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Vedanās: A Complete Guide to Feelings in Buddhism (and How to Actually Use This Teaching To Be Happy) — Part 1
by Anagārika Pasannacitta (Anagārika Michael Turner) 
What are vedanās (feelings) in Buddhism? Definitively clearing up this oft-misunderstood subject and understanding how to apply this teaching in everyday life to practically lay the foundation for contentment, peace of mind, and actual progress toward nibbāna.
Vedanā Series Overview — PART 1 —
Core subjects covered over the course of this series: vedanās dukkha craving clear comprehension wise attention right effort mindfulness of feelings the three characteristics the three poisons the four noble truths the five aggregates the six sense spheres the twelve links of dependent origination
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“Monks, there are these three feelings. What three? Pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. These are the three feelings. |
How important to your practice toward contentment are the vedanās?
They are critical.
If you genuinely wish to cultivate real-life resilience, contentment, and unshakeable peace of mind, then you must invest the time, energy, and determination to understand what they are and how to leverage them in your practice and in your day-to-day life; for those who do, their efforts will be rewarded by having a significantly calmer and happier experience as a human being, full stop. That's not something that you can put a price tag on, nor is it a hyperbole.
The vedanās are such a "potent force" in the activation of unwanted and harmful states of mind (such as anger, fear, insecurity, and depression) that the subject gets an entire section of the Saṃyutta Nikaya (the book of Connected Discourses in the Pāli canonical collection of suttas) devoted to it with thirty-one (31) back-to-back suttas on the subject; this in addition to the hundreds of other suttas and commentaries that teach on the vedanās to varying degrees.
The vedanās are so important to our practice toward the cessation of our dukkha (that to say, to the development of our happiness) that the Buddha made it the second of only four pillars/establishments of mindful attention and mindfulness meditation (see Majjhima Nikaya, MN 10, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta).
Entire books are written on the subject and countless lectures, teachings, and discourses orbit around the very notion of the vedanās; and the amount of time that I spend talking about this topic in one form or another with my students is a clear indicator of the relevance and importance of incorporating this practice into our day-to-day lives if we ever hope to be free of the mental qualities that make us unhappy, angry, scared, or sad. To learn about the vedanās is to learn about making measurable progress toward Cessation in this very life.
Let's review the questions that will be answered over the course of this series on Buddhist Feelings, the Vedanās:
- What are feelings in Buddhism?
- What are the vedanās?
- What do we need to know in order to understand them?
- How are they connected and affected by other Buddhist concepts about who we are?
- How is it that they can influence our moods so profoundly?
- How can we apply the understanding of the vedanās in ways that genuinely help us to be happy all the time? (seriously)
- What is mindfulness of feelings and how do we do that in real life when we are out living our lives?
- Can we actually avoid ever having bad days? (spoiler: yes!)
(if it seems as if I have missed a question or two within the course of this post, it only means that I haven't covered it yet – and most of these questions will get deeper coverage in subsequent posts in this series, so subscribe to be notified of new teachings as they get posted)
In regard to this last question, 'actually preventing bad days at all'; this is my approach to the teaching and practice of Buddhism — and this is what the Buddha intended with his teachings: it's not a matter of "can we" avoid bad days, but rather it's about "how to" no longer have bad days ever again, regardless of the situations, circumstances, or people we find ourselves contending with.
This is the subject of this teaching, and make no mistake, this is Buddhism.
How is this Buddhism?
In all of the canonical teachings, discourses, stories, exclamations, histories, et cetera that are found in the roughly 17,000 suttas, it is a commonly held belief that the Buddha's teachings fall into two general categories:
1. What dukkha is.
(e.g., "suffering," "discontentment," "unsatisfactoriness," et cetera.)
2. How dukkha ends.
(for more on the subject of dukkha, please see my suggested readings of the Four Noble Truths on my links page).
In support of these Four Noble Truths, we are taught that everything — absolutely everything — physical or mental, material or immaterial, has the innately inextricable qualities of impermanence (anicca), of unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and of being without-Self (anattā) — collectively, these are referred to as the Three Characteristics or the Three Marks of Existence (pañcakkhandhāṃ ti-lakkhaṇaṃ). While the Three Marks are beyond the scope of this teaching it is worth spending some personal time looking into and exploring these notions. And while the teachings on the vedanās are separate from the teachings of the Three Marks of Existence, they are tightly interconnected to impermanence, dukkha, and nonself (just as all concepts within Buddhism invariably are) as they also possess these qualities; after all, as I wrote above, everything possesses these three characteristics, even (especially) feelings. This will be helpful to keep in-mind, as becoming free of unwanted emotional states of mind will depend on your understanding of their impermanence, their inherent dukkha, and the "non-'You'-ness" of them (more on this practical practice of this in the next parts of this series).
