Experience and Response

by Geshe Sonam Rinchen

The next verses of Nagarjuna’s text show how the capacity to experience arises and how response to experience takes place while the unborn child is growing.

When name and form have come into being,

The six sources emerge.

In dependence on these six sources

Contact properly arises.

Gradually the fetus develops and the six sources — from the eye sense faculty to the mental faculty — are formed. The bases for these faculties are there from the outset, but this link is called the six sources because now the sources have developed and can function. The mental faculty and mental consciousness in a subtle form are present from the moment of conception.

At conception the entity of the living being came into existence. The attributes of that living being emerge with the development of the six sources and it now becomes a user of things, namely one who can engage with things. All of this is the maturation of an action performed in the past. 

What are the conditions that give rise to contact? In the third verse Nagarjuna underlines the vital role played by the faculties when he writes, “In dependence on these six sources contact properly arises.” However, a number of other factors are also important. The first two lines of the fourth verse indicate the various conditions which enable contact to occur.

It arises only through the eye,

A form, and that which remembers.

Therefore consciousness arises

In dependence on name and form.

For instance, a moment of visual consciousness arises through the main condition, the eye sense faculty, and through the focal condition, which is a visible form. The words “that which remembers” refer to the immediately preceding condition, which is any immediately preceding moment of awareness.

Nagarjuna says, “Consciousness arises in dependence on name and form.” In this context “name” refers to the preceding moment of mental activity and “form” to the visual object and the eye sense faculty. The latter two are both matter and are therefore regarded as form. A moment of visual consciousness occurs through the meeting or coming together of a visible form, the visual sense faculty, which resides in the eye, and a moment of awareness.

In the case of the child in the womb, mental consciousness and the mental faculty are present from the outset, and the moment of preceding mental activity, which occurs before visual perception can arise for the first time, is a moment of attention accompanying mental consciousness.

Contact is a combination of three —

Eye, form, and consciousness —

And from such contact

Feeling always arises.

Although Nagarjuna’s words appear to say that the coming together of the eye, form, and consciousness is contact, contact is actually the consequence of their coming together and is the ability to discern whether objects, such as smells, sounds, or tastes, are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Contact occurs in association with any of the six kinds of consciousness through the presence of the faculty, the focal object, and a moment of awareness.

From contact, which enables distinction between what is agreeable, disagreeable, and neutral, feeling arises. Contact is the experience of the object, while feeling is the experience of maturation. Here maturation or fruition refers to pleasurable, painful, or neutral feelings or sensations that are a maturation or fruition of our past actions.

In relation to pleasant objects, agreeable feelings or sensations arise, while disagreeable feelings or sensations arise in relation to unpleasant objects. Neutral feelings are the response to objects discerned as neither attractive nor unattractive.

With the development of the six sources while the fetus is in the womb, the utiliser or experiencer comes into being and when feeling occurs experience is complete. Craving, grasping, and existence are the accomplishing causes. A seed produces either rice or barley depending on the kind of seed it is, but it needs moisture and a growing medium in order to sprout. While the seed determines the crop, it can only produce that crop if certain other conditions pertain. For the imprint implanted on consciousness to produce name and form, the six sources, contact, feeling, birth, and ageing and death, certain factors must come into play.

When the seed-like imprint comes into contact with moisture-like craving and grasping, it begins to sprout.

Conditioned by feeling there is craving

And the craving is for feeling.

Whenever there is this craving

Grasping of four kinds arises.

In a particular set of the twelve links this craving occurs in a lifetime immediately prior to the one in which the fetus experiences feeling as described above. The feeling on which the craving focuses is associated with the body and mind belonging to a different set of twelve links. The craving and grasping which triggered the imprint that produced this life occurred in a past life. More craving and grasping in this life will activate a dormant imprint and give rise to another rebirth.

The craving directed towards feelings is a desire not to be separated from pleasurable feelings, to be separated from painful feelings, and for neutral feelings not to decline. The craving related to pleasurable feelings may be to experience past pleasurable feelings again and not to lose what pleasure we enjoy at present. We also constantly reach out for future pleasure. The strong craving to avoid or end painful feelings can lead to a desire for self-destruction. People commit suicide because they cannot bear the suffering they are experiencing. There are many forms of craving associated with the three realms of existence. As our craving to experience pleasure and to be rid of suffering grows stronger, it induces grasping, an intensified form of craving.

Nagarjuna’s text says that grasping of four kinds occurs as a result of craving that focuses on feelings: grasping at the objects of the senses, which are what we desire; grasping at philosophical views; grasping at different forms of ethical discipline and modes of conduct as supreme; and grasping at the self.

