skandha wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2023 4:49 am
Hi SDC,
I agree that the word sensation used in the Goenka circles is ambiguous which they use as a translation for vedana. In the Goenka circles vedana is often emphasised as physical which is different from the orthodox view of vedana being an affective quality, a mental phenomena. The way I see it, physical sensations are more like the pressure of phassa (contact) on the 5 physical senses which is simultaneously accompanied by vedana. For me in terms of practice it is easier to anchor the attention on the pressure on the physical, on which you can also know the affective vedana simultaneously.
Hi skandha,
Thanks for the clarification.
It complicates things if suttas about either
vedanā (feeling) or
phassa (contact) are used interchangeably to illustrate a single technique, which I’m sure you would agree with, but others take similar liberties, so I’m not singling out Goenka here.
Just to clarify the usage of “sensation”: you find it to be closer to the meaning of
phassa in the classic sense of the “meeting of the three” (eye, sights, eye-consciousness, etc.), with
vedanā understood as being simultaneously present (in whatever way it is)? Would you say this is comparable to a contemporary understanding of sense impression, as in the direct experience of sense organ and sense object? The only issue that comes up with “sense impression” for
phassa is the meaning of
saḷāyatana (six sense base), which includes both the interior and exterior (sense and sense base already together), and seems to imply
phassa has a broader meaning than just the impression (or sensation). The description starts with, “In dependence on eye and forms, eye consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact…”. A witnessing of this “association” is problematic since there would have to be a neutral, exterior position before, during and after the sense impression, which assumes a broader sense impression of that neutrality. What I mean is, there would have to be a field within which these three things come together and meet, creating a sensation, and that implies having first perceived the field: a sense impression of the field of sense impression - an infinite regress.
This is more of my issue with the classic interpretation of
phassa, but the Goenka model perhaps runs into the same problem when attempting to reconcile that assumed external position, which would be required to directly witness a sensation in its origin. What might settle the issue is an understanding that does not conceive of that external position, and takes feeling as a converging point already supported by what appears. To say it another way: the appearance is there, the feeling is there. There can be knowledge that a living body, with functioning faculties, is required for such an experience to be present, without having conceived witnessing it. And I think that allows for the right emphasis. There’s no need for that external position. A person finds themselves already immersed in an experience, already understood a certain way, and that is what must be further understood within a lifestyle of virtue and restraint. Let me know your thoughts on this.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3