Bhāvanā (Meditation) > Meditation – Deeper Aspects > Saññā Gives Rise to Most of the Vedanā We Experience

July 6, 2024

Saññā gives rise to most of the vedanā we experience, including taste; they are “mind-made vedanā” or “samphassa-jā-vedanā.” For example, the sweetness of sugar is not a direct sukha vedanā but a mind-made somanassa vedanā based on a saññā generated by our bodies.

Saññā – The Ability of the Mind to Recognize Things/People

First, it is helpful to learn how to pronounce “saññā”:

WebLink: Listen to the Pāli word “saññā”

1. “Saññā” is the ability of the mind to recognize a person or any object instantaneously. See “Saññā – What It Really Means.”

▪For example, just by seeing a person’s back at a distance, one may be able to identify the person. Even when seeing an old friend one has not seen for many years, one may be able to recognize the person based on his mannerisms, body shape, etc.

▪When you see a basket of fruits, it hardly takes a split second to discern the names of those fruits. You don’t need to think about it. The “saññā” about a given fruit comes to mind instantaneously.

▪Thus, a fundamental aspect of saññā is the mind’s unique, amazing ability to “recognize” a person or an object instantly. See #4 of “Amazingly Fast Time Evolution of a Thought (Citta)” for an example.

▪This post will discuss how saññā leads to “mind-made vedanā.”

A Newborn Cannot Recognize Many Things (Saññā Not Developed)!

2. Our thoughts arise in the mental body (gandhabba) trapped inside the physical body. The five physical senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and the nerves on the physical body) act as “doors” and take in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches. Those signals are sent to the brain, and the brain converts them into a form that can be understood by the mental body. The details are in “Gandhabba Sensing the World – With and Without a Physical Body” and “Gandhabba in a Human Body – an Analogy.”

▪When a baby comes out of a womb, its brain is not fully developed. It takes about seven years for the brain to be “fully functional.” Therefore, “saññā” is not fully developed until seven years of age.

▪A newborn learns to recognize various things day by day. It may take a few days to recognize one’s mother and father and several months to gradually recognize other things the baby can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch.

▪The parents (or whoever cares for the baby) must teach the baby to identify things and name them. Even after recognizing different colors, the baby must learn from someone that a particular color is called “red.” It will not be called “red” but a different name in another language. Thus, a baby develops the “saññā” to recognize something; it also will learn what to call it.

Vedanā – Becoming Aware of a “Feeling”

3. The definition of vedanā in Buddha Dhamma is: “Becoming aware of a sensory contact (ārammaṇa.)”

▪That awareness comes with a sukha, dukkha, or a adukkhamasukha (“adukkha asukha” or “neutral”) vedanā. For example, the following are examples of each in that order for bodily contact: getting a relaxing body massage, being hit by a cane, and feeling a little breeze.

▪Other types of sensory contacts (coming through eyes, ears, tongue, and nose) do not generate sukha or dukkha vedanā; they only lead to “adukkhamasukha” or “neutral” vedanā.

▪See #2 of “Vedanā and Samphassa-Jā-Vedanā – More Than Just Feelings,” which also discusses this critical point. Do not read the rest of that post yet.

▪However, sensory contacts coming through the eyes, ears, tongue, and nose can lead to “mind-made vedanā” based on saññā!

▪That can be easily understood by considering how a newborn baby’s mind develops.

A Newborn Can Only Feel Vedanā Due to Bodily Contacts

4. A newborn can only feel bodily contact in the first few days. It will cry if given an injection or coming into contact with a hard object. It does not show much emotion based on sights, sounds, or smells. It can taste only milk, and that is to quench hunger.

▪A newborn does not show any particular emotions upon seeing or hearing even her mother. That is because seeing and hearing lead ONLY to “neutral vedanā.”

▪That holds also for tastes and smells. A newborn only generates “neutral vedanā” based on sights, sounds, tastes, and smells.

▪It has not yet developed “saññā” to recognize things based on sights, sounds, tastes, and smells.

A Newborn Will Develop “Saññā” for Various Things with Time

5. Within a few days to a few weeks, the baby will start recognizing its mother and father (or whoever is taking care of it, but let us consider a baby growing up with her parents.) That is the first “saññā” a baby develops.

▪Once the baby starts tasting fruit or vegetable “pastes,” it will develop “saññā” for various food flavors.

▪Such initial developments of “saññā” for food will accelerate as the baby’s brain grows and is exposed to various foods. It will start developing preferences for different tastes.