Nevertheless, while the vedanās can easily be a subsection of a larger teaching on these Characteristics, I will focus on how we can understand them in ways to help us break the self-inflicted chain of dependently arising events that lead us down the road of our own discontentment; a far too frequently travelled upon road that ultimately leads us to having bad moments, negative perspectives, unwanted experiences, and conflicts with others, which cumulatively propel us into to having bad days, weeks, months, or even years (or from a more deeply Buddhist perspective, into a continuous cycle of birth, sickness, ageing, and death [saṃsāra]).
In order to properly address vedanās, it's worthwhile to briefly cover some other supporting Buddhist fundamentals at a high-level, starting with the Five Aggregates, of which the vedanās are a constituent (number two, in fact). We will then follow that with the Six Sense Spheres and the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination (number seven on that list, and arguably the most important one on that list).
It would also be appropriate to review teachings on dukkha, the five sense organs, the seven mental factors, and the twenty-two faculties, as well as a few other numerical topics in order to properly teach on the vedanās, but one thing at a time and I will do my best to keep the scope of this teaching as narrow as I can while still doing service to the primary subject.
The Five Aggregates
(pañcakkhandhā)
Who are "you"? Or rather, what is "you"? And, how do the vedanās influence who you "are"?
Briefly, the Five Aggregates "subject to clinging" are the five constituent components that what make up the psycho-physical personality; the psycho-physical personality is what we consider to be an inherently existing "me," "myself," or "mine" which in return creates a sense of a self-identity: a substantial "Self" and a real "I," which in turn becomes the container for our Ego. (While it's entirely outside of the scope of this series, it's worth spending some time contemplating and understanding that if you are ever feeling anything other than contentment, that it's solely your Ego that is at the soft-chewy center of your misery; but that's the fodder for an entirely separate teaching series of its own. Contact me if you wish to learn more. Now back to the Aggregates.)
Of these five aggregates, one is a physical aggregate (khanda) and the other four are mental aggregates; and they are broken down as follows:
The Physical Aggregate:
1. Form (rūpa)
The Mental Aggregates:
2. Vedanā
3. Perception (saññā)
4. Volition Formation/Thought (saṅkhāra)
5. Consciousness (viññāṇa)
Teacher's note: keeping in mind that this teaching is focused on just one of the Five Aggregates, the vedanās, we will have to leave a detailed explanation of the other four aggregates (forms, perceptions, volitional formations, and consciousness) for another series or post. With that out of the way, let's continue our exploration of the vedanās.
Now, looking at that list above, did you notice how I left "vedanā" (#2 on the list) untranslated in the Pāli language? That's because "vedanā" is usually translated from Pāli into English using the word "feelings." This is a poor word-choice at-best, because it obscures the underlying mechanism of the concept and does a disservice to the students and practitioners who strive to clearly understand them.
It is worth noting that it's not always easy to accurately translate languages from one to another, and when it comes to the ancient Pāli language, all the more so, with translators often having to do the best they can. Unfortunately, there are many instances where Pāli words (which are often more like concepts than words) simply have no direct translation that can take into account all of the underlying cultural inferences, deeper meanings, and ancient philosophical perspectives that don't have contemporary counterparts or modern linguistic cognates.
With that said, when I teach to my students, I frequently leave vedanās untranslated because vedanās are not feelings in the sense of emotions or even in the sense of the general states of our minds. Feelings are results, while vedanās are a mechanism; and, translating "vedanās" into "feelings" leads to a deep misunderstanding of the very nature of the vedanās. As a result, those who seek insights from their explorations of Ego Identity and Nonself through the study and contemplation the Five Aggregates are often held back in their intellectual understanding of the Five Aggregates as a whole, and thus their efforts directed at exploring and observing their own vedanās are ultimately misdirected and flawed.
We can't properly get an accurate reflection of who we are if all we have to work with are funhouse mirrors.
What are Vedanās then?
If they aren't feelings, or emotions, what are they? What is their relationship to attachment, aversion, and delusion?
