般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊 2.40

2.40

The Commentary says: Fearing that someone might suspiciously cling to the idea that only form is not different from emptiness and only the substance of form is identical with emptiness, whereas other phenomena are not so, [the sūtra] uses feeling and the rest to analogise them with form. That which receives objects and generates pain, pleasure, and equanimity is called feeling (vedanā). That which grasps objects—whether marked or markless, small, great, boundless, or having nothing whatsoever of a limit—is called perception (saṃjñā). That which volitionally constructs the states of good, evil, and indeterminate [karma], along with the flux of the remaining mental factors, is called formations (saṃskāra). Mind (citta), intellect (manas), and consciousness (vijñāna) can all cognise; all are broadly termed consciousness, referring to the four consciousness-stations and the consciousness that abides. As with form, one receives; as one receives, one knows; as one knows, one acts; as one acts, one cognises. Thus form, feeling, and the rest proceed in this sequence. Furthermore, worldly people cling to five kinds of self-matters—namely, my body and its implements, my enjoyment, my speech, my action, and my own entity. Now, to show that these aggregates are merely the functions of phenomena, without real intrinsic nature, and are neither a self nor what belongs to a self, only five are taught, neither decreased nor increased. Fools do not realise that, in order to shatter grasping at a self, [the Buddha] provisionally taught aggregates where there are no aggregates; thus they clung to them as existent. Therefore, he now refutes them directly and proclaims them all to be empty. The Viṃśikā says: 'He taught that there are no sentient beings or selves, but only causal conditions of phenomena,' and so forth; 'and so forth' encompasses the five kinds of skillfulness below, such as the bases (āyatana) and elements (dhātu). Moreover, the Great Sūtra states: 'Form is empty, up to bodhi is also empty; even if there were a phenomenon surpassing nirvāṇa, I would still declare it to be like an illusion, like a phantom.' Therefore, words such as this encompass everything. The adherents of Paramārtha-śūnya and the Appropriate School both interpret it in accordance with this. The Great Sūtra further says: 'Feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are empty in intrinsic nature, not on account of emptiness,' and so on at length; 'Feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are emptiness; emptiness is feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Why is that? These are merely nominal, designated as bodhi, designated as emptiness; these are merely nominal, designated as form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.'