Feeling pain: what is it, who feels it

Discussion
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The confusion is linguistic, it can be clarified by reference to personal experience.

The pali for pain is dukkha. The pali for suffering is Dukkha. The listener needs to differentiate between the two based on context. :person_shrugging:

Hindi as one of the daughter languages of Pali uses the same word in much the same way. There is a famous advertisement from the 80’s for a pain balm where the child, pointing at a red twisted ankle tells the mother “Ma, dukh raha hai!” (Ma, its paining) And then there is the advertisement in which the person upset over an electricity bill from an airconditioner is asked “Kyon duhkhi ho rahe ho?” (Why are you upset?). One is physical, the other is mental.

As a young man, my first few months in military training were hell. Endless hours of gruelling physical workouts, intensive theory classes, sleepless nights… I suffered greatly. The mind was dark, the mood sullen. It was torture simply to haul the body around. But then something peculiar happened. One day, my mind simply gave up. I stopped fighting, I simply accepted orders and did what had to be done. An unexpected freedom opened up. The forced route marches were still physically painful… but there was no more suffering. I could view bodily pain with detachment. The mind was light, the mood joyful… so much so that I actually look back at those days fondly. :joy:

Physical pain is one thing, Suffering another.

Circling back to the suttas. Aging is described as dukkha. But what aspect of aging is dukkha? Grey hair, wrinkles, diminished vision, diminished hearing, tremors… none of these are physically painful. But suffering? That can be out of all proportion.

Similarly, there are illnesses which are not in the least painful. A painless Death can be ensured. Yet, people suffer.

Pleasurable (and also neutral) feeling, pleasurable sense experiences, pleasurable thoughts… these are all understood by the Arahant as having an intrinsic nature of Suffering- if attached to. The cessation of craving and attachment brings about an immediate end to that suffering. If it was not so, if pleasurable (and neutral) feelings, sense experiences and thoughts were to be experienced as suffering in and of themselves, then enlightenment would cause an increase in suffering for the Arahant as compared to the putthujana (who has only painful feelings to suffer from!). From this it can be understood that painful feeling, painful sense experiences and painful thoughts too are not suffering in and of themselves- they are suffering only if attached to (in the sense of wanting them gone).

The cessation of rebirth happens as a natural consequence of not being attached to the aggregates - hence the focus on parinibbana is unwarranted. The primary goal is to do away with ignorance and craving right here and right now.

The Buddha promised us freedom from Suffering. Immediately effective… to be personally experienced by the wise. Nibbana, here and now.

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I’d say it’s more than linguistic differences.
There’s agreement that mental reactivity, such as desiring, aversion, and ignorance, and identification with conditional experiences like vedanā have ceased after awakening.
Lots of dukkha gone.

At the same time dukkha dukkhatā, one of the three forms of dukkha remains because the senses and aggregates are still present and functioning.
Recoiling from pain, even when it’s not identified as “mine” or with an equanimous mind, is still a form of dukkha that’s directly experienced and which cannot be avoided until the aggregates and senses cease without rebirth.

Which has less dukkha: one in which there are no conditions at all, no experiences at all? Or one in which the mind feels light but sheer pain is still experienced?
Physical discomfort is still a form of dukkha that cannot cease until existence ceases.

SN5.10:
" This is just a pile of conditions, you won’t find a sentient being here.

When the parts are assembled we use the word ‘chariot’. So too, when the aggregates are present ‘sentient being’ is the convention we use.

But it’s only suffering that comes to be, lasts a while, then expires. Naught but suffering comes to be, naught but suffering ceases.”

SN12.32:
" ‘Reverends, there are three feelings. ‘tisso kho imā, āvuso, vedanā.What three? Katamā tisso?Pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling. Sukhā vedanā, dukkhā vedanā, adukkhamasukhā vedanā.These three feelings are impermanent, Imā kho, āvuso, tisso vedanā aniccā.and what’s impermanent is suffering. Yadaniccaṁ taṁ dukkhanti
Same for all the khandhas.
Also as in SN22.10

Finally, Sabbe sankhārā dukkhā.

The Buddha spoke about the cessation of conditional existence as the complete ending of dukkha.

:folded_hands:

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An interesting sutta, SN 22.57:

Feeling originates from contact.

When contact ceases, feeling ceases.

The practice that leads to the cessation of feelings is simply this noble eightfold path […]

So, phassanirodha-vedananirodha are what the practice leads to. As if the goal is phassanirodha-vedananirodha-otheraggregatenirodha, or else why would the Buddha be talking about the goal of the practice in this context? The text continues:

The pleasure and happiness that arise from feeling: this is its gratification .

That feeling is impermanent, suffering, and perishable: this is its drawbac k.

Removing and giving up desire and greed for feeling: this is its esca pe.

Some questions arise here. If feeling is suffering, then any kind of feeling is suffering, pleasant, neutral and unpleasant, so every experience is suffering, and not only that, but it has 5 layers of suffering, since the other four aggregates that are present in every experience are also suffering, but let’s stick with the whole experience is suffering (that already brings many complications, but let’s accept that). However, the last line says that removing and giving up desire and greed for feeling is the escape from feeling. So, someone who removed and gave up desire and greed for feeling escaped from feeling. Someone who tick this boxes are none other than an Arahant. An Arahant escaped from feeling. If we say that there can be only escape from feeling with the break up of the Arahant’s aggregates, than we say that the Arahant, while it was still alive did not removed and gave up desire and greed for feeling entirely. And, if suffering is the drawback of feelings, then escaping feelings is escaping it’s drawbacks too (or else what would be the point in escaping feelings in the first place?).

