Vinnana v. Phassa

[Piotr]

@Martin

Eye + Form = Eye-consciousness.

This seems to be incorrect. Eye-consciousness arises dependent upon the two, but meeting of the two is not eye-consciouesness.

MN 28 gives more details on how specific consciousness arises:

Reverends, though the eye is intact internally, so long as exterior sights don’t come into range and there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.

Though the eye is intact internally and exterior sights come into range, so long as there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.

But when the eye is intact internally and exterior sights come into range and there is corresponding engagement, there is the manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.

[Gillian]

@Martin

A meeting of the two, ie eye-consciousness arising in dependence on eye and form

I see your word meeting as a synonym for phassa. I expect you wouldn’t accept that Martin. Why?

[Martin]

Sure, I used the phrase “meeting of the two” to emphasise that something has happened prior to the “meeting of the three”. Eye-consciousness has already arisen, in dependence upon eye and form.
As MN28 explains, eye-consciousness will manifest when a functioning eye and visible form are present together. I agree with that, what I’m questioning is the need to then add the “meeting of the three”. Adding phassa appears redundant.

If consciousness has already arisen, what is the point of adding “contact”?

How is vinnana different from phassa, practically speaking?

[Martin]

I’m just using the standard translation of the Loka Sutta, “The meeting of the three is contact”.
I take it to mean the coming together of eye, form and eye-consciousness.
It isn’t that I don’t accept it, rather I’m saying that it doesn’t make sense, given that eye-consciousness has already arisen dependent upon eye and form.

What’s your understanding of the phrase?

[Gillian]

That eye-consciousness can’t arise until eye and form have made contact.

Meeting/coming together/making contact needs to be thought of as a thing.

I suspect that your problem lies in the difficulty of translating a highly nominalised language into a less-nominalised language. Unfortunately I’d need to spend a lot of time on the Pāli (in which I am a total beginner) to properly argue my case on the basis of comparative grammar. And if you’re not a grammarian too, you wouldn’t be convinced: so I’ll pass on that one.

Edit: Did you know that Bhante @Sujato is giving a talk on Dependent Origination in the Visuddhimagga next Sunday? Perhaps he can help here.

[Martin]

It could be a translation problem, but I’m not aware of any alternatives.

The suttas just say that eye-consciousness arises in dependence upon eye and form. You could describe that as a meeting of eye and form, or possibly as eye and form making contact.
But with that being the case, it doesn’t then make sense to talk about the meeting or coming together of all three.

Are you suggesting that the “meeting of the two” (eye and form) is describing the general working of how consciousness arises, while the “meeting of the three” describes specific arisings or events of consciousness?

Its about the practical difference between vinnana and phassa, which I still don’t think is clear. What is the practical difference between eye-consciousness and eye-contact?

One possibility I suggested earlier in the thread is that vinnana represents the totality of sense “inputs”, while phassa refers to what we’re actually noticing at any one time. So it could be related to attention.
Though both vinnana and phassa are described as 6-fold.

[Gillian]

Possibly it’s like plaiting my granddaughter’s hair. I make three strands and then weave them into one plait. Three into one can go!

[Martin]

Though with this analogy, you’ve already made the plait (consciousness) with two strands (eye and form).
So you don’t need to pull it all apart and use three strands.

[Gillian]

The PED entry for phassa might help a little: “It is the fundamental fact in a sense impression and consists of a combination of the sense, the object, and perception … and [it] gives rise to feeling…”

[Gillian]

@Martin

Though with this analogy, you’ve already made the plait (consciousness) with two strands (eye and form).
So you don’t need to pull it all apart and use three strands.

You’ve obviously never plaited hair: trying to use two strands results in a roll that immediately unwinds. A rookie mistake.

[Martin]

Yes, I’ve looked around at these definitions but don’t find them very illuminating.
I can’t see a difference between “sense-impression” and “sense-consciousness”.

[Gillian]

I’m afraid there’s no hope for you then Martin. Sad really
I can’t do more, I’m off to meditate with the Venerables. Come and join: YouTube.

[Piotr]

Sure, I used the phrase “meeting of the two” to emphasise that something has happened prior to the “meeting of the three”. Eye-consciousness has already arisen, in dependence upon eye and form.

The point I’m making is that meeting of the two is not sufficient for specific consciousness to arise. “Eye” and “sights” are necessary but not sufficient. There has to be “corresponding engagement” (which probably stands for attention - manasikaāra) for eye-consciousness to manifest. Therefore SN 12.44 says only that:

Eye consciousness arises dependent on the eye and sights.

It doesn’t say that:

With eye and sights there is the manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.

From what I understand the senses are put into DO in order to make the point that there is not one consciousness (which could be an agent, experiencer, etc.), but that there are specific six consciousnesses which make a body of consciousness - this is disscused in MN 38.

[Gillian]

Actually hope rises: I think you’re making what may be called a category error. Three things can be viable entities on their own, but they can also form a viable group and together be something else, eg coming later. (!!!)

Edit: Having consulted the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, I temporarily abandoned the idea that you were making a category mistake; but thought you were still missing something.

I still liked my plait example, and thought of a better one: Walls, roof and floor are three different things. Put them together and you get a HOUSE. Would you be happy if I said I was going to take the walls away from your house because I’ve decided they’re redundant? I pondered whether the plait and the house could be squeezed into the category ‘category error’

And then I found this book, The Theravada Abhidhamma: Inquiry into the Nature of Conditioned Reality by Y. Karunadasa. Here I learned that the Theravadans argued that phassa is sometimes seen as the meeting as I suggested and sometimes as a mental factor that results from the meeting of the three.

