I prefer “sense-bases”, but don’t have a problem with “sensory fields”. I prefer to just say that stuff arises at them, since I think the idea of “transfer” adds unnececessary complications, eg what exactly is being transferred?
It would be an “unecessary complication”, if one did not have to understand the importance of the restraint of the indriya (again see note at bottom - * - JustPaste.it) .
In which case, knowing exactly what is transfered, and how to restrain it, takes all its importance.
I have noticed that the “feel without restraint and juddgment” crowd, have their way to occult that fact by any means; even bad faith (when it comes to realize a mere obvious fact).
The simile of the lute (and the bull fond of barley), is a pretty straightforward example. SN 35.246
Nevermind. You are entitled to your position.
Metta.
Sense door feels a better fit for me as if that ‘door’ is closed, just the presence of a stimulus won’t be registered. The Buddha even said the sense door must be focused in the direction of the stimulus and be working.
Also it must be able to ‘arise and pass away’. Sense organ or base feels more static and fields of experience seems too fleeting for its obvious associations with the physical body.
There maybe a better term for it; best to experience it: seeing only, in the seeing, hearing only in the hearing, etc.
With metta
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Could you give a practical example? For example, if we are looking at a Picasso painting, exactly what “properties” would we want to “restrain”?
I’m concerned that you have characterised a different method of practice as “bad faith”. I think it is really about different approaches to Right Effort, what to accept and what to change.
It’s all transient, though to me the sense-bases feel more stable than sense-objects. In other words it is the transience of sense-objects I really notice, the stuff that continually arises and ceases “at” the sense-bases.
I suppose you could infer easily from the following extracts (all with parallels), what has to be restrained; and how:
https://justpaste.it/1ix7f
Only one experience can be experienced at a time. It will pass away before giving rise to yet another. Two cannot exist in the same space, as per the experience of vipassana. Sense organs cannot arise and pass away, moment to moment, only something fleeting can do that.
with metta
Sorry, but I find your notes quite hard to follow. Could you try to answer my question directly?
It could be that the first experience of opening the eyes is phassa, which doesn’t have a sense of feeling (vedana) in it. Vedana (especially pleasant and unpleasant vedana) arises later. I would think only one feeling would arise per stimulus. Pleasant feelings give rise to cravings because tilakkhana is missed when observing that feeling. It’s the same for unpleasant feelings and neutral feelings (Anattalakkhana sutta). However if we start a step earlier in the practice we would work with hindrances first (ie craving and aversion) and then go into insight practice looking at anicca, dukkha and anatta of feelings.
Approaching this teaching from another angle - we could say that the main problem with pleasant feelings is that it gives rise to cravings. The main issue with unpleasant feelings is it giving rise to aversion. The main problem with neutral feelings is neither of those, rebut it is that it doesn’t easily show anicca, dukkha and anatta - modern mindfulness doesn’t quite see this either, for neutral feelings hide it very well. The ignorance of permanence, satisfactoriness and self is hardly challenged by mindfulness, hence the requirement of Right view, not to mention using the right method of samadhi which allows us to clearly see arising and passing away.
EBT based vipassana is very helpful, to see what the EBTs mean in the first place.
With metta
@Pasanna writes:
Think in your example of opening the eyes and the delay, the vedanna is at first neutral; in the form of ignorance. Then after the initial ignorance it changes to pleasant/painful.
@Mat writes:
It could be that the first experience of opening the eyes is phassa, which doesn’t have a sense of feeling (vedana) in it. Vedana (especially pleasant and unpleasant vedana) arises later.
Let’s not mix up concepts, or put the cart before the ox.
SN 35.130, as shown here
(the first of the suttas’ extracts) , is pretty straightforward about getting the feeling, (even the all sensory experience of the external khandhas in namarupa nidana (as per SA 298 definition of namarupa),) into the internal ayatanani.
What you feel first, is Picasso’s khandhas, as explained before. This is due to the fact that there is still this “I am” floating around; therefore a descent of the indriya (power/faculty) in the field of sensory experience (ayata’a) that is the “eye”.
SA 553, the parallel to SN 35.130 is also clear about the role of the descent (avakkanti) of the indriya(ni) into the “eye”.
Pasanna is innacurate in saying that vedana is neutral. Because this sensory experience can only be neutral, if there is no descent (avakkanti) of the indriyani. That is to say, no ignorance.
Mat is even more mistaken. For he thinks that feeling (experience - and in this case, sensory experience), comes later on.
This is not what SN35. 30 shows.
“Having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu understands an agreeable feeling thus: ‘Such it is!’ - There is eye-consciousness…
“Idha, gahapati, bhikkhu cakkhunā rūpaṃdisvā ‘manāpaṃ itthetan’ti pajānāticakkhuviññāṇaṃ sukhavedaniyañca.”
THEN
… , and in dependence on a contact to be experienced as pleasant there arises a pleasant feeling.
Phassaṃ paṭicca uppajjati sukhāvedanā.
First, the feeling (sensory experience) of Picasso’s khandhas in namarupa nidana, through the external ayatanani - which experience’s intensity, depends on ignorance (viz. the intensity of the indriya(ni)) - THEN, the internal feeling. The “I am this”.
Mat, I’m not sure about this. Let’s take a simple example of someone eating straight sugar. The taste is sweet and at first pleasant. After a bit more sugar it’s neutral and eat enough and it’d become unpleasant. Yet it’s the same stimulus.
