[anigbrowl]

They are stimuli of a different sort but qualitatively no different than the stimuli of "focused conscious awareness"

Would you say that there was no qualitative difference between a long massage by a skilled therapist and being attacked by a swarm of angry wasps? From a phenomenological point of view both are simply different varieties of sensation, and it's true that by cultivating a sort of meditative stoicism one could distance oneself from considerations of discomfort sufficiently well to put up with that or even worse pains...but maintaining that degree of detachment is equivalent to sacrificing one's ability to operate and participate in the world.

To the extent that one wishes to to be engaged with life vs. transcending it, the qualitative differences are vast, and increasingly onerous.