CH08: Practice Primer — Phassa → Vedanā → Taṇhā

At-a-glance: Present Flow • Classroom-ready drills

A. Definition & place in DO

• Present pivot of the chain: contact → feeling → craving (phassa → vedanā → taṇhā).

• Placement on the wheel (Ch02):

  • Phassa, Vedanā = Present Effect (vipāka).

  • Taṇhā = Present Cause (kilesa).

• SN 12.2 enumerations: six contacts (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind), six feelings (born of those six contacts), six cravings (for forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangibles, ideas).

• Experience-level feel: vedanā presents as pleasant / painful / neither (SN 36).

• Mogok emphasis: C2 is here—Vedanā → Taṇhā—the live tipping point where practice prevents escalation to upādāna → (kamma)bhava.

B. Mechanism (how the present flow works)

• Contact (phassa) = the meeting of sense-base + object + appropriate consciousness → it conditions feeling.

• Feeling (vedanā) arrives as raw tone; by itself it is result (vipāka)—not yet wholesome/unwholesome.

• Craving (taṇhā) arises conditioned by feeling: pull toward pleasant, push against painful, fog around neutral.

• If unexamined, craving hardens into upādāna and (kamma)bhava, projecting jāti → jarāmaraṇa.

• If met wisely, the chain cools: with non-grasping at feeling, taṇhā doesn’t ignite—“with the cessation of this, that ceases” (SN 12.1).

C. Practice (micro-drills, 1–3 minutes)

1. Label the Three (60–90 sec)
   Let a small stimulus occur (sound/itch/thought). Say quietly: “phassa … vedanā (pleasant/painful/neutral).” Watch the next impulse. If it leans, name “taṇhā (pull/push/fog).” Relax jaw/chest/hands.

2. Vedanā Pause Card (2 min)
   On a card, write: Feel → Name → Loosen.
   When a feeling surges, feel it directly (location/temperature/pressure), name its tone out loud, loosen the body (exhale 4–6 seconds, soften hands). Recheck: did craving fade?

3. Six-Door Lap (class or solo, 3 min)
   Spend ~25–30 sec per door (eye/ear/nose/tongue/body/mind). At each door, catch one contact, label the vedanā tone, and confirm whether taṇhā starts. If yes, apply the Loosen step; if no, smile subtly and continue.

D. Cross-links

• Ch05 Two Truths (why Present Effect ≠ Present Cause).

• Ch06 Three Connections (C2 focus).

• Ch15 Vedanā (sixfold feeling per SN 12.2; detail & drills).

• Ch16 Taṇhā (sixfold craving; strategies to cool).

• Ch21 Khandha Paṭicca-samuppāda (present-aspect training).

Sources

SN 12.1; SN 12.2; SN 36 (Vedanā-saṁyutta).

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QR Footer (left → right)

• Audio QR-CH08-AUD1 — One-minute Vedanā Pause. (Alt: “QR to audio: guided vedanā pause”)

• Video QR-CH08-VID1 — Live C2 demo (feel→name→loosen). (Alt: “QR to video: C2 interruption demo”)

• Slides QR-CH08-PPT1 — Present-flow teaching deck. (Alt: “QR to slides: phassa→vedanā→taṇhā deck”)

• Prompt QR-CH08-PRM1 — Six-Door Lap script. (Alt: “QR to prompt: six-door scan”)

Next: Ch09 — Avijjā (Ignorance).