216: Form Sphere Consciousness (Rūpāvacara Citta)

In this episode, we explore Form Sphere Consciousness (Rūpāvacara Citta)—the refined states of mind that arise through deep concentration meditation. The talk explains how practicing one of the forty subjects of samatha (tranquility) meditation leads to the development of jhana and rebirth in the form-sphere Brahma realms.

You will learn about the fifteen types of form-sphere consciousness—five wholesome, five resultant, and five functional—and how each relates to jhana attainment. The episode clarifies the difference between fourfold and fivefold jhana systems, explains why some meditators experience four jhanas while others experience five, and describes how jhana factors are gradually refined and eliminated.

A detailed overview of the forty meditation objects is also presented, including kasina meditation, contemplation of impurity, mindfulness practices, the four divine abidings (brahmavihāras), breath meditation, and formless meditations. Each object is explained in terms of which jhanas it can produce and which mental defilements it counteracts.

This episode offers a comprehensive map of samatha meditation, showing how concentration leads to higher states of consciousness—while also reminding listeners that liberation (Nibbāna) ultimately comes through vipassanā insight.

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Transcript

Sayar Myat: 0:01

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa, Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Theravada Buddhism series, Dhamma talk number thirty-nine. Form sphere consciousness. Rūpāvacara citta. Practicing one of the forty subjects of concentration meditation given in the scriptures produce form sphere or fine material sphere consciousness. There is fifteen form sphere consciousness. Five are wholesome, five resultant, and five functional. Altogether fifteen. The five kinds of jhana consciousness with wholesome kamma producing actions are called five wholesome form sphere consciousness. Rūpāvacara kusala citta. What it means is in the last talk we have discussed the five kinds of jhanas and five kinds of jhana consciousness. Those jhana consciousness, but this one is particular, it is the action-oriented doing. That's why it's called wholesome kamma producing actions. Because of that, we just add the word wholesome in front of the form sphere consciousness. These five mainly arise in Brahma of form sphere. However, it can also occur in the mind of a human yogi in sense sphere who has attained jhana. Mainly these consciousness are very prevalent in Brahma Realm find material sphere Brahma Realm. But sometime in sense sphere, humans who are practicing Samatha meditation when they attain jhana, in those people it arises as well. Only a few of course. The next one. The first one is wholesome from sphere consciousness. The next one is resultant from sphere consciousness. Rūpāvacara vippaka citta is the identical result of the wholesome form sphere consciousness. Wholesome form sphere is the action cause. So it has result. The results are resultant form sphere consciousness. But their qualities are identical except that one is cause and another one is effect. If a person with the first to the fifth jhana, whichever one who has attained those things in a human realm dies, with those jhana intact. The resultant consciousness or rebirth consciousness of Brahma is also the first to the fifth resultant from consciousness. They have the identical result, that's all. But it is a human who practice in sense sphere realm die. With that jhana intact, we will be born as a Brahma in Brahma Realm with the rebirth or relinking consciousness, which is identical to what he had attained. The five wholesome form sphere consciousness will produce the five resultant form sphere consciousness. I'm repeating again and again because the words are very close. One thing we need to know about this resultant consciousness is it only arises in the world of Brahma. This resultant consciousness does not arise in any other sphere except the world of Brahma or form sphere. The next one is the five functional form sphere consciousness, Rūpāvacara kiriya citta, mainly arises in the Brahma of the form sphere, who has attained Arahatta Maga. So this consciousness is quite special. It's a form sphere consciousness, but it is the kiriya, functional consciousness. It arises in Brahma, but that Brahma must have already attained Arahantship. Brahma with Arahantship quality will have that kind of consciousness. Of course, these consciousness also occur in Buddha, silence Buddha, and also Arahants in a human realm who practice concentration meditation and attain first to the fifth jhana. There are ordinary arahants who does not have jhana, they don't practice concentration meditation, but there are some arahants who practice together with or before or after the attainment of Arahantship. Those arahant has that kind of citta. What is it? Rūpāvacara kiriya citta. Form sphere functional consciousness. So those are the fifteen form sphere consciousness. Five wholesome, five resultant, and five functional. In the scripture, one noticed four types of jhana and also five types of jhana. That can make one confused. Sometimes it's at four, sometimes it's at five. Why? Vitaka and vichara. Initial application and sustained application. Two jhana factors. Disappear in one stroke. In other words, they disappear both at once together. In the fourfold method, we call it a fourfold method. In fourfold method, initial application and sustained application disappear or are eliminated together with one stroke or at the same time. An individual whose concentration and wisdom are powerful can eliminate the first two jhana factors in one moment at one time. So as they eliminate both at the same time, in that process they are only four jhanas. They are only four jhanas. So that's why you see the word four jhanas. And when you see the word five jhanas, this is what happened. We call it the fivefold method. In the five-fold method, jhana factors are eliminated one by one. As there are five jhana factors, so you have to eliminate five times. Because of that, in the fivefold method, there are five jhanas. In other words, initial applications eliminated. Next, sustained application eliminated. Fivefold method. In fourfold method, both initial and sustained application are eliminated together for those who have strong concentration and wisdom. So that's a bit of information that is good to know. Now let's go to the 40 objects of concentration meditation. When you're practicing samatha concentration meditation, there are 40 objects to choose from, to choose from. So the first tens are four elements, four colors, space and light. So you observed closely the earth, the physical earth you can choose. Or you can substitute a disc of clay about 9-10 inches in diameter, paint it earthy red color to represent the earth. So that's your little personal earth disc you can take along with you anywhere you go, and then you can put it at a suitable place, which is about if you're sitting slightly lower than the eye, about a yard or a meter distance. You hang it up