phassa

Phassa is a Pali term used in Buddhist philosophy and Abhidhamma to denote contact or sense contact—the moment when a sense faculty, its object, and consciousness meet. The word derives from Pali phassa, meaning touch or contact, and appears both in everyday language and in technical discourses.

In Buddhist psychology, phassa refers to the process by which the six sense bases—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—come into contact with their respective objects through consciousness. This contact is considered the first moment in a chain of events that leads to experience, including vedanā (feeling). The resulting feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and it conditions further mental factors such as craving or aversion, which in turn drive the cycle of suffering described in the doctrine of dependent origination.

Phassa is thus understood as a conditional link (paccaya) between the sense bases and vedanā within the broader paṭicca-samuppāda framework. In practice, awareness of phassa is a common object of meditation in Vipassana practice: by observing contact as it arises and passes away, insight can grow and clinging can lessen.

Beyond scholarly use, phassa remains a general term for contact or touch, reflecting its foundational role in the way beings experience the world through senses.