Neither Pleasant Nor Unpleasant Follow-up To “Engaging The Abhidhamma With Tony Bernhard”

This is a clip of my comments to Tony Bernhard about not needing to believe nor disbelieve fantastical accounts from the suttas during “Engaging the Abhidhamma” live event. But most of this is actually my newly recorded follow-up to musings to Tony on the “neither pleasant nor unpleasant” portion of vedanā (hedonic/feeling tone) not seeming to get much mention in Buddhist circles recently

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Watch the full Sati Center event “Engaging The Abhidhamma With Tony Bernhard”:

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Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)

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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

here’s a clip of me um making a comment

about belief and

disbelief and then asking questions and

making comments about neither Pleasant

nor

unpleasant from a from a recent Tony

barnhard uh event with Sati Center

on the Abid dama and stay tuned after

that clip for my follow-up comments Josh

do you have a you’ve got a question we

can we can move to questions here I I

can put this yes just a brief thanks for

doing this just a brief um I don’t know

if it’s a rhetorical question on your

part to to answer or um you know these

these things in the sutas where they

seem Fantastical or things like that and

this notion of believing or disbelieving

I just made a comment in the chat just I

just don’t see where especially if we

were looking for things that are

truthful where there’s a requirement to

believe or disbelieve anything thing you

know we can just take it as information

until we can verify it for ourselves you

know I didn’t live all this time ago our

life is changed so much even within a

hundred years so to me a lot of things

about life could be potentially

unimaginable for us you know when we

talk about all these really old time

periods so the short answer is I you

know there it’s just information I don’t

need to believe it or disbelieve it

these Fantastical things yeah you know

the belief disbelief pretty much for me

Narrows down down to impermanence

unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality

emptiness you know other things

speculative views some of them are

useful some of them are not people will

go to war over and people will call you

wrong you know

and you should believe and you shouldn’t

believe and those

are but you know if you’ve seen for

yourself how acting out of anger is pain

painful well you stop doing it because

we’re not

stupid slow maybe but we’re not stupid

we won’t hurt ourselves on purpose we do

it because we think you know our default

responses the other quick point was um

it seems recently there’s more emphasis

on Pleasant unpleasant and that’s the

ones that are easy to connect to but uh

it’s also there’s also neither Pleasant

nor

unpleasant and yes you know that’s so so

that’s something to explore using the

Vaden meter try to find something that

is neither Pleasant nor unpleasant

that’s actually zero on that scale from

minus 10 to plus 10 and I find that what

the closer I pay attention to

something uh you know I can get down

maybe not to tenths of a point but I can

get down to uh to notice in is there

really some pleasantness is there

pleasantness to

neutrality

maybe yeah this is where our perception

comes in that’s you know when perception

becomes more malleable then it becomes

kind of an interpretation or how we want

to interpret it and you know how much

can we quantify it and how much can’t we

at a certain point as well well the vom

meter is an effort to try to articulate

for ourselves feeling Tong that second

factor of Awakening the second factor of

mindfulness all these teachings are are

are

integrated you know the the the four

foundations of mindfulness have to do

with the with the scas Kate you’ve got

you’ve got your hand up please you’re

you’re muted yeah I just to comment on

that it sort of seems like if we bring

mindfulness if mindfulness arises and

we’re looking at Vena mindfulness itself

is

Pleasant sort of you know so it kind of

adds a pleas it’s like if I think of

something as being negative but then

mindfulness is really strong it doesn’t

seem so negative anymore it depends on

the thing mindfulness may be pleasant

but a present moment maybe an unpleasant

moment right it just seems like it

always mitigates it a little bit

well what it does is it works against us

making things worse yeah okay right no

second Arrow yeah right no second Arrow

Vanessa hi um about the neither painful

nor Pleasant feeling I was wondering if

you could say something about um what

something I read about it it says nul

neither painful nor Pleasant feeling is

Pleasant in in virtue of knowledge and

painful in virtue of want of

knowledge

interesting

well there are all kinds of ideas out

there Pleasant neither Pleasant nor

unpleasant seems to me to

be perhaps a point on a line and so

actually experience saying neither

Pleasant nor unle it’s not a broad swath

of experience that’s neither Pleasant

nor unpleasant if you bring your

attention to it in my experience now you

may find that you bring your experience

to you know a part of a sidewalk and you

find it neither Pleasant nor unpleasant

but if you start looking more at your

experience you’ll notice the textures of

the sidewalk it’s bright maybe it’s

uncomfortable for your eyes maybe you

notice stuff on the sidewalk that makes

you cringe you know Pleasant and

