Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

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asahi
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by asahi »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:56 pm
asahi wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:33 pm
When you are thinking of rotting corpse that involves perception volition which entering into secondary phase already .
This makes no sense even on your own interpretation. Based on your interpretation I can’t have any idea of a rotting corpse outside of the 5 senses, nor any unpleasant vedana, since on your model all ideas and mental vedana are based solely on the physical sensations. This makes absolutely no sense, even from a non-Dhamma point of view. Even a non-Buddhist recognises that there can be ideas not based on the 5 senses which are painful.
Can you form any idea on itself prior to it without first acccumulated certain experiences ? The objects of mind are feelings perceptions volitions ( as primary phase ) , thereafter , the prior feeling perception volition became give rise to secondary phase feeling perception volition .
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asahi
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

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Dhammanando wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:40 pm If the temperature is the same as your body's there'll be no feeling, not neutral feeling. If it goes up or down slightly the feeling is likely to be pleasant. If it goes up and down considerably the feeling will be painful. At no point is it adukkhamasukha.
Bhante , i just made an experiment . I took a piece of small paper place on my palm , no pleasant feeling and no painful feeling however one can say some kind of feeling which can be categorised as neutral . Then i took a piece of small tree leaf and place it on my palm , it is the same .
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by Ceisiwr »

asahi wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:14 pm
Can you form any idea on itself prior to it without first acccumulated certain experiences ? The objects of mind are feelings perceptions volitions ( as primary phase ) , thereafter , the prior feeling perception volition became give rise to secondary phase feeling perception volition .
No but once again this is not what the sutta is saying. If the objects of the mind including feelings, perceptions and volitions were all the 2nd dart then the Buddha and Arahants would be totally without mind! This is obviously absurd, which means your position is absurd. Furthermore the 2nd dart is not perceptions and volitions but sorrow, lamentation etc.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by Ceisiwr »

asahi wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:30 pm
Dhammanando wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:40 pm If the temperature is the same as your body's there'll be no feeling, not neutral feeling. If it goes up or down slightly the feeling is likely to be pleasant. If it goes up and down considerably the feeling will be painful. At no point is it adukkhamasukha.
Bhante , i just made an experiment . I took a piece of small paper place on my palm , no pleasant feeling and no painful feeling however one can say some kind of feeling which can be categorised as neutral . Then i took a piece of small tree leaf and place it on my palm , it is the same .
This proves nothing.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
asahi
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by asahi »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:41 pm No but once again this is not what the sutta is saying. If the objects of the mind including feelings, perceptions and volitions were all the 2nd dart then the Buddha and Arahants would be totally without mind! This is obviously absurd, which means your position is absurd. Furthermore the 2nd dart is not perceptions and volitions but sorrow, lamentation etc.
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:45 pm This proves nothing.
Well you may disagrees with feeling perception and volition as being the mind objects in the primary phase thereafter emotion of sorrow arise out of it and without first having the earlier sets of feelings there would not arise secondary phase feelings of the mind . Then you have to experiment it for yourself in meditation .
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chownah
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by chownah »

Dhammanando wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:38 am
asahi wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:38 am I read again several times , i think it is incorrect to say physical body contact doesnt include neutral feeling.
It's correct according to the Abhidhamma. To quote Nārada Thera:
Of all the 89 types of consciousness only two are associated with either sukha or dukkha. One is the body-consciousness associated with pleasure, and the other is body-consciousness associated with pain.

Both these are the resultant types of consciousness, effects of good and evil kamma.

A soft touch, for instance, yields pleasure. A pinprick, on the contrary, yields pain. In these cases one experiences the aforesaid two types of consciousness respectively.

Now a question arises - Why only the body-consciousness is associated with pleasure and pain? Why not the other sense-impressions?

Mr. Aung provides an answer in his introductory essay to the Compendium: -

"The sense of touch alone is accompanied by the positive hedonic elements of pain and pleasure; the other four senses are accompanied by hedonic indifference. This exceptional distinction is assigned to the sense of touch, because the impact between the sentient surface (pāsāda rūpa) and the respective objects of other senses, both sets of which are secondary qualities of body, is not strong enough to produce physical pain or pleasure. But in the case of touch there is contact with one or other, or all the three primary qualities (solidity - pathavi, temperature - tejo, pressure - vāyo) and this is strong enough to affect those primary qualities in the percipient's own body. Just as cotton wool on the anvil does not affect the latter, but a hammer striking cotton wool imparts its check to the anvil also.'' -- (Compendium of Philosophy p. 14).

