Pleasure and Pain

...are both "conducive to" suffering, according to the teachings of the Buddha. The neutral sensation of "sheer being" doesn't fare any better. The basic interpretation (as found in Hinayana Abhidharma and most preliminary level teachings) is that feelings arise with a strong dualistic bias in place already and - coupled with originless ignorance - they tend to reinforce the three basic flaws: attachment, aversion, and indifference. The more profound interpretation (found in Mahayana Abhidharma and medium level teachings) is that feelings appearing as independent objects enable us to reify the independent existence of an experiencer from which arises a sense of doer and knower, giving rise to the full-blown duality of mind vs. matter, self vs. others, and individual vs. the world. The most profound interpretation found in slightly different versions in highest and advanced teachings is that feelings are actually not a source of, nor conducive to, suffering in themselves at all, ignorance of obscuration being the only culprit. In this perspective, feelingness produces suffering when coupled with the fundamental resistance that is a habitual incapacity to experience the totality of what is being presented at any given moment. Radical transparence on this side of experience, an absence of resistance to anything out-there or in-here whatsoever, allows feelings themselves to "self-liberate". Only then, it is taught, can the experiencer find himself or herself standing as the very ground of clarity and compassion. What is your clue? Which of these three do you find reflective of your spiritual perception? Further on, do you find them contradictory or complementary?