CH47 — Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa: Feeling (Vedanā) as the Turning-Point in Dependent Origination
If you ask Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa why the Buddha put “feeling” in the very middle of the chain of Dependent Origination (paṭicca-samuppāda), you’ll usually get a gentle smile and a very practical answer: because this is where pāramī meets daily life. Feeling is the hinge on which the door either swings toward craving and renewed becoming—or swings open to insight and release. The canonical map is explicit: contact → feeling → craving; feeling “experiences the stimulus of the object and is a condition for craving.” When we see that mechanism operate in real time, we can interrupt it in real time.
This chapter presents a practitioner’s digest of Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s way of analyzing feeling within the DO pathway, drawing on the classical backbone of the Visuddhimagga and allied teaching aids in our source set. We’ll start with the doctrinal map, then build the step-by-step method he favors, and finally work through a real-world case study that you can try this week.
1) Where Feeling Lives in the DO Wheel (and Why It Matters)
The Buddha’s analysis of the “Wheel of Becoming” divides the links into three “rounds”: defilements (ignorance, craving, clinging), kamma (formations, becoming), and results (consciousness through feeling). Feeling sits in the “round of result,” yet it immediately conditions craving—thus serving as the bridge from “what is happening to me” to “what I do next.” Seeing this bridge clearly is already half the work.
A succinct summary from the Visuddhimagga clarifies the functional cascade:
consciousness → mentality-materiality → sixfold base → contact → feeling → craving → clinging → becoming → birth → ageing-and-death.
Each arrow is defined by what that link does. Of direct interest here: “contact touches an object and is a condition for feeling; feeling experiences the stimulus of the object and is a condition for craving.” Read that twice; it’s the practical lever this chapter keeps pulling.
This middle placement also expresses the “middle way” logic of DO itself. “Dependent” marks the combining of conditions (batting away eternalism and ‘uncaused’ views), while “origination” marks arising (batting away annihilationism). The two together keep us right in the causal seam—exactly where we can intervene.
2) What Counts as “Feeling”? A Working Taxonomy for Practice
2.1 The Basic Three (for your notebook)
Every feeling can be reduced to just three flavors:
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Pleasant (sukha / somanassa)
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Unpleasant (dukkha / domanassa)
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Neutral (upekkhā)
That’s the simplest lens—and the one you will label with in practice.
2.2 Six Doors, Two Levels
Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa teaches the six sense doors the old Abhidhamma way, but he pushes us to notice the difference between bodily and mental feeling. The classical synopsis you’ll use:
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Eye, ear, nose, tongue: bare “just seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting” is neutral at the instant of sensory impact.
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Body: can present pleasant or unpleasant (plus neutral).
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Mind: takes the baton and flowers into mental pleasure, mental displeasure, or mental neutrality—often moments after the physical spark.
The short version: first neutral at the door, then the mind paints it; that painting is where craving usually sneaks in.
2.3 Finer Classifications You’ll Eventually See
For those who like the waypoints, the Visuddhimagga classifies feeling as gross/subtle by plane and basis (hellish pain gross; divine pleasure subtle; sense-sphere feelings gross compared with fine-material and immaterial; and so on). The point isn’t to memorize tables but to appreciate contextual intensity: the stronger the felt tone, the stronger the pull to crave—and the more mindfulness you must bring.
The same treatise also makes a key methodological point: in the “purification of view,” once you’ve discerned elements and seen how contact shows up as the “first conjunction,” you soon register “the feeling associated with it… as the feeling aggregate.” This is your first pivot from object to tone, and it’s deliberate.
3) Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s Step-by-Step Method: Analyzing Feeling in the DO Pathway
Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s pedagogy is precise and friendly to classroom use. The heart of it can be distilled into six moves. Each move is small; together they reroute the chain.
Move 1 — Catch Contact before you judge the story
When a sight, sound, or thought hits awareness, you train yourself to mark “phassa—touching.” This marks the exact seam where the object “meets” your sense base and consciousness. We don’t yet call it pleasant/unpleasant; we simply acknowledge contact. This honors the canonical sequencing and slows the mind enough to notice the next step cleanly.
Move 2 — Name the Feeling Tone accurately (three labels only)
As the tone shows itself, label it pleasant / unpleasant / neutral—nothing fancier. Do this at the six doors with special attention to the body–mind relay (neutral at the door; affect blooms in mind moments). Keep it dry and exact. This is not emotional commentary; it’s phenomenological coding.
Move 3 — Watch for the tilt toward craving
Right after tone is known, look for the lean: does the mind reach to prolong pleasant? Fend off unpleasant? Doze in neutral? That lean is the beginning of taṇhā. The Visuddhimagga’s crisp line is your reminder: “feeling … is a condition for craving.” Put another way: no feeling, no craving. So your job is to meet feeling before the lean completes itself.