Simply put, the vedanās are a submental response that is that more akin to a subconscious judgement of like-and-don't-like, of want-and-don't-want; they are the initial categorisation of a sensory input (i.e., a sight, a sound, an aroma, a taste, a touch, or a thought) as being either:
1. Pleasant
2. Unpleasant
3. Neither-Pleasant-Nor-Unpleasant / Neutral
(cetasikā sukhā-vedanā, cetasikā dukkha-vedanā, or adukkha-m-asukhā vedanā, respectively).
These three categorisations are directly linked to, and a reflection of, what is referred to in Buddhism as the Three Poisons (akusulamūla) — the three poisons are greed, hatred, and delusion; sometimes referred to as attachment, aversion, and ignorance.
Greed-and-hatred, and attachment-and-aversion can usually be further reduced and referred to simply as "craving" (taṇhā). And what is craving? Craving comes in two flavours:
1. Wanting to have that which we find pleasant
(greed/attachment)
2. Wanting to not have that which we find unpleasant
(hatred/aversion)
Take heed and pay attention to the three poisons of wanting, not-wanting, and delusion. Do you notice how they drive much (if not all) of what you think, say, and do? When you truly recognise that, you will want to get good at catching how they drive your actions; because when you get better at being mindful of them, you will begin to notice that any time you can unhook from those poisonous undercurrents, what you are left with is contentment, genuine contentment; a rewarding sense of skilful equanimity of mind and body that serves as both the foundation (and the end-goal) of the spiritual path.
Just to reiterate before we move on: the vedanās are simply a mental response that judges sensory inputs as being either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
However, as it often is with simple things, it can be all too easy to overlook or carelessly neglect their inherent depth, and in the spirit of not falling into that trap, we are now required to dig deeper still. In order to do so, we now need to briefly review the Six Sense Spheres of conscious awareness.
And, down the rabbit hole we go!
The Six Sense Spheres
(saḷāyatana)
What are sense contacts and sense objects and what is their relationship to the vedanās?
Venturing deeper into the depths of the Dhammavinaya, it is helpful to know that the vedanās do not manifest on their own; they don't arise out of nowhere: they are a response — or, as we say in Buddhism: they are conditioned. But conditioned by what? They are conditioned by sense-contacts. When a sense-contact is made, a vedanā is created. Conversely, when that sense-contact ends, the corresponding vedanā dissolves.
What exactly is a "sense-contact"?
Briefly, a sense contact is anything that we experience through the six internal sense bases of our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, body, and mind. Sense contacts produce sense-objects; sense objects are the things that we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think (i.e., sights, sounds, aromas, tastes, touches, and thoughts).
Because vedanās are the immediate conscious and subconscious mental reactions and categorisations that occur the moment a conscious sensory contact is made, without some form of sense-contact, there are no conditions for a vedanā to arise; hence, they are "conditioned."
“These three feelings are born of contact, rooted in contact, with contact as their source and condition. What three? Pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. |
The following is very important (and to the right student, potentially profound): our vedanās are tightly interlinked with the third aggregate of Perception (sañña), and sense objects are often times processed through our perception aggregate and our perception aggregate can intensify or even reverse the initial categorisations of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral vedanās.
That point, casually-made (though emboldened), is a critically important and often-overlooked nugget of information that will be important to tuck away in your mind for later, because this is the springboard upon which we can start to reframe the resisted and the unpleasurable into their corresponding opposites, the embraced and the pleasurable — this is the bread and butter of actual Buddhist practice, the practice of actually transforming dukkha into the Path. However, it's not just the "bread and butter" of actual practice... being able to reframe the unwanted into the wanted at-will is a measurable result of skilful practice in accordance with the teachings; one of the rewards along the Path, if you will. (But, I am getting ahead of myself here; more on this in the next parts of this series. Back to the vedanās and their dependence on the Six Sense Spheres:)
While all vedanās are inherently a mental fabrication, they are not always produced by the mind as some vedanās do in fact originate via touch and form, that is to say, via the physical aggregate of the body (rūpa) and some of those physically-originating vedanās needn't be processed by the mind before being assigned a pleasant, painful, or neutral categorisation, such as hitting your thumb with a hammer or touching a red-hot stove.
Other vedanās, those which originate from the other sense-bases (i.e., our ears, nose, eyes, and mouth), are usually received by the sense-organ as Neutral, but then get assessed through the lenses of the mind (i.e., saññā and saṅkhāra) and assigned a category or good, bad, or neither-good-nor-bad. This can be confirmed by considering how over-time we can come to enjoy things that we initially didn't like (e.g., certain people, places, flavours, aromas, colours, et cetera).
