Day 5 The Higher Jhanas -The Signless SN 41.7 Godattasutta

Yesterday we did Kamabhu Sutta, which was Samyutta Nikaya 41.6. Today we're going to do the sequel, which is 41.7. It's known as Godatta Sutta. On one occasion, the Venerable Godatta was dwelling at Machika Sandha in the wild mango grove. Then Chitta the householder approached the Venerable Godatta, paid homage to him and sat down to one side.

The Venerable Godatta then said to him as he was sitting to one side. Now, yesterday we were looking at Kamabhu, where the discussion was between Chitta and Kamabhu, the monk, and Chitta the householder. He was also purported to be an anagami, so he was able to enter into cessation at will. So therefore, he was asking these questions of Kamabhu just to have that dialogue. Here, Godatta has approached Chitta, and now he will be asking him questions.

So he says, of mind, the liberation of mind by nothingness, the liberation of mind by emptiness, and the signless liberation of mind. Are these things different in meaning and also different in phrasing? Or are they one in meaning and different only in phrasing? The liberation of mind by nothingness, the liberation of mind by emptiness, and the signless liberation of mind. Four kinds of liberation. And the question is, are these four liberations different, or are they one and the same?

And so Chitta says, In other words, there is a way in which they are different categories, but there is a way in which they are pointing to the same thing with different phrasing, different words. Are different in meaning and also different in phrasing. Here, one dwells pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness. Likewise, the second quarter, the third quarter, and the fourth quarter.

Thus, above, below, across, and everywhere, and to all as to oneself, one dwells pervading the entire world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness. So these are the six directions. When you are radiating in the six directions, loving-kindness, or in this case, he also says he dwells pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with compassion, or with altruistic joy, or with equanimity. Likewise, the second quarter, the third quarter, the fourth quarter. Thus above, below, across, everywhere, and to all as to himself. He dwells pervading the entire world with the mind imbued with compassion, or joy, or equanimity. Vast, exalted, measureless, without hostility, without ill will. This is called the measureless liberation of mind.

Whenever you are doing the six directions, you are doing the measureless liberation of mind. Because what are you experiencing? Boundlessness. Boundless space. Infinite space. You may not experience it immediately. You may not experience it the way you may imagine it to be. But as you progress with radiating in the different directions, there is a point in which your mind becomes immeasurable.

Your awareness becomes immeasurable. There is no center point as such and there is no boundary or any kind of limits on that spaciousness or that awareness. And that's why it's known as the measureless, without measure. Why is it called liberation of mind? Why do we call it that? Because every jhana is a temporary liberation. Every time you are in jhana, your mind is liberated from the five hindrances.

Your mind is liberated from craving, from aversion, liberated from restlessness, sloth and torpor, liberated from doubt. So temporarily your mind is purified and liberated. Infinite space, infinite consciousness, and nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. Your mind is liberated. There are levels of liberation as well. Your mind is liberated from the hindrances and the unwholesome states and the distractions from the outside world in the first jhana. Your mind is liberated from the perception of vitakka and vicara in the second jhana. Because in the second jhana, you have let go of trying to bring up the object. So your mind is liberated from that. It's a coarser perception.

In the third jhana, your mind is liberated from joy. That's a funny thing to say. But it is. Joy or bliss or piti is something that has become the goal when it isn't the goal. It is just the signpost. I always say bliss is overrated. The people who are looking after bliss are the same people who are mistaking the coal for the diamonds.

They are looking at joy as this ultimate thing. But that's not what we want. It is just something we will experience as a result of letting go. Too much joy and the mind becomes agitated. Too much bliss and the mind feels it. And the mind can feel anxious because of it. So in the third jhana, one is liberated from that piti. In the fourth jhana, one is liberated from the factors of the third jhana, which means there's only deep equanimity. Mindfulness, purity, of mindfulness due to equanimity. And then in infinite space, the mind has the measureless liberation, no longer bound in this body. The awareness has expanded outward, likewise with infinite consciousness and nothingness.

And what, Venerable Sir, is the liberation of mind by nothingness? Here, by completely transcending the base of the infinity of consciousness, aware that there is nothing, one enters and dwells in the base of nothingness. This is called the liberation of mind by nothingness. So once you have transcended infinite consciousness, once you have let go of that, what do we mean by letting go of that? Do that if you are a jhana master. But letting go in the case of going through the process is your mind inclines towards something more subtle, something less coarse, and that is the awareness that there is nothing.

You see, in infinite consciousness, when you go down to the granular level of infinite consciousness, what you are experiencing is the arising and passing away of infinite contact, internally. So for people who experience the sense-based consciousnesses in different ways, like an artist might have their visual field stronger. A musician may have their sonic field stronger. In other words, you may experience flickering behind your eyes if you're visually oriented.

You may experience circles and dots and stars. You may experience flickering in the ears if you're more auditory oriented. You may feel different kinds of tingling in the body, maybe electricity coursing through the body. You may experience phantom smells or phantom flavors. And these are all showing you internal contact happening at the level of mind, by the sense bases. It's all being perceived by the mind, being calibrated, perceived, and created by the mind.