Move 4 — Apply the three characteristics at the feeling level
Right where tone is known, read it with the three lenses:
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Impermanent: “This feels X, but it’s already changing.”
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Unsatisfactory: “Riding this will disappoint; clinging adds heat.”
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Not-self: “It’s a conditioned event, not something I command.”
This reframes the meaning of tone and undercuts the reflex to chase/fight/ignore. (The five-aggregates teaching materials in our set explicitly present feeling as interwoven with perception, formation and consciousness—never a “self.”)
Move 5 — Bring ethics and wise use into the same frame
Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa often folds in the Visuddhimagga’s “reflection on alms-food”—not as monastic trivia but as a technique to regulate the feeling field. Eat (or, for lay people, consume anything) “for the endurance and continuance of the body … to put a stop to old feelings and not arouse new feelings.” This reframes habits that provoke volatile tones (sugar spikes, doomscrolling, thrill-seeking) as unwise fuel.
Move 6 — Seal the gap with present-moment tasks
When tone is pleasant: relax the grasp; appreciate and release.
When tone is unpleasant: soften aversion; find curiosity in the textures.
When tone is neutral: brighten mindfulness; find the micro-vibrations so dullness doesn’t slide into unknowing (which feeds ignorance). This is the very moment-to-moment derailing of the DO treadmill—before craving hardens into clinging.
In short: Contact → Feeling → (watch the Lean) → Characteristics → Wise Use → Release.
Repeat, dozens of times per sit and hundreds of times per day.
4) Real-World Case Study: “The Ping in Your Pocket”
Scene: You’re working on a report. Your phone pings. Without analysis you’re already reaching. Let’s slow that down and run Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s six moves.
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Contact.
The sound waves hit the ear. Mark it: “hearing, hearing—contact.” At that instant, the tone is neutral at the ear door (this is the “just hearing” moment). -
Feeling tone.
A split-second later, mind registers a pleasant mental feeling—a little “pop” of anticipation. Label it: “pleasant.” Perhaps there’s a tightening at the solar plexus—also pleasant because it previews social reward. Now you’re looking at somanassa (mental pleasure) blooming on top of the original neutral sense contact. -
Watch the lean.
The hand starts moving. That movement is the body of taṇhā beginning to organize itself: “I want to know who/what it is.” See the intent form. Remember the map: feeling conditions craving. Stay with the tone, not the story. -
Three characteristics.
Impermanent: the tingle has already peaked. Unsatisfactory: if you feed it, this becomes the 87th check today and your nervous system frays. Not-self: it arose due to conditions (habituation, intermittent reinforcement), not because “I am the sort who must check now.” Notice how insight loosens the glue between tone and grasping. -
Wise use frame.
Recall the “use-as-medicine” reframe: we use tools/inputs “for endurance and continuance,” not for stimulation. Adjust settings to reduce provocative tones (group notifications, sound profiles). You’re importing a monastic food reflection into a digital context—same principle, same benefit: fewer spikes in the feeling field means fewer occasions for craving. -
Release.
Don’t suppress the pleasantness; widen around it. Let the breath span the chest; sense the body’s volume; keep the label “pleasant, changing”. Now the hand relaxes. The phone can wait. In that precise instant you have broken the DO link (feeling → craving) through clear comprehension of feeling. Repeat this cut all afternoon; the nervous system will learn.
Homework: run this drill with three triggers this week—phone pings, snack urges, and status-check refreshes. Each is a laboratory for “pleasant-feeling-meets-DO.”
5) How This Method Integrates with Satipaṭṭhāna & Classroom Pedagogy
Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa is unapologetically Satipaṭṭhāna-first in pedagogy: you build habits by naming the tone again and again, exactly as the Satipaṭṭhāna instructions lay out (recognize pleasant, unpleasant, neutral; discern worldly/unworldly). That’s why our classroom handouts keep the labels short and the exercises frequent. The payoff is documented in the tradition: observing feelings without reflex reactivity weakens the DO chain at its most decisive joint.
He also borrows the aggregate (khandha) frame to keep humility in the work: feeling is only one aggregate, interdependent with perception, formations, consciousness, and form. The more you see this mutual conditioning, the less you mistake any tone for “me” or “mine.” In teaching, this becomes a simple diagram you redraw often: each aggregate nudges the others; none is sovereign.
6) Common Pitfalls (and the Fixes)
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Pitfall: “Neutral means nothing’s happening.”
