Buddhist Cosmology (10): Formless Realm

the Arupa realm and It seems slightly odd to use the word realm in conjunction with the word formless So this is a very very high and refined condition of consciousness And I believe the Buddha the bodhisattva had practiced in some way perhaps these Formless types of meditations. Yes. Yeah a mastery and into those meditations is very advanced and It's really the peculiar genius of the bodhisattva that he was able to attain to those states and his teacher at the time praised him and Said now you've attained to the ultimate and he was able to know well know this is still within conditioned existence I think almost anybody else would Just assume this has to be the ultimate right because they're so subtle And they are they're completely abstract rather than concrete. There's no Substantial imagery there. There's just these These very hard to grasp Ideas now, let's talk about perhaps what they mean. So just list off the the four Meditation there's the realm of boundless space the realm of Boundless consciousness the realm of nothingness and the realm of neither perception or non perception So when you try to visualize or imagine boundless space Are there any hints or suggestions about how one would go about that? there is a Methodology for developing these meditations that the Buddha laid out with a couple of variations But the basic idea is you find it by abstracting away the physical plane and One way of doing it is to develop a scene of meditation Which is meditation on a visual disc and then you expand the disc to a very large Space in your mind and then abstract it out and just pay attention to the space Space itself, it's very difficult Demanding yeah exercise in abstract. I'm glad you would use the word abstract thinking This is what? not everybody Even in the modern day. We were quite familiar with abstract thinking We talked about when we teach children Arithmetic we we say two apples and two apples is four apples equals four apples But what we can't just say to them two and two is four because They're concrete. They they need things Yes But eventually the the apples drop away and we're left with two and two is four it seems to be To us to be perfectly sensible But we're really not talking about anything. Mm-hmm We're talking about an abstract principle. So this is what they're doing in the sense with the space This might be a new period in history the idea of abstract Thought that doesn't require forms. It's very it's kind of platonic. Yes, sounds like it's the idealism of Plato and the idea of space itself is not is actually not trivial or obvious There were debates in early Buddhism about what exactly was meant by space Sarvastivada school, for example considered space to be Unconditioned like nirvana. Yes The Theravada always held that only nirvana is unconditioned and they developed a definition of three kinds of space the first kind is The space that's created like when you dig a hole then that there's a space created or when you build a House you create a space in the rooms the second kind of space is the kind that's developed in meditation by Removing the casino and the third kind is space as an abstract idea That you can have discrete objects separated By some distance of kilometers or eugenics or whatever and This is the idea of space. It's meant in boundless space And out those three only The first one created space is considered to be conditioned and that's obvious We condition us based by digging up the hole. The other two are considered not real They're only Conventional concepts That's very very interesting. I mean that that that kind of logical Processing really didn't occur in the West until Wittgenstein The idea that words do not necessarily point to something real It's amazing How so this is is dwelling on this meditation on space that One would after death Proceed to be Reborn I mean for lack of a better word. Yes reborn in in this Non-spatial dimension. Yes. Yes And this is a this is in itself a very useful Contemplation to imagine these beings that exist for long periods of time Entirely without bodies This is a very useful contemplation for discerning the difference between mind and body Because in any other point in samsara any other whether we're humans or animals or they was Our consciousness our mind is normally associated with the body And as it becomes a difficult exercise sometime to discern what is mind and what is body? That's actually one of the the insights But there are two Cases where mine can exist without body one is the brief period between death and rebirth? and the second is mine Arising in this realm without any physical substrate and this is a very subtle and difficult concept and even in ancient times there were Tendencies in later buddhism to try and Make some kind of a Qualification of that well there still has to be some kind of body a subtle body of some sort But that wasn't the intention in the original Teaching the original texts. It's quite clear. This is For kanda existence. There's no physical form. There's only buying perception feelings