Here’s a screenshot of the most interesting bits but the discussion of other possible interpretations continues in an interesting manner.

[karl_lew]

Ear contact:

Ear perception:

Ear-consciousness

Choices:

- YouTube

Suffering:

[anon87721581]

@Martin

why introduce contact in the first place?

Possibly because there are six distinct ayatanas,

And what are the six sense fields?
Katamañca, bhikkhave, saḷāyatanaṃ?

The sense fields of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
Cakkhāyatanaṃ, sotāyatanaṃ, ghānāyatanaṃ, jivhāyatanaṃ, kāyāyatanaṃ, manāyatanaṃ
SN12.2

If there were just the manayatana then I guess, something like attention would be needed to explain the six distinct classes of vedana.

There are these six classes of feeling.
Chayime, bhikkhave, vedanākāyā—

Feeling born of contact through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
cakkhusamphassajā vedanā, sotasamphassajā vedanā, ghānasamphassajā vedanā, jivhāsamphassajā vedanā, kāyasamphassajā vedanā, manosamphassajā vedanā

There is an interesting simile in SN36.10,

Bhikkhus, just as heat is generated and fire is produced from the conjunction and friction of two fire-sticks, but when the sticks are separated and laid aside the resultant heat ceases and subsides; so too, these three feelings are born of contact, rooted in contact, with contact as their source and condition. In dependence on the appropriate contacts the corresponding feelings arise; with the cessation of the appropriate contacts the corresponding feelings cease
SN36.10

Which I think suggests, passa is concurrent with vedana as opposed to passa occurring first then vedana.

[Sugathadasa]

Arahath Saripuththa Thero said Vijanathi Bhikkave Vijanathi. That means knowing separately, what?
"sukahampi vijanathi, dhukkanpi vijanathi, adukkama sukanpi vijanathi. Know of happy feelings, unhappy feelings and neutral feelings.

[Martin]

Thanks everyone. I think contact is something like attention. But I’m still not convinced by the Buddhist model of consciousness, it feels contrived.

[Myspace]

I’m quite puzzled myself regarding contact being meeting of the 3. But I guess Martin’s interpretation of it as taking notice should be correct.

When eye meets form, eye consciousness arise. However, only when taking notice does it produce feeling and perception.

[inb4dead]

First of all the word & concept of consciousness has to be treated as the word that it is.

That which you think about in terms of ‘consciousness’ is whatever it is except from the name you give it and what you think about it.

It’s important to keep in mind that consciousness per definition arises as one thing and ceases as another.

We can’t think of the eventuality of consciousness as a linear progression where it arises, persists and ceases as one and the same thing.

It is said that;

Contact is one end, origination of contact is the other end and the cessation of contact is in the middle.

Name is one end, form is the other end and consciousness is in the middle.

Past is one end, future the other end and present is in the middle. An6.61

We can demonstrate that color-vision doesn’t occur if

1. there is no eye
2. there is no light
3. there is no consciousness

In regards to #3 the person might be unconscious or the body being simply dead.

That which we call color-vision is thought to be neither of the three, it doesn’t come to be without a meeting of the three and that which is called the meeting is not the same as what is called color vision or any of the three doing the meeting.

That which we think about in terms of color-vision is likewise whatever it is except from what we call it and what we think about it.

We can talk about an occurence of this or that instance of contact with it’s causes, effects & requisite conditions but we can’t give any one these a temporal duration in doing so, that would be like dividing by zero, it doesn’t apply.

“But, indeed, that which, monks, is called ‘mind’, or 'citta’, or ‘consciousness’, that, by night and by day, as other, indeed, arises, as other ceases. Just as, monks, a monkey in the mountain-side forests, moving itself,grasps a branch, then releasing that, grasps another, then releasing that, grasps another; even so, indeed, monks, that which is called ‘mind’, or ‘citta’, or ‘consciousness’: that, by night and by day, as other, indeed, arises, as other ceases. Sn12.61

The Buddha said to him, “Is it really true, Sāti, that you have such a harmful misconception: ‘As I understand the Buddha’s teachings, it is this very same consciousness that roams and transmigrates, not another’?”

Bhikkhus, consciousness is reckoned by the particular condition dependent upon which it arises. When consciousness arises dependent on the eye and forms, it is reckoned as eye-consciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the ear and sounds, it is reckoned as ear-consciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the nose and odours, it is reckoned as nose-consciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the tongue and flavours, it is reckoned as tongue-consciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the body and tangibles, it is reckoned as body-consciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the mind and mind-objects, it is reckoned as mind-consciousness. Just as fire is reckoned by the particular condition dependent on which it burns—when fire burns dependent on logs, it is reckoned as a log fire; when fire burns dependent on faggots, it is reckoned as a faggot fire; when fire burns dependent on grass, it is reckoned as a grass fire; when fire burns dependent on cowdung, it is reckoned as a cowdung fire; when fire burns dependent on chaff, it is reckoned as a chaff fire; when fire burns dependent on rubbish, it is reckoned as a rubbish fire—so too, consciousness is reckoned by the particular condition dependent on which it arises. When consciousness arises dependent on the eye and forms, it is reckoned as eye-consciousness…when consciousness arises dependent on the mind and mind-objects, it is reckoned as mind-consciousness.
mn38