> [fk:] manomaya-kaaya = mind-illusion-body?

mind-made-body. Maybe he also refers to the dibba-kaaya - the "heavenly
body" (he just uses the word "mental body").

>
> I don't completely disagree with Hecker, but my
> opinion is that [coarser] sense-desires have to be let
> go of before one can even begin to feel or hope to
> achieve the [more refined and subtle] mental and
> physical happiness that suffuses the entire volume of
> the body in the first jhana, because otherwise the
> mental agitation that accompanies craving for coarser
> sense pleasures would preclude the deep relaxation
> that seems necessary for the pleasant side effects of
> jhanic absorption to arise . It's not only buddhist
> meditation, but from doing taiji, qigong, yoga, when
> the mind and body become completely relaxed, breathing
> becomes slow, subtle, deep, relaxed, it feels like the
> breath itself is suffusing the entire volume of the
> body, unimpeded, and sometimes accompanied with
> pleasant physical body happiness.
>

I think he refers to driving sense-desire out for good. Certainly the first
jhana already is "secluded from sense-pleasures" but they can return
afterwards. (There are some similes about this somewhere, but I don't know where.)

> That's why the details of the first two jhana similes
> seem to correspond to physical experience of the
> jhana, and this is why I'm puzzled by the lack of
> detail of the 4th jhana simile. For one thing, a mummy
> would feel the white cloth only on the surface of the
> body, unlike the complete suffusion through the entire
> volume of the body as with the first 3 jhanas.
>

The text continues: "...even so, the monk sits, permeating his body with a
pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by
pure, bright awareness." (pure bright awareness = parisuddhena cetasaa
pariyodaatena)
I would take this to mean that the "pure, bright awareness" completely
suffuses the body, so that one can only percieve that awarness, as if the body
would be wraped in it (like everything filled with light, so bright that it
outshines everything).
Maybe somebody else has some thoughts on this?

Lars

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