and mental formations And this would be how it would be experienced in meditation. It would be an entirely bodiless Experience yes Yeah, so let's go on to consciousness again Boundless consciousness yes, that's that's even harder to grasp yes Hey, so space the first one boundless space still has this Very tenuous connection to the physical realm in that space is a concept related to physicality But when you abstract away space and what's left is consciousness Consciousness pervading infinite space you remove space. There's just infinite consciousness without reference to space So we're not talking about like spatially extended. It's just it's Boundless there's no boundary of any kind and it cannot be located Space yes, the location is a quality of the physical level of lupaka Developing that now let's talk about lifespans in these time these planes of so-called existence Does it increase in? Duration it does it goes up it does they're measured in thousands of kappas cow thousands of copper eons yes yes, and each successive realm is Longer lifespan in the preceding realm so these is very immense stretches of time Yes Unimaginable kind of yes, yes the whole world's systems are coming and going thousands and thousands of times Yes And being persists in a state without any body in modern times we just talk about 10 to the power of 30 or something like that or how many zeros you want to add after it We can't process those numbers either. There's astronomical numbers, but there that's our our modern equivalent Yes Is there anything more to say about consciousness this infinite consciousness plane? That's really not much more we can say about it, but as subtle as it is it's still transcended by the next level which is the level of nothingness Akinchayatana, which is really like no thingness No thingness So even the concept of consciousness falls away and this is a How much more attenuated and void kind of state It's a great emptiness. There's no thing. There's nothing you don't point to there And then that itself even nothingness becomes too busy It's too much. There wasn't taken to the extreme. Yes, so the next stage is Defined as neither perception or non perception Neva sanya na sanya and the name is given as Almost like an act of desperation. What are we going to call this? It's so subtle It's hard to define It's not Perception because there's no real sense of subject or object, but it's neither non perception because it's not an empty blankness It's not an annihilation There's some perception that you are in this There's a very subtle perception now that there are a couple of kind of charming metaphors that are given to bring out this idea of Neither perception or non perception. They both concern a bhikkhu and a novice going on alms round in the first metaphor The novice spies that the bhikkhus about to step into a puddle of water and he warns him and says venerable sir Be careful. There's water and The bhikkhu says, oh good. There's water. Will you fill up my water flask? And he says venerable sir. There is no water And the second one is similar Some somebody wants to offer some ghee and The monk is going to take it in his bowl and the monk and the novice says We can't use your bowl venerable sir. There's oil. He's oiled the bowl to protect it and The monk says oh good. There's oil fill up my oil Oil flask and he says venerable sir. There is no oil Yeah, so it's it's their way of Describing the least possible amount of yes, even we have awkward ways of trying to describe That it's it's it's not there Substantially, but there is traces. Yes. Yeah And I think you can one way of thinking of this state is it's samsara at the bare minimal, it's The very least amount of Conditionality or some sorry Existence, it's the most subtle form, but it's still within the conditioned realm. There is some is there some feeling remaining? yes, it said that there are the The other aggregates, but the feeling is is always a quantum us there's no joy or unhappiness peaceful at quantum of spilling Everything after the fourth with the fourth jhana on is is characterized by a quantum of spilling. Yes now one thing that I'm curious about that. I don't I haven't found a Statement of it is the faculty of mental formations Would have being who is mind only for aeons of time do they think and what do they think about? Sankaras, I mean, yes, Sankara is you know, it seems to me that Certainly that ideation has to be absence because it sees this second jhana the discursive activity But it's kind of the reason it's a kind of Resultant of volition like the Getting in at that that point. It's a matter of just the exhaustion of the karma. I think it pops up. Yes It's hard to imagine that This experience at all in any way but there is some sort of a quantum of spilling remaining Anyway, these are Abstract Very difficult. Yes manage We call them realms now that by the last realm either perception or non-perception. It's got to be fantastic durations. Yes, is it a Desirable realm to go into from a Buddhist point of view or is it Problematic because of the incredible duration. Well