From: Dmytro Ivakhnenko
Message: 4401
Date: 2015-09-02
> Here's the controversial thing, which I think Ven
Buddhoghosa himself wasn't sure of what jhana
really is. I suspect that he was getting
different ideas about this, and end up with these
seemingly precise yet deficient and muddled ideas.
Evidently, Ven. Buddhaghosa collected into his book many different opinions, which don't always agree. For example, besides the examples of 'nimitta' as various visual images, Vissuddhimagga has a following passage about 'nimitta':
"But it has neither colour nor shape; for if it had, it would be cognizable by the eye, gross, susceptible of comprehension and stamped with the three characteristics. But it is not like that. For it is born only of perception in one who has obtained concentration, being a mere mode of appearance."
Tañca kho pana neva vaṇṇavantaṁ，na saṇṭhānavantaṁ，yadi hi taṁ īdisaṁ bhaveyya, cakkhu-viññeyyaṁ siyā oḷārikam sammasanūpagaṁ tilakkhaṇabbhāhata
ṁ. Na pan' etaṁ tādisaṁ, kevalam hi samādhi-lābhino upaṭthānākāramattaṁ：-saññajam etanti".
Visuddhimagga IV.31 (126)
In this case Visuddhimagga probably borrows the phrase from Vimuttimagga:
"To the yogin who attends to the incoming breath with mind that is cleansed of the nine lesser defilements the image arises with a pleasant feeling similar to that which is produced in the action of spinning cotton or silk cotton. Also, it is likened to the pleasant feeling produced by a breeze. Thus in breathing in and out, air touches the nose or the lip and causes the setting-up of air perception mindfulness. This does not depend on colour or form. This is called the image. If the yogin develops the image [sign] and increases it at the nose-tip, between the eyebrows, on the forehead or establishes it in several places, he feels as if his head were filled with air. Through increasing in this way his whole body is charged with bliss. This is called perfection."
(Mindfulness of Respiration. Procedure, pp.158-159)
In Mohavicchedani (Mya: .161) we read:
"Samathova taṁ ākāraṁ gahetvā puna pavattetabbassa samathassa nimittanti samathanimittaṁ."
"The representation of calm (samatha) is a representation used to produce calm again when one has already learnt the appearance of calm."
Such attunement to representation of samadhi is described in Upakkilesa and Gavi suttas:
http://awake.kiev.ua/dhamma/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/2Majjhima-Nikaya/Majjhima3/128-upakkilesa-e.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an09/an09.035.than.html
The principle of recognition is applied in the practice of samadhi, when practitioner reaches the jhana again with the help of learnt representation of it.
So, Visuddhimagga, being an encyclopedia of collected knowledge, doesn't always support jhanas without physical perception and with visual images as nimittas - as sometimes pictured in modern Internet texts.
Metta,
Dmytro