So the mind is able to see, here is the arising and passing away of eye consciousness. Here is the arising and passing away of ear consciousness, or whatever the sense-based consciousness is. And you can experience this. Even when you're walking, you may see that the movement of people around you slows down. It's almost like a strobe light effect.

You can, if you're able to, go down to where the hummingbirds are and you can start to see the slowing down of their wings. You can see the immediate sort of flying that they're doing with their wings, the flapping of their wings. So this can happen. But as you get deeper into this process, what are you noticing? You're noticing a few things. You're noticing that these points of contact, these consciousnesses, as they arise and pass away, are conditioned.

Therefore, they are impermanent. They're arising and passing away continuously. And eventually it becomes tiresome. You're like, enough of that. I've seen it, that's enough. That's the suffering. And you realize there's no controller here. Seeing that there's no controller here, your mind experiences emptiness, experiences the understanding of the emptiness of self. As a result of which, your mind may go into equanimity and start to fall into the gaps between the arising of one consciousness and the arising of the next.

So between the passing away of one consciousness and the arising of the next. And so there are, you may see frames, for example, and you start to see in between the frames and the nothingness expands and your mind is aware of nothingness. There's nothing to hold on to. There's just an awareness of this. And at this point, you may have equanimity. Radiate that equanimity for a while.

And it's a very subtle radiation. It's like just dropping a little drop or dropping a little pebble on the surface of a lake and you see the ripples. And that may go on for a while and then stop, and you may do it again. And that may go on for a while and you may stop. And so eventually the mind goes into what's known as quiet mind. What we're talking about specifically is the liberation of mind by nothingness.

Nothingness is the liberation from the coarser perceptions of infinite consciousness. You are liberated from that. And what, Venerable Sir, is the liberation of mind by emptiness? Here, one gone to the forest, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, Dhammasukha reflects thus: empty is this of self or of what belongs to self. This is called the liberation of mind by emptiness.

How does one experience this? For those of you who have done the five aggregates meditation, this is what happens. You start to see the emptiness of forms, the emptiness of the emptiness of perception, the emptiness of formations, and the emptiness of awareness. And your mind goes into a very deep state where there is no "I" or "me" or "mine" or "myself" being held on to. There is no "I", "me", "mine" or "myself" from which the mind is experiencing something. There is just pure wisdom, pure understanding. And this is the emptiness liberation.

The liberation of mind due to emptiness, or through emptiness. And what, Venerable Sir, is the signless liberation of mind? Here, with non-attention to all signs, one enters and dwells in the signless collectedness of mind. Liberation of mind. So what is going on here? What do we mean by signless liberation of mind? Signless comes from the word animitta. Animitta is maybe a flash of light or something that the mind holds onto. Animitta is a sign. Animitta is an object. So animitta, animitta samadhi, that is the meditation on the signless, is objectless meditation.

Meditation without an object. How does this happen? Now, you are in nothingness. You start to radiate the equanimity for a while, and then eventually it stops. At some point you start again, and it goes on, and it stops again. You start again, and it stops again. Eventually, when it stops again, the mind wants to rest. You try to radiate, but the mind says no, I'm done with it. There's a tension, a resistance. So what do you do? You sink back. You allow the mind to rest in itself.

This is what's known as quiet mind. And as you rest in this space of quiet mind, you start to enter the space of neither perception nor non-perception. So in this space, neither perception nor non-perception, what does that mean? Neither perception nor non-perception. What is perception? What do you call this? This is a cup. What do you call this? This is a book. What do you call this? This is a table.

First you see the cup, you see the book, you see the table. Then your mind says, ah, I recognize this as a cup, I recognize this as a book, I recognize this as a table. That's the recognition, the recognition, the recognition, the awareness of this, rooted in memory. Whatever you have learned. So neither perception nor non-perception is neither recognition nor non-recognition. Here there are the formations that come up in the form of proto-thoughts. Different images, wisps of thoughts that come and go. Maybe a past life. Maybe it feels like this is a distant memory. You're not too sure of what it is that you're experiencing. Neither recognition nor non-recognition. You're neither perceiving and labeling, nor are you not perceiving and labeling.

So in this space, you may experience all kinds of things, but if you remain with the base of quiet mind, the pabhassara citta, the luminous mind, remaining there. There's nothing for you to do. Only when the mind gets caught up in different things, you relax and return. And if those things are too overwhelming, you go back a step and you radiate equanimity until your mind settles back into quiet mind. And you may have to do this over and over again until you get disenchanted with the process and you say, I don't care anymore. comes up, it will just pass right through me, and that is the dispassion.

