a present moment of cognition
Feb. 7th, 2020 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cattasallaBuddhist cognitive theory starts with the moment of contact. "Dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact." (MN 18). This holds true for all six senses: The coming together of the sense-object with the sense-base and the sense-consciousness dependent on both is contact. From there, all of cognition proceeds.
Continuing from MN 18: "With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one thinks about. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates." So immediately with contact, we have two things happen: Feeling and perception. Feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. As such, it conditions either craving, aversion, or ignorance, respectively. This tinges the process that occurs after perception.
From MN 148,
The process of mental proliferation is tinged by this, and that which one thinks about becomes predominant. SN 12.52-60 point out that if you think about the gratification that a particular object brings, it you will increase the craving, but if you think about the inherent danger, you will decrease the craving for it.
Ultimately, the way out is mindfulness of feeling. Keep attention close to direct experience, and close to whether or not the feeling is painful, pleasant, or neutral. That provides a vantage point from which one can see the machinery of craving begin to operate, perceptions distorting the object according to feelings and cravings. Stay close to direct experience without excessive thought, and thereby comes liberation from craving.
Continuing from MN 18: "With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one thinks about. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates." So immediately with contact, we have two things happen: Feeling and perception. Feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. As such, it conditions either craving, aversion, or ignorance, respectively. This tinges the process that occurs after perception.
From MN 148,
When one is touched by a pleasant feeling, if one delights in it, welcomes it, and remains holding to it, then the underlying tendency to lust lies within one. When one is touched by a painful feeling, if one sorrows, grieves and laments, weeps beating one's breast and becomes distraught, then the underlying tendency to aversion lies within one. When one is touched by a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, of one does not understand as it actually is the origination, the disappearance, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in regard to that feeling, then the underlying tendency to ignorance lies within one.
The process of mental proliferation is tinged by this, and that which one thinks about becomes predominant. SN 12.52-60 point out that if you think about the gratification that a particular object brings, it you will increase the craving, but if you think about the inherent danger, you will decrease the craving for it.
Ultimately, the way out is mindfulness of feeling. Keep attention close to direct experience, and close to whether or not the feeling is painful, pleasant, or neutral. That provides a vantage point from which one can see the machinery of craving begin to operate, perceptions distorting the object according to feelings and cravings. Stay close to direct experience without excessive thought, and thereby comes liberation from craving.