Phassa (contact)
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:07 am
What if the eyes are open but there is no "contacting"? Is this possible and if yes then how should such a state be described in conventional terms?
Kind regards
Kind regards
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Blindness.TMingyur wrote:What if the eyes are open but there is no "contacting"? Is this possible and if yes then how should such a state be described in conventional terms?
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Okay so your view is that functioning eyes being opened necessarily entails contact.tiltbillings wrote:Blindness.TMingyur wrote:What if the eyes are open but there is no "contacting"? Is this possible and if yes then how should such a state be described in conventional terms?
Kind regards
Yes it's possible. MN 28 Mahāhatthipadopama Sutta:TMingyur wrote:What if the eyes are open but there is no "contacting"? Is this possible and if yes then how should such a state be described in conventional terms?
Dunno. Do you have experience otherwise? Sight involves the eyes, which can be healthy, but either the neural pathways to the visual cortex or visual cortex could be damaged, and then there is hysterical blindness where the physiology is all intact but something else is going on psychologically that prevents sight. Is there something in particular you have in mind?TMingyur wrote:Okay so your view is that functioning eyes being opened necessarily entails contact.tiltbillings wrote:Blindness.TMingyur wrote:What if the eyes are open but there is no "contacting"? Is this possible and if yes then how should such a state be described in conventional terms?
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thank you.
Kind regards
Or is there no relationship at all between these two aspects (contact and the advice given to Bahiya)?"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One of the things Geoff mentioned is manasikara. In the case of the instructions to Bahiya, yoniso manasikara, "wise" attention, is certainly implied, but I am not quite sure what you are asking.TMingyur wrote:@ Geoff
thank you.
Geoff and all
What would you say how this relates to the Buddha's advice given to Bahiya IF there is a relationship that can be assumed:
Or is there no relationship at all between these two aspects (contact and the advice given to Bahiya)?"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Kind regards
We've been touching (pun intended) upon this in the Do arahants discard vipaka/suffering? thread. The terms used in the Bāhiya Sutta are: merely the seen (diṭṭhamatta), merely the heard (sutamatta), merely the sensed (mutamatta), merely the known (viññātamatta).TMingyur wrote:Geoff and all
What would you say how this relates to the Buddha's advice given to Bahiya IF there is a relationship that can be assumed:
Or is there no relationship at all between these two aspects (contact and the advice given to Bahiya)?"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks. That is helpful.Ñāṇa wrote:From a suttanta perspective, when all acquisitions have been released (i.e. sabbūpadhipaṭinissagga) there is no need to designate "contact." Udāna 2.4 (Ud 12):
The abhidhamma schools however, explain all cognitions in terms of contact -- including supramundane cognitions.
- Contacts make contact
Dependent on acquisition.
Where there is no acquisition,
What would contacts contact?
I think this is an accurate assessment.TMingyur wrote:A reminder that "contact" actually is mere imputation in a certain context (suttanta perspective) and the tendency of commentaries to categorize what is contextually valid only.
Hi retro.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings TMingyur,
I agree with your assessments. Accordingly, I think you will find much of interest in the topic mentioned above by Geoff.
In the meantime, I think venerable Nanavira provides a definition of phassa you may be interested in.
Phassa
http://nanavira.xtreemhost.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=76" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One thing to bear in mind... whatever phassa arises for the puthujjana or the sekha in the dependent origination sequence, is the same phassa that ceases when it is in the cessation sequence for the arahant who has brought an end to avijja (see SN 12.15).
Your interpretation of phassa aligns with the dependent cessation sequence and does not (after it has ceased) leave the arahant bumbling as a deaf, dumb or blind mute, prior to him/her achieving the cessation of dukkha.
Metta,
Retro.
Here's the bummer. When Ven Nanavira wrote this years ago, who or which camp was promoting the idea that phassa should be interpreted as "contact between sense-organ and sense-object, resulting in consciousness"? Was he needling the Abhidhammikas, what with their insistence that "phassa" is a dhamma apart from the suttanta description of the conjunction/triad of ayatana, indriya and vinnana?All normal experience is dual (dvayam—see NĀMA, final paragraph): there are present (i) one's conscious six-based body (saviññānaka salāyatanika kāya), and (ii) other phenomena (namely, whatever is not one's body); and reflexion will show that, though both are objective in the experience, the aroma of subjectivity that attaches to the experience will naturally tend to be attributed to the body.[c] 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). But when (as commonly) phassa is interpreted as 'contact between sense-organ and sense-object, resulting in consciousness'—and its translation as '(sense-)impression' implies this interpretation—then we are at once cut off from all possibility of understanding phassanirodha in the arahat;[d] for the question whether or not the eye is the subject is not even raised—we are concerned only with the eye as a sense-organ, and it is a sense-organ in puthujjana and arahat alike.
