Saṃyukta Āgama (290): The Section on Contact

For example, when two pieces of wood are rubbed together, fire arises through contact. If the two pieces of wood are separated, the fire also ceases accordingly. Similarly, all feelings arise conditioned by contact; when contact arises, contact accumulates. When this or that contact accumulates, this or that feeling also accumulates. When this or that accumulation of contact ceases, this or that accumulation of feeling also ceases, becomes still, cool, subsides, and vanishes. A learned noble disciple who contemplates thus becomes liberated from form, liberated from feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, liberated from birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair. I say that such a one is liberated from suffering.

The Buddha used the analogy of two pieces of wood rubbing together to produce fire to illustrate the principle of dependent arising: when contact accumulates, feeling accumulates. When two pieces of wood rub together, fire arises. If the two pieces do not contact each other, the condition for contact ceases, and the fire disappears. Similarly, the causes and conditions for our suffering arise from contact, producing the feeling of suffering. If these conditions cease—if there is no contact—then there is no feeling. When the condition for contact ceases, the feeling ceases.

Regardless of the type of feeling, if the condition of contact accumulates, the accumulation of feeling arises. As long as the condition continues to accumulate, contact persists; where there is contact, there is feeling. When contact arises and accumulates, feeling accumulates. The condition for the arising of feeling is prior contact. Contact is the function of conditions; without conditions, contact cannot occur. All phenomena depend on conditions to arise and exist, and these conditions are produced by karmic causes from past lives. When contact ceases, feeling ceases. After the accumulation of feeling ceases, the mind attains cessation, stillness, coolness, subsidence, and vanishing.

The Buddha enables us to recognize that the accumulation of contact is the accumulation of feeling: where there is contact, there is feeling. Contact is false; feeling is also false. Feeling arises primarily from the conscious mind. Contact arises when the six sense faculties and the six sense objects come into contact, which requires conditions for this contact to occur. Therefore, all phenomena arise dependent on conditions; without conditions, there is no arising; with conditions, they arise. Conditioned phenomena are also false—they arise dependent on specific conditions and are thus unreal. Only the eighth consciousness, the Tathāgatagarbha, exists without relying on conditions.