Thanks for clarifying, Dieter.

"5 senses are absorbed in imagination" seems to
me a strange phrasing. Do you mean "5 senses are
cut off because the mind is absorbed in imagination"?

In any case, it sounds like you mean the mind is
no longer with the 5 senses. Right? If so, what
you provided below still falls short of substantiating that view.

Anyway, please have a look at this
sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an09/an09.036.than.html

After the standard description of the 1st jhana, we see
He regards whatever phenomena there that are
connected with form, feeling, perception,
fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant,
stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow,
painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration,
an emptiness, not-self. He turns his mind away
from those phenomena, and having done so,
inclines his mind to the property of
deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite
— the resolution of all fabrications; the
relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of
craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.'

The same is repeated for the 2nd to 4th jhana.
Notice all the 5 khandhas are included?

In the same sutta, for the first 3 aruppas, we
see the same wordings too, except that "form
(rupa)" is absent. It clearly implies that for
all the 4 jhanas, form is indeed among the
phenomena that the practitioner is able to pay
attention to. It is only in the aruppas (as the
name itself indicates) that form is not perceived.

An orthodox Theravadin would try to explain that
the regarding of phenomena that are connected
with form and others is done only after emerging
from jhana, not while in it. If so, why can't the same be done for the aruppas?

This is not the only sutta that provides such
evidence, but it's an easier one to understand.

kb

Dieter Moeller wrote thus at 04:46 PM 26-01-13:

>Hi Gerard and Ven.Kumara,
>
>I suppose the term absorption is differently
>understood, perhaps you may agree on following sense:
>
>The Buddha mentioned that the state reminded him
>when he -as a younster-was sitting under the
>shadow of a Roseapple tree watching his father
>at work. I can imagine: a hot day , one is a
>bit idle and starts to doze ,it is daydreaming
>. In this daydreaming the (cognition of the ) 5
>senses are absorbed in imagination. And there is
>this taking up thoughts/ideas and follow them
>whatever associations comes up).
>Especially children are great in that , immersed
>(or absorbed) in the world of Oz , or Peter Pan , etc.)
>But in the first Jhana, so my
>understanding, the imagination follows a
>intended direction (diskursive thinking) , a
>selection of associations occur and we note the
>most important factor , the pleasant feeling (of piti , rapture ).
>
>By the focus on this pleasant feeling , the
>activity of thinking (vitakka-vicara )is
>diminishing , it becomes absorbed within the
>feeling ... and by that the 2nd Jhana applies....
>
>with Metta Dieter