Section and paragraph references are to The Long Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Maurice Walshe. All quotations are from this translation unless otherwise stated.
An introductory note on cosmology:
Buddhist cosmology presents a hierarchy of planes of existence or worlds (31 in the Theravada system, but there are minor variations elsewhere). They are divided into 3 levels, which are also referred to as worlds. The first is the world of sense-desires, and consists of 11 planes, including the human world. The second is the Form, or Fine Material, world (16 planes), while the third is the Formless world (4 planes).
The names of these last two divisions indicates a connection with the so-called form (or rupa) jhanas and the formless (arupa) jhanas respectively, and indeed being reborn into these worlds is said to be dependent on having experienced the corresponding jhanic state in a previous existence. This connection between psychology and cosmology raises some questions of interpretation.
1. Are the various planes of existence simply metaphors for mental states, or real realms of existence?
Both. The doctrine of rebirth certainly treats the various worlds as genuine destinations for someone after death, but the description of jhanic states of consciousness also describe the experiences that are said to be had by the beings that inhabit the corresponding world.
2. So should we think of meditators as temporarily "visiting" these worlds during the experience of jhana, or are they experiencing a kind of simulacrum or foretaste of the true experience to be had in these realms?
I don't know whether any sources address this question specifically, but I suspect it's a moot point. The important thing about these worlds is not their physical description or location, but the mental states available to those within them. If you are experiencing, say, the first jhana during meditation, then you are experiencing the kind of mental states and experiences that are characteristic of beings in the worlds that correspond to the first jhana. The experience is what matters, whatever your view of where the mind goes during meditation or the physical reality of the heavenly planes of existence.
3. What came first, the cosmology or the psychology? That is, did early Buddhists invent heavenly realms to correspond to their meditative experiences, or did they apply the description of those experiences to a pre-existing cosmological scheme?
Presumably the final description of the 31 planes of existence and the systematising of Buddhist meditation developed alongside one another over time, but it would be interesting to be able to piece together the precise course of this development insofar as this is possible with the evidence available to us.
4. Why was the experience of jhana chosen as the major organising principle of the cosmological hierarchy? Why not other meditative, spiritual, intellectual, or ethical attainments?
Once again I can't give a detailed historical answer to this question, but again we can see the importance of the possibilities of mental experience in this cosmological picture. One does not get to the two higher worlds of existence by increasing wisdom or ethical conduct alone, for wisdom and morality are both compatible with lives of great joy or of great suffering, and everything in between. The point of the hierarchy of Buddhist worlds is that as one moves up through its various levels, one's experience becomes more and more joyful and peaceful - the possibility of suffering becomes more and more attenuated - until one escapes the cycle of rebirth and eliminates the possibility of suffering entirely.
Since my interest in these notes is in mythology and ancient cosmology, I will be referencing passages that talk about the Buddhist world system in those terms. I will not be considering passages that explicitly deal with Buddhist psychology or meditation techniques, and I will be taking mythological and cosmological descriptions at face value without trying to give them a psychological or spiritual interpretation.
LITERARY CONTEXT:
This sutta is introduced with the wanderer Supiyya, and his disciple Brahmadatta, following along the same road as the Buddha and his disciples. Although they are not deliberately accompanying the Buddha but simply taking the same road, Brahmadatta has apparently been impressed by the Buddha, his teachings and his followers, and praises and defends them against Supiyya's attacks. The effect of this opening is to stress the harmony of the Buddhist sangha, in comparison to the dissension between Supiyya and his pupil. It also subtly highlights the superiority of the Buddha's teachings, as Brahmadatta, in the presence of his own teacher, is won over by them simply by spending some time in the Buddha's vicinity during his travels.
The praise and censure that the Buddha receives from Brahmadatta and Supiyya lead into the teaching section of the sutta. The Buddha begins by discussing the correct response one should have towards praise and criticism, and goes on to discuss why the Dharma is appropriately deserving of praise by contrasting it with 62 incorrect views that it refutes and corrects.
The discourse then continues on to the end of the sutta, with no closing narrative.
COSMOLOGY & SUPERNATURAL BEINGS:
The Abhassara World; the Brahma Palace; Contraction and Expansion of the Cosmos:
When the universe begins to contract, beings are mostly reborn in the Abhassara Brahma world (2.2). After expansion begins, an empty "palace of Brahma" (meaning the Mahabrahma world that had been destroyed in the contraction phase) appears. Beings are described as falling from the Abhassara world to the Brahma palace, and some of them then falling to our world (2.3-6).
Inhabitants of Abhassara World:
They are described as "mind-made", and as "feeding on delight" (piti) (2.2).