a credible duration doesn't really matter And in the total run of samsara, it's considered to be a Fortunate rebirth because there's no suffering. Yes So you stay there for eight thousand cups of time and then you have to do stuff Yeah, it's a world. So you have to carry on and if you pop out When there is no Buddha around perhaps you miss the opportunity for Yeah, if I recall was it the Brahman who Determined that the baby bodhisattva was going to become the Buddha. He did not did not live long enough to see the Buddha and he He entered into the arupa. He entered into one of the answer. I'm very very disappointed. Yes Yeah, so it can be a missed opportunity to Be around in the in the time when a Buddha arises in the dhamma is This is some sort of critique also of the the discovery of these arupa dimensions of consciousness Preceding the time of the Buddha. Yes It's all a little bit confused as well. I the story seems to be that the Buddha attained these things and then Having found them lacking He goes off to explore his own path process and Remembers as a child entering the first jhana. Yeah, and you would have thought that In order to develop the arupa jhanas, you must know about Yeah form the rupa jhanas. Yes. Yes something as simple as that, but it seems that he's Coming he doesn't reference his training. He references his childhood Go entering jhana as a child Some Some explaining to do there. Yeah, I know that is a point that's occurred to me too that this is a Kind of a difficult crux in the text My speculation is that the State of a rupa jhana is more conducive to actually Preparing the mind for realizing the unconditioned that the arupa realms are too subtle In one sense are too close to the unconditioned There's nothing to work with there. Whereas with whereas developing the jhana the mind still has the capacity of Taking an object It also seems that by that that one could bypass the development of the rupa jhanas go straight to the Oh, yeah, I think that's also that's also possible too. I don't think it's It's necessary to follow things in the precise order These remain More or less speculative issues don't believe yes. Yeah so we won't attempt to Firmly decide one way or the other in this brief talk. Yes but to allow people something to reflect with and to work with about these Because there's a lot of strong opinions about the value of these things Some rejection to ignore that go straight on to your side Yeah, what is the benefit of this or do here's the other question? Is it the case that arahants all have necessarily attained the No, that's definitely can be stated. No It's not required. There is a principle stated in Abhidhamma that Jhana is necessary for realization of path and fruit and so that The the rupa jhanas the rupa level of consciousness is required The Buddha also mentions in brief without ever developing it much the idea of bare insight Although usually when he spoke about a path, it was through the four jhanas and then realization But in later times particularly in Burma there have been the development of schools of bare insight meditation but when you examine the the The theory behind them they still Admit that there has to be jhana, but they say it's a momentary jhanas That the the path moment occurs with the intensity of jhana. Yes It's of course a very interesting area which Is somewhat outside of our cosmology videos, but perhaps do some more on Abhidhamma sometime But the the benefit of Arupa states is to open the mind both to emptiness and to the discernment of body and mind and I think you know as As I said mastery of those states is very advanced, but I think you can get a glimpse of those states by working with this Idea of Abstracting away there's another sutta that The Chola Sunyata Sutta, the lesser discourse on emptiness where the Buddha lays out a path of Development for these Arupa states that any reasonable Irreasonably competent meditator can get at least a glimpse of the idea Is by starting with ordinary reality which is perception of village and then In the mind abstract away any man-made objects so that all that's left is nature and that's perception of forest Then you abstract away all living things. So there's only earth Then you abstract away the earth and there's only space and then you dissolve for the boundaries of that and it becomes boundless space and Then from there You you're in a state of mind where consciousness is filling boundless space So if you cease to pay attention to space you're left with boundless consciousness Then you cease to pay attention to consciousness and all this left is no thingness and then you can attempt to make the last Tricky step and not pay attention to the concept of nothingness That's very good nice explanation as good as we can do is as always It's it's very clarifying Confronting these things usually when you read about them, it's left with a bewildered mystery. But yes, these are all very helpful descriptions of both how to approach this but also this mysterious and difficult to grasp idea of existence in these dimensions of bodiless mind