y not wrote: “Now going back to the instance of that brahmin and his wife, surely their exclamation, on SEEING the Buddha ‘where have you been, my son, all this time’ was made with vedana, and very strong vedana at that (somanassa, in this case). And the connections via relation lay in the deep past (vipaka) – the furthest as far back as 1,500 lifetimes, if the ones when they had been uncle/aunt and grand-father/mother are included. This does not accord with : “Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral. Any pleasant or unpleasant vedana that we may experience are ALL mind-made, and NOT due to kamma vipaka”.
There is no contradiction.
When they recall their past lives, the “vipaka vedana” that comes with the “vipaka vinnana” is neutral.
– But then they start generating MIND-MADE pleasant vedana (called somanassa vedana) based on that recalled memory.
Only bodily vedana (felt by the physical body) due to vipaka vinnana can bring sukha (or dukha).
So, the key is to distinguish between the following:
– sukha/dukha vedana that can arise due to kamma vipaka are felt only by the physical body. They can be body pains, injuries, cancer in the body, etc.
– Somanassa/domanassa vedana are both mind-made. They arise when one starts “mentally enjoying/worrying” about some event.
It is important to realize that somanassa/domanassa vedana will arise immediately following the recalling event. So, it may appear that they are intrinsically due to the recalling of the event.
– One needs to think about the mental state of the person recalling the event. The Buddha, of course, recalled the same event but did not form any somanassa/domanassa vedana.
This is somewhat relevant to the new post today, “Contact Between Āyatana Leads to Vipāka Viññāna”