Saññā Giving Rise to “Mind-Made” Vedanā

6. A baby can identify the parents, especially the mother, after a few days. It will show signs of happiness seeing the mother. By this time, the baby has developed a “saññā of the mother” and can readily identify the mother (and show happiness upon seeing the mother).

▪That is an excellent example of “mind-made vedanā” or “samphassa-jā-vedanā.” That vedanā [mind-made vedanā] does not arise for a baby until it can identify the mother. Therefore, that vedanā is caused by the “saññā of the mother.”

▪The baby gradually realizes that her mother is taking care of her, feeding her, and cuddling her most of the time. That is why the moment she sees the mother, her mind becomes joyful, i.e., that joyful feeling arose because of the instant identification/recognition of the mother.

▪As the father also gets involved by feeding the baby with a bottle or other foods, the baby will start recognizing the father, too. That saññā will also grow with time.

▪Thus, in a few months, the baby will readily recognize the parents and be happy when they interact with her. She will also show distress (and may cry) if she does not see the parents, especially the mother.

▪For another discussion on vedanā and “samphassa-jā-vedanā” see “Vedanā and Samphassa-Jā-Vedanā – More Than Just Feelings.”

Baby’s Saññā for Other Sensory Inputs (Ārammaṇa) Will Also Grow With Time

7. After several weeks/months, the baby can identify colors, objects, and people who come into contact with her. In all those cases, the baby’s brain must be “taught” what those things are.

▪The “learning process” or “developing saññā for various objects and people” will pick up speed after the baby learns to speak.

▪For example, the baby must be shown different colors and repeatedly point out which color is red or how to identify the two pets as a cat and a dog.

▪It is the same for identifying people with names or relationships: “This is cousin Joe,” etc.

▪Such identification and labeling are made via “pattern recognition neural nets” in the brain. This is the same technique used by researchers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) nowadays. They “train” their “artificial neural net,” for example, by feeding pictures of dogs to the AI to identify different types of dogs.

Vedanā Arises Only for Bodily Contacts

8. As discussed above, sights, sounds, tastes, and smells do not give rise to vedanā. Only bodily contact (like being touched or injured) can lead to vedanā.

▪All other sensory contacts (sights, sounds, tastes, smells) only give rise to neutral vedanā (not sukha or dukkha vedanā) in the language of the Buddha Dhamma.

▪When we see an object we like, it gives rise to “pleasure” in the mind. In the case of the newborn baby, it did not recognize the mother initially and would not show any emotion. However, once the brain’s neural connections are made to identify the mother’s face, the sight of the mother automatically generates “mother saññā” in the baby’s mind. She automatically becomes happy since she mentally connects the mother’s face with the feeding.

▪The Buddha called that a “mind-made vedanā” or a “samphassa-jā-vedanā.”

9. Let us take another example. Even a year-old child may not have the “fire saññā,” i.e., that fire can burn and hurt. By that time, the child may know a flame is red. That is the “color saññā.” But she would not have the “flame will burn saññā” unless someone specifically teaches her that.

▪Even if someone had told her that a flame should not be touched because it will burn, a child may be tempted to feel a flame since the reddish color of a flame is attractive. If that happens and the child gets burned, she will permanently have that “flame will burn saññā,” i.e., that a flame will burn the skin and cause injury. That “flame will burn saññā” will be there for the rest of the child’s life.

▪Other types of saññā arise naturally as a child grows up. Let us discuss that briefly.

Types of Saññā Associated with a Human Birth

10. Some types of “saññā” naturally form in a growing human baby. Generating those types of “saññā” for sights, sounds, tastes, and smells happens naturally because human bodies are “formed” via Paṭicca Samuppāda to “enjoy certain types of sensory inputs.”

▪For example, even from a few weeks, the brain has grown enough for the child to discern that some foods are more “tasty” than others. The baby will show happiness when eating “tasty foods” and displeasure if bitter food is given. Other than in some exceptional cases, all humans prefer certain foods over others. For example, all humans taste sugar to be sweet, lemon to be sour, and rotten meat to be yucky.

▪In the same way, a baby will automatically like soothing music and be frightened by harsh sounds. It will gradually learn to like pleasant smells and be repulsed by odors that all humans are repelled by.

▪However, those will take time to develop. But the brain is fully developed by seven years, and such “saññā” will be fully established and arise automatically.

11. Then, more types of saññā will arise in the teenage years, specifically to be attracted to the opposite sex.

▪Below a certain age, a child may not show any particular interest in the opposite sex. However, the physical body is designed to generate “puberty hormones” starting around age ten.

