In SN 36.22 (“The Explanation of the Hundred and Eight”, Aṭṭhasatasutta, SuttaCentral), the Buddha mentions: “in one explanation I’ve spoken of two feelings (vedana). In another explanation I’ve spoken of three feelings, or five, six, eighteen, thirty-six, or a hundred and eight feelings.” He then goes on to break down feelings into these different frameworks based on number of feelings–if one identifies only two feelings, he mentions: “What are the two feelings? Physical and mental…what are the three feelings? Pleasant, painful and neutral…” all the way up to 108 feelings. I did an internet search for SN 36.22, but have found relatively little guidance on how to interpret it.
The Buddha doesn’t appear to provide any recommendations himself, such as by saying that dividing feelings into 108 feelings is more accurate than dividing it into 2 feelings. This is particularly perplexing because feelings (vedana) are the second foundation of mindfulness and the second tetrad in the Anapanasati sutta, thus it is clearly an important topic. Furthermore, at the end, when describing 108 feelings, he mentions “36 feelings in the past, future and present”. This is interesting because in MN2, he encourages us NOT to think about the past: “This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past?”
Thus, one way of interpreting SN 36.22 is that the Buddha is encouraging us NOT to subdivide feelings into hundreds of categories by demonstrating the absurdity of it–how it can just propagate exponentially into useless subtypes of feelings.
Alternatively, and this is what I favor, he could be demonstrating that subdividing feelings may be appropriate depending upon how we plan to use the sub-categories for our mental training. For example, if our practice focus is on using the physical vs mental divide, we can take that approach to feelings. Or if we prefer to reflect on sense contact, we can divide feelings into 6 categories (one for each sense organ).
This implies that the Buddhist approach to understanding feelings is inherently a pragmatic approach. Perhaps the Buddha does not actually care how many feelings there are, but instead primarily wants us to pick an approach that works for our practice. This has important ramifications for Buddhist Psychology. What do you think?
Thanks for sharing the link to MN59. I see the Buddha says “In another explanation I’ve spoken of three feelings, or five, six, eighteen, thirty-six, or a hundred and eight feelings. I’ve explained the teaching in all these different ways. This being so, you can expect that those who don’t concede, approve, or agree with what has been well spoken will argue, quarrel, and fight, continually wounding each other with barbed words.”
Could you help me understand why the Buddha did not “give additional meaning”? Elsewhere in the suttas, he is quite precise. Why would he be so ambiguous about something so important as feelings?
I can’t! That would just be giving an additional meaning.
The Buddha didn’t explain everything about everything everywhere. He talks plenty about feelings in the thousands of other suttas he gave us.
My general approach is to not seek answers where they aren’t. If I want more information about feeling I look to the other suttas he taught about them. And if I have a question that a specific sutta can’t answer I just “park” it and have faith that if it needs an answer I will eventually find one.
Otherwise speculation can lead us in a completely wrong direction. There are hundreds of suttas like SN36.22 where he just gives a list of things.
I think a canonical response to that can be found in SN 56.31 and many other similar stock phrases:
“In the same way, there is much more that I have directly known but have not explained to you. What I have explained is a tiny amount. And why haven’t I explained it? Because it’s not beneficial or relevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life. It doesn’t lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment. That’s why I haven’t explained it.”
Interesting. So what you are suggesting is that it doesn’t matter, in terms of the spiritual path, if there are 2 different kinds of feelings, or 3, or 6 or 108? If that is the case, I think that makes the case for the argument that the number of feelings is primarily a function of how we are analyzing/approaching feelings in our own unique practice. For some people, it is best for their practice to analyze feelings as if there were only 2 (bodily and mental) while for others, their practice is more fruitful if they analyze feelings as coming in six variants (one feeling for each of the six senses), etc. The Buddha is basically saying that trying to pin it down, in absolute terms, to either exactly 2 or 6 or 106 is fruitless. This, in some ways, is contrary to the later Abhidhamma, which does engage in many complex discussions about the precise number and nature of minutae
To clarify, what I am asking is “Why does the Buddha provide different approaches to quantify feelings (i.e., he says there could be 2, 3, 6, or even 108 different kinds of feelings), but then not tell us the approach that he recommends? That is, is it better to divide feelings into 6 subtypes, or 108 subtypes?” He even goes on to say that we shouldn’t argue about it. Given how fundamental understanding feelings (vedana) are in our practice that is a bit like saying: “There could be 2 kinds of matter, or 6 kinds of matter, or 108 kinds of matter making up the substance of the universe. But I won’t tell you what I think is correct, and I don’t want you to argue about it either.” I am postulating that the reason he is doing this (being non-specific about feelings) is because he wants us to pick the approach that is most helpful for our own personal practice, and thus there is a deep wisdom in the Buddha’s conscious decision to eschew the human penchant for complication bias, one that academics/sophists/rationalists in particular are inclined towards and lead us away from the core goal of practice, which is insight.
