Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

176 Identity and Experience
Given that it is as individual human beings, or, one might say, as individual
bundles of khandhas, that we experience conditioned, savim'c, existence, this
is essentially the meaning of the first Noble Truth.
It has already become clear to us in earlier chapters on each of the
khandhas in turn that they are mutually dependent in their functioning. One
of the passages which describes the cognitive process, to which I have
referred several times, is probably the best example of such mutual
dependency:
Visual consciousness arises because of eye and visible form; contact
[occurs] when there is a combination of the three; feelings are caused by
contact; that which one feels, one apperceives.. , .28
Here we can clearly see that the operation of the sense involves the
rtipakkhandha, awareness is the function of the vin"n"i&khandha, feelings are
classified as the uedanikhandha, and apperception is an aspect of the
sa ECikhandha.
A particularly notable point which arises from this passage, apart from
the fact that it obviously confirms that the khandhas are interrelated, is that
both feelings and apperception can arise without any involvement of the
sapkhirakkhandha. We saw from the description of the analytical meditation
exercise above that volitions are separate from the body and feelings. Here,
likewise, in a passage which serves to illustrate the interconnectedness of
the khandhas rather than that they are separate, we have a canonical passage
which indicates that the presence of a feeling, be it physical or mental,
agreeable or disagreeable, is not dependent on there being a concomitant
volition concerning it.29 I will return to this point.
We can now see more clearly that it is misleading to say that volitions
such as passion, hatred and thoughts which toss up the mind arise from the
body. The body is indeed present in the arising of feelings, but it is
completely unactivated, as it were, unless the cognitive ('mental') faculties
of awareness, apperception and feeling are simultaneously present: and it is
towards this combination of functioning khandhas that volitions are
subsequently directed. The fact that the khandhas function together, however,
does serve to explain the presence in the canon of those statements
cited above which advocate the driving out of desire and passion from all
five of the khandhas. Furthermore, desire and passion arise because of
ignorance regarding the selflessness of all things, and the reference to the
driving out of desire and passion in each of the khandhas can be understood
to mean that this selflessness has to be understood in every one of the
khandhas. But we nevertheless know from the analysis of the human being
given in the khandha formula that volitions actually originate in the
samkhimkkhandha: though we might apparently experience volitions within
the body itself, they have mentality rather than corporeality as their source.
So we can state quite specifically that all karmic effects, which in Buddhism