This is fascinating, especially in light of the newest post about sankhāra.
Lal said:
“– I think vaci sankhara cease in the second or third jhana. Kaya sankhara cease in the fourth jhana. All sankhara cease to exist with the ceasing of mano sankhara (with vedana and sanna) when entering Nirodha Samapatti at the highest jhana (nevasanna na sannayatana)”
It looks like for ariya jhana, the higher the jhana, the more things cease. And “things” here mean cetasikā, I suppose.
We learned elsewhere here that vaci sankhara is vitakka/vicara. So the vitakka and vicara cetasikā cease at the second or third jhana. Then more and more cetasikā cease, until finally the vedana and sanna cetasikā (mano sankhara) also cease, leading to Nirodha Samapatti.
We’ve also learned that Nirodha Samapatti can last a maximum of 7 days. From this I speculate that the physical body on its own can stay alive for 7 days without the Jīvitindriya cetasika?
Best,
Lang