[upekkha100]

This is one meaning given for piti:
“rapture, enthusiasm (rendered also by joy, happiness); interest it is one of the mental factors or concomitants (cetasika) and belongs to the group of mental formations (sankhāra-kkhandha). As, in sutta texts, it is often linked in a compound word. with ‘gladness’ (pāmojja) or ‘happiness’ (sukha), some Western translations have wrongly taken it as a synonym of these two terms. Pīti, however, is not a feeling or a sensation, and hence does not belong to the feeling-group (vedanā-kkhandha), but may be described psychologically as ‘joyful interest’. As such it may be associated with wholesome as well as with unwholesome and neutral states of consciousness.”

I don’t understand it fully yet.

Questions:
1) Piti is defined as rapture/enthusiasm, but enthusiasm about what?

2) Is the above correct, can piti go in three directions(wholesome, unwholesome, neutral)?

3) What is the difference among: piti(enthusiasm), pamojja(gladness), and sukha(happiness)? The above says they are not synonymous.

4)What is piti’s relation to jhana?

[Lal]

This was explained in a previous topic:
On the Vibhaṅgasutta – About the 4 Jhanas

When one does insight mediation, one first gets to samadhi, and eventually gets to the Arahanthood, as described in the Upanisa Sutta (SN 12.23):

“..With the comprehension of suffering (i.e., the First Noble Truth via Tilakkhana) faith results; with the growth of faith, lightness of mind (pāmojjaṃ) arises; with increasing lightness of mind, joy (piti) arises; with increasing joy, lightness of the body (passaddhi) arises; with increasing passaddhi, bodily sukha arises; with increasing bodily sukha, samādhi arises; with samādhi, yathābhūtañāṇadassana (knowledge and vision of things as they really are) arises; with the knowledge and vision of things as they really are, one loses attachment to worldly things (nibbidā), followed by losing cravings for sense pleasures (viragā), and liberation (vimutti), and to the destruction of all defilements (khayeñāṇaṃ)”.

Now, jhana may be attained anytime around the step, “with increasing passaddhi, bodily sukha arises“.
– One may proceed all the way to Arahanthood without getting to jhanas.
That is from my earlier post.

This piti is different from mundane joy. It comes from the mind “being released” from kāma assāda.

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