The sutta continues:

Those ascetics and brahmins who have directly known feelings in this way—and its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessat ion;

its gratification, drawback, and escape—and due to disillusionment, dispassion, and cessation regarding feelings, are freed by not grasp ing:

they are well freed.

Those who are well freed are consummate ones.

How does one directly know the “cessation of feeling” without dying? It doesn’t say “they directly know that cessation of feeling will come”. Disillusionment and dispassion regarding feelings is experience, then “cessation regarding feelings” should be experienced too, right?

I found an excerpt from Nanavira where he explain how there is phassanirodha (and vedananirodha) in the Arahant and they still, nonetheless, experience (it is worth to read the whole note):

In this way, phassa comes to be seen as contact between the conscious eye and forms—but mark that this is because contact is primarily between subject and object, and not between eye, forms, and eye-consciousness. This approach makes it possible to see in what sense, with the entire cessation of all illusion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, there is phassanirodha in the arahat (where, though there are still, so long as he continues to live, both the conscious body and the other phenomena, there is no longer any appropriation).

And, on a footnote of the same note:

[d]

Phusanti phassā upadhim paticca
Nirūpadhim kena phuseyyum phassā
Contacts contact dependent on ground—
How should contacts contact a groundless one? Udāna ii,4 <Ud.12> (Ud 2.4)

It must, of course, be remembered that phassanirodha in the arahat does not mean that experience as such (pañcakkhandhā) is at an end. But, also, there is no experience without phassa. In other words, to the extent that we can still speak of an eye, of forms, and of eye-consciousness (seeing)—e.g. Samvijjati kho āvuso Bhagavato cakkhu, passati Bhagavā cakkhunā rūpam, chandarāgo Bhagavato n’atthi, suvimuttacitto Bhagavā (‘The Auspicious One, friend, possesses an eye; the Auspicious One sees visible forms with the eye; desire-&-lust for the Auspicious One there is not; the Auspicious One is wholly freed in heart (citta)’ (Cf. ATTĀ [c].)) (Salāyatana Samy. xviii,5 <S.iv,164>)—to that extent we can still speak of phassa. But it must no longer be regarded as contact with me (or with him, or with somebody). There is, and there is not, contact in the case of the arahat, just as there is, and there is not, consciousness. See CETANĀ [f].

@Jasudho @Dogen @Pasanna

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Through samādhi, which is the culmination of the noble eightfold path. Through samādhi one gathers the data required to realise liberation in this very life.

There are monastics who have even said that the only time their bodies don’t hurt is when they can’t feel them due to being in jhana.

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Right.
But rather than “suffering” which implies a strong form of physical or mental pain, dukkha Is a term that cannot be translated into just “suffering” in English. The term ranges from intense suffering to even mild experiences of dis-ease, irritation, or feeling unsettled.
In this way, even pleasant feelings, being conditional, are experiences of dukkha.
Realizing this → nibbidā – > virāga – > liberation.

The escape is the ending of all greed, anger and ignorance not only because mental dukkha ceases with awakening, but because all dukkha ceases with the dissolution of the aggregates and senses after the final death. No conditions = no dukkha.

In SN22.10:
" “Mendicants, form of the past and future is suffering, “Rūpaṁ, bhikkhave, dukkhaṁ atītānāgataṁ;let alone the present. ko pana vādo paccuppannassa.
Feeling … Vedanā dukkhā …

Perception … saññā dukkhā …

Choices … saṅkhārā dukkhā …

Consciousness of the past and future is suffering, viññāṇaṁ dukkhaṁ atītānāgataṁ;let alone the present. ko pana vādo paccuppannassa.

These conditions are * dukkha*.

The ending of greed, anger, and ignorance, is the escape from rebirth.
SN12.12:
" When continued existence ceases, rebirth ceases. When rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress cease. That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.”

Not physically, as the body remains. There’s no mental reactivity.

As Ven. Passana said, this can be directly experienced in jhanas.
Even consciousness temporarily ceases in saññavedayitanirodha. This is called the highest form of peace while alive.

We can see the gradual absence of experiencing the senses and aggregates (dukkha conditions) is more and more peaceful, less and less dukkha until cessation of all dukkha.

Just saying…

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What we now know from pain scientists, like Dr Lorimer Mosely, is that pain is a psychosocial and neurological process. All pain that isn’t acute is a conditioned protective response. I find this really interesting with regard to the Buddha’s back pain. The buddha surely had a very low protectometer.

SN36.4 talks about the difference in experience of physical pain between the putthujana and the ariyan.

If you can’t abide
those painful physical feelings
that arise and sap your vitality;
if you tremble at their touch,
weeping and wailing,
a weakling lacking strength—
you won’t stand up in the abyss
and find a footing.

If you can endure
those painful physical feelings
that arise and sap your vitality;
if you don’t tremble at their touch—
you stand up in the abyss
and find a footing.”

It is interesting that both the noble and the worldling both have their vitality sapped by pain.

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