弘明集 13.9

13.9

Form, feeling, perception, impulse, life-and-death, and consciousness are called the five skandhas. In every case, that which possesses an externally visible corporeal form is form. When losing it, the distress and vexation is feeling as pain; when acquiring it, the joy and delight is feeling as pleasure. Anticipatory thought before something arrives is conceptualization. Recollecting the past is perception. The initial arising of a mental thought is life [or origination]; when a perception passes and the mental consciousness ceases, it is death [or cessation]. What was once linked to the mind, collected and unforgotten, is consciousness. As for consciousness, it passes through accumulated kalpas and still sprouts within the breast; though one may be benighted as to whence it arose, it clings to the faculties. Secretly knotting together, it begins from a minute fraction and culminates in deep abysses and lofty mountains. For this reason, practitioners must be prudent about what they habituate themselves to.