止觀輔行傳弘決 7.28

7.28

Next, explaining the contemplation of suffering: The treatise states, "Furthermore, this body is entirely suffering; bending and extending, looking down and looking up, there is nothing that is not suffering. Just as sitting at first is pleasant, but sitting for a long time becomes painful. Walking, standing, lying down, and so forth are also like this. Just as lust is taken as pleasure, when one seeks female forms, the more one obtains them, the heavier the afflictions that arise become. Just as when someone with scabies gets near fire, pleasure is a cause of suffering. When a practitioner knows that the body is merely impermanent, suffering, and impure, they sustain it only out of necessity. It is like parents who give birth to an evil child: although the child is extremely evil, because it was born from themselves, they must inevitably nurture and raise it to make it grow to maturity. In reality, the body has no pleasure. Why is this? Because it lacks mastery—just as a person with a wind illness cannot look down, look up, walk, come, go, or approach, and just as someone with a diseased throat cannot speak. From this, one knows that the body has no mastery." Therefore it says: "In the midst of lower suffering, one groundlessly conceives the notion of pleasure." According to the various treatise texts, the three miserable paths should be taken as the suffering of suffering, which is called upper suffering. When the five signs of decay manifest in the devas and their heavenly pleasures are destroyed, great suffering arises; this is called the suffering of change. The human realm is the suffering of conditioned formations, suffering constantly from thought to thought; therefore it is called lower. Ordinary people groundlessly impute it to be pleasure; hence the *Kośa* states: "Just as with a single eyelash: / placed on the palm, one does not notice it; / but if placed on the eyeball, / it causes harm and distress. / Ordinary people are like the palm of the hand, / not noticing the eyelash of the suffering of conditioned formations; / the wise are like the eyeball, / which, upon meeting it, generates extreme revulsion and dread." In contrast to the suffering of the three miserable paths, it is merely lower suffering. The present text follows this meaning, directly defining the three types of suffering in terms of the human realm. Although it is lower suffering, because it is fully endowed with the three types of suffering, one should not groundlessly conceive the notion of pleasure in it. Therefore, in fascicle eleven of the *Great Sūtra*, Kāśyapa objected: "If in lower suffering one conceives the notion of pleasure, then in the suffering of lower birth up through the suffering of the lower five flourishing aggregates, does one also conceive the notion of pleasure?" "Lower birth" refers to the three evil paths, "middle birth" to humans, and "upper birth" to the heavens. Also, should one say that in lower pleasure one conceives the notion of suffering? The Buddha said: "It is just as you have said. Therefore, long ago I explained to Mahānāma the three types of suffering regarding the three feelings, and within each and every feeling there are all three types of suffering." Therefore, in the present text, the meaning of the three types of suffering is established within the suffering of conditioned formations.