Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

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Coëmgenu
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Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by Coëmgenu »

This thread is meant to continue the discussion that ended here that went on a tangent away from the OP. I'll also tag
SDC wrote:
and
nirodh27 wrote:
who were also discussing.
Last edited by Coëmgenu on Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by SarathW »

Yes.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by Coëmgenu »

It depends on what "contact" is. Is contact always something unwholesome to do with desire and furtherment of samsara, I think is the optimal question from that thread, in addition to the many other ones on both sides left to address. Did you read the Udāna section on phassanirodha? It's a tricky quote. The commentary harmonizes it strangely/interestingly too.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by SarathW »

Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:58 pm It depends on what "contact" is. Is contact always something unwholesome to do with desire and furtherment of samsara, I think is the optimal question from that thread, in addition to the many other ones on both sides left to address. Did you read the Udāna section on phassanirodha?
Arahants experience the contact due to past unwholesome Sankhara of the past life which created the present sixfold sense media.
Arahants do not make any new Sankhara as their action is termed Kiriya which is a neutral action.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by Coëmgenu »

I generally agree. The Udāna passage however, if read on the surface, suggests that all phassa is due to upadhi/attachment. The argument that follows from that is that, because a Buddha/Arhat has no upādhi, he has no phassa. It's an interesting argument IMO, if I've got it right and am accurately representing it.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by SDC »

Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm
SDC wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:30 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:39 pm It doesn't refer to consciousness-based perception itself, but instead is "mandatory for" it.
Absolutely. But the whole “meeting of the three is contact” is, IMO, saying that those three things - being there - in a situation rooted in ignorance, is the distinct significance of contact. Those three things stand for the point where things come into contact with me. That’s the depth of the convergence, a depth that is ever present in the beginningless framework of ignorance.
If you agree and say "absolutely," because that's how I read that, then how do the Buddhas perceive sense objects according to you? You say, "Those three things stand for the point where things come into contact with me," but what if they merely come into contact with the sense fields because there is no you? It strikes me that you have a definition of "contact" where contact only happens to beings with self-view, because it has to "come into contact with me." Is that a fair assessment? What if the three things come into contact generally with "no one?" It is just the three and only the three making contact, no fourth element present, no "the three" "with me." I understand "come into contact with me" as actually introducing a forth element, namely "me/you," into the threefold contact.
It is a fair assessment, but let me try and clarify. When there is a working eye and things come into range, there is sight, but we're not privy to that "process". If there are sights, we can know there are eyes. If eyes work, and they are open, there are sights - whether we want them to be or not.

If you want to talk about it from the POV of the "meeting of the three"...I don't read it as a description of those three things first being separate and then coming together, and that motion of coming together is called contact. Not at all how I read it. They are already together, and when they are meeting the togetherness of those three things is contact for experience rooted in ignorance. (The ownership is already previously established though. "I am" is already there in the eye, ear...mind. So sights, sounds...thoughts are - by default - in contact with me. Is it a fourth thing? Sure. That is what DO is about. That mass of suffering - how it is layered. The five clinging aggregates. Self.)

As I said, that point of convergence remains for the arahant, there is still that meeting, but - as you've indicated - it takes a hit when self-view is surmounted and is completely abandoned when conceit is destroyed.

Also good to note that not only do the senses have their own scopes and ranges (meeting only in the mind), but the aggregates do as well SN 35.246.
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm So what then is the difference between the absence of the top of the tree and the cessation of the tree's top as far as this metaphor goes? The metaphor is "like cutting off the top of a palm tree" that you are thinking of, no? How does this relate to the difference being drawn between "absent" and "ceased?"
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm We can still recollect things that are absent. For instance, maybe a relative of yours is absent from the room, has "ceased" being in the room, but you can still recall him, no? In what sense do you mean "unavailable for recollection?"
That is not the absence I am referring to. If our parent dies, we can still recollect them. They aren't absent if they are recollected. They can be present in the experience even if they are dead. I think you agree with this. For a thing to be truly absent it has to be forgotten to whatever degree, either completely or at a given point (not recollected), but that is not what cessation is - cessation is when a thing can no longer grow, but that doesn't mean that an arahant cannot recollect what growth used to mean. So yes, further growth is absent but the fact that things used to grow can be known. That knowledge is bliss. The presence of that absence, emptiness. The knowledge that growth is now impossible.
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:44 pm So I've pinpointed why, although I don't disagree with this necessarily, I don't think this actually answers my inquiry for clarification. As I understand, you've given your understandings of "manasikārasambhavā," "mūlakā," and "samudayā." I was wondering how you differentiated "sambhavā," "mūlakā," and "samudayā" here.

In your defining of manasikāra(sambhava), you frame manasikāra as exclusively unwholesome, as I understand it. You say, "The flow towards the unwholesome signs and features is the flow out based on proliferated perception." I understood you to be making a universal statement about all manasikāra. Is this incorrect? Similarly, you've framed "mūlakā" as exclusively negative, i.e. based on desire.

On terms of samudayā meaning "necessary condition." This is the part that confuses me most. I know "paccaya" to function as this, loosely speaking. Also, your definition is a noun phrase, but it is defining a verb. Can you elaborate on what you meant here? There. Hopefully that is a less general and more manageable request for elaboration, better than "can you rephrase everything," which is rarely helpful!
I didn't realize you were asking me to simply define words I could easily use a PED to cut and paste. I figured you were asking about my understanding of the statements, and since the discourse would be given to wanderers of other sects it is clear to me that those first four questions would most definitely apply to the ordinary person, i.e. there isn't necessarily any concentration (AN 10.58). But please let me qualify that:

- I framed manasikāra as exclusively unwholesome because it was referring to bhava, but in MN 20 it is also wholesome. So, no I was not making such a universal statement.

