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Dharmette: Feeling Tone's Impersonality and The Two Arrows

Thank you for your practice, everyone.

So, feeling tone. Vedanā^[1], valence—also translated and used in psychology as hedonic tone. What we can notice is that not only is there perhaps the noticing of the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral associated with an object, which can take some time to get used to, to really notice. It's almost like Asian languages. Chinese, for example, is a tonal language, such that it's not just the vowels that are significant—they transfer and give information—but there is also a tone. Is it going up or down? The tone associated with the vowel has information.

For Westerners, it's really hard when they're learning Chinese and Asian languages to notice the tone at first. We can be tone deaf; we can hear the vowels but not notice the tones. It takes some paying attention to. Similarly with noticing vedanā, feeling tone—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—which is associated with an object. We can notice the object ("Oh, there's a sound," "there's a sensation," "there's a pain"), but we may not notice the tone of it at first. So if this week has been challenging, wondering, "Where is that tone?", please hang in there. Don't lose heart. It's a practice. Your proverbial ear will become more attuned to noticing feeling tone associated with objects, or how the mind perceives the object.

Because it's not inherent in the object, you'll start to notice it pop up. And when you see it once clearly—usually in meditation, clearly seeing with some level of samādhi^[2]—then it starts to pop up in other places. You start to see it also in your daily life. So I like to encourage you to please hang in here with this practice. It can be a little nuanced, but really worthwhile.

So exploring impersonality today: that it's impersonal, it's not-self, it's anattā^[3]. It just arises. This way of perceiving—given our moods, our views, how we're feeling, our physical health, or our history—the mind associates particular vedanā with different experiences. Of course, there are some biological aspects, as I mentioned a couple of meetings ago, for pain in the body, which has unpleasant vedanā. But all other vedanās, the mind can label them pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. It's not inherent in the object; it just depends on how they get labeled.

And to see that... to see that, oh yeah, who feels? Who is it, the one who's feeling this tone? There's a sense that it is just being felt. Unpleasant is just being felt. Pleasant is just being felt. Or neutral is just being felt. There, one can see there is no ownership. It can actually be a way of opening into this profound teaching of not-self, anattā, through vedanā. Through seeing it just being felt, unpleasant is just unpleasant. Seeing it kind of sitting there in space without ownership can be profoundly transformative in how we see ourselves and how we take this being to be.

Vedanā as the Winds and the Guest House

A couple of things I wanted to share with you. In Samyukta Āgama^[4] discourse 29, these vedanās, feeling tones, are likened to winds. It's a beautiful passage; I'll read it:

"It is just as fierce winds that can suddenly arise in the sky, coming from the four directions. Winds that are dusty or winds that are not dusty, world-pervading winds or world-destroying winds, weak winds or strong winds, even whirlwinds. Feelings, vedanā in the body, are just like those winds. Various types of feeling arise one after the other: pleasant feelings, painful feelings, neutral feelings."

So just like winds that arise and pass—strong winds, weak winds, world-destroying winds—this metaphor isn't just a metaphor. It's an instruction. There are various ways to practice with the impersonality of vedanā. Today we chose "who feels," which is actually a teaching from the commentaries. It's not often taught because it's in the commentaries, but "who feels," to explore who is the one who's feeling the vedanā, experiencing the pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.

And seeing them as winds, that's another way. Had we had another week, we would explore all these different things. I invite you, if you're curious, if you're interested in this topic, try this other teaching, this other metaphor.

Another metaphor that's used in the Samyutta Nikāya^[5] is the simile of the guest house. It goes as:

"Just as different kinds of people stay in the guest house—they come, they go. They come, they go—this body too is just like a guest house. Pleasant and unpleasant and neutral feelings just visit and leave."

By the way, that reference I gave, 29, I just realized in my notes that's not the number. I don't have the number of where the discourse is in the Samyukta Āgama. Oh, that was my paragraph number.

So noticing these feeling tones arising and passing, there can be a sense of freedom in the midst. They just arise and pass. We don't necessarily have to act upon them; we don't have to be a slave to them.

The Two Arrows

This profound teaching also shows up in a teaching that you might have heard about, the two arrows. The two arrows, which is the Sallatha Sutta^[6], the arrow. Many of us have heard that often when life hurts us with one arrow, we add a second arrow of lamentation and sorrow and "why me?" and "why this?" Really, this teaching is based on vedanā, feeling tone.

