Feeling and Perception
With form fully built, the treatise turns to the two aggregates that register and shape raw experience before any deliberate action is taken: feeling, which registers an object as pleasant, painful, or neither, and perception, which construes an object's scope — how large, how encompassing, how bound to a particular realm.
1. Feeling: Six Bodies, Three Overlapping Pairs
云何建立受蘊？謂六受身：眼觸所生受、耳觸所生受、鼻觸所生受、舌觸所生受、身觸所生受、意觸所生受。如是六受身，或樂、或苦、或不苦不樂。復有樂身受、苦身受、不苦不樂身受。樂心受、苦心受、不苦不樂心受。復有樂有味受、苦有味受、不苦不樂有味受。樂無味受、苦無味受、不苦不樂無味受。復有樂依耽嗜受、苦依耽嗜受、不苦不樂依耽嗜受。樂依出離受、苦依出離受、不苦不樂依出離受。
How is the aggregate of feeling established? As six bodies of feeling: feeling born of eye-contact, feeling born of ear-contact, feeling born of nose-contact, feeling born of tongue-contact, feeling born of body-contact, feeling born of mental contact. These six bodies of feeling are each, in turn, either pleasant, painful, or neither pleasant nor painful.
There is, further, pleasant bodily feeling, painful bodily feeling, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful bodily feeling; pleasant mental feeling, painful mental feeling, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful mental feeling. There is, further, pleasant feeling tinged with relish, painful feeling tinged with relish, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling tinged with relish; pleasant feeling free of relish, painful feeling free of relish, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling free of relish. There is, further, pleasant feeling grounded in indulgence, painful feeling grounded in indulgence, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling grounded in indulgence; pleasant feeling grounded in renunciation, painful feeling grounded in renunciation, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling grounded in renunciation.
何等身受？謂五識相應受。何等心受？謂意識相應受。何等有味受？謂自體愛相應受。何等無味受？謂此愛不相應受。何等依耽嗜受？謂妙五欲愛相應受。何等依出離受？謂此愛不相應受。
What is bodily feeling? Feeling associated with the five sense-consciousnesses. What is mental feeling? Feeling associated with mental consciousness. What is feeling tinged with relish? Feeling associated with love for one's own being. What is feeling free of relish? Feeling dissociated from that love. What is feeling grounded in indulgence? Feeling associated with love for the five fine sensual pleasures. What is feeling grounded in renunciation? Feeling dissociated from that love.
T1606 gives this whole apparatus a four-part logic: the bodily/mental pair is established by feeling's own support (the five physical senses versus mind); the with-relish/free-of-relish pair by feeling's own essence, since relish here simply names an undercurrent of self-love running through certain instances of feeling and not others; and the indulgence/renunciation pair by defilement versus purity specifically. The two pairs — with-relish versus free-of-relish, and indulgence versus renunciation — are easy to conflate, but T1606 keeps them distinct: "relish" tracks love for one's own being in general (自體愛), a broader and subtler undercurrent, while "indulgence" tracks specifically love for the five sensual pleasures (妙五欲愛) — a coarser, narrower target. Every instance of indulgence-grounded feeling is also tinged with relish, but feeling can be tinged with relish (self-love in general) without the specific craving for sensual pleasure that indulgence names. T1606 also glosses "dissociated from that love" — what makes a feeling free of relish or grounded in renunciation — as covering two related states: feeling that has already left the corresponding craving behind for good, and feeling that is presently in accord with such release even if the craving is not yet fully uprooted.
2. Perception: Six Bodies, and the Scope Each One Grasps
云何建立想蘊？謂六想身：眼觸所生想、耳觸所生想、鼻觸所生想、舌觸所生想、身觸所生想、意觸所生想。由此想故，或了有相、或了無相，或了小、或了大，或了無量、或了無少所有無所有處。
How is the aggregate of perception established? As six bodies of perception: perception born of eye-contact, perception born of ear-contact, perception born of nose-contact, perception born of tongue-contact, perception born of body-contact, perception born of mental contact. Through this perception, one construes either with marked features or without marked features; either the small or the large; either the boundless, or the sphere of nothing whatsoever, the sphere of neither having nor lacking anything at all.
何等有相想？謂除不善言說無想界定及有頂定想，所餘諸想。何等無相想？謂所餘想。何等小想？謂能了欲界想。何等大想？謂能了色界想。何等無量想？謂能了空無邊處識無邊處想。何等無少所有無所有處想？謂能了無所有處想。
What is perception with marked features? Every perception apart from the perception of one not yet skilled in language, and apart from the attainment of the sphere without marks and the attainment at the summit of existence. What is perception without marked features? The remaining perceptions just excluded. What is small perception? Perception capable of construing the desire realm. What is large perception? Perception capable of construing the form realm. What is boundless perception? Perception capable of construing the sphere of boundless space and the sphere of boundless consciousness. What is the perception of the sphere of nothing whatsoever, neither having nor lacking anything at all? Perception capable of construing the sphere of nothing whatsoever.
T1606 explains why three quite different states all count as "perception without marked features," despite having nothing else obviously in common: an infant who has not yet learned language perceives form well enough, but cannot construe it under the concept "form" at all, so no determinate mark is grasped; the sphere without marks is a meditative attainment that deliberately strips away every mark of form and rests in a state resembling nirvāṇa itself; and the attainment at the summit of existence — the highest of the four formless spheres — has perception so faint and indistinct that it can no longer sketch out any determinate pattern in its object at all. Three very different causes, T1606 notes, but the same result: no mark is grasped.
The small/large/boundless progression maps directly onto Buddhist cosmology's three realms: "small" because the desire realm is the least exalted, "large" because the form realm surpasses it, and "boundless" because the first two formless spheres — infinite space and infinite consciousness — have no edge or limit at all for perception to grasp. The treatise's own extended name for the fourth item, "the sphere of nothing whatsoever, neither having nor lacking anything at all," folds together the third and fourth formless attainments (the sphere of nothing whatsoever, and the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception) under a single heading, since by this point perception has become too subtle to sort cleanly into further named categories of its own.
Part 3 Complete
Feeling and perception are now established: six bodies of feeling apiece registering pleasure, pain, or neither — cut three further ways by support, by relish, and by indulgence versus renunciation — and six bodies of perception construing an object's scope, from the desire realm's "small" perception up through the boundless formless spheres. Part 4 turns to the aggregate of formations, opening with its own six bodies of volition before working through all fifty-one mental factors this treatise recognizes.
Continue to Part 4 — Formations and the Fifty-One Mental Factors →