how does one differentiate vedana from bodily vinnana such as a sensation of itchy or coldness?

 

Re: Vedana and (physical) body vinnana

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Post by frank k » Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:20 am

asahi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:53 amPls explain how one differentiate vedana from bodily vinnana such as a sensation of itchy or coldness sense in body . Is it vedana or vinnana ?

MN 18 is a good sutta to see the hierarchy of where vinnana and vedana fit in to experience.
https://lucid24.org/mn/mn018/index.html

for the eye, it looks like this:
Cakkhu + rūpe + viññāṇaṃ → phasso → vedeti (vedanā) → sañjānāti → vitakketi → papañceti
eye + forms + consciousness → contact → feel → perceive → think → proliferate


For the body, it would be:
kaya/body + phottabbha/tactile sensations + vinnana -> contact (meeting of the first 3 elements) -> vedana (3 types pleasant, pain, neutral) -> sanna/perceptions -> vitakka/thinking

So the external sense stimuli being intrinsically cold or itchy causing, is part of phottabbha.
vinnana/consciousness is the internal experience of the raw sensory data that appears to the kaya body of that phottabbha.
contact is the meeting of the above 3 elements: internal experience, external sense stimuli, consciousness of it.

So for example, the Buddha in animitta samadhi can shut off some bodily pains, by means of phassa/contact partially shut off for parts of the body, or perhaps vinnana does not even register for those parts.
Similarly, going to the dentist, getting anaesthesia, nerves getting disbled for your mouth prevents the phassa/contact of pain vedana occurring.

So getting back to your original question, "cold sensation or itchy sensation of the body", bodily vinnana/consciousness has to occur first, as the raw sensory data that one internally comes into contact with.
vedana really wouldn't apply, since you didn't specify whether the cold or itchiness was pleasant, painful, or neutral.
sanna/perception is really where your mind first classifies the experience into the more nuanced aspects such as cold, itchy, etc.