By contemplating these universal qualities of our sense experience, we can rightly conduce deep insights into the subtle and powerful underlying truth that sense-objects don't actually possess inherent and universal qualities of good, bad, or neither-good-nor-bad... that we in fact arbitrarily or judgmentally assign these undisciplined categorisations to them and then attach ourselves to these illusionary assignments. It's worth thoroughly contemplating how these empty assignments ultimately lead to the formation of dukkha-causing biases, opinions, preferences, and identities.
As I often tell my students: attachments-and-aversions, desires-and-biases, wants-and-don't-wants make the mind very narrow; and the narrower your mind is, the more fragile your contentment is.
There are, however, a few caveats to the process of vedanās getting amped up by our perception aggregate, such as in previously mentioned examples of extreme rūpa contacts which immediately get processed by body and mind as being good or bad... and there are even caveats to this caveat, because as our practice becomes more integrated into our moment-to-moment awareness, and the more advanced we become as truly mindful Buddhist practitioners, leveraging the deep power of Clear Comprehension (sampajañña), the more we will begin to overcome the fundamental root-cause of our dukkha: the strength of our attachments to the things that we want and the strength of our aversions to the things that we don't want; and as we develop our skill in un-attaching from, and not self-identifying with, the sources of our dukkha, the less often we will assign unnecessary and un-beneficial categories to our naturally neutral sense-contacts and the less power these sources of dukkha have over us and how we feel.
The following is very important (and to the right student, potentially profound): our vedanās are tightly interlinked with the third aggregate of Perception (sañña), and sense objects are often times processed through our perception aggregate and our perception aggregate can intensify or even reverse the initial categorisations of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral vedanās.
That point, casually-made (though emboldened), is a critically important and often-overlooked nugget of information that will be important to tuck away in your mind for later, because this is the springboard upon which we can start to reframe the resisted and the unpleasurable into their corresponding opposites, the embraced and the pleasurable — this is the bread and butter of actual Buddhist practice, the practice of actually transforming dukkha into the Path. However, it's not just the "bread and butter" of actual practice... being able to reframe the unwanted into the wanted at-will is a measurable result of skilful practice in accordance with the teachings; one of the rewards along the Path, if you will. (But, I am getting ahead of myself here; more on this in the next parts of this series. Back to the vedanās and their dependence on the Six Sense Spheres:)
While all vedanās are inherently a mental fabrication, they are not always produced by the mind as some vedanās do in fact originate via touch and form, that is to say, via the physical aggregate of the body (rūpa) and some of those physically-originating vedanās needn't be processed by the mind before being assigned a pleasant, painful, or neutral categorisation, such as hitting your thumb with a hammer or touching a red-hot stove.
Other vedanās, those which originate from the other sense-bases (i.e., our ears, nose, eyes, and mouth), are usually received by the sense-organ as Neutral, but then get assessed through the lenses of the mind (i.e., saññā and saṅkhāra) and assigned a category or good, bad, or neither-good-nor-bad. This can be confirmed by considering how over-time we can come to enjoy things that we initially didn't like (e.g., certain people, places, flavours, aromas, colours, et cetera).
By contemplating these universal qualities of our sense experience, we can rightly conduce deep insights into the subtle and powerful underlying truth that sense-objects don't actually possess inherent and universal qualities of good, bad, or neither-good-nor-bad... that we in fact arbitrarily or judgmentally assign these undisciplined categorisations to them and then attach ourselves to these illusionary assignments. It's worth thoroughly contemplating how these empty assignments ultimately lead to the formation of dukkha-causing biases, opinions, preferences, and identities.
As I often tell my students: attachments-and-aversions, desires-and-biases, wants-and-don't-wants make the mind very narrow; and the narrower your mind is, the more fragile your contentment is.
There are, however, a few caveats to the process of vedanās getting amped up by our perception aggregate, such as in previously mentioned examples of extreme rūpa contacts which immediately get processed by body and mind as being good or bad... and there are even caveats to this caveat, because as our practice becomes more integrated into our moment-to-moment awareness, and the more advanced we become as truly mindful Buddhist practitioners, leveraging the deep power of Clear Comprehension (sampajañña), the more we will begin to overcome the fundamental root-cause of our dukkha: the strength of our attachments to the things that we want and the strength of our aversions to the things that we don't want; and as we develop our skill in un-attaching from, and not self-identifying with, the sources of our dukkha, the less often we will assign unnecessary and un-beneficial categories to our naturally neutral sense-contacts and the less power these sources of dukkha have over us and how we feel.