Fix: Neutral is the most dangerous; dullness/unknowing grows here. Train sensitivity to micro-textures (temperature, pressure, micro-vibrations) so upekkhā doesn’t slide into avijjā. (Remember, the wheel spins as long as the round of defilements isn’t cut.) -
Pitfall: “Pleasant is my enemy; I must stamp it out.”
Fix: Pleasant is a teacher—learn to enjoy without clinging. The Visuddhimagga’s “gross/subtle” gradations help you see that intensity varies; you need more mindfulness for the gross, more precision for the subtle. -
Pitfall: “I’ll fix feelings by rearranging life.”
Fix: Ethical and lifestyle adjustments matter (diet, media, sleep). The Visuddhimagga’s “use-as-medicine” reflection is precisely for that. But the decisive cut is experiential: recognizing feeling as feeling, then non-leaning.
7) A Black-Board Map You Can Teach Tomorrow
Here’s the board sequence Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa likes for a 90-minute class:
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Draw the DO arc from consciousness to feeling to craving. Underline “contact → feeling → craving.” Add the one-line function under each link.
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List the three tones (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) and six doors, marking that eye/ear/nose/tongue yield neutral at the instant of contact; body may be pleasant/unpleasant; mind fashions somanassa/domanassa/upekkhā.
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Write the six moves (Contact → Feeling → Lean → Characteristics → Wise Use → Release).
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Run the “phone ping” demo with a volunteer.
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Assign the homework: three daily drills; one formal sit focusing only on vedanā labels for 20 minutes.
That’s it. Keep it lean; keep it repeatable.
8) Advanced Notes for Serious Practitioners
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Result vs. Kamma rounds: It’s crucial to feel that feeling is a resultant (vipāka) link—something that happens—while craving is a kammically productive choice—something you do. This contextualizes responsibility without self-blame.
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Clinging and Becoming: If craving isn’t checked, it hardens into clinging, which supports various forms of becoming (sense-sphere, fine-material, immaterial), with intricate conditionalities described in the Visuddhimagga. You don’t need to memorize the whole lattice to practice, but it’s helpful to appreciate how quickly the mind can move from tiny leanings to full-blown identity projects.
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Feeling’s gradations across planes: The treatise enumerates “gross vs. subtle” feelings across planes—again, the point for practice is to notice when tone is so refined you’re tempted to call it “peace” and cling to it (for example, in elevated concentration). The same rule applies: label, see three marks, release.
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Purification milestones: As you proceed, watch for the “what is and is not the path” discernment: insights (like illumination, rapture) that feel wonderful are still conditioned and must be read as “not mine, not I, not my self.” This prevents pleasant insight-feelings from becoming fresh fuel.
9) A Note on Sources (for your reading circle)
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For the functional cascade and the rounds logic (and countless fine-grain analyses of links), see Visuddhimagga XVII–XX; especially the passages defining contact→feeling→craving and the three rounds.
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For door-by-door feeling (neutral at the four sense doors, bodily pleasures/pains, the mind’s three feelings), use the “Law of DO—12 links” summary handout, which is close to how Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa himself explains it to lay audiences.
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For Satipaṭṭhāna-aligned classroom exercises, draw on the five-aggregates teaching sheets that place vedanā right beside perception and formations, emphasizing their co-conditioning and how vedanānupassanā is trained.
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For ethics as regulation of the feeling field, the Visuddhimagga’s food reflection is surprisingly modern—read it as a design for sustainable nervous-system inputs.
(We also include Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s “An Analysis of Feeling” in the course pack; the PDF as provided is image-based in our archive, so use it alongside the above canonical references when leading discussions.)
10) Closing: Why This Chapter Belongs in a Practical Mediation Course
Why a whole chapter on just feeling? Because feeling is where the mind decides what comes next. If you train here, the rest of the chain never gets the momentum it needs. Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa’s great gift is to make this beautifully ordinary: label what’s happening, notice the lean, see the marks, and live by wise use. All day long, with pings, snacks, comments, aches, praise, silence.
You don’t have to fight feeling. You have to know it—cleanly, quickly, kindly. When you do, the DO wheel loses its teeth right where it used to bite the hardest.
Quick Reference (handout excerpt)
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Map: contact → feeling → craving. Feeling = “experiences the stimulus,” conditions craving.
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Labels: pleasant / unpleasant / neutral—at six doors; remember the body–mind relay.
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Six Moves: Contact → Feeling → Lean → Three Marks → Wise Use → Release.
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Mantra: “Just this tone, changing, not mine.”
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Ethics lever: Use inputs as medicine, to stop old feelings and not arouse new ones.
Practice note: If you learn to “feel feeling” like this, you are already walking the middle way contained in the very phrase paṭicca-samuppāda.
