Indifference Creates Ignorance »

Friends:

Neutral Neither-painful-nor-pleasant Feeling creates Ignorance!

The Blessed Buddha once said to some deadly sick bhikkhus:
A bhikkhu should await his time aware and clearly comprehending...
This is our instruction to you! While a bhikkhu lives in this way,
aware & clearly comprehending, enthusiastic, keen, & determined,
if there arises in him a neutral feeling, then he understands this:
'There has arisen in me this neutral feeling. Now that is dependent,
not independent! Dependent on what? Dependent on just this contact!
But this contact is impermanent, conditioned, & dependently arisen...
So when the neutral feeling has arisen in dependence on a contact,
that is impermanent, conditioned, & dependently arisen, how could it ever
then itself be permanent?' He dwells in this way always contemplating
the impermanence of any contact and the transience of any neutral feeling,
and he considers thus the inevitable vanishing, fading away, ceasing, & the
therefore necessary relinquishment of all conditioned constructions...!
Therefore is his latent tendency to ignorance, created by the neglect of all
neutral contacts & the inattention to all neutral feelings, gradually eliminated...
He then understands: With the breakup of this body, at the exhaustion of this
fragile life, any feeling, all that is felt, neither being opposed, nor clung to,
nor neglected, will cool down right here...

Comments:
How does neutral feeling create ignorance?
A: Contacted object is Neglected, since it does not produce pleasure...
Since neutral feeling is not pleasant, it does not attract attention.
Any mind searching for pleasure therefore neglects it & the contacted
object, which gave rise to this neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling...
When the object is not examined by attention, ignorance is created.
B: Contacted object is Neglected, since it does neither generate pain...
Since neutral feeling is not painful, it does not alert the attention.
Any mind fleeing from pain therefore neglects it & the contacted
object, which gave rise to this neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling...
When the object is not known by consideration, ignorance is created.

Pleasant feeling induces greed...
Painful feeling produces hate...
Neither-painful-nor-pleasant neutral feeling
causes neglect & thus generates ignorance...

Source (edited extract):
The Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikāya. Book IV [214]
section 36: feeling. Vedanā. The Sick-Ward. 8.
http://store.pariyatti.org/Connected-Discourses-of-the-Buddha_p_1379.html
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/ati_website/html/tipitaka/sn/index.html

Updated: 04 Dec 2015 http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Indifference_Creates_Ignorance.htm