Reading guide
Completing a trilogy: bare, consolidated, explained
This project's own observation across all three discourses: SN 48.36 gave the bare five definitions alone; SN 48.37 added the threefold consolidation without comment; this discourse adds the explicit closing statement naming the relationship between them — each discourse building one further step on the one before it, confirmed by direct comparison of all three texts.
A relationship named explicitly: pariyāyena
Confirmed by direct reading, this discourse's own closing sentence uses the word “pariyāyena” (“depending on how they're explained,” “by way of a specific teaching method”) to frame the five-faculty and three-feeling schemes not as two competing accounts but as the SAME five faculties, presented through two different explanatory methods — five when analyzed one way, three when consolidated another way.
A deliberate closing device for this vagga's own trilogy
This project's own honest observation: with this discourse's own explicit meta-statement, the Analysis-trilogy (SN 48.36-38) reads as a deliberately graduated teaching device — first stating the parts, then showing how they group, then naming the principle behind the grouping itself.
Key terms
The text
§1-6 — the five faculty definitions, identical to SN 48.36-37“Mendicants, there are these five faculties. What five? The faculties of pleasure, pain, happiness, sadness, and equanimity. And what is the faculty of pleasure? Physical enjoyment, physical pleasure, the enjoyable, pleasant feeling that’s born from physical contact. This is called the faculty of pleasure. And what is the faculty of pain? Physical pain, physical unpleasantness, the painful, unpleasant feeling that’s born from physical contact. This is called the faculty of pain. And what is the faculty of happiness? Mental enjoyment, mental pleasure, the enjoyable, pleasant feeling that’s born from mind contact. This is called the faculty of happiness. And what is the faculty of sadness? Mental pain, mental displeasure, the painful, unpleasant feeling that’s born from mind contact. This is called the faculty of sadness. And what is the faculty of equanimity? Neither pleasant nor unpleasant feeling, whether physical or mental. This is the faculty of equanimity.
§7 — the threefold consolidation and the closing meta-statementIn this context, the faculties of pleasure and happiness should be seen as pleasant feeling. The faculties of pain and sadness should be seen as painful feeling. The faculty of equanimity should be seen as neutral feeling. That’s how these five faculties, depending on how they’re explained, having been five become three, and having been three become five.”
Self-check quiz
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