Moreover, the five faculties (pañcindriyāni) are not shut off in jhāna, as they are the proximate cause for attachment to rūpāvacara phenomena (i.e. rūparāga). ↩
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