大般涅槃經集解 65.54

65.54

Sengliang comments: Evil knowledge is the foremost condition of consciousness. The reason it is spoken of as a condition is to clarify that while consciousness is obscured among conditions, craving and grasping inevitably arise. 'Arising due to contact': when consciousness is upon an object-condition, it is called contact; later it is merely called consciousness; the substance is one, but the meaning is different. 'Yet it is not contact': contact when first taking an object-condition is obscure, but when the multiple factors arise in succession it is clear; because clarity and obscurity are different in nature, it says 'is not.' 'Teaching that there are mental factors': hearing that it is not contact, they thought the nature of the factors is distinct. Arising together with contact, taking conditions differently, they are distinct from the substance of the mind; this loses the meaning. Sengzong says: Hearing that four dharmas generate eye-consciousness, and so on up to feeling and grasping mutually generating, they did not understand 'before and after' and thought they exist simultaneously all at once, even up to an unwholesome mind having twenty-one factors. Both are inappropriate, again becoming a dispute. Baoliang says: The consciousness that first encounters conditions, after eye-consciousness, gives rise to perception, feeling, craving, grasping, existence, and so forth, yet it is not the initial consciousness. People then said there is separately a pleasant contact that can harmoniously generate the various mental factors, and which is again not the mind; therefore they said there are mental factors. The Buddha's intention is that one may say they exist, and one may also say they do not exist. What precedes is mind and what follows is mind; therefore there are no separate mental factors. Because of an object they apprehend conditions, and so various minds come together to condition a single object. As factors belonging to the mind, one may also have mental factors. Some people did not understand; hearing 'exist,' they made the mind have separate factors in itself; hearing 'not exist,' they thought it is merely a single mind, incapable of arising and ceasing in between. For this reason, it became a dispute. Daohui's notes say: 'Grasping is named karmic action': the heavier one is named karmic action. 'Contact conditions perception and feeling': generating pleasant feeling. After pleasant feeling, craving arises; after craving, the various wholesome mental factors arise extensively. 'Arising due to contact': arising after the six consciousnesses. 'Yet it is not contact': perception, feeling, and so forth arising successively after consciousness are named mental factors. Ordinary beings do not understand and think there are separate dharmas of mental factors; this is an error.