The Buddha, knowing the dispositions and capacities of individuals, skillfully uses the most useful explanations for each person.
That said, it seems that the exposition of three feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) is the one he most generally recommended. It is the framework used in the Satipaṭṭhānas, in explanations of Dependent Origination, and in other suttas such as the short session of questions and answers and the Kumāra Pañha (the novices’ questions).
“There are three feelings: pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling.”
“What are these three feelings?”
“Anything felt physically or mentally as pleasant or enjoyable. This is pleasant feeling. Anything felt physically or mentally as painful or unpleasant. This is painful feeling. Anything felt physically or mentally as neither pleasurable nor painful. This is neutral feeling.”
Since the Buddha can present feelings in different ways, he also recommends that people seek to come to an agreement regarding different definitions—all of which are valid aspects of the same phenomenon.
SN36.19"I’ve explained the teaching in all these different ways. This being so, you can expect that those who do concede, approve, or agree with what has been well spoken will live in harmony, appreciating each other, without quarreling, blending like milk and water, and regarding each other with kindly eyes.
@Dharma,
Brilliant. It’s not a blight on the Buddha that what he taught about feelings doesn’t map on the innumerable emotional experiences that were experienced by millions before, during and after his teachings about them. (Although it can be fruitful for some people at some times to reduce them to the three commonly taught tones–and other right mindful/right absorptive conceptual schemes a la Choon Mun-keat’s et al exegetical tables.)
@ngoonera Yes, I think you are right that the Buddha was being pragmatic about feelings/emotions, etc… Types divide ad infinitum and/or multiply by combinations and permutations beyond infinity by their “nature”; adding meaning is inadvisable because it is impossible: if our goal is nibbana, the only important things to know about them is that they’re stressful, inconstant and not-self. That is “Buddhist Psychology.” The only important “ramification” is that they aim for the Deathless.
Yes, I suppose, as you think and as brunobr mentions as well, for different people it might have been better to have been explained that way.
Still, the three feelings (pleasant painful neutral) and six feelings (based on sense fields) are repeated quite many times and sense fields are instructed to be understood.
Regarding the importance of three feelings, MN148 does not highlight the importance of categorizing them in to three but rather highlights the importance of how one can respond/react to a pleasant/painful/neutral feeling. This is stated for each of the sense field. The importance is highlighted by stating that it is impossible to achieve end of suffering if one continues to respond to feelings in the stated way.
Eye vinnana(Eye vi-knowledge) arises dependent on the eye and sights.
The meeting of the three is contact.
Contact is a condition for the arising of what is felt as pleasant, painful, or neutral.
When you experience a pleasant feeling,
if you delight(abhinandati), welcome/approve/affirm(abhivadati), and keep clinging/holding tightly(ajjhosāya),
the underlying tendency to passion(rāgānusayo) underlies that.
When you experience a painful feeling,
if you sorrow and wail and lament, beating your breast and falling into confusion,
the underlying tendency to repulsion/aversion/resistance(paṭighānusayo) underlies that.
When you experience a neutral feeling,
if you don’t truly understand that feeling’s origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape,
the underlying tendency to ignorance underlies that.
Mendicants,
without giving up the underlying tendency to passion(rāgānusayaṁ) for pleasant feeling,
without dispelling the underlying tendency to repulsion towards painful feeling,
without eradicating ignorance in the case of neutral feeling,
without giving up ignorance and without giving rise to knowledge,
it is quite impossible to make an end of suffering in this very life.
... ear ... nose... tounge... body... mind
Mendicants,
after giving up the underlying tendency to passion(rāgānusayaṁ) for pleasant feeling,
after dispelling the underlying tendency to repulsion towards painful feeling,
after eradicating ignorance in the case of neutral feeling,
after giving up ignorance and giving rise to knowledge,
it’s quite possible to make an end of suffering in this very life.
