The way I understand it, rupa is the things “out there” such as tactile objects, sights, sounds, tastes, odors that our five senses contact. Nama is the function of the mind that forms subjective mental concepts about rupa. Nama consists of five factors: vedana, perception, intention, contact and attention. With these five factors in conjunction, subjective mental concepts are formed.
The grasping aggregates, led by vedana, are the mental processes that inform vinnana. Namarupa is what the aggregate vinnana knows. Namarupa and vinnana are mutually dependent upon one another, cannot exist without the other (the two bundles of reeds). When one falls, they both fall.
Hi, I’m not sure what you mean by vedana is a result or contact with or without form? From my understanding the only time you feel Vedana is through contact of some type either something that we’ve ingested or the atmosphere or something that comes in contact with any of the sense doors. I think misunderstand what you mean
Contact wouldn’t necessarily imply a physical dimension, or form; for example, in Arupa Jhanas, or when reborn in Arupa Realms, there is no form, yet there is still contact, and thus vedana.
Again, from MN 9:
There are these six classes of feeling. Feeling born of contact through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Feeling originates from contact. Feeling ceases when contact ceases.
So, even without rest of the five senses, mind alone can contact dharmas (ideas or thoughts, in this case), and through this contact, vedana originates.
But that is precisely why the Buddha could not teach Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta because they were in realms that did not have bodies so they were unable to observe physical sensations
The translation from Hillside Hermitage can add a lot to these discussions.
Just a thing I noticed.
Here, it says “experiences painful physical feelings”, but the Pali says dukkhāya vedanāya phuṭṭho, which is just “experiences painful feelings”.
The quote you used from the Arrow Sutta, in the HH translation, presents an interesting note:
3: “kāyika” (bodily) here tends to be mistranslated as “physical”, implying that it refers to painful sensations. But the term for physical pain in Pali is sārīrika dukkhā vedanā, used for instance in the context of enduring heat, cold, harsh words of others etc. (e.g., AN 3.49). kāyika refers to the six-sense base/five aggregates as a whole. For instance, SN 22.1 classifies “affliction in body (kāya)” as deterioration of any of the five aggregates, whereas “affliction in mind (citta)” is caused by appropriation being present when the aggregates deteriorate. The feeling arising from the death of a loved one or from an unpleasant mood would thus also be “bodily”, i.e., pertaining to the five aggregates. An extra layer of suffering in the citta will be there on top of that when notions of ownership regarding the aggregates are present, and that is the second arrow. See this and this for clarification on citta, which in this Sutta is best left untranslated to avoid confusion with mano (see next comment).
In this case, for example, being afflicted by sensuality is a painful feeling “in the body”, and looking to relieve that pressure by engaging on it or with aversion towards it is the affliction of the citta, the “mental affliction”.
