Awareness at the Intersection of Contact and Craving

When our senses, including the thought processes, come into contact with their respective (intended) objects, more often than not (sadly), the experience of the contact is smothered by a craving that reduces the experience of contact to a cognitive framework that turns the experience into a conceptual yearning. This yearning is expressed in the forms of felt attachments, aversions, or numbing indifference. The yearning is inherently, and by definition, dissatisfaction--on a scale from minor to major suffering.

To illustrate this, take the simple example of dropping a container of milk on the floor in a supermarket. The experience of witnessing the event includes a bodily component. The experience of perceiving (i.e., contact) the milk dropping and landing on the floor may be one of simple yet profound amazement at the movement and crashing of the container on the floor. This may elicit a felt, open bodily intimacy with the movement and crashing of the container. It may be quite a profound experience! This may elicit a "WOW!" moment. However, the movement may also be one of fear (for obvious reasons) and its associated contracted bodily experience coupled with the aversion that is fear itself. Fear is an unsatisfactory feeling that may be a warning or an instinct to move from an oncoming truck. In this instance, the fear aversion is not a satisfactory experience. In the case of milk dropping, we are not in danger. In the case of a truck, we are. Dissatisfaction may be, at times, a very helpful experience. However, often it is an unnecessary one. On the other hand, if one is in the middle of an argument with one's spouse, dropping the milk may be a deliberate act to elicit a reaction. Then the crashing milk container may yield an intended effect. There is a felt gratification (pleasure) on the part of the agent of the act and a painful response felt by the one toward whom the act is directed. Keep in mind, this is not solely a conceptual event. Intentionally it was designed to elicit both a painful and pleasurable feeling from the one toward whom the act is directed and the perpetrator of the act. The nature of the act, whether pleasurable, painful, or neutral (indifferent) hinges on intention. I hope this is clear.

Actions (karma) of body, speech, and mind that are intentional will result in reinforcing their conceptual and felt origins. These origins are held in intentions.