[Yeos]

Hi

Some “?” on the following…:

M 148 Chachakka Sutta

• “‘The six classes of contact should be known.’ …Dependent
  on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye.
  The meeting of the three is contact.
  Dependent on the ear & sounds…
  Dependent on the nose & aromas…
  Dependent on the tongue & flavors…
  Dependent on the body & tactile sensations…
  Dependent on the intellect & ideas there arises
  consciousness at the intellect. The meeting of the three is
  contact. …This is the fourth sextet.

QUESTION: “Contact” seems to have a negative connotation something like being the source of a alot of trouble ?

II – “Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a
requisite condition there is feeling. WITH FEELING/SENSATION (VEDANA) AS A REQUISITE CONDITION THERE IS CRAVING”.

QUESTION: what can we extract of useful for PRACTICE, from “WITH FEELING/SENSATION (VEDANA) AS A REQUISITE CONDITION THERE IS CRAVING”.” ?
Seeing that craving (tanha) is the source of all kamma ?

III – “If anyone were to say, ‘The eye is the self,’ that wouldn’t
be tenable. The arising & falling away of the eye are
discerned. And when its arising & falling away are
discerned, it would follow that ‘My self arises & falls away.”

QUESTION : And so on relatively to forms, consciousness, the aggregates…etc; meaning that which arises and falls away can never be considered as the “Self” ? And if so – why ? Or in other words one might also envisage a Self which is unceasing metamorphosis ?

thank you

[Johnny_Lim]

Imagine we are sitting in meditation in a room. Outside is raining heavily. We have a healthy hearing system; there is sound coming from the pouring rain; there is a non-vacuum environment for sound to propagate to our ears; and we are attentive to the sound of the pouring rain;

Whether we like the sound of the pouring rain or not is immaterial. When the above conditions are met, hearing consciousness arises – without us making a wish or praying for it to happen. If we do not like the sound of the pouring rain when we are meditating, and if the conditions are there for it to happen, no matter how we wish or pray for the sound to go away is of no use. We are never in control of the situation. One can say we can mute the sound by closing the doors and drawing thick curtains over the windows. But that is just a follow up action. We are just following up this unsatisfactoriness by devising something to alter the outcome of the situation so as to lessen our suffering. The sound of the pouring rain outside which causes distraction to our meditation remains an indisputable fact. On the other hand, we might like the sound of the pouring rain outside so much so that we cling on to it and hoping that it will continue for as long as our meditation session lasts. But it didn’t. Dissatisfaction sets in. Whether we like the sound of the pouring rain or not, the 5 aggregates that arose when we are mentally engaging in that sound are not going to last forever. When we crave for the sound because we like it so much, we suffer when it ended so quickly. When we dislike the sound so much because it is a distraction to our meditation, we suffer in another way. The key is to see consciousness arising when suitable conditions are fulfilled. When conditions are not there for things to happen, no matter how much a person wish and pray, it ain’t going to happen. And when conditions are fulfilled for things to happen, no amount of wishing and praying are going to make it go away. We are never in control. But we like to think we are in control. That’s a delusion. There is only the arising and perishing of conditions to manifest phenomena. What about our volitions to tweak and alter situations to our liking? They are also conditions in this whole matrix of suffering.

[SengKiat]

Please download the PDF file MN 148 Six By Six – Chachakkasutta to have a better understanding of the attā and anattā used in the sutta.

QUESTION: “Contact” seems to have a negative connotation something like being the source of a lot of trouble ?

The “contact” here is just the plain meaning of the meeting of the three which are “the eye”, “the sights”, and “the eye consciousness” which is called contact, and so on for the rest of the five senses.

QUESTION: what can we extract of useful for PRACTICE, from “WITH FEELING/SENSATION (VEDANA) AS A REQUISITE CONDITION THERE IS CRAVING”.” ?

In this part, the “contact” which when sense input is being used as “āyatana” instead of “indriya” (see Indriya and Āyatana – Big Difference), then the “contact” becomes samphassa (contact with defilement [san added]) and would be an akusala thought giving rise to the “feeling as requisite condition there is craving”.
So with Anapanasati or Satipatthana mindfulness one will be able to stop the progression of this bad thought and not ending with bad kamma.

QUESTION : And so on relatively to forms, consciousness, the aggregates…etc; meaning that which arises and falls away can never be considered as the “Self” ? And if so – why ? Or in other words one might also envisage a Self which is unceasing metamorphosis ?

For this question, the meaning of attā and anattā is clearly incorrect in the sense of “self” or “not self” but should be “in-control” or “not in-control“.

Read the sutta that you have downloaded at the above link, and it should be clear for the meaning of attā and anattā.

With metta.

[Yeos]

SengKiat :”For this question, the meaning of attā and anattā is clearly incorrect in the sense of “self” or “not self” but should be “in-control” or “not in-control“.”
I’m acquainted with the meaning of “self” and “not self” as per puredhamma: “Self”: “in-control” as you said (or the opposite of helpless).
“Not-self”: helplessness.
Which brings us back to “gandhabba” and “gathi” that is to say, to what we call nowadays a specific (but evolving) “psychological entity” susceptible of improvement – according pure dhamma path – dwelling in a specific (but transient) body.

[sybe07]

Yeos asked: “And so on relatively to forms, consciousness, the aggregates…etc; meaning that which arises and falls away can never be considered as the “Self” ? And if so – why ? Or in other words one might also envisage a Self which is unceasing metamorphosis ?

The sutta’s teach all conditioned phenomena to see like this: ‘this is not mine, not who i am, no myself’.

Yes, whatever arises and ceases can never be self. For example, if thoughts (inner verbal talk) would be self than you would cease when thoughts cease. This is not the case. The same with gati, anusaya, asava, tanha, lobha, dosa, moha etc. It cannot be ourselves. When it ceases we do not cease.

So how can we be what arises and ceases in our experience?

Siebe

[Yeos]

Siebe “So how can we be what arises and ceases in our experience?”
This is an excellent example of how language – any language – can turn innefective when it comes to express certain truths, since “we” and “our” suggests something or someone experiencing…

[Lal]

M 148 Chachakka Sutta (and “contact”) are also discussed in the post:
“Difference between Phassa and Samphassa“.

[Tobias G]

Hi Sengkiat, I cannot download the pdf (“400 bad request”). Can you help?

[SengKiat]

Hi Tobias G, just corrected the link error for (“400 bad request”). Thanks.

You can use the above link or the link below:

PDF file: MN 148 Six By Six – Chachakkasutta

[Author]

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