there and you stare at it, look at it. And when you look at it, you look only at that object. Exclusive of. In Pali, Ugahat Nimitta, Grab Sign. Then after that you keep observing the Grab sign, the mental image again and again and again till that image becomes bright and flawless counterpart sign. Pati bhagat nimitta. What it is a grab sign, you see the mental image is exactly as the physical one that you had made with all the flaws, unevenness, uneven in color, everything exact duplicate. That is the grub sign. But in the counterpart sign, that this is there, but it is flawless, you can't see any flaw, and it is bright and shining, not bright and bright, nicely bright, and you got that Patibhaga Nimitta. And you keep observing that Patibhaga Nimitta and then jhana arise. That's how one observes. And those are called Kasina. Those ten objects are kasina, objects that one has to look very closely, very, very closely, exclusively, but nothing else. So example is the Earth disk, but all the nine objects, the remaining nine objects, similarly, one need to observe in the same nature. The next two Kasina objects are space and light. Space and light. These four elements, space and light, six of them, those if you observe or meditate on these objects, it eliminates dosa (anger), raga (lust), moha (delusion), vitaka (initial application) and also it develops sadha and buddhi. So these six objects are wind, fire, water, disk, space and light. They eliminate those six sarita. And the following four kasina, the color one. You can paint a little disc of color, circle of color. But the colors are dark blue, red, yellow, and white. Only four. And you observe the same way as you observe the earth sign. And these color they can eliminate dosa from you. Only dosa. The other six are sarita. So, four plus two six, six plus four color, ten. Those ten, all tens are called kasina meditation. Those kasina meditation can give you the first to the fifth jhana. Up to you how. And how much you try. The first to the fifth jhana. Ten Kasina. The earth kasina is quite popular with the yogis. So the ten the second group of ten objects represent the ten stages of decomposition of a corpse, of a dead body. And Pali is called asuba meditation. It is suitable for people who have great raga, lust and sense desire. For those people, this is specially constructed to subdue the high intensity of raga in the person. It eliminates kamma raga, lust and sense desire. It can produce first jhana only. You can't go to second, third, fourth, only fast jhana. Because the object one is observing is the corpse. So it is a very gross object. As it is very gross, one needs to repeatedly apply the mind towards the object. Initial application. For that reason, one cannot go over vitakkathat. So first jhana only. You can't eliminate vitakka. The third group consists of ten objects of mindfulness. Sati. Ten objects of mindfulness. And they are mindfulness of Buddha quality, Dhamma quality, Sangha quality, Buddha Dhamma Sangha, Sila morality, saga, habits, and practice and deva. Also you mindful of the deva quality. And these produce saddha. It builds faith and confidence in you. And the next one is, I'll skip the Pali word. What it means is imagine peacefulness of nibbana. We don't know what nibbana is. We don't know how peaceful it is, how blissful it is. And factually, so we have to imagine so peaceful it is, so blissful it is. You contemplate again and again with your imagination of what nibbana is like. That is one method. Another method is marana sati, contemplation of death. These two develops buddhi. And those eight. The first six- Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, Sila, Saga, Deva, Imagine Nibbana, and Death. Those eight do not give rise to any jhana. Because the qualities of Buddhas are so deep you can't fathom it. And you have so many things to think about, contemplate about. So you cannot really establish jhana. But they are good for kusala. So those are the eight types of mindfulness that does not produce any type of jhana. Another one is kayagata sati. Basically contemplating on the 32 parts of one's body. It eliminates raga. Lust and sense desire. People who have strong lust. Pick up this one just to counteract it. And again, produce the first jhana. That's a ninth type of mindfulness. And the tenth mindfulness type for concentration meditation is anapana sati, in-breath, out-breath meditation. It eliminates Moha delusion and vitakka initial application. It can give rise to the first to the fifth jhana. And the next group is four appamanya. In other words, the full noble abidings. Brahmaviharas, the four nobles abiding. Of course, everybody knows they are Metta, loving kindness, karuna, compassion, mudita, sympathetic joy. Those three eliminates dosa and it can give rise to the first to the fourth jhana. First to fourth, not fifth. And the last of the noble abiding is upekka equanimity. Upekka eliminates dosa completely and produce the fifth jhana. It can produce only the fifth, not one, two, three, four. So one must practice loving kindness or compassion to attain one to fourth jhana. And after that you practice equanimity to attain the fifth jhana. So these are the four noble abiding groups. The next group is a standalone one called saññā perception. You d contemplate on the perception of the repulsiveness of food. Basically mean it means observing or observation of the four great elements. Both techniques develop Buddhi and they don't have any access to jhana. And the last group is fo Arupa. Basically, it is the formless meditation. Arupa is formless, non-material, no material. In short, one meditates or contemplates on the infinity of space, infinity of consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. Those contemplations of the four different conceptual mental object give rise to the full Arupa Jhana, formless jhana. These four eliminates all these six kinds of habits. Raga, Dosa, moha, Vitakka and develops saddha and buddhi. So if you summarize it, you will see that there are forty meditation objects for concentration meditation. And out of that forty, ten of them cannot give rise to any jhana. And eleven can produce first jhana. Three give rise to the first to the fourth jhana. And twelve give rise to fifth jhana. The four non-material objects give rise to non-material jhana or immaterial jhana. So those are the short enumerations of the forty subjects of concentration meditation. One may pick an object which is suitable for you or what you like and practice. These are all for concentration meditation samatha. May this information will be helpful for you in understanding samatha meditation as well as vipassana meditation and their goals and objectives and what kind of consciousness. In this case, jhana consciousness arises in form sphere Brahma realm. And if one desire for that, then one must practice these. But this is not the release from all form of suffering. Liberation, Nibbana. Only vipassana can give that objective nibbana. May all of you be able to practice mindfulness insight meditation and attain nibbana as soon as possible. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu. Thank you very much.