▪This will not only lead to changes in the child’s physical body but also start the child to generate a “sexual/lustful saññā” to be attracted to the opposite sex. For example, a girl may be attracted to a certain boy and be happy to see him. That “happiness” or “joy” is due to the “saññā” developed for him. Any other girl may not generate happiness upon seeing the same boy.

▪There are many such “specific saññā” developing over the years. Girls and boys have different interests.

12. Another relevant point is that saññā, for some sensory inputs, could be different in the animal realm compared to the human realm.

▪For example, while a human will experience (saññā) a foul smell of rotten meat, a pig will like that smell. Also, the saññā generated in a pig indicates that rotten meat is tasty.

▪Even among different animals, saññā generated by the same sensory object could be very different. For example, cows see grass as tasty food, while lions do not.

▪All humans and animals, however, will feel pain when injured (i.e., with bodily contact.) Vedanā due to bodily contact does not involve “saññā.” That is why only bodily contact can lead to sukha or dukkha vedanā, as explained in Abhidhamma.

Abhidhamma Provides a Clear Explanation

13. Abhidhamma provides the following analysis regarding the types of vedanā experienced when sensory signals come through the five physical senses.

▪Our sensory experiences arise as kamma vipāka. However, each sensory experience cannot be assigned to a single kamma done in the past; instead, a human body is born due to kamma vipāka, and our sensory experiences “come to that vipāka body.”

Such vipāka can be put into two categories: some arise as akusala vipāka and others as kusala vipāka. They can be summarized as follows:

i.Akusala vipāka via the physical body lead to dukkha vedanā and kusala vipāka via the physical body lead to sukha vedanā.

ii.Both kusala and akusala vipāka coming through all other four senses (eyes, ears, tongue, and the nose) lead to neutral (“upekkhā sahagata” meaning “with neutral”) vedanā, i.e., they are NOT either dukkha or sukha vedanā.

▪Those who are interested can see the full description on pp. 40-43 in “WebLink: PDF download: Bhikkhu_Bodhi-Comprehensive_Manual_of_Abhidhamma,” by Bhikkhu Bodhi (2000); click the link to open the pdf.

14. Abhidhamma assigns different names for the pleasant and unpleasant feelings arising from “mind-made vedanā” or “samphassa-jā-vedanā.”

▪“Pleasant feelings/emotions” arising via “saññā” are called “somanassa vedanā” (instead of sukha vedanā), and the unpleasant ones are “domanassa vedanā” (instead of dukha vedanā). The terms sukha and dukkha vedanā are reserved for those arising via bodily contact.

▪Here, “somanassa” means “so mana assa” or “mind becoming elated/joyful.” The opposite of that is “domanassa” is “do mana assa” or “mind becoming distressful.”

▪See “Feelings: Sukha, Dukha, Somanassa, and Domanassa” for more details.

Summary

15. Two types of vedanā can arise in mind: (i) Due to bodily contacts sukha, dukkha, or neural (adukkhamasukha) vedanā arise. (ii) Due to all other sensory contacts (sights, sounds, tastes, and smells), only neural (adukkhamasukha) vedanā can arise.

▪Saññā is the ability of a mind to recognize people and objects. In addition to “recognition,” saññā makes some sensory inputs desirable and others undesirable. The Buddha called saññā a mirage because of that second aspect. Our bodies (including both the physical body and the mental body (gandhabba) are formed by kammic energy to provide that “distorted saññā.” Note that “distorted saññā” is not defiled, i.e., it is generated in anyone (including a Buddha or Arahants) who is born human. That “distorted saññā” is built into the human body. Different types of saññā are built into the “bodies” of sentient beings in other realms, according to the kinds of gati associated with each realm.

▪In the suttās, only the word “saññā” is mentioned without specifying it is a “distorted saññā” that arises in our minds in many situations. I use that term to emphasize that aspect because it gives much insight. We attach to some sensory inputs (rūpa paṭisaṁvedī, sadda paṭisaṁvedī, etc.) because of that “distorted saññā.”

▪That “distorted saññā” leads to “mind-made vedanā” or “samphassa-jā-vedanā.”

▪Based on such “mind-made vedanā,” we automatically attach to that “distorted saññā” with rāga, dosa, moha, which leads to rūpa rāga paṭisaṁvedī, sadda rāga paṭisaṁvedī, etc.

▪The above are the critical steps that defile a mind within a split second when encountering a sensory input. See “Saññā – All Our Thoughts Arise With ‘Distorted Saññā’”

▪That is the root cause of all our attachments to things in this world! See “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkha – Immoral Thoughts Based on “Distorted Saññā”