Then the Venerable Ānanda approached the Blessed One, paid homage to him, sat down to one side, and said to him: “Venerable sir, what now is feeling? What is the origin of feeling? What is the cessation of feeling? What is the way leading to the cessation of feeling? What is the gratification in feeling? What is the danger? What is the escape?”

“Ānanda, these three feelings—pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling—are called feeling. With the arising of contact there is the arising of feeling. With the cessation of contact there is the cessation of feeling. This Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of feeling; that is, right view … right concentration. The pleasure and joy that arise in dependence on feeling: this is the gratification in feeling. That feeling is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change: this is the danger in feeling. The removal and abandonment of desire and lust for feeling: this is the escape from feeling.

“Then, Ānanda, I have also taught the successive cessation of formations … as in §11…. For a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed, lust has been tranquillized, hatred has been tranquillized, delusion has been tranquillized.”