The Nimitta of Jhāna
Depending upon the context in which the term is used, nimitta can refer to either (i) a cause, or (ii) a mental representation. MN 44 tells us that one of the four applications of mindfulness is the nimitta which serves as the cause for the eventual elimination of the five hindrances and, beyond that, the arising of the five concomitant mental factors of the first jhāna. And according to AN 9.35, the nimitta as the mental representation of the first jhāna is the presence of these same five concomitant jhāna factors. AN 9.35 states that this nimitta is to be developed, pursued, and established. And when properly engaged, these five factors work in consort to refine and maintain what DN 9 calls an actual refined recognition of joy and pleasure born of seclusion (vivekajapītisukhasukhumasaccasaññā).
Therefore, according to the earliest strata of the Pāḷi dhamma there is no need to establish a jhāna nimitta (or samathanimitta or cittanimitta) apart from the jhāna factors. The various practices categorized under the four applications of mindfulness are the samādhinimittas which serve as the cause of jhāna. The concomitant jhāna factors themselves are the nimitta which is the cognitive sign of having attained the first jhāna. This doesn’t mean that one abandons the object-support (ārammaṇa), such as the representation of the breath, when the jhāna factors arise. It just means that the most reliable and accurate sign of jhāna is the presence of the jhāna factors, and not any other phenomena.
That said, some contemporary teachers and commentators have suggested that the representation of light (obhāsanimitta) and the representation of form (rūpanimitta) mentioned in MN 128 Upakkilesa Sutta are canonical references to what later came to be designated as the counterpart representation (paṭibhāganimitta) in the commentaries, and thus establishes that these nimittas were considered an essential aspect of the development of jhāna even in the early tradition.
There are a couple of points worth mentioning in this regard. Firstly, MN 128 is the only discourse where the term nimitta is used in this context. None of the other canonical occurrences of nimitta as either samādhinimitta, samatha nimitta, or cittanimitta refer to any of these nimittas being an obhāsanimitta or rūpanimitta as explained in the Upakkilesa Sutta.
Secondly, nowhere in the Upakkilesa Sutta does it state that either the obhāsanimitta or the rūpanimitta are essential prerequisites for attaining the first jhāna. Nor does this sutta maintain that the complete elimination of any experience of the five sensory spheres is essential for the arising of either of these two mental representations. Therefore, while these representations of light and visions of form can occur during the course of meditational development, there is no explicit statement here, or elsewhere in the suttas, that such representations must arise for one to enter jhāna. Indeed, even the commentarial tradition doesn’t maintain that either of these types of nimittas are essential for the first jhāna.
For example, the Vimuttimagga takes the instructions offered in the Upakkilesa Sutta to refer to the development of the divine eye. This is understandable, as Anuruddhā, the main interlocutor in this discourse with the Buddha, was later designated as the foremost disciple endowed with the divine eye.
And not even the Visuddhimagga limits counterpart representations to those of light or visionary forms. According to the Visuddhimagga analysis, of the thirty meditations which lead to jhāna, twenty-two have counterpart representations as object. And of these, only nineteen require any sort of counterpart representation which is apprehended based solely on sight, and can therefore give rise to a mental image resulting from that nimitta (the ten stages of corpse decomposition and nine kasiṇas, excluding the air kasiṇa which can be apprehended by way of either sight or tactual sensation).
And so taking all of the above into consideration, according to the early Pāḷi dhamma there is no need to establish a jhāna nimitta (or samathanimitta or cittanimitta) apart from the jhāna factors. And even according to the Vimuttimagga and Visuddhimagga — where the presentation of the method using a counterpart representation is explicitly developed — there is no suggestion that a counterpart representation necessarily must be a representation of light (obhāsanimitta) or a representation of form (rūpanimitta). Indeed, according to the Vimuttimagga, when employing mindfulness of breathing in order to attain jhāna, the counterpart representation should be concomitant with the pleasant feeling which arises as one attends to the breath at the nostril area or the area of the upper lip, which is likened to the pleasant feeling produced by a breeze. The text says that this counterpart representation doesn’t depend on color or form, and any adventitious mental images which arise in the course of practice should not be attended to.
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