Thank you for your explanation. It clears up a lot of confusions. Also the post about Bhavanga was very helpful.
You send the link to the Desana, but unfortunately I cannot understand Sinhala. But I listened to all the Desanas that are available in English so far and find it very helpful.
Now I understood the difference between asanna and plants. A friend told me recently that there is a Jataka story about the Buddha remembering a life “as a stone”.
The question we had was whether here “stone” refers to an actual stone or just a figurative way of saying “mind without thoughts”.
Now, I would think that stones and unorganic matter on earth does not even have jivitindriya, plants have jivitindriya and that asanna beings are not really located close to the earth’s surface but higher up. You said, their body shields the hadaya vatthu. How dense must their body be then?If it would be a few rupa only, would that be enough to shield?