Grasping at the objects of the senses is strong craving for visible forms, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations. In this context craving for the sense objects is an appreciation of them, as well as a desire for our experience of them and the enjoyment they induce not to stop. The grasping is a reaching out to experience that joy in the future. Ordinary lay people are primarily involved in this kind of craving and grasping.

The second kind of grasping refers to people’s adherence to views through which they hope to find happiness. The false view of the transitory collection is not included in these views.

The third kind of grasping is at misguided forms of discipline and conduct associated with wrong views. This includes attachment to extreme ascetic practices, such as applying fire to different parts of the body, fasting for long periods, physical mutilation, imitating the behaviour of pigs or dogs, and all exaggerated forms of austerity. People perform such practices in the hope of purifying wrongdoing and finding happiness.

The final kind of grasping described here is at views of the self, which refers principally to the false view of the transitory collection and pride in oneself. The eighth and ninth links are both disturbing emotions. The grasping emerges from the craving which has preceded it and produces existence, the tenth link. Craving focuses on this life and is attachment to it, while grasping is attachment to and a reaching out for future existence. The craving and grasping activate the imprint that was left on consciousness by formative action and make it ready to produce the next existence.

The tenth link marks complete readiness — and is the cause — for the body and mind of the next existence, so actually the name of the result has been given to the cause. It is like a seed that has come into contact with moisture and a growing medium and that is on the verge of sprouting. We might think that the activation of an imprint created by a positive action could only occur through constructive thoughts or feelings and not through disturbing emotions such as craving and grasping. Even if at death our state of mind is constructive, an element of craving and grasping will be present. Normally a lot of emphasis is placed on dying in a peaceful frame of mind with feelings of faith or kindness, because out of the many imprints we have this will trigger one that can lead to a good rebirth. It is also said that if we die with attachment or anger, for instance, this will activate a negative imprint and lead to a bad rebirth, so we must do whatever we can to insure neither we nor those we are helping die in a disturbed state.

When we ordinary people are dying, our mind becomes unclear because we do not have control over it. Even if our thoughts are positive, clinging to the self and to the well-being of the self are also active. When there is no clinging to the self, there is no fear. Grasping in the form of anxiety concerning our future well-being could have the beneficial effect of inducing us to make heartfelt prayers to our spiritual teachers or meditational deity. This would then insure a good rebirth.

When there is grasping, existence

Of the one who grasps occurs.

When there is no grasping, one is freed

And will not come into existence.

Grasping induces the state of readiness for the next rebirth, which is the tenth link. It is followed by conception and the new life. For those who understand the emptiness of all existent things and have familiarised themselves with it, craving related to feelings does not arise because they perceive the true nature of those feelings. The grasping, since it is intensified craving, cannot arise either, thereby preventing the occurrence of the tenth link.

Gaining a direct or non-dual understanding of reality does not instantly liberate us, but those who have a direct perception of reality will not take rebirth again in cyclic existence as a result of contaminated actions underlain by the disturbing emotions. Through continued familiarisation with this direct perception of reality, we will eventually gain complete freedom from cyclic existence.

Existence, moreover, is the five aggregates.

Through existence birth occurs.

Aging, death, and sorrow,

Lamentation and suffering,

Unhappiness and distress

All come from being born.

Thus these exclusively painful

Aggregates come into being.

Existence is the state where the imprint has been fully activated and is ready to yield the aggregates of the next rebirth. It is classed as action and is itself in the nature of the five aggregates: forms, feelings, discrimination, compositional factors, and the different kinds of consciousness.

How are the five aggregates associated with action in this context? Action may be virtuous or non-virtuous, and can be performed either physically, verbally, or mentally. From the point of view of the Chittamatrins and Svatantrikas, physical and verbal action are not classed as form but as intention, which is a mental factor or function. However, in any discussion of the twelve links from the Prasangika viewpoint, physical and verbal activities are considered to be form. Mental activity includes the aggregates of feeling and discrimination, while other mental functions belong to the aggregate of compositional factors. Accompanying these mental functions are different kinds of consciousness. Thus all five aggregates may be present. When the imprint of the previous virtuous or non-virtuous action has been triggered through craving and grasping, mental activity related to that imprint and the subtle physical and verbal expressions of that mental activity take place as death approaches. These constitute the link of existence and, as it were, attract and act as a bridge to the aggregates of the subsequent life.

When the first three links — ignorance, formative action, and consciousness — occur, name and form, the six sources, contact, and feeling, which are their projected result, do not yet exist. Once the seed has been implanted in consciousness, it will produce these four effects when it meets with the right conditions.