Elements, Unconditioned Dharmas, and Sense Fields
Having built all five aggregates in full, the treatise now maps them onto the eighteen elements — a different cut through the same reality, organized by faculty, object, and consciousness rather than by function. This mapping surfaces a remainder the aggregates alone could not capture: eight unconditioned dharmas, headed by suchness itself, folded into the dharma element. The twelve sense fields close the three categories with the treatise's shortest, most economical definition of all.
1. Mapping the Five Aggregates onto the Eighteen Elements
云何建立界？謂色蘊即十界，眼界色界、耳界聲界、鼻界香界、舌界味界、身界觸界，及意界一分，受蘊想蘊行蘊即法界一分，識蘊即七識界，謂眼等六識界及意界。
How are the elements established? The aggregate of form is precisely ten elements: the eye element and form element, the ear element and sound element, the nose element and smell element, the tongue element and taste element, the body element and touch element — together with one portion of the mental-faculty element. The aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations are precisely one portion of the dharma element. The aggregate of consciousness is precisely the seven consciousness-elements: the six consciousness-elements from eye-consciousness onward, together with the mental-faculty element.
2. The Eight Unconditioned Dharmas
Ten elements are wholly form; feeling, perception, and formations occupy only a portion of the dharma element; and the remaining portion of that same dharma element — what no aggregate accounts for at all — turns out to be eight unconditioned dharmas, headed by suchness itself.
何等界法蘊不攝耶？謂法界中諸無為法。此無為法復有八種，謂善法真如、不善法真如、無記法真如、虛空、非擇滅、擇滅、不動及想受滅。
What element-dharma do the aggregates not include? The unconditioned dharmas within the dharma element. These unconditioned dharmas are, further, of eight kinds: the suchness of wholesome dharmas, the suchness of unwholesome dharmas, the suchness of morally neutral dharmas, space, cessation not through discernment, cessation through discernment, the unmoved, and the cessation of perception and feeling.
何等善法真如？謂無我性，亦名空性、無相、實際、勝義、法界。何故真如說名真如？謂彼自性無變異故。何故真如名無我性？離二我故。何故真如名為空性？一切雜染所不行故。何故真如名為無相？以一切相皆寂靜故。何故真如名為實際？以無顛倒所緣性故。何故真如名為勝義？最勝聖智所行處故。何故真如名為法界？一切聲聞獨覺諸佛妙法所依相故。如善法真如，當知不善法真如、無記法真如亦爾。何等虛空？謂無色性，容受一切所作業故。
What is the suchness of wholesome dharmas? The absence of self, also named emptiness, signlessness, the true limit, the ultimate, and the dharma-realm. Why is suchness called suchness? Because its own nature undergoes no alteration. Why is suchness called the absence of self? Because it is free of both kinds of self. Why is suchness called emptiness? Because no defilement whatsoever operates within it. Why is suchness called signlessness? Because every sign is stilled within it. Why is suchness called the true limit? Because it is the object of a mind free of every distortion. Why is suchness called the ultimate? Because it is the domain traversed by the noblest, most excellent wisdom. Why is suchness called the dharma-realm? Because it is the very mark that every śrāvaka's, every solitary realizer's, and every buddha's excellent Dharma depends on. As with the suchness of wholesome dharmas, so too should the suchness of unwholesome and of morally neutral dharmas be understood.
What is space? The absence of any form-nature, capable of accommodating every action performed.
何等非擇滅？謂是