The Great Brahma:
He arises in a newly arisen Brahma world during the expansion of the cosmos, having fallen from the Abhassara world. After more beings arise in the Brahma world, he is deluded into thinking that he has created them. He comes to believe that he is the all-powerful Creator god (2.2-5).
Devas:
The devas known as "Corrupted by Pleasure" fall from their state "by the dissipation of mindfulness" (2.7). The devas known as "Corrupted in Mind" fall through becoming "weary in body and mind" (2.10). The devas known as "Unconscious" fall from their state as soon as perception arises in them (2.31).
World-systems:
At the close of the buddha's sermon, the "ten-thousand world-system" is said to have shaken (3.74).
The (In)finitude of the Cosmos:
The Buddha declares as wrong views (1) that the world is finite, (2) that the world is infinite, (3) that the world is both finite and infinite, and (4) that the world is neither finite nor infinite (22.16-21). The first 3 of these views are said to be reached through the experience of different levels of jhana meditation.
METAPHYSICS:
Recalling past lives:
Up to many hundreds of thousands of past lives can be recalled (1.31).
Examples given of gaining the ability to recall one's immediate past life, but no previous lives (2.6, 2.8, 2.11)
Causes of Rebirth:
The devas known as "Corrupted by Pleasure" fall from their state "by the dissipation of mindfulness" (2.7). The devas known as "Corrupted in Mind" fall through becoming "weary in body and mind" (2.10). The devas known as "Unconscious" fall from their state as soon as perception arises in them (2.31).
Beings are described as falling from the Abhassara world to the Brahma palace "from exhaustion of [their] life-span or of [their] merits" (2.3).
The Eternality of the Self and the Cosmos:
This incorrect view can be reached by having knowledge of past lives, and subsequently inferring that the self persists eternally through all its transmigrations (1.31). It may also be reached by achieving knowledge of past periods of contraction and expansion of the cosmos, and inferring that the cosmos therefore persists eternally (1.32, 1.33). Or it may be reached by spurious logical reasoning (1.34).
Another incorrect view holds that Brahma is eternal, but that the self is not eternal (2.6), or that some devas are eternal but the self is not eternal (2.9, 2.12), or that the senses and the body are not eternal, but that there is an eternal self that consists of the mind or consciousness (2.13).
The Arising of the Self and the Cosmos:
The Buddha denounces as wrong the view that the self and the world arise by chance (2.31-32).
The Self After Death:
The Buddha declares as wrong views various conceptions of the self as having a conscious existence after death (2.38), of the self as having an unconscious existence after death (3.2), and of the self as having a neither-conscious-nor-unconscious existence after death (3.6).
Annihilationism:
The Buddha declares as wrong views various conceptions of annihilationism, ie. that the self is completely destroyed at death. The first version of this view holds that the self is identical to the physical body that is destroyed at death (3.10), while the rest hold to some version of a spiritual self, each of which is associated with different meditative experiences (3.11-16).
The Buddha declares as wrong views various conceptions of annihilationism, ie. that the self is completely destroyed at death. The first version of this view holds that the self is identical to the physical body that is destroyed at death (3.10), while the rest hold to some version of a spiritual self, each of which is associated with different meditative experiences (3.11-16).
Nibbana:
The Buddha declares as wrong views various conceptions of nibbana here-and-now; namely, that nibbana is to be identified with sensual pleasure, or with one of the four jhanas (3.19.25).
ETHICS:
The Buddha is said to refrain from "damaging seeds and crops" (1.10). The next paragraph elaborates: the Buddha refrains from the destruction of plants that are "propagated from roots, from stems, from joints, from cuttings, from seeds" (1.11). This would seem to distinguish them from food plants that grow wild, and so do not require human cultivation, but what the ethical significance of this is I am not sure. The following paragraph also notes the Buddha's abstention from food and drink that has been "stored up" (1.12), so again the point may be that monks should subsist on unneeded leftovers rather than goods requiring special resources.
The Buddha refrains from watching or performing dance, music, singing, or shows. The context is a passage that also disparages practices that involve greed or luxury (1.10, 1.13).
The Buddha exhorts monks and ascetics against metaphysical and philosophical speculation (eg. "talk about being and non-being"), and against debate and disputation (1.17-18).
The Buddha exhorts monks and ascetics against all kinds of magic and divinatory arts (1.21-27). Poetry and philosophising are condemned alongside divinatory arts (1.25), and many medical practices are also condemned (1.27). The point would seem to be that these practices do not constitute right livelihood, and are not to be practiced for gain or reward, not that they are wrong in and of themselves.
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