Nyanatiloka Buddhist Dictionary

perfect one, the: tathágata (q.v.).performance and avoidance: cáritta-váritta (q.v.).permanency, idea of: s. vipallása.personality: s. sakkáya. For personality-belief, s. sakkáya ditthi, ditthi, attá, satta, puggala,vipallása.perversions, the 4: vipallása (q.v.).peta (Sanskrit preta): lit. 'departed spirit', ghost; s. loka.petti-visaya: 'ghost realm'; s. loka.phala: lit. 'fruit'. - 1. result, effect (often together with hetu, cause ); 2. benefit (e.g. inSámañña-phala Sutta, 'The Results, or Benefits, of Recluseship'; D. 2).As 'path-result', or 'fruition', it donotes those moments of supermundane consciousnesswhich flash forth immediately after the moment of path-consciousness (s. ariya-puggala) andwhich, till the attainment of the next higher path, may during the practice of insight(vipassaná, q.v.) still recur innumerable times. If thus repeated, they are called the'attainment of fruition (phalasamápatti), which is explained in detail in Vis.M. XXIII.phassa (fr. phusati, to touch): 'sense-impression', contact. The term samphassa is used incompounds, e.g. in the following: '"T'here are 6 classes of sense-impression: visual impression(cakkhu-samphassa), impressions of hearing, smelling, tasting, bodily (tactile) impression andmental impression" (M. 9). A twofold division occurs in D. 15: patigha (q.v.) -samphassa,impression by sensorial reaction', and adhivacana-samphassa, verbal (or conceptual, i.e.mental) impression'.Phassa does not signify physical impact, but is one of the 7 constant mental concomitants ofconsciousness (cetasika) and belongs to the group of mental formations (sankhára-kkhandha).In lists of both these categories it is generally mentioned first (e.g. Dhs. 1: M. 9), due to itsfundamental position in the cognitive process In M. 18 it is thus defined: "Dependent on theeye and the forms, eye-consciousness arises; the coming-together of the three issense-impression" (similarly stated in the case of the other 5 senses, including mind). In thedependent origination, it is conditioned by the six sense-bases and is a conditioning factor offeeling (s. paticca-samuppáda 5, 6). Its relation to mind-and-body (náma-rúpa) is described inD. 15, and its influence on feeling and wrong views, in D. 1 (at the end). - It is one of the 4nutriments (áhára, q.v.), and the first factor in the pentad of sense-impression(phassa-pañcamaka), together with feeling, perception, volition and consciousness (see Abh.St., p. 47ff ).Being a key function in the mind's contact with the world of objects and being a potentialsource of defilements, sense-impression is an important subject for reflective insightcontemplation as succinctly formulated in many verses of the Sn.: 736/7, 778, 851, 870/72,923.