Tying The Aggregates and Senses Back to the Vedanās and To Real-life Practice
In order for us to understand how to turn that understanding into a springboard for happiness, we need to learn how to not react to our vedanās. Reacting to these vedanās is the juice that creates so much of our painful and unwanted mind-states. Put simply:
We must learn how to stop mindlessly reacting to our feelings.
Learning how to actually integrate that into your daily experience is some really powerful stuff, and when you genuinely cultivate insight into this understanding, this is when you have achieved what I refer to as the foundation of advanced practice in cessation, the cessation of dukkha... or in other words, in your progress toward actual (and literal) nibbāna (i.e., nirvana).
While this is going to be the focus of the next parts of this teaching series, I want to spend a bit of time with this before wrapping up Part One.
This point about advanced practice is very important to understand, because it means that through the development of your practice, that is to say, through skilful determination-and-discipline, study, applied effort-and-energy, wise attention to what is experienced (yōniso manasikāra), real-time mindful awareness (satisampajañña), contemplation of the Dhamma, pure meditation, and an honest process of self-inquiry into the nature of your ego and your dukkha you can start to see through the illusions of your suffering and start to see more clearly what is and isn't actually real; that's ultimately the only foundation for veritable progress along the Buddhist Path.
Most of the stuff that we react to, the "stuff" that causes us so much suffering, isn't actually real. We perceive things that aren't real to be real. Or even worse, we make stuff up in our heads that have no basis in reality at all! We endlessly have imaginary conversations with other people in our heads, we fantasise/plot/and plan, and we relive long-past traumas over and over again within our mind's eye. This is why the words ignorance and delusion are tossed about so often in Buddhism. And until we truly come to understand how all of this is just an illusion that has so much potential for potent pain, we will continue to be victims of our uncontrolled and unexamined head-space.
In order for us to understand how to turn that understanding into a springboard for happiness, we need to learn how to not react to our vedanās. Reacting to these vedanās is the juice that creates so much of our painful and unwanted mind-states. Put simply:
We must learn how to stop mindlessly reacting to our feelings.
Learning how to actually integrate that into your daily experience is some really powerful stuff, and when you genuinely cultivate insight into this understanding, this is when you have achieved what I refer to as the foundation of advanced practice in cessation, the cessation of dukkha... or in other words, in your progress toward actual (and literal) nibbāna (i.e., nirvana).
While this is going to be the focus of the next parts of this teaching series, I want to spend a bit of time with this before wrapping up Part One.
This point about advanced practice is very important to understand, because it means that through the development of your practice, that is to say, through skilful determination-and-discipline, study, applied effort-and-energy, wise attention to what is experienced (yōniso manasikāra), real-time mindful awareness (satisampajañña), contemplation of the Dhamma, pure meditation, and an honest process of self-inquiry into the nature of your ego and your dukkha you can start to see through the illusions of your suffering and start to see more clearly what is and isn't actually real; that's ultimately the only foundation for veritable progress along the Buddhist Path.
Most of the stuff that we react to, the "stuff" that causes us so much suffering, isn't actually real. We perceive things that aren't real to be real. Or even worse, we make stuff up in our heads that have no basis in reality at all! We endlessly have imaginary conversations with other people in our heads, we fantasise/plot/and plan, and we relive long-past traumas over and over again within our mind's eye. This is why the words ignorance and delusion are tossed about so often in Buddhism. And until we truly come to understand how all of this is just an illusion that has so much potential for potent pain, we will continue to be victims of our uncontrolled and unexamined head-space.
"It is just as when during a great rain there are bubbles on the surface of water, arising and ceasing one after another, and a clear-sighted person carefully examines, attends to, and analyses them. When carefully examining, attending to, and analysing them, he finds that there is nothing in them, nothing stable, nothing substantial; they have no solidity. Why is that? It is because there is nothing solid, lasting, or substantial in water bubbles. |
There are a lot of things involved and to take in account of in "advanced practice," but that is why it's called "advanced," and regardless of where you are on the spectrum of progress, be it an advanced practitioner or a beginner, it doesn't mean that you can't start developing any or all of these skills here and now. Once you begin the process of doing so, you begin to cultivate your ability to influence how these sense-contacts are labelled — the labels that ultimately influence how you feel and think (e.g., the general sense of happiness that you get to experience throughout our day) in real-time.
