[Buddha-l] Thread: Three Types of Feeling

[Dharmachari Mahabodhi]

Thread: Three Types of Feeling

Hello. My name is Mahabodhi. I am writing a book on the
four satipatthanas called On Safe Ground. I am developing
an argument around the different types of feeling: bodily
(kayika) and mental (cetasika), worldly (samisam) and
spiritual (niramisam). I have put my book on the web at my
website at http://www.mahabodhi.org.uk where you can view
the whole book as a pdf file. I have also put the individual
sections on the site as pdf files for ease of navigation. I
outline my argument in the feeling section. To summarise
my argument is as follows: the four satipatthanas 'arise
together' in that they mutually condition each other. Hence
bodily feeling is a result of body and feeling mutually
conditioning each other; mental feeling as a result of feeling
and mind (as manas - that which grasps [measures]
dhammas). Working around the four satipatthanas there
should also be a conjuction between feeling and citta (heart).
This I am reading as feeling that arises on the basis of ethics
(as in a good conscience). Superficially this might seem to
be niramisam vedana(spiritual). However Citta can be
unspiritual as well as spiritual in the sense of being
unethical. Samisam and niramisam translated as worldly
and spiritual make niramisam seem ethically skilful and
samisam ethically unskilful. It makes sense that niramisam
is what happens when vedana and citta arise together, but
that the translation spiritual doesn't mean more ethical than
the worldly but ethically conditioned. Samisam (thoroughly
'of the flesh') vedana then is simply bodily feeling. Feeling
on its own, being a vipaka, cannot have karmic
connotations. I may be conditioned by them, and then it
becomes niramisam vedana, feeling not arising of the flesh
(from conditioning by the body). When arising conditioned
by the body, it becomes samisam vedana (or kayika
vedana), feeling arising of the flesh. If this is so we then
have three types of feeling - samisam / kayika vedana,
niramisam vedana, and cetasika vedana, corresponding to
being conditioned by kaya, citta, and manas.

Having said that, at SN V 2.1.3 (Silasutta), in discussing the
factors of awakening, piti niramisa (zest free from carnal
taint) arises conditioned by viriya being perfected. That zest
then perfected conditions tranquillity: namely a tranquil body
and mind. This seems like an argument for niramisa being
ethically positive. After all it is conditioned by viriya, energy
in pursuit of the good, which by definition is ethically positive.
Yet that still might not defeat the argument: if the point of
mentioning niramisa is to distinguish ethically conditioned piti
from bodily conditioned piti. But I'm not sure. On that
argument one might have piti niramisa as rapture based on
unskilfulness which would be unlikely to lead to tranquility,
but on the other hand that could never arise because of
viriya.



With metta

Mahabodhi

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