SN 45.11

Paṭhamavihāra sutta: Meditation (1st)

Paṭhamavihārasutta

Vihāravagga

The Buddha goes on retreat for a fortnight. When he emerges, he describes his meditation on the conditionality of the eightfold path, which was similar to a practice he did shortly after awakening.

Traduzioni

At Sāvatthī.

“Mendicants, I wish to go on retreat for a fortnight. No-one should approach me, except the one who brings my almsfood.”

“Yes, sir,” replied those mendicants. And no-one approached him, except the one who brought the almsfood.

Then after a fortnight had passed, the Buddha came out of retreat and addressed the mendicants:

“Mendicants, I’ve been practicing part of the meditation I practiced when I was first awakened. I understand that there’s feeling conditioned by wrong view and feeling conditioned by right view. … There’s feeling conditioned by wrong immersion, and feeling conditioned by right immersion.

In these reflections, the Buddha links the eightfold path with dependent origination, which he practiced after awakening (Ud 1.1–3). Compare DN 1:3.45.1, where he points out that wrong views are “conditioned by contact”, which is the immediately prior link of dependent origination.

We can apply this insight at multiple levels. For example, one with wrong view can get angry when right view is taught, which creates certain unpleasant feelings. More subtly, every mental state is associated with feeling, so when one is entertaining wrong view there is some kind of feeling there, perhaps a pleasant feeling arising from the idea that one knows the truth (Snp 4.13). But the link with dependent origination also suggests something more long term: wrong view conditions rebirth. For pernicious wrong view—for example, the idea that there is no such thing as right and wrong—rebirth will be in lower realms, in which one will experience painful feelings (SN 42.2:2.14).

Right view is likewise associated with feeling in multiple ways. In addition, because it supports the arising of the subsequent path factors, it is a condition for the feelings associated with those.

The Pali text abbreviates the path factors.

There’s feeling conditioned by desire. There’s feeling conditioned by thought. There’s feeling conditioned by perception. As long as desire, thought, and perception are not stilled, there is feeling conditioned by that. When desire, thought, and perception are stilled, there is feeling conditioned by that.

Desire here is not “craving” (taṇhā) but chanda, which may be unwholesome sensual desire or a wholesome factor of the path. In fact, all three items—desire, thought, and perception—are normal functions of the mind that, in the unawakened, may be morally good or bad. For the sake of the path, they are developed in a wholesome way. After arahantship, they continue to exercise their function, but without kammic effect.

“Thought” is vitakka. This can refer generally to the relation between thoughts and feelings, or in the course of meditation, more specifically to the feelings associated with the first absorption.

Likewise, “perception” affects feeling in general, as when one recognizes a puppy and feels happy. In the context of advanced meditation, it can refer any of the stages of immersion short of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. Perception and feeling in the process of deep meditation are further discussed in MN 44 and SN 41.6.

Following this, the BJT edition has a passage depicting the gradual stilling of these elements: desire is stilled, but not thought or perception; then desire and thought but not perception. This is absent from Burmese editions; Bodhi suggests it may have been interpolated from the commentary (Connected Discourses, note 21 to this sutta).

Normally perception and feeling go together. Perhaps this is in reference to the feeling conditioned upon emergence from the meditative attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling (MN 44:20.1).

There is effort to attain the unattained. When that state has been attained, there is also feeling conditioned by that.”

Su questa traduzione

Bhikkhu Sujato · CC0

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