Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

72 Identity and Experience
Wtandhas shows that a human being can function without the involvement
of the samkhirakkhandha, without volitions in the sense that is intended here.
The description of the arising of visual feeling, for example, to which we
have already referred, shows clearly that it is quite possible for the feeling to
arise without any involvement at all of the sapkhiirakkhandha:
Visual awareness arises because of eye and [visible] forms; contact [occurs]
when there is a combination of the three; feelings are caused by contact;
that which one feels, one apperceives.. .24
From this we can see that the sensory activity, including both the organ
and object of sense, involves the rzipakWurndha; awareness is the function of
the vififiiinakkhandh~;~~ apperception takes place in the saiifiikhandha: and
these three khandhas are involved in the activating and recognising of what
is experienced in a fourth - the vedizniikhandha. The feeling can be agreeable,
disagreeable or neutral, but the samkhiirakkhandha is only involved if there is
a concomitant volition concerning the feeling: if it is an agreeable feeling, a
concomitant volition might be to desire it; if it is a disagreeable feeling, one
might be revolted by it. In practice, the feelings of an unenlightened
individual usually are accompanied by volitions, and this is illustrated by
the fact that in the paticcasamuppiida formula feelings are said to be the condition
for the arising of craving (tayhi). But one can, and ultimately should,
experience feelings without any concomitant volitions: an arahant is able to
experience pleasant and unpleasant feelings while remaining entirely
detached from them. This is stated in the Vedanii Samyutta, where we read
that the well-taught Ariyan disciple has no repugnance for painful feeling,
or delight in sensual pleasure.26 The process of analysing the person into
khandhas shows how this is a constitutional possibility. An interesting passage
in the Majjhima Nhya, which is discussed in detail in chapter v, states
that it is impossible to separate vedani, saiifii and uifi'iiiina, but does not say
that sa*iira is similarly in~eparable.~~
The samkhiirakkhandha, then, is the khandha of the will, and it might be
translated as the 'volitional constituent' of the human being.
The Cyclic Causal Nexus
As we have seen, both the samkhiirakkhandha and the paticcmamuppiida formula
are specifically connected with the sa~ii?ic experience of the human
being. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the meaning of samkhiira in
each of these two contexts should be closely linked, as we shall now see.
First, however, I return to the point made above that there is one
difference between the meaning of samkhiira as a khandha, that is as the
volitional constituent of a human being, and its meaning as the second link
in the chain of the pagccasamuppida formula, the formative activities. This is