大般涅槃經集解 69.4

69.4

Sengliang comments: He explains that craving is the cause; regarding the self as bliss, one then gives rise to craving and clinging. Regarding the good and evil produced by the twelve links of dependent origination: taking birth-and-death to be bliss and being unable to leave it behind is called the time of feeling. 'From what causes and conditions does it arise?' Next he contemplates the causes of feeling: a cause further has a cause; moving from the subtle to the gross shows that it can be severed. 'It does not arise from Īśvara': a proper cause must be correctly grasped. 'All arise from the combination of conditions': arising from the combination of conditions, it is neither self nor other; arising has no fixed master. 'That is craving': pleasant feeling gives rise to craving, and craving gives rise to pleasant feeling; they mutually serve as cause and effect. 'In this combination': through combination it is not existent, but because combination arises it is not non-existent; when combination is severed, it does not arise. Baoliang comments: From here on, one contemplates six kinds of dharmas, namely feeling, perception, contact, desire, karma, and suffering. Contact alone is the single dharma lacking a separate contemplation; it is lodged within the various gateways. As for why one first contemplates feeling: of all delusions that arise, none do not do so by way of feeling; hence one first contemplates the faults of feeling. Within the contemplation of feeling, one first contemplates the cause of feeling; next, one contemplates the gravity and lightness of the fruition and retribution of feeling; third, one contemplates the place of cessation of feeling. The internal and external causes of defilements arise upon objects external to the mind; the causes of the exhaustion of defilements arise based on the three feelings. 'From what causes and conditions does such feeling arise?' Next one contemplates the causes of feeling. 'From what do such causes and conditions further arise?' In this way, one progressively contemplates the causes in various manners; ultimately, it does not arise without a cause. 'It does not arise from perception': this refers specifically to the perception of the heaven of non-perception or the aggregate of perception of neither-perception [nor non-perception] posited by the non-Buddhists. If it arose from such a cause, one ought first to sever this cause of feeling. 'The cause and condition is feeling itself': it arises taking the feeling of the past perished mind as its cause. 'There is no feeling': within causes and conditions there is no feeling of inherent nature. 'There is not no feeling': it exists without being separate from causes and conditions.