The first paragraph—and it's a beautiful sutta, let me read some paragraphs for you:

"An ordinary person experiences pleasant vedanā (sukha vedanā), unpleasant vedanā (dukkha vedanā), and neutral vedanā (adukkham-asukha vedanā—neither pleasant nor unpleasant vedanā). A well-instructed disciple also experiences pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral vedanā. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple and the ordinary person?"

It's an interesting way of teaching by the Buddha. Like, what is the distinction? And the Buddha continues:

"When touched with unpleasant or painful vedanā, the ordinary person then also experiences sorrow, grief, lamentation, beats their chest, and becomes distraught. So they feel two pains, a physical and a mental pain. Just as if a person was shot with an arrow, and right afterward they were shot with another one, so that they would feel the pain of two arrows. In the same way, when touched with painful or unpleasant vedanā, the ordinary person sorrows, grieves, laments, beats their chest, and becomes distraught. So they feel two pains, physical and mental."

I'm going to continue to read because I think this sutta is beautiful and so instructive.

"As they are touched by painful vedanā, they become resistant."

Interesting, they become resistant. Here's a key word.

"Then in them who so resist unpleasant vedanā, an underlying tendency of resistance against unpleasant vedanā comes to underlie their mind."

Wow, profound, right? When you resist, an underlying tendency to resist the unpleasant comes to underlie the mind.

"Touched by unpleasant vedanā, they yearn for sensual pleasure. Why is that? Because the ordinary person does not know any escape from unpleasant vedanā aside from sensual pleasure. Then in those who seek sensual pleasure, an underlying tendency to lust for pleasant vedanā comes to underlie their mind. They do not know as it actually is present the arising and ending of these vedanā, nor the gratification, the danger, and the escape connected with these vedanā. In them who lack the knowledge, an underlying tendency to ignorance as to the neutral vedanā comes to underlie their mind."

I think this is quite profound how the tendency, the resistance, the pushing away of the vedanā arises, and then the tendency to always run away from painful vedanā towards sensual pleasure. It's translated as rāga, as lust, but it's not just lust, it's any sensual pleasure.

In comparison, the well-trained disciple who has also been touched by vedanā, they do not resist it. The Buddha says:

"In them, no underlying tendency for resistance arises under the impact of painful, unpleasant vedanā. They do not proceed to seek sensual happiness. And why? As the well-taught noble disciple, they know an escape from painful vedanā other than seeking sensual pleasure."

So what is the escape here? The escape isn't the pushing away, but it is the practice of the Third and Fourth Noble Truths. It is seeing, knowing. It is what we've been practicing this week: getting to know vedanā for what it is, and getting to see its impersonality, given that it just arises and passes. That is the escape. It's impersonal, it just arises, and it's there. It doesn't necessarily have to be acted upon when it's clearly seen.

In that way, the well-trained disciple only feels one arrow, which is the arrow of the vedanā, not two arrows. That is the difference, the Buddha says. This is the distinction between the well-instructed disciple and an ordinary person.

Reflections and Dedication

So dear ones, I hope that our practice together this week, practicing with vedanā, feeling tone, has been supportive for you. For your practice, for your life, in waking up and having more ease and freedom, and in service of others.

If there are reflections that you would like to share with me, you are welcome to send me an email through my website. It's nikkimirghafori.com. I can put it in the chat... let's see, I can do that. I put it in the chat, so you're welcome there. On the contact sheet on my website, there is a way to send me an email. You shouldn't necessarily expect an email back, but I would love to hear your reflections if you'd be so kind to share. How has it been for you exploring vedanā this week in these different ways? Has it been easy, challenging? What has popped up for you? It's just an invitation, and again, I put it in the chat, it's nikkimirghafori.com.

It's been lovely to practice with you. I hope this has been of service. I hope this supports you and is supportive to all whose lives you touch.

Warm blessings, bows to you and your practice. Dear international sangha^[7], as I close my eyes, I feel you all over the world sitting with me and practicing in this moment, and sitting with each other and practicing. What a beautiful sangha. May you all be free and well.

Thank you all, take good care until the next time we meet on the dharma path.