Reading guide
No single source, no fixed direction
The wind simile's own point is the sheer variety and unpredictability of what arises: four directions, three pairs of qualities (dusty/dustless, cool/warm, weak/strong) — feelings, like winds, don't arise from one place or in one form.
The body as an open field, not a controlled chamber
Unlike similes elsewhere in this saṃyutta that locate feeling's cause precisely (contact, the body, the senses), this simile pictures the body itself as something more like open atmosphere — a space feelings simply move through, arising and passing without the mendicant summoning or directing them.
Three pairs of qualities, mapped loosely onto three feelings
The wind simile's own three qualities (dusty/dustless, cool/warm, weak/strong) are not explicitly mapped one-to-one onto pleasant/painful/neutral feeling in the text; the comparison works at the level of variety and unpredictability in general, not through a precise point-by-point correspondence.
A closing formula shared with this vagga's own opening pages
The verses' own closing lines — understanding all feelings, freedom from defilements, a “knowledge master” (vedagū) “unreckonable” when the body breaks up — repeat SN 36.3 and SN 36.5's own closing verses from Sagāthāvagga almost word for word, confirming this closing template recurs across vagga boundaries, not only within a single vagga.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, various winds blow in the atmosphere. Winds blow from the east, the west, the north, and the south. There are winds that are dusty and dustless, cool and warm, weak and strong. In the same way, various feelings arise in this body: pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings.
§2There are many and various winds that blow in the atmosphere. From the east they come, also the west, the north, and then the south. They are dusty and dustless, cool and sometimes warm, strong and weak; these are the different gales that blow.
§3So too, in this body feelings arise, pleasant and painful, and those that are neutral. But when a mendicant is keen, not neglecting situational awareness, that astute person understands all feelings. Completely understanding feelings, they’re without defilements in this very life. That knowledge master is firm in principle; when their body breaks up, they can’t be reckoned.”
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