BUDDHISM IN KERALA

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Friends:

Real Peace is without urge for Pleasant Feeling!

The Blessed Buddha once explained this to some gravely sick Bhikkhus:
A Bhikkhu should spend his time acutely aware & clearly comprehending...
This is our instruction to you! While a Bhikkhu lives in this way, aware and
clearly comprehending, enthusiastic, keen, and determined, if there arises
in him a pleasant feeling, then he understands this: There has arisen in me
an event of pleasant feeling. Now that is dependent, it is not independent.
Dependent on what? Dependent on this sense-contact! But all contact is
impermanent, passing, conditioned, constructed and dependently arisen...
So when this pleasant feeling has arisen in dependence on sense-contact,
that indeed is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, how could it
ever then itself be lasting and permanent? He dwells in this way always
contemplating this impermanence of contact and also of pleasant feeling,
and he considers the inevitable vanishing, fading away, and total ceasing,
that entails relinquishment of all constructions. While he reflects thus,
then the underlying tendency to lust for contact and pleasant feeling is
gradually reduced. This deep craving fades way and is finally eliminated...
He understands: With the breakup of this body, at the exhaustion of this
fragile life, whatever feeling, and all that is felt, whether pain or pleasure,
neither being hankered after, nor clung to, will cool down right there...

Sense Organ + Sense Object + Sense Consciousness = Sense-Contact
Visibility of Eye + Visible Form + Visual Consciousness = Eye-Contact
Ear Sensitivity + Sound + Auditory Consciousness = Ear-Contact
Nose Sensitivity + Smell + Olfactory Consciousness = Nose-Contact
Tongue Sensitivity + Taste + Gustatory Consciousness = Tongue-Contact
Skin Sensitivity + Touch Object + Tactile Consciousness = Body-Contact
Mind Receptivity + Thought + Mental Consciousness = Mental-Contact

Contact is not the outer physical impact, but a neural & mental construction!

The Buddha on Contact (Phassa):
Dependent on the eye and the forms, eye-consciousness arises.
The coming-together of these three phenomena, is sense-contact. MN 18

For those overcome by contact, flowing along in the stream of becoming,
following a miserable path, the ending of fetters is quite far away.
While those, who comprehend contact, delighting in stilling through insight,
they, by breaking through contact, free from craving, are totally unbound!
Sn 736-7

Subduing desire for both the inner and the outer, comprehending contact,
with no greed. Doing nothing, which he himself would rebuke himself for,
the enlightened person doesn't cling to what is seen, or to what is heard!
Sn 778

Not attaching to the future, without sorrow over the past, he constructs
no wrong 'ego-self-I-me' view fancying mere contact as 'my' experience.
Sn 851

Pleasure, pain and indifference all have their source in sense-contact.
When this sense-contact is absent, these affective states are also absent.
The idea of appearing & disappearing, existence & non-existence, and any
event of becoming & non-becoming also emerges from this same contact!
Sn 870

What is the cause of sense-contact? From what arises so much clinging?
By the absence of what, is there no selfish possessiveness or attachment?
By the disappearance of what, does sense-contact, not make contact?
Sn 871

Sense-contact depends on mentality and materiality: Name-and-Form.
Clinging possessiveness has its source in longing for & wanting something!
When not longing for anything, then there is no egoistic possessiveness...
By the vanishing of formed objects, sense-contact cannot make contact!
Sn 872

When a Bhikkhu is touched by bodily painful contact, he does not bemoan.
He wouldn't long for coming into another state, or tremble at any terror!
Sn 923