- I did not say it was exclusively negative - desire can be wholesome also. Again, I chose to stay with a situation of ignorance, which I believe is the context (wanderers of other sects).

- "From what do they originate?" is the question. The answer is, "They originate from contact". The "what" is contact. Contact is the necessary condition - "all things" is what originates, is what is produced (samudayā) .

Again, I was giving my understanding of the statements in the context of the discourse. Does that clarify?


I know I don't always communicate effectively. Sharing my perspective requires a bit of extra work, and I don't always have the energy to set it up clearly each time. I appreciate you taking me to task and I hope you continue to do so. :smile:
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by SarathW »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:06 am I generally agree. The Udāna passage however, if read on the surface, suggests that all phassa is due to upadhi/attachment. The argument that follows from that is that, because a Buddha/Arhat has no upādhi, he has no phassa. It's an interesting argument IMO, if I've got it right and am accurately representing it.
I understand your point. On that basis then you have to argue that Arahant do not have sixfold sense media as well?
Nirodha does not mean disappearance in my opinion.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by Coëmgenu »

SarathW wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:10 amOn that basis then you have to argue that Arahant do not have sixfold sense media as well?
I don't, but it strikes me as a reasonable consequence if they don't have phassa.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by SarathW »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:31 am
SarathW wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:10 amOn that basis then you have to argue that Arahant do not have sixfold sense media as well?
I don't, but it strikes me as a reasonable consequence if they don't have phassa.
Well then if you work back words what is left is wisdom. (ignorance eliminated)
This is why I believe that Dependent Origination is not about the physical but mental.
On that basis, I agree that Arahants do not have contact.
:D
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:58 pm It depends on what "contact" is.
Agreed. For mine, "contact" is the result of having fabricated a distinction between "base" and "object", and then fabricating some relationship between the two - typically between that which ultimately becomes "me" and "mine".

Experience doesn't necessitate that fabrication, but ignorance overlays it nonetheless.

Metta,
Paul. :)
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

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SDC wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:00 am
It is a fair assessment, but let me try and clarify. When there is a working eye and things come into range, there is sight, but we're not privy to that "process". If there are sights, we can know there are eyes. If eyes work, and they are open, there are sights - whether we want them to be or not.
Not quite so imo.
We are in belief that we know, we know via senses - there is no other way. That is imo, a wrong view.
Sense consciousness arises, very briefly, not going beyond body, return back to its origin and vanish.
Sense consciousness is an active mental process. It is as if a log being put into a bon fire.
Fire will continue going on providing we periodically put logs in.
Just for the same, world is never vanish when we keep giving arising to sense consciousness.
As we withholds logs fire will weaken and eventually die, world will dissolve and vanish when sense consciousness is no longer arises.
The passive knowing of world without eye-consciousness, is awareness which never requires arsing nor it will die.

Passive knowing and active knowing, are two very distinctive mode of perceiving. While at any given moment, only one sense consciousness is able to arise, passive knowing is constant.

Contact is the very beginning of split - split of what? anything.
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by asahi »

Please , anyone provides the meaning of contact per the sutta , not individual interpretation . Is there any other definition other than "contact" which is the meeting of the three condition ? But when we says contact alone , that is much different from ignorance contact . Only after sorting out these then you may proceed to find out if arahant still have contact .

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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by confusedlayman »

Jack19990101 wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 6:20 am
SDC wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:00 am
It is a fair assessment, but let me try and clarify. When there is a working eye and things come into range, there is sight, but we're not privy to that "process". If there are sights, we can know there are eyes. If eyes work, and they are open, there are sights - whether we want them to be or not.
Not quite so imo.
We are in belief that we know, we know via senses - there is no other way. That is imo, a wrong view.
Sense consciousness arises, very briefly, not going beyond body, return back to its origin and vanish.
Sense consciousness is an active mental process. It is as if a log being put into a bon fire.
Fire will continue going on providing we periodically put logs in.
Just for the same, world is never vanish when we keep giving arising to sense consciousness.
As we withholds logs fire will weaken and eventually die, world will dissolve and vanish when sense consciousness is no longer arises.
The passive knowing of world without eye-consciousness, is awareness which never requires arsing nor it will die.

Passive knowing and active knowing, are two very distinctive mode of perceiving. While at any given moment, only one sense consciousness is able to arise, passive knowing is constant.

Contact is the very beginning of split - split of what? anything.
What u say about passive is also active and it woll also vanish away... there is knowing and not knowing thats it ...
I may be slow learner but im at least learning...
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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by Ceisiwr »

How can there be vedana without contact? When the Buddha experienced pain, what was the condition for that?
“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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Re: Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

Post by AlexBrains92 »

retrofuturist wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 3:08 am Greetings,
Coëmgenu wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:58 pm It depends on what "contact" is.
Agreed. For mine, "contact" is the result of having fabricated a distinction between "base" and "object", and then fabricating some relationship between the two - typically between that which ultimately becomes "me" and "mine".

Experience doesn't necessitate that fabrication, but ignorance overlays it nonetheless.

Metta,
Paul. :)
:goodpost:

«He does not construct even the subtlest apperception with regard
to what is seen, heard or thought; how would one conceptualise
that Brahmin in this world, who does not appropriate a view?

They do not fabricate, they do not prefer, they do not accept any
doctrine; the Brahmin cannot be inferred through virtue or vows,
such a person has gone to the far shore and does not fall back.»


- Snp 4.5 -
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