Now as you're in this space, eventually the vibrations start to become still, and you're just in quiet mind, but even that feels a bit too coarse, and there is a field, there is a space, there is this mind that is the signless mind, where you may see the edges of the quiet mind, and you just relax that, and you are in what some people will call pure awareness. The analogy here is you're taking the flashlight, and you're pointing it up to the sky. Imagine it was a very powerful flashlight that goes all the way up through the clouds, or it's a clear sky. Let's say this is better: it's a clear sky, and it goes right through into the atmosphere, outside the atmosphere, into space. And that, let's say, there are no asteroids, no planets, no meteorites, no star systems, nothing that gets in the way of that light, and it just keeps going. That is the signless or objectless awareness. The awareness does not land on anything, it just keeps going and doesn't hold on to anything in particular space,

when something comes up, just a mere seeing of that minor or minute vibration, it goes away. This is where the sense of self is most translucent. And the formation of conceit, the eye, when it pops up, all the mind has to do is look at it and it goes. It liberates on its own. This is what's known as the signless liberation. is in an objectless awareness.

This is the signless liberation of mind. This, Venerable Sir, is the method by which these things are different in meaning and also different in phrasing. And what, Venerable Sir, is the method by which these things are one in meaning and different only in phrasing? sir, is a maker of measurement. Hatred is a maker of measurement. Delusion is a maker of measurement. So now, once we've gone through seeing these four categories of liberation as distinct categories, now we're looking at how we have synonyms for the same state. So in other words, now we're saying that the measureless,

the emptiness, the nothingness, and the signless, they are all pointing to one thing. They're all meaning the same thing. And this is where Chitta is saying, lust is a maker of measurement. Hatred is a maker of measurement. Delusion is a maker of measurement. For one whose taints are destroyed, the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated so that they are no more subject to future arising.

To whatever extent there are measureless liberations of mind, the unshakable liberation of mind is declared the chief among them. Now, I'll get to that one second. So now, what is he saying here? Lust is a maker of measurement. What does it mean, a maker of measurement? That means conceit, mana. Conceit measures things, compares things. Oh, why is this person progressing and I am not progressing?

Or I am progressing and the others are not. I am better than everyone else. So better than, worse than, equal to, I am. All of these things are measurements. And they're coming from lust. Lust in the sense is greed. The sense of I need to own this. They're coming from hatred. I need to push this away.

They're coming from delusion. The misperception of that which is impermanent as permanent. That which is suffering as happiness. That which is empty as myself. That's the maker of measurement. And so what he's saying is, arahatship, a mind without craving, shameless plug, that is the liberation of mind that is measureless. And it is the best among all categories of measureless liberation of mind. Lust, venerable sir, is a something. Hatred is a something. Delusion is a something. For one whose taints are destroyed, these have been abandoned, cut off at the root, made like palm stumps, obliterated so that they are no more subject to future arising. To whatever extent there are liberations of mind by nothingness, the unshakable liberation of mind is declared the chief among them.

Now that unshakable liberation of mind, again, is empty of lust, empty of hatred, empty of delusion. So greed is a something. Hatred is a something. Delusion is a something. What is he talking about? In other words, the fetters that are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, they are something. They are present in the mind when it has craving, when it has identification, when it has ego, but when the mind is rid of them, when the mind is free of them, then those fetters no longer exist. Those fetters are no longer anything. They are nothing. The mind is purified that way. And so in that sense, being free of greed, hatred, and delusion, the mind is liberated by nothingness.

This is the object of my delusion. When that is present, when greed is present, it has something that it can land on. When delusion is present, it has something that it can land on. But when the mind is free of the taints, now what are the taints? The word taint comes from the word asava. Asava means fermentations or corruptions. I like to use the word viruses. What are these viruses? The virus of ignorance, sensual craving, and the virus of the desire for being. This is a very root form of the craving that manifests. It's the spanda, it's the vibration from which we experience that. It's the seed that germinates.

And so when we talk about dependent origination, before ignorance. There are the taints. And from the taints, ignorance comes. And the taints come from ignorance. In other words, there is this cyclical interdependence between the two. And that is the middle point of the entire Ferris wheel of samsara. That's the axle upon which samsara continues. Practically speaking, the lack of mindfulness leads to these seeds germinating.

So when these seeds germinate, there is ignorance. From ignorance, there are the formations, fettered in greed, hatred, and delusion. There are the levels of consciousnesses that are tainted or stained by defilements. spaces, and then there's contact, and then there's feeling, and there's the capacity for that experience to be identified with because of those asavas. Every time you have mindfulness in the present moment, and you let go of craving, you let go of identification, you let go of any hatred in that moment, you are weakening those seeds.

those taints. Every time you act upon craving, act upon hatred, act upon identifying, you are strengthening those. So if the crux of the practice is just this: to notice when the mind is identifying with something and just disengage. If nothing has to be done, then nothing has to be done. But if you notice there is a grip, let go.

The meditation that you're doing is allowing you to see this at a deeper level. And at the deepest level, you let go completely and the mind experiences cessation and the mind experiences nirvana. different only in phrasing. It is a gain for you, householder. It is well gained by you, householder, in that you have the eye of wisdom that ranges over the deep word of the Buddha. May all beings be free from all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.