Thank you for sharing that life experience, Tetsuo. Those are insightful comments. Also, welcome to the forum!
- Let me add the following.
Saññā is a largely unknown concept, particularly in the Western world. It is an ‘innate feeling’ that arises spontaneously.
- Some saññā are necessary for our survival: we feel the urge to use the bathroom or to eat when we are hungry. Color is a saññā, and it helps us avoid collisions at junctions or deciding whether a fruit is ripe for eating. Migrating birds would not survive without the saññā that enables them to leave their current location at a specific time and fly in a particular direction (they have built-in tiny magnets) to reach a safe destination. There are many such examples.
- Some saññā are the root cause for keeping us bound to the cycle of rebirth: Mind-pleasing sensations are initially generated via saññā. All our cravings and attachments begin with that critical step. As we have discussed, ‘color sanna‘ is the easiest to understand, since modern science has fully confirmed that colors are not in external objects or in light itself. That is why the Buddha called it a mirage; the same applies to tastes, aromas, and the like. Use your favorite AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, etc.) to verify that to your satisfaction.
Therefore, we must use the first type to live a healthy and long life (so that we can attain a magga phala). Simultaneously, we must contemplate the ‘unfruitful, dangerous, anicca nature’ of attaching to the second type to reach a magga phala.
- Keep in mind, as Tetsuo pointed out, ‘restraining the senses through willpower’ is unwise and could backfire, leading to depression. When one begins to see the drawbacks of attachment to ‘mind-made sensory pleasures’, such cravings will subside over time. P.S. The first task is to comprehend the fact that our attachments are rooted in kāma saññā; that is the same as Sammā Diṭṭhi with yoniso manasikāra, i.e., understanding the ‘genesis’ (‘yoni‘) of ‘san‘ (raga, dosa, moha) accumulation.