Seeing this, a learned noble disciple
grows disillusioned/disinterested with the eye, sights, eye vinnana, eye contact, feeling, and craving.
...
Based on this sutta and some others, there is a lot to learn about feelings, mainly:
in the first place, to be aware of them (SN47.35)
then, to be the aware of one’s response/reaction to them (MN151)
to directly know if one delights,welcomes,grasps a feeling/is passionate about it (MN151)
to directly know if one wails, laments about a feeling (MN151)
to truly understand feeling’s origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape,
The theoretical knowledge can be learned quite quickly, but to correctly apply this knowledge is where the challenge is at.
Thanks–I agree that the categorization of feelings into 3 categories is the one that he most commonly uses. It’s interesting that he uses these 3 broad categories primarily in the suttas. Modern psychology, with its penchant for complexity, has 6 (Eckman: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger), or 10 (apparently Eckman later added: pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement) or even 27 (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1702247114). However, I think there is a benefit to the more simple approach used by the Buddha of 3 feelings because that is easier for us, as practitioners, to implement. Trying to learn the nuances of categorizing 27 emotions just detracts us from spending time in our practice.
Greetings @ngoonera,
When I was working on my psychology degree, the dogma was five basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, surprise, disgust. According to my math, which should be double checked, the total combination for 5 is 15; total permutations for 5 is 120, but I honestly can’t recall if part of the dogma allowed for combinations and/or permutations. Plus, I am assuming that feelings and/or emotions have parity with numbers, e.g,. one emotion = one number, and I’m suspicious of my assumption. Are we certain, for instance, that joy is not a combination of, say, excitement and pleasure? And does this suggest that our query is merely a linguistic and/or semantic issue? And like you said earlier, we could also be talking about divisions and subdivisions rather than combinations and permutations. So, for now, I’m sticking with the idea that the Buddha “did the ‘math’” and was like, “I’ll just have to take it person by person.” But I am curious, did his “math” reach the millions, billions, infinity? But I dare say, at least from my experience with his conceptual schematics, he did better than any psychologists after him, including current psychological dogma and neuro-hype.
best,
l
These are not competing explanations of feeling but complementary ones. The point is you can look at it from various perspectives (their hedonic tone, whence they arise, whether they involve complex saññā and thought or not, etc.) and come to different ways of classifying it.
Remember feelings here does not refer to everything we call feeling or emotion but only those mainly characterised by pleasantness, unpleasantness, etc.
What I considered in my thesis on vedanā was that the last classification into 108 must refer to analysing feelings in terms of when they happen: in the past, present or future. We can talk about those right? My reasoning was that the 36 feelings already include feelings that result from thinking about past and so on—whether the Buddha discouraged it or not doesn’t matter, the fact is we do dwell in the past or future and feelings arise from that. So it’s practical to realise whether that’s what’s happening!
While the three feelings are most common, the thirty-six are crucial in terms of spiritual progress.
that’s part of the proto-abhidhamma inside the Suttas. That specific door is commented inside the Suttas like belonging to arhants “mastering the analysis of dhammas”, “skillfull in preaching”, and similar mentions. It was kept by Dhammadina and other arhants, and that Sutta shows that trend of a detailed analytical teaching.
the Buddha taught different teachings for different people with different kamma towards liberation. This is one of the characteristics of a Buddha not shared with the arhants.
Inside the Suttas there is specialization with different people and teachings. So dealing with the 3 feelings or with 108 can be necessary depending kamma trends.
Any Scholar work talking about the origins of the Abhidhamma commonly refers to different Suttas to identify the roots for that analytic trend. No difficulty to find stuff, there are many. Just search about the origins of Abhidhamma in the Nikayas.
Try in example: “From the Buddha’s Teaching to the Abhidhamma”, Noa Ronkin which contains quite Sutta references. Or also a book of reference for the Abhidhamma like: “The Theravada Abhidhamma” Y, Karunadasa.
I’m reviewing the Noa Ronkin paper and there are not so many references, maybe it was another paper… Anyway the book of Karunadasa is good or also “Philosophy and its development in the Nikāyas and Abhidhamma”, F.Watanabe is very detailed in the origins of that trend.
It is, but if I’m honest, at the moment advertising it feels like doing myself a poor favour, since I’m adapting it for a book (proposal is under review at an academic publisher).
