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I am not sure but I think I remember that Lal said somewhere that bodily feelings (tactile sensations) will lead to positive and negative kamma vipaka EVEN if you practice real buddhism and you feel neutral feelings towards visual forms, sounds, smells, taste and thoughts.
I am not forwarding this question specially to Lal but I think he will be the most experienced to answer this question.<br />
Can somebody confirm this from his own experience?(For example: do you feel neutral feelings except for the sense of touch?)
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“I am not sure but I think I remember that Lal said somewhere that bodily feelings (tactile sensations) will lead to positive and negative kamma vipaka.”
I don’t think I ever wrote that.
- Any sensory INPUT (seeing, hearing..or a body sensation) is a kamma vipaka. It does not LEAD TO more kamma vipaka automatically.
- It is our RESPONSE to such a kamma vipaka (i.e., doing kamma) that MAY lead to more kamma vipaka.
Let me give an example. Hearing a particular song being played on the radio is a kamma vipaka.
- But if you then decide that you want to hear it again, you are now acting on it by doing kamma with thoughts (thinking about it), speech (asking for the opinions of others whether it is a good song or where to buy the album, etc.), and actions 9going to the store to buy the album).
- You may accumulate strong kamma if you steal money to buy the album.
- Try to apply it to other sensory inputs. That way, you can get the concept absorbed.
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In this post, you have stated:
“Even an Arahant will experience those dukha or sukha vedana as long as he/she is alive. Only “samphassa-jā-vēdanā” will not arise in an Arahant.”
If those vedana are dukkha and sukha and they are not samphassa-ja-vedana, doesn’t that imply that the body has built-in pleasure and pain, even for a pure mind?
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This is a subtle point. Those vedanā that arise in an Arahant are a manifestation of “distorted saññā.”
- An Arahant does not experience a “pure mind” while living daily life. His/her physical body formed at birth, before attaining Arahanthood. The “distorted saññā” (note that it is not defiled, i.e., does not have rāga, dosa, or moha) arises in anyone born with a physical body.
- However, when Arahants are in “Arahant-phala samāpatti” (where they experience the pure mind realized at the Arahant-phala moment), they do not experience the “distorted saññā.” While in that samāpatti, they do not experience vedanā associated with the “distorted saññā.”
- See #7 and #8 of “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkhā – Immoral Thoughts Based on ‘Distorted Saññā’” for details.
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I read the post but I am still not sure wether an arahant experiences pleasure and pain out of distorted sanna
Here you said “note that it is not defiled, i.e., does not have rāga, dosa, or moha”
and in the “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkhā – Immoral Thoughts Based on ‘Distorted Saññā’ post you said “The key point is that their minds do not even go through the purāna kamma stage”
But also in this post you have translated “Their five sensory faculties remain. So long as their sensory faculties operate, they continue to experience the agreeable/disagreeable and to feel bodily pleasure/pain.”
Does that mean that even an arahant feels pain, and if so, is it only from the body sense organ?
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Zapper asked, “Does that mean that even an arahant feels pain, and if so, is it only from the body sense organ?”
1. As Christian pointed out, there are many accounts in the Tipitaka about Arahants feeling bodily pain. Even the Buddha felt pain when a stone injured his foot (when Devadatta tried to take his life). He also felt bodily aches. In the final days, he had stomach pains.
- So, yes. There is plenty of evidence that Arahants feel “bodily pain.” In the same way, they can feel “bodily pleasures” like resting on a soft bed compared to sleeping on the ground.
2. The other types of “vedanā” are associated with “saññā” built into the physical body.
- For example, the sweet taste of sugar is a different type of “vedanā” are associated with “saññā” built into the physical body. It does not come through the nerves in the physical body (as in #1), but come through the tongue (taste).
- In reality, that “saññā” of sweetness in sugar is not real in an absolute sense. If it were, all living beings would taste sugar to be sweet. But a cow or a tiger would not eat sugar. In the same way, cows like to eat grass, but humans or tigers do not. That is why it is called “distorted saññā.”
- A puthujjana attaches to the taste of sugar. But since an Arahant has understood how the human bodies are built to provide a “sweet taste” (but the body of a tiger or cow is not), their minds do not go through the “automatic attachment” at the purāna kamma stage (at the very beginning of the tasting sugar).
- That is the critical point I tried to point out (as in your above quote: “and in the “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkhā – Immoral Thoughts Based on ‘Distorted Saññā’ post, you said “The key point is that their minds do not even go through the purāna kamma stage”).
3. Such “distorted saññā” can lead to a feeling of joy (or revulsion) with other senses, too. For example, we smell rotten meat to be repulsive, but a pig likes that smell.
- An Arahant would smell rotten meat as a “bad smell,” but is not depressed. They fully understand that smell is “made up.”
- The fact that Arahants also experience those “made-up emotions” (“agreeable and disagreeable”) associated with the sense faculties is expressed in the “Nibbānadhātu Sutta (Iti 44)“: “Their five sense faculties still remain. So long as their senses have not gone they continue to experience the agreeable and disagreeable, to feel pleasure and pain.”
- I have discussed that sutta in several posts: “Search Results for: Nibbānadhātu.” You can read them to gain further understanding of this critical point.
4. The difficulty lies in understanding how our bodies (and the external world) arise to provide that “distorted saññā.“
- It is fully explained via Paṭicca Samuppāda. The first few posts in the “Worldview of the Buddha” section explain that.
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