Feeling (Vedanã):
Causes and Effects:
Definitions:
There are pleasant feelings = mental
gladness and bodily pleasure.
There are painful feelings = mental sadness
and bodily pain.
There is neither pleasant, nor painful feeling = neutral indifference.
Dynamics:
Pleasant
feeling is agreeable when arising, yet disagreeable when ceasing!
Painful
feeling is disagreeable when arising, yet agreeable when ceasing!
Neutral
feeling is quite agreeable, when one is aware of its presence,
yet quite dull, boring, and disagreeable, when one is unaware of its presence!
Disadvantageous Side-Effects:
If unaware,
pleasant feeling will inevitably cause the arising
of desire...
If aware, pleasant feeling will not cause the arising of
this desire!
If unaware, painful feeling will inevitably cause the arising of
aversion...
If aware, painful feeling will not cause the arising of
this aversion!
If unaware, neutral feeling will inevitably cause the arising of
ignorance.
If aware, neutral feeling will not cause arising of this
ignorance!
Near Causes:
The cause of feeling is contact: Eye-contact, ear-contact,
nose-contact,
tongue-contact, body-contact, or mind-contact. At the
moment this
contact ceases, the associated feeling also instantly ceases...
Long-term
Detrimental Effects:
The effect of the phenomenon
feeling is -in the case- of
unawareness:
Craving towards the object = attraction, when the feeling is pleasant.
Craving away from the object = repulsion, when the feeling is painful.
Craving towards 'other' than
the object = neglect, when feeling is
neutral.
Characteristics:
Feeling is - as everything else - that is conditioned and
constructed:
1: Transient, impermanent,
passing,
can neither be kept,
nor
maintained!
2:
Dissatisfying, disappointing, frustrating, painful, and miserable!
3:
Impersonal, selfless, ownerless, and neither-me-nor-mine-nor-my-self!
Paradox:
There is this changing phenomenon feeling, yet there is no
feeler...
Who, or what then feels? Feeling itself feels as it were
being felt!
Buddha
once said:
Everything, every mental state, converges on this
feeling...
Comments:
We run after pleasant feeling and away
from painful feeling, even without
knowing it, or being aware of it! Feeling is thus the property
by which our
autopilot mind is controlled! Unaware of that, we become blind slaves of
feeling!
This robot-maniac
mind then runs after objects
such as porn, drugs,
booze, sex,
entertainment, and food, which,
when contacted, gives
rise to pleasant feelings.
Pleasant
feeling
is thus the proximate cause of
much self-destructive
addiction!
More on Feeling
(Vedanā):
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Three_Basic_Kinds_of_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/The_8_Aspects_of_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Bodily_and_Mental_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Detached_from_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Dependent_on_Contact.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Focusing_on_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Analysis_of_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/The_108_Feelings.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Emotional_Storm.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Latent_Feeling.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/Five_Feelings.htm