In the case of touch the impact is strong. The "essentials", pathavi, tejo and vāyo (extension, heat, and motion) - āpo, cohesion, is excluded being intangible - forcibly and directly strike against the great elements of the body. Consequently there is either pain or happiness. In the case of seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting, there is a bare impact. The consequent feeling is neither pain nor happiness.

Although these sense-impressions may be sukha, dukkha, or upekkhā the javana thought processes conditioned thereby may not necessarily be associated with a similar feeling.

For instance, the Buddha experienced a body-consciousness associated with pain when a rock splinter struck His foot, but His javana thought-process conditioned thereby would not necessarily be associate with displeasure. Unaffected by the pain, He would have experienced perfect equanimity. The immanent feeling in the stream of consciousness would have been upekkhā.

Similarly at the sight of the Buddha, a right-understanding person would automatically experience an eye-consciousness associated with indifference (upekkhā-sahagata cakkhu-viññāna) but his javana thought would be moral. The innate feeling would be pleasure (somanassa).
Greetings! I'm trying to follow along but seem to be having difficulty. You say that the quote you bring supports the idea that the body does not have neutral feelings but it seems to me that the first part doesn't address neutral feelings with respect to the body but rather it just talks about pleasant and painful feelings and completely ignores neutral feelings.

The second part of the quote seems to say that the other four senses are incapable of having pleasant or painful feelings and can only have neutral feelings. I have two observations about this: 1. this says nothing about whether bodily feelings (touch) have neutral feelings or not so it does not seem to support any notions about whether the body has neutral feelings or not...and 2. it seems to me that a really strong concentration of ammonia in an inbreath will cause pain as will a very strong concentration of cadaverene....and that very loud sounds and very bright lights are under many circumstances NOT neutral with respect to feelings in my experience and it does seem to me that these painful experiences happen too quickly to allow time or some sort of mental proliferation to be operative in creating a second dart.

I don't have much of a reason to take a stand one way or the other with respect to this in that I don't worry about the "mechanics" of how people think of the elements of the two darts and how they interact in that I find that seeing the dynamic as a unique presentation of an example illuminating a general sort of dynamic is very informative with respect to my practice in that it is clear to me from my own experiences that most if not all suffering comes from a fabricated reaction to an initial stimulus and it seems that this is an operating manifestation of mental processes brought about from the mental conditioning of holding to a view of self....so....I'm not wanting to take sides on anything here and am just wanting to try to make sense of what is said so as to better understand the perspectives of others.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by Ceisiwr »

asahi wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 4:02 pm
Well you may disagrees with feeling perception and volition as being the mind objects in the primary phase thereafter emotion of sorrow arise out of it and without first having the earlier sets of feelings there would not arise secondary phase feelings of the mind . Then you have to experiment it for yourself in meditation .
Its hard to follow you. I know English isn't your 1st language. I am saying that the 1st dart is the initial vedana that arises at contact, be that at any sense base including the mind, whilst the 2nd dart is the emotional reaction to it. Your post now reads like you agree with me?
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
chownah
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Re: Sallatha Sutta SN 36.6 - The Arrow (or dart, thorn)

Post by chownah »

Paccayata wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:18 pm But it also goes on to say that a trained (but not untrained) person knows the following regarding a feeling (vedana):
• Origin
• Disappearance
• Appeal
• Drawback
• Escape

Can anyone clarify what those mean? The first two seem to mean knowing the arising and passing of the phenomenon. But the others are less certain for me.
For info on escape see AN 5.200 Nissaraniya Sutta: Leading to Escape https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

For info on drawback see Drawbacks adinava https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dha ... index.html

For info on appeal see MN 13 Maha-dukkhakkhandha Sutta: The Great Mass of Stress https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html Note that in MN13 "appeal" is called "allure". Also note that MN13 is found several times in the list of excerpts at Drawbacks adinava....so MN13 will give many sections showing both appeal and drawback for various topics....

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