Why Did the Buddha Remember the First Jhāna, Not the Highest Meditation?

— Exploring the Background of “Why Should I Fear That Pleasure?” (Part 1)

This article is presented in two parts.

Reference: Ven. Dr. Madawela Punnaji, Ariya Magga Bhavana: The Sublime Eightfold Way, Level I·II·III; Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN36)

Lately, I found myself struggling with a quiet, restless irritation.

From experience, I know that a kind of indefinable emotion like this cannot be handled by bare awareness alone. I stepped away from my meditation seat and reached for an early Buddhist text. As I turned the pages, a story I had been vaguely turning over in my mind came back to me.

It is the well-known account of the Buddha abandoning six years of severe asceticism and recalling the joy of the first jhāna he had experienced as a child. The question is: why did the Buddha recall the first jhāna — not the highest formless attainment, the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception — as the gateway to awakening?

Part 1 explores why the Buddha recalled the first jhāna he experienced in childhood, rather than the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception.

Part 2 will focus on the famous line, “Why should I fear the pleasure that arises apart from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?” — and examine what the Buddha was reconsidering in that moment.

These two questions may seem separate, but they are deeply connected.

1 | The Bodhisatta Who Had Reached the Highest Meditation

It is well known that before his awakening, the Buddha trained under two distinguished meditation masters.

Under Āḷāra Kālāma, he attained the sphere of nothingness (ākiñcaññāyatana). Under Uddaka Rāmaputta, he went on to attain the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana).

These are considered to have been the highest attainments within the meditative systems of the time.

Yet the Buddha was not satisfied.

According to the sutta, he concluded:

“This Dhamma does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna.”

And so he departed from that path.

A question arises here.

If the Buddha had already experienced the highest level of meditative attainment, why did he not seek awakening as an extension of that path?

Why was it that after six years of asceticism, what he recalled was the first jhāna — experienced in childhood — rather than something higher?

2 | A Memory Beneath a Rose-Apple Tree

The Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN36) records the moment when, in the midst of the impasse of his asceticism, the Buddha recalled an experience from his early childhood.

During his father’s royal ploughing ceremony, he had sat alone in the shade of a rose-apple tree. Naturally, without effort, his mind grew calm and he entered the first jhāna.

Recalling this, the Buddha asked himself:

“Why should I fear that pleasure?”

What I want to draw attention to here is that it was the first jhāna — not the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception — that arose in his memory.

3 | Is the First Jhāna a Lower State?

In samatha meditation, the general sequence is:

First jhāna → Second jhāna → Third jhāna → Fourth jhāna → Formless attainments

This framing makes the first jhāna appear to be merely a starting point.

But this view alone cannot explain the significance of the Buddha recalling the first jhāna.

If depth of concentration were all that mattered, then the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception should have been closest to awakening. Yet that was not what happened.

There seems to be an important clue hidden here.

4 | The Difference Between the First Jhāna and the Formless Attainments

In the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception — the highest formless attainment — cognitive activity has become extremely subtle.

It is a very still state, but one might also say it is a state in which there is almost nothing left to observe.

The first jhāna, by contrast, retains joy and pleasure, and awareness of an object is preserved. At the same time, the five hindrances — desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt — have grown still.

In other words, it is a state of “awareness present, but reactivity stilled.”

Venerable Punnaji explains this character of the first jhāna in practical terms: when the five hindrances are stilled, the mind can observe an object without being driven by emotional reactions. It is the first state in which a genuine transition from reaction to response becomes possible.

If wisdom arises through the accurate observation of reality, then this state — in which awareness is retained while reactivity has quieted — carries a profound significance.

5 | What Did the Buddha Rediscover?

What is important to note here is that the Buddha had not forgotten the first jhāna.

Having reached the formless attainments under his teachers, it seems highly plausible, given the early Buddhist meditative framework, that he had also practiced the first jhāna as its starting point.

If so, what he recalled was not the existence of the first jhāna, but its meaning.

The sutta continues with words to this effect:

“Why have I been shrinking from the pleasure that arises apart from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?”

In other words, the Buddha had begun to reconsider the very premise of his ascetic practice — the assumption that pleasure is an obstacle to the path.

6 | A Turning Toward the Middle Way

Asceticism is a path that seeks liberation through the intensification of suffering.

Indulgence in sensual pleasure is a path that pursues gratification.

The Buddha had fully experienced both.

And what he ultimately discovered was the Middle Way.

What is striking is that this concept of the Middle Way seems to apply not only to method and lifestyle, but to the condition of the mind itself.

Neither a mind swept away by desire and emotional reaction, nor a mind in which cognitive activity has nearly disappeared. A mind that is still, yet capable of observation.

The first jhāna, understood this way, may represent precisely such a condition.

Venerable Punnaji defines this Middle Way in Level II:

“Avoiding the two extremes of indulgence in sensual pleasure (kāma sukhallikānu yoga) and self-mortification (atta kilamatānu yoga), the Buddha pointed to a medial way of dealing with the emotions — not expressing them in action, nor suppressing them, but learning to relax the body and calm the mind. This is the Middle Way.”

When the Buddha recalled the first jhāna at the end of his ascetic years, the direction he turned toward was precisely this: not the path of increasing suffering, not the return to sensual pleasure, not the pursuit of heights where cognition dissolves — but the path of cultivating the conditions for wisdom through the relaxation of body and the stilling of mind.

7 | Closing Thoughts

Why did the Buddha recall the first jhāna in childhood, rather than the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception?

The sutta does not offer a definitive answer.

But at the very least, the Buddha appears to have made a shift — away from seeking higher meditative states and toward observing the structure of suffering.

If that is so, the first jhāna is not merely a lower rung on a ladder.

It was, perhaps, the first stable condition in which wisdom could function — and it held a special significance for precisely that reason.

And what the Buddha recalled may not have been the childhood experience itself, but the direction toward awakening that was contained within it.

Part 2 will take this inquiry further, examining the line:

“Why should I fear the pleasure that arises apart from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?”

Did the Buddha truly “fear” that pleasure? Or might the word carry a different meaning?

Using this single sentence as a clue, I hope to explore the moment the Middle Way was born.

Reference: Ven. Dr. Madawela Punnaji, Ariya Magga Bhavana: The Sublime Eightfold Way, Level I·II·III. Buddhist Maha Vihara, Kuala Lumpur. Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN36)