Metta,Consciousness, however, is not physiologically observable, and the entire project rests upon unjustifiable assumptions from the start. This epistemological interpretation of phassa misconceives the Dhamma as a kind of natural-science-cum-psychology that provides an explanation of things in terms of cause-and-effect.
Is the issue here explaining things in terms of cause and effect or the question of a physiological aspect to consciousness or epistemology or some combination of them all?retrofuturist wrote:Greetings.
For the benefit of anyone else following, here's an extra element of the section of ven. Nanavira's note on phassa...
Metta,Consciousness, however, is not physiologically observable, and the entire project rests upon unjustifiable assumptions from the start. This epistemological interpretation of phassa misconceives the Dhamma as a kind of natural-science-cum-psychology that provides an explanation of things in terms of cause-and-effect.
Retro.
We seem to have slipped out to a conversation on vinnana, but that's fair enough, because that's relevant to a discussion on phassa.tiltbillings wrote:Is the issue here explaining things in terms of cause and effect or the question of a physiological aspect to consciousness or epistemology or some combination of them all?
The physiological POV is of no relevance to the method, as what can one actually do about physiology in terms of achieving liberation? What could one do with this knowledge other than silly things like pluck out one's eyeballs, abuse drugs, perform amputations etc.Ediriwira Sarachchandra wrote:Depending on whether vinnana sprang up in respect of the eye or the ear or any other sense-organ, it was named accordingly.
Buddhism could escape the charge of materialism on the score of this teaching only if we interpret vinnana as empirical consciousness. Buddha is actually given the opportunity here to explain what it is in the individual that, after all, transmigrates from one life to the other. But he does not think it sufficiently relevant to the purpose. What is more important is to point out that vinnana, which is responsible for our perception of this world so full of change and decay, is by no means an eternal and permanent entity. It is only a relationship set up between the external world and the perceiving individual. A realisation of this fact would indicate the method by which one could successfully put an end to sorrow."
... or to quote from MN 28 as Geoff did earlier...Ven. Nananvira wrote:So long as there is avijjā, all things (dhammā) are fundamentally as described in the earlier part of the Mūlapariyāyasutta (Majjhima i,1 <M.i,1>); that is to say, they are inherently in subjection, they are appropriated, they are mine (See ANICCA, MAMA, & A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [f]). This is the foundation of the notion that I am and that things are in contact with me. This contact between me and things is phassa. The ditthisampanna sees the deception, but the puthujjana accepts it at its face value and elaborates it into a relationship between himself and the world
That is my understanding.MN 28 wrote:Now if internally the eye is intact but externally forms do not come into range, nor is there a corresponding engagement, then there is no appearing of the corresponding type of consciousness. If internally the eye is intact and externally forms come into range, but there is no corresponding engagement, then there is no appearing of the corresponding type of consciousness. But when internally the eye is intact and externally forms come into range, and there is a corresponding engagement, then there is the appearing of the corresponding type of consciousness.
These are the kinds of misleading misrepresentations and scholarly accretions that the likes of venerables Nanananda and Nanavira aimed to expose, much as Nagarjuna did back in the day in relation to Sarvastivada doctrine once it veered into realism.Ediriwira Sarachchandra wrote:In the period between the Nikayas and the Abhidhamma the meaning of phassa gets more and more narrowed down to stand for the physical reaction alone, and in the Milinda-panha (Mil.60) we find it naively described as being similar to the butting of two rams or the clashing of two cymbals or the clapping of hands.
... knowledge of these "other Pali books" helps us determine if modern meditation teachers and the views and techniques they endorsed are based upon textual sources that we ourselves would consider to be authentic. If one is fully committed to the teachings of the Buddha, one must be able to trace one's modern teacher's views back to Buddhavacana. If a teacher's views veer towards realism (e.g. notions of existence and non-existence) or to statements which are empirically unproveable (e.g. I often ask myself, "How do they know that to be so?") they should be carefully scrutinised and questioned... not accepted on the basis that "this is our teacher".Nanavira Thera wrote:These books of the Pali Canon correctly represent the Buddha's Teaching, and can be regarded as trustworthy throughout. (Vinayapitaka:) Suttavibhanga, Mahāvagga, Cūlavagga; (Suttapitaka:) Dīghanikāya, Majjhimanikāya, Samyuttanikāya, Anguttaranikāya, Suttanipāta, Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttaka, Theratherīgāthā. (The Jātaka verses may be authentic, but they do not come within the scope of these Notes.) No other Pali books whatsoever should be taken as authoritative; and ignorance of them (and particularly of the traditional Commentaries) may be counted a positive advantage, as leaving less to be unlearned