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If you are willing to consider jhanas as without the five senses, it seems to me that the first jhana would be the first place one experiences the absence of 5 of them (out of 6 bases, the remaining one being the mind).
From there, it makes sense to me intellectually, that one could either infer that the mind base is of the same nature, i.e. subject to vanishing like the first 5 – or you could take meditation to the cessation of perception & feeling if you really needed to experientially verify it.
How can you say this when you haven’t even heard my opinion on this matter?
I assure you, I am much more inaccurate and mistaken than Pasanna and Mat!
Correct, but if we think of a simile as in a film where the rim of a car wheel is turning because of how the picture is filmed or captured, it looks like the rim and wheel is turning backwards while the car is moving forwards. This happens when the car is accelerating fast and the sampling frame of the filming is not fast enough to capture the rim before it has moved a great deal. I’m using this simile to explain how our experience is like without samadhi that is directed to seeing in detail the process of perceiving something. It can arise several times on the sweetness of the sugar as the initial object, and be coloured by the previous experience of sugar that arose immediately beforehand, so that the feeling subtly alters each time the process of perceiving happens. Even if we focus on the breath, some advanced meditators experience a fragmented breath, say twenty times a single (in or out) breath. Each fragment is the process of perception starting up again. Each of those fragments, like film frames, create a single breath.
So the transitioning of feelings takes a lot longer and the causal chains would have arisen repeatedly. It is not taking place in the original chain, and that’s why I would say there is a single type of feeling in a given chain.
With metta
Could you elaborate on what you mean by “the right method of samadhi”? Do you mean in the general sense of being concentrated enough to notice, or are you referring to a specific method to develop samadhi?
Samadhi can developed in different ways. It requires a mind free from the five hindrances (most of the time) and the an ability to wield mindfulness in a certain manner.
Monks, these are the four developments of concentration. Which four?
"And what is the development of concentration that, when developed & pursued, leads to the ending of the effluents? There is the case where a monk remains focused on arising & falling away with reference to the five clinging-aggregates: ‘Such is form, such its origination, such its passing away. Such is feeling, such its origination, such its passing away. Such is perception, such its origination, such its passing away. Such are fabrications, such their origination, such their passing away. Such is consciousness, such its origination, such its disappearance.’ AN4.41
See also MN148.
This is essentially the further development of the instructions given to bahiya.
In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.’ In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya. Ud1.1
Starting with each stimulus it is possible to determine each of the five clinging aggregates of each stimulus, in detail, as the example of the opening of the closed eyes show. To see vinnana arising we must let mindfulness pick up sights, sounds, sensations etc sequentially and try to focus in between two stimuli. With further development of concentration the arising of nama-rupa can be determined. Nama-rupa is an initial ‘signal’. It creates vinnana. This then is felt to ‘move’ towards the sense door in which the Nama-rupa arose. The merging of the three is contact (phassa). Feelings, identification and mental fabrications arise sequentially later.
With metta
I’m not sure what you mean by “in between” two stimuli. Could you give a practical example?
I’m not clear what you mean here by the “arising of nama-rupa”. Again, a practical example would be helpful.
I tend to notice fabrications ( sankharas ) arising based on the initial experience of vinnana/vedana/sanna. Is this the sort of thing you mean?
Watching → Hearing
To go from watching something to hearing another thing (for example) watching has to stop and hearing to begin. For hearing to begin, hearing must arise at the ear, giving rise to ear-consciousness, and so on. This means there is a gap before ear consciousness has fully arisen (or at least before contact has fully arisen), after watching has ended. This is what I call the gap (or ‘mind the gap’ perhaps?).
Watching [stop]. sound+ear → Ear consciousness --[experiencing of the sound in non-samadhi state of mind].
Practically this is done in the following manner:
The meditator starts being mindful in the following manner, observing sensory stimuli from all directions:
sounds – sights – sensations – smells etc. one after the next/ only one at a time. Its important not to get caught up with just one stimuli- this will lead into samatha meditation, and samatha meditators habitually do this. They need to shake it off and let mindfulness pick up stimuli naturally. Naturally the mind does this, without any mindfulness. Mindfulness slows down this natural process and allows us to see the details within. It stops this process at contact level with ‘bare awareness’, not letting us get caught up in too many feelings, identifications and fabrications- that would make us loose mindfulness.
With some skill with letting the mindfulness ‘drift’ with the flow of stimuli it starts seeing another phenomenon:
sounds – movement of focus–> sight. movements of focus–>sensation. movement of focus–> sound etc.
This is contact. vinnana fusing with sense base–> contact. fusing with sense base–>contact. etc
At the next level (but much harder) it is possible to see another layer of experience:
Visual stimuli–>movement of focus–>seeing. Sound stimuli–>movement of focus–>hearing. Skin stimuli–> movement of focus–> skin sensation
this is rupa x2 (stimuli+sense base) → specific consciousness–> specific contact.
However even seeing the vinnana level is adequate to make progress in the meditation as it shows the basic pattern of any of these steps.
with metta
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Yes, I regularly switch attention from one sense-base to another, foccusing on that initial “bare” experience and then noticing reactions to it ( though with strong mindfulness it seems like the reactions diminish significantly ).
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This sutta just describes how a diversity of feelings arises in dependence upon a diversity of contacts via the sense bases:
"It is in this way, householder, that in dependence on the diversity of elements there arises the diversity of contacts, and in dependence on the diversity of contacts there arises the diversity of feelings.”
I still think you are complicating something which is actually quite straightforward.
https://suttacentral.net/sn35.130/en/bodhi
That must be it.