How is this possible?
Because these categorisations are not static, fixed, and all the more importantly, not universal, but rather they are in a constant state of change, interpretation, and are additionally conditioned and filtered by own personal experiences, views, and understandings, which are also constantly changing and subject to interpretation and transformation. This is why at one point we may like a particular taste and then come to not like it; or why we may enjoy something, while other people don't — there are choices and preferences involved, these assignments of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral aren't set in stone and they aren't universal truths. And because how we define things as being good, bad, or neutral is influenced by many variables which are also in a constant state of change, it's not uncommon for the pleasant to become a neutral, or an unpleasant to become a pleasant, especially given how much our moods, perceptions, or our levels of attention or energy can influence and affect the subconscious categorisations of the things that we experience as well.
For example, sometimes we are just "too tired" to enjoy something that we would otherwise take great delight in, such as the laughter of our children, and instead of pleasure, we find it unpleasant, "annoying," or simply unwanted in that moment.
And so it is through the subjective and ever-changing vedanā aggregate, at both the conscious and subconscious levels, that everything that we contact through our sense bases gets immediately and arbitrarily labelled as either pleasant, unpleasant, or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. And because we experience these feelings without reflection, without understanding, and without mindfulness — with an undisciplined and untrained mind — we get affected and taken down by the worst of these: the negative ones.
It doesn't have to be this way.
You have a choice.
You can study, learn, meditate, contemplate, and practice.
And, you can heal.
The vedanās are very simple: they are just a subconscious and undisciplined labeling of stimuli; these "feelings," per se, are not nearly as complex or complicated as the "feelings" that we relate to "emotions," and knowing this, we can now work with them, and hone them, and learn to condition and slope them toward a resilient sense of contentment, safety, and peace of mind, instead of any of the unpleasant opposites of those. How we do this will be explored in greater detail as we continue to progress along in this series of teachings on the vedanās.
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Summary and Conclusion of Part 1
So that's it! That's the fundamentals of vedanās in a nut-shell.
But understanding what feelings are is only the beginning! Stay tuned for the next part of this series to learn more.
Time for a brief plug:
This teaching series can only go so far. We need experienced, skilled, and knowledgeable teachers to help us. If you want to learn more about your vedanās and how you can leverage your contemplation of them into day-to-day and moment-to-moment resilience, contentment, and peace-of-mind, you are welcome to contact me if you want to explore having me take you on as a student and to learn more about how a one-on-one student:teacher relationship with me can supercharge your practice and lay the foundation for measurable progress toward contentment, toward Buddhist enlightenment.
May this teaching be of service to you and to your practice.
COMING NEXT IN THIS SERIES:
The Vedanās
— Supplement Post #1 —
The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
(an important supplemental post on the Dependent Arising in support of the teaching series on the Vedanās)
which will then followed by
The Vedanās
— Part 2 —
Turning Theory into the Practice of Happiness
(how to stop mindlessly reacting to your feelings)
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2 Comments
Sara
10/18/2022 19:15:52
Wow, deep and complex yet clear, powerful, and engaging. Looking forward to more. Thank you for your teachings!
10/19/2022 23:13:36
Thank you, Sara. That is kind of you to write.
May your evening be a peaceful and pleasant one.
With mettā,
Pasannacitta
Leave a Reply.
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The Teacher
Anagārika Pasannacitta
Hi! My name is Pasannacitta (my layperson name is Michael Turner).
I am a pre-monastic sakadāgāmi, early Buddhist teacher, enlightenment-and-streamentry mentor, resilience therapist, spiritual life coach, and full-time Buddhist anagārika.
I've spent almost 30 years learning and cultivating what I do, and what I do goes far beyond meditation and dharma.
I work with dedicated Buddhist practitioners to help them attain measurable spiritual progress toward Nibbāna. This special kind of one-on-one training isn't readily available to lay practitioners and I hope to do my part as I prepare to prepare to become a monk and enter into full-time Buddhist monastic life.
Our Dhamma-vinaya student community is donation-funded and I'm available for serious and dedicated practitioners of meditation-and-dharma to course-correct their views, understandings, and practices to help them overcome the challenges and problems that hold them back from making progress along the path toward Buddhist enlightenment. This isn't hocus-pocus, this is practical- and applied-Buddhism, and your progress will be the result of dedication and effort.