unpleasant are constantly changing and

that’s why equinity tat maata is a

balancing act it’s a skill to develop

and we may not be able to do it as well

as we

can later on so when it comes to Vaden

uh neither Pleasant nor unpleasant a few

things come up in my experience the

where I’m at now on the path

and this notion of neither Pleasant nor

Pleasant was mentioned I think way more

by teachers just five years ago 10 years

ago so I don’t I hear them talk more

about just Pleasant unpleasant don’t

even mention neither Pleasant nor

unpleasant and some people also call it

neutral but I don’t know if that’s

really the case or not there’s a few

things to mention

here neither Pleasant nor

unpleasant when we’re paying attention

to the whole body in meditation and

excuse me to close my eyes here so I can

tune in

more there’s depending on what we’re

paying attention to if we’re just paying

attention to the breath at the nose

starting off well then we’re missing a

lot of the experience in the body just

that so what’s going on in the body if

we’re just paying attention to that is

it Pleasant unle Pleasant

neither Pleasant nor unpleasant well

it’s hard to tell it’s like the old Zin

saying if a tree falls in the woods and

there’s no one around to hear it did it

even fall or whatever and I the answer

is I guess I don’t know also we can

bring the awareness to something kind of

that we don’t pay attention to a lot

let’s just say the teeth and maybe not a

lot of people will feel their teeth

regularly and so we tune into that and

how that feels

well it seems like on a gross level

right at first in my experience there’s

not much sensation going on there not

much pleasantness or

unpleasantness uh as long as they don’t

have a toothache right and then on a

gross level it seems like yeah it is not

really Pleasant or unpleasant but if we

pay attention more then we can start

feeling or I can start feeling different

Sensations and these

Sensations um are moment AR like Tony

says but also Pleasant and unpleasant

are momentary as well um I can have

pleasant and unpleasant at the same time

in the body uh and it could be changing

very rapidly these Sensations now when a

sensation is new or like there’s a

different vibratory raate or maybe it’s

pulsing differently or tingling in a way

that I haven’t felt before then maybe

perception has a lot to do with this to

to kind of fill in the gaps and say okay

wait a second here this is different I

don’t know what to make of this some

people I guess will jump right away to I

don’t know what this is so it’s

unpleasant uh some people that are

seeking new experiences might be ooh

this is great this is new I don’t know

what this is so it must be pleasant so I

think perception has a lot to do with

these as

well um when the

mind uh settles down a lot and there’s

not a lot of chatter and a lot of a

charge emotional charge or energetic

charge to um Sensations then I know in

my experience too over the years what I

would once immediately be reactive to as

oh this is Pleasant oh this sucks this

is unpleasant a lot of that has gone

away so yeah the it goes more and more

towards zero I think this neither

Pleasant nor unpleasant overall

comparatively in to in the past where

there’s not as much reactivity now

whether or not there’s an absolute zero

and it and it stays there and it’s um an

experience over and over again I don’t

know and then like I say I don’t know

how much this needs to be Quantified or

actually can be Quantified why do we

need to give it a a number how much of

it is objective and subjective so I

think this is an area of practice to

bring up again this neither Pleasant nor

unpleasant also who benefits from this

you know um if if there’s certain maybe

corporations or something that benefit

from people being Pleasant or unpleasant

more times than neither of those because

when there’s neither present a lot then

there’s not really any need to to sell

products and services right usually

people buy products and services because

they want to they’re unpleasant and they

want to feel Pleasant you know they they

go to see somebody because there’s

something unpleasant and they want it to

be more pleasant so this kind of a

hedonic tone I like the this mention of

this so if there’s uh an absence of a

hedonic tone when way or the other you

know who’s going to be benefiting from

that this notion of pleasant and

unpleasant is

also one of the vicissitudes or worldly

winds um the others being you know gain

and loss Fame and ill repute and praise

and blame but Pleasure and Pain uh I I

guess it can be considered Pleasant or

unpleasant I don’t know if it’s applies

in all context or not

um but are we going to be there would be

no reprieve from that if there wasn’t a

pleasant nor unpleasant there is a last

Point here to make and that is that of

equinity and you know what is the

experience of equanimity itself when

there’s not a lot of charge emotional

charge

um is it Pleasant unpleasant or neither

where is the balance or the even Keel

and can that be kind of a heart state or

a mind State uh more prolonged or even

if it’s momentary more and more of these

overall can that be possible or is that

possible with equinity is that the case

if we had to put a feeling tone of Vena

on uh being completely balanced and and

aquanus um maybe most people might find

that Pleasant uh it’s definitely not

unpleasant I don’t think but and then in

what context in comparison to

what is it helpful to draw those

comparisons or not