Reading guide
A direct equation, not a threefold analysis
"If you take pleasure in the eye, you take pleasure in suffering" — this discourse skips past the gratification-drawback-escape structure entirely, asserting instead that pleasure in a sense field simply is pleasure in suffering, full stop.
A conclusion following directly from the equation
"If you take pleasure in suffering, you're not free from suffering, I say" — the Buddha's own explicit attribution ("I say") marking this as his own direct claim, not a general observation.
The precise converse, given in equally full detail
Unlike most of this vagga's own discourses, which state a claim and let its own opposite go unstated, this discourse gives the negative converse in full: "if you don't take pleasure in the eye, you don't take pleasure in suffering … you're free from suffering, I say."
Fourth of this vagga's own five named pairs
SN 35.20 will apply this identical positive-then-negative structure to the exterior sense objects, compressed as before, completing this vagga's own "Taking Pleasure" pair.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, if you take pleasure in the eye, you take pleasure in suffering. If you take pleasure in suffering, you’re not free from suffering, I say. If you take pleasure in the ear … nose … tongue …
§2body … mind, you take pleasure in suffering. If you take pleasure in suffering, you’re not free from suffering, I say.
§3If you don’t take pleasure in the eye, you don’t take pleasure in suffering. If you don’t take pleasure in suffering, you’re free from suffering, I say. If you don’t take pleasure in the ear … nose … tongue …
§4body … mind, you don’t take pleasure in suffering. If you don’t take pleasure in suffering, you’re free from suffering, I say.”
Self-check quiz
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