It is worth noting that what is on-offer here is very special. I am a skilled pre-monastic early Buddhist ācariya and I will be a Buddhist monk, scholar, and teacher. There are few people outside of authentic Buddhist monasteries who can genuinely offer this kind of applied guidance and advanced training to lay practitioners.
Please visit my home page and my about me to learn more about my style and what it is that I teach.
I am a pre-monastic sakadāgāmi, early Buddhist teacher, enlightenment-and-streamentry mentor, resilience therapist, spiritual life coach, and full-time Buddhist anagārika.
I've spent almost 30 years learning and cultivating what I do, and what I do goes far beyond meditation and dharma.
I work with dedicated Buddhist practitioners to help them attain measurable spiritual progress toward Nibbāna. This special kind of one-on-one training isn't readily available to lay practitioners and I hope to do my part as I prepare to prepare to become a monk and enter into full-time Buddhist monastic life.
Our Dhamma-vinaya student community is donation-funded and I'm available for serious and dedicated practitioners of meditation-and-dharma to course-correct their views, understandings, and practices to help them overcome the challenges and problems that hold them back from making progress along the path toward Buddhist enlightenment. This isn't hocus-pocus, this is practical- and applied-Buddhism, and your progress will be the result of dedication and effort.
It is worth noting that what is on-offer here is very special. I am a skilled pre-monastic early Buddhist ācariya and I will be a Buddhist monk, scholar, and teacher. There are few people outside of authentic Buddhist monasteries who can genuinely offer this kind of applied guidance and advanced training to lay practitioners.
Please visit my home page and my about me to learn more about my style and what it is that I teach.
"The only thing that prevents people from attaining Enlightenment and experiencing Nirvana directly is insufficient instruction and/or practice."
I offer authentic and transformative Buddhist mind training and dharma training and I encourage you to message me to learn more.
recurring donation:
one-time donation:
all of services and teachings are donation-funded, please consider making a donation to our student community today
Since leaving to ordain as a Buddhist monk and becoming a full-time Buddhist anagārika, donations directly make our student community possible. Without your generosity, it would not be possible to provide teachings and training to guide those who wish to attain spiritual success, or to those, both living and dying, who are in genuine need of support, compassion, and care.
Thank you very much for your kindness and your generosity.
why donate? learn more here.
Since leaving to ordain as a Buddhist monk and becoming a full-time Buddhist anagārika, donations directly make our student community possible. Without your generosity, it would not be possible to provide teachings and training to guide those who wish to attain spiritual success, or to those, both living and dying, who are in genuine need of support, compassion, and care.
Thank you very much for your kindness and your generosity.
why donate? learn more here.
please help fund my pro bono teaching program today
Donate via Zelle® using the email address in the image below:
Donations made with Zelle® are preferred as there are no fees charged for, or deducted from, your donation
but you may also use PayPal:
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Recurring Paypal Donation Options
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Alternatively, you may help me become a better teacher, practitioner, and person:
If you would like to assist me in my studies or support my life as a Buddhist renunciate by donating a dhamma e-book to me from my Amazon.com wishlist, I would greatly appreciate it. You can find my wishlist here:
If you would like to assist me in my studies or support my life as a Buddhist renunciate by donating a dhamma e-book to me from my Amazon.com wishlist, I would greatly appreciate it. You can find my wishlist here:
my amazon.com wishlist
All support and kind generosity are greatly and sincerely appreciated.
With mettā, thank you.
Anagārika Pasannacitta
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Pasannacitta is a pre-monastic ariya-puggala and a full-time Buddhist anagārika; and he is also a deeply accomplished streamentry mentor and applied-dharma teacher. He emphasises and teaches the practical application of the Buddha's teachings in our everyday lives to overcome our human problems that stand in the way of making measurable progress toward Buddhist enlightenment and he is particularly adept at explaining them in ways that can be easily understood and practiced by Western Buddhists. He has been meditating and cultivating the views and techniques that generate indestructible resilience, inner-strength, and direct experience for almost 30 years and has helped countless numbers of students and peers enhance and course-correct their practice to make veritable progress along the path toward Nibbāna.
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website by pasannacitta — being peacefully © 2013, 2022 — all rights reserved.
website by pasannacitta — being peacefully © 2013, 2022 — all rights reserved.