大般涅槃經集解 69.6

69.6

Sengliang comments: If one does not contemplate the suffering of the fruition, one will not become weary of feeling; to sever the causes of feeling, he next contemplates the fruitions. 'Through the causes and conditions of feeling one attains liberation': when pleasure arises one is bound, and when pleasure ceases one is liberated. 'Severing self and what belongs to self': knowing there is no governing master. 'There is a minor place of cessation': the three types of wisdom sever the fetters; using hearing and thinking to sever the gross is called a minor culmination, while the wisdom of cultivation severs the subtle and is called ultimate liberation. 'Knowing that it proceeds from the eightfold noble [path], he then cultivates and amasses it': the eightfold path is uncontaminated, which is the wisdom of cultivation. 'Increasing body and mind': the eightfold path tends toward cessation, whereas increasing [them] goes against the path. 'For what cause and condition can it increase? Causes and conditions of contact': this means hearing and thinking contemplate the distant cause, while the wisdom of cultivation contemplates the proximate cause. Below, he contemplates the fruitions. 'Neither clear nor non-clear': contaminated wholesome [dharmas] and indeterminate ones. 'Craving for mixed food': it can keep birth-and-death uninterrupted. Baoliang comments: Having finished contemplating the causes, he next contemplates the fruitions: one obtains the bitter retributions of the three evil realms. Although these three evil fruitions are all the retributions of the family of the four minds, they necessarily are not separate from feeling. What kind of feeling can serve as the cause of craving? What kind of craving can serve as the cause of feeling? This explains the principle of their mutual generation: craving can also serve as the cause of feeling, and feeling can also serve as the cause of craving. Having finished contemplating the gravity and lightness of causes and fruitions, thirdly he therefore next contemplates the place of cessation of feeling. If one attains the five faculties headed by faith and accomplishes the two types of emptiness, it is called effecting a minor cessation. Reaching the uncontaminated correct contemplation is called the great cessation. 'This path contemplates feeling as having three characteristics': that is, the characteristics of the three feelings. Yet these three feelings can increase the afflictions of body and mind within the aggregate of mental formations (saṃskāraskandha). 'For what cause and condition can they increase?': they arise due to the causes and conditions of the three contacts. The first, contact of ignorance, is contact with affliction. The second, clear contact, can generate the uncontaminated eightfold noble path. The third, contact that is neither clear nor non-clear, is the conventional wholesome mind. 'Such feeling is both called cause and called fruition': arising from contact it is called fruition; because it can generate feeling, it is also called cause. Having finished contemplating feeling through the three gateways, now he next contemplates the fruition and retribution of craving: since it arises because of craving, it must therefore be contemplated. 'The wise person contemplates craving as again having two kinds: craving for mixed food': that is, the four nutriments. 'Craving without food': severing the four nutriments to attain the uncontaminated. If one wishes to sever craving, one must first sever the cause of feeling: the proximate cause is feeling, and the distant cause is contact. When causes and fruitions are completely severed, one thereby attains the eightfold noble path, which is called pure celibate practice (brahmacarya).