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Dharmette: Vedana in the Cycle of Dependent Arising

Welcome again, and again, and again to this moment, to this moment's experience with all that arises, and this fear of being human.

Continuing our exploration with feeling tone, or vedanā^[1], which is the second foundation of mindfulness and a very important teaching. According to Buddhist psychology, a feeling tone—the simple pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral perception of objects—arises with every object of the mind. It's one of them in any mind-moment associated.

Someone sent me a question in an email noting it might seem sometimes that it's mixed. There is some pleasantness associated with something, and there's also some unpleasantness. My invitation would be to look more closely with a mind that has more settling, more concentration, more samādhi^[2]. There's more calm and ability to see and distinguish, as vedanā can sometimes be quite subtle. When you see it in its subtlety, your life will never be the same—to see how the mind essentially labels and perceives every experience kind of willy-nilly on its own.

The Impersonality of Vedana

We will explore impersonality, or not-self (anattā^[3]), tomorrow with respect to this teaching of vedanā, which is really a way to find freedom. It is the culmination of our week of practice to say that yes, they're impersonal. They just come and go. Yes, our perceptions, our assumptions, and our point of view have a lot to do with preconditioning them, but we don't control them. We shouldn't try to control and change unpleasant vedanā to pleasant vedanā. That would not be the way to practice with this; that would just be joy-seeking, getting on the hedonic treadmill, and it doesn't work. It's as if we always want to have pleasant vedanā in our experience in life, instead of deepening our wisdom so that there is a sense of ease with whatever vedanā arises—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—instead of always going after pleasant vedanā and pushing away unpleasant vedanā.

Coming back to the thread of the teachings in Buddhist psychology and in the Abhidhamma^[4], especially in the higher teachings, there is a vedanā in every moment of experience, with every object. It could be subtle, and it might be neutral. If it's neutral, we may not notice it. It's harder to notice neutral versus unpleasant or pleasant. As I've mentioned before, if you don't notice a vedanā with an experience, ask yourself: is it pleasant? No. Is it unpleasant? No. Oh, maybe then it's neutral. That's one way to tell neutral.

But to come back to the question that was asked, there is one tone of vedanā associated with one moment's experience, with one object. It's not multiple. It's just that the mind can move so fast between objects and between experiences that there could be some pleasantness with one thing and some unpleasantness with another. You know, you have a memory, and it brings some sadness—unpleasant vedanā. But then, it's bittersweet; there was a lovely memory there, so there's some pleasantness. Pleasant, unpleasant, unpleasant, pleasant—going back and forth. It takes some practice and settling of the mind to be able to see these distinctions, but it is possible. It might take more samādhi, concentration, and settling of the mind to see these finer nuances.

Dependent Origination

What I'd like to explore today is the teaching on dependent origination, and the instruction that I shared, which is to notice the first moment of the arising of vedanā, pleasant or unpleasant. The arising of vedanā always precedes the noticing of liking or disliking. If we can notice the vedanā—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—before reactions, justifications, and projections happen, we can actually have freedom in the midst of them.

Let me put up a graphic of the wheel of dependent origination for you to see, and I will also describe it for those who are listening to the audio dharma alone.

On the screen, you should see the twelve links of dependent origination, or dependent arising. As you might have heard, it is translated in different ways. Paṭiccasamuppāda^[5] is the Pali word. Dependent arising is a long and often complicated teaching, much longer than the minutes we have left. The part I would like to bring your attention to is on the lower part of this circle.

The idea here is that by craving, attachment, becoming, and clinging, we take birth and death, and the cycle of suffering continues. This could be interpreted either as a multi-life model—past lives, present lives—or a present-life model, just one life.

Down below is contact with an object. When one of the six sense doors—the mind door being one sense door in Buddhism besides the usual five—makes contact with any object, feeling tone arises. Down here is vedanā. From that feeling tone, if we don't notice it, craving arises. This is often translated as thirst (taṇhā^[6]). I like "thirst" because there is this embodied, physical feeling of being thirsty. We think, "I want it," or if it's unpleasant, "I don't want it, make it go away." If it's pleasant, "I want it, I want it."

Attachment or clinging is the next step of dependent origination that arises. With attachment, we solidify, hook up, and cling to it. We close our wrist. Craving is a thirst, and after thirst arises, we collapse our hand into a fist, and we just really attach to it. Then we become this being who loves something or hates something. In this one-life model, we take birth as a person who does not like this, hates this, suffers, etc. And so the wheel continues, even in the one-life model.

Breaking the Cycle

What is significant here is that while there are many places where this going round and round could be broken, it is taught in the classic teachings that the easiest place to break the cycle of suffering, the cycle of dependent arising, is right here between feeling tone and craving. Between noticing pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral vedanā and before it becomes thirst.

This right here is the easiest, best place to notice. Usually, we don't notice, and we take birth in this new birth of greed, hatred, and delusion, which are the roots of all this. We usually notice much later when it has all solidified into attachment and becoming. But if we can notice earlier, you'll start to see vedanā everywhere. At first, you don't see it at all, but then it pops up everywhere in rapid fire. You start noticing how the mind is labeling so many experiences with vedanā, with feeling tone.

For those of you who've asked how to find a copy of this, if you just search on the web for images of dependent arising, different images will come up, and this is one of them.

Evolution and Negativity Bias

A couple more words to say: evolutionarily, in many ways, we can consider that this feeling tone valence has developed as an evolutionary shortcut to fight or flight, for example. Let's acknowledge and be aware of the way evolution works. Evolution wants us to live long enough to pass down our genes; it's not interested in our happiness or unhappiness.

Hence, as human beings, we all have the negativity bias. We're more attuned to what's negative in the environment than what's good. If somebody gives you a compliment, you might just write it off. If somebody says something a little critical, you'll remember it for the rest of your life. There is a sense of being tuned to the negative.

In the same way that we evolutionarily have these various biases, there is also this bias of not noticing the vedanā when it comes up and just short-cutting to a reaction. "I don't like what this person said," leading into reactivity. Instead, you could note, "Oh, it's just unpleasant." It arises, and you hold it with ease. It's just unpleasant, or it's just pleasant. We don't have to be a marionette—a doll that has strings attached to its body, being pulled this way and that way by all these feeling tones. There are so many of them.

By contemplating feeling tones, we have an opportunity to bring our conditioning back to our conscious awareness. Buddha's teachings brilliantly show us the underpinnings of our psychological views. When you see what's beyond them, when you see how the sausage is made, you can go beyond it.

Invitation to Practice

My invitation for today is to notice when vedanā arises, perhaps before it leads to the other steps—to taṇhā, to thirst, to clinging and attachment. Notice if it's possible. You might catch yourself later when there is thirst already.

For instance, one area you can notice it is when some subtle sadness comes up and we turn towards comfort. We pick up our phone for some news or an email, or maybe we think, "Oh, ice cream or chocolate would be nice right now." Notice that there was an unpleasant vedanā that just came before it, and now the mind wants to avoid it and push it away. "Let's go to some pleasant vedanā. We want to have only pleasantness." That is the recipe for always chasing after the pleasant.

Thank you, Sangha^[7], for practicing together in this moment in time. I look forward to practicing together tomorrow with the culmination of our days together, exploring anattā (not-self), the impersonality of vedanā. This is a beautiful exploration and practice—just to see that they just arise. "I'm not controlling them, so do I need to get upset?"

For today, though, the invitation is to notice when they arise and the wheel of actions that follow.

May you be well, take good care.