2.3: Mindfulness (b): The Contemplation on Feelings

[Full title: 2.3—The Four Foundations of Mindfulness (b): The Contemplation on Feelings]

The second is feelings. Feeling is a mental state. Now we have pain here, physical pain and we experience that physical pain with our mind. In our mind there is a mental state called feeling. Since it is pain, feeling is the painful feeling. When Buddha said a monk contemplates feeling in the feeling, He means the monk is contemplating on that mental state and not necessarily on the pain there. In practice, when we have pain we have to concentrate on the pain and be mindful of it because that is practical. But actually, when we are making notes as, “pain, pain,” we are really making notes of the mental state that feels the pain in the body. That feeling is of three kinds–pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.

In the the Discourse of Satipatthāna (Majjhima Nikāya, Vol. I.), the Buddha said:

And how does a monk remain focused on feelings in and of themselves? There is the case where a monk, when feeling a painful feeling, discerns that he is feeling a painful feeling. When feeling a pleasant feeling, he discerns that he is feeling a pleasant feeling. When feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he discerns that he is feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. ^[1]

When feeling a painful feeling of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a painful feeling of the flesh. When feeling a painful feeling not of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a painful feeling not of the flesh. When feeling a pleasant feeling of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a pleasant feeling of the flesh. When feeling a pleasant feeling not of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a pleasant feeling not of the flesh. When feeling a neitherpainful-nor-pleasant feeling of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling of the flesh. When feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling not of the flesh, he discerns that he is feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling not of the flesh.^[2]

For the ordinary man a pleasant feeling, but a neither-pleasant-norunpleasant feeling does not appear to be feeling. In case of the third kind of feeling he does not take it to be a feeling at all. He just takes it to be a negative state, the absence of the first two types of feeling. This is why the Enlightened One says that while greed or lust is due to pleasant feelings and hatred or anger due to unpleasant feelings, delusion or spiritual blindness is due to neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant feelings. This third kind of feeling is the actual presence of neutral feelings which can be felt or “seen” or rather experienced as something veritable. (Hence in the Pāli Text Society’s Pāli-English dictionary the translation of Upekkha as “zero point between joy and sorrow” is not satisfactory). However, one cannot know that one is feeling the third type of feeling unless one experiences it momentary arising and ceasing. Here the knowledge of “sensation” becomes significant. Men of practice before the Buddha knew first two kind of feeling, but were ignorant of the third. This is why once the Buddha said that only he knows and “sees” feeling among the various contemporary teachers.^[3]

One should bear in mind that the kind of sensation we are concerned with here is not an ordinary feeling. When the Buddha says that Nibbāna is the supreme happiness (Nibbānam paraman sukham.) He is not referring to happy or pleasant feeling in its ordinary sense. Although he uses the word happiness (sukha) which generally refers to feeling, its use in connection with Nibbāna, however, has nothing to do with feeling per se. Words are mere symbols of things and of what we think, feel, conceive, or experience. This is why sometimes one word is used in different senses and different words are used synonymously. Thus when the Enlightened One says, “All phenomena are experienced through feeling (or gather together in feeling),” he is using the ordinary word feeling in not quite an ordinary sense. But again this different sense is not totally exclusive of the ordinary one. Sensation and ordinary feeling are like water and waves respectively. Waves are water, form of water. Developing Insight is like diving into the deep water of sensation. This different sense of the feeling in question becomes evident in these words of the Buddha: “To the person having feeling, o brethren, do I declare, Suffering, the Cause of Suffering, the Cessation of Suffering and the way leading to the Cessation of Suffering.” ^[4]

W. Rahula said: When you experience an unhappy, sorrowful sensation, in this state your mind is cloudy, hazy, not clear, it is depressed. In some cases, you do not even see clearly why you have that unhappy feeling. First of all, you should learn not to be unhappy about your unhappy feeling, not to be worried about your memories. But try to see clearly why there is a sensation or a feeling of unhappiness, or worry, or sorrow. Try to examine how it arises, its cause, how it disappears, and its cessation. Try to examine it as if you are observing it from outside, without any subjective reaction, as a scientist observes some object. Here, too, you should not look at it as ‘my feeling’ or ‘my sensation’ subjectively, but only look at it as ‘a feeling’ or ‘a sensation’ objectively. You should forget again the false idea of ‘I’. When you see its nature, how it arises and disappears, your mind grows dispassionate towards that sensation, and becomes detached and free. It is the same with regard to all sensations or feelings.^[5]

Indeed the mindfulness of feeling is the Truth of Suffering and thus the way of deliverance for the Bhikkhu who contemplates feelings.

Therefore, the Buddha taught:

In this way he remains focused internally on feelings in and of themselves, or externally on feelings in and of themselves, or both internally and externally on feelings in and of themselves. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to feelings, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to feelings, or on the phenomenon of origination and passing away with regard to feelings. Or his mindfulness that ‘There are feelings’ is maintained to the extent of knowledge and remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on feelings in and of themselves.^[6]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Majjihima-Nikāya I. pp. 75-6.

[2]:

Majjihima-Nikāya I. p. 76.

[3]:

Harcharn Singh Sobti: 2003: 105.

[4]:

Ibid. pp. 102-3.

[5]:

W. Rahula 1959: 73.

[6]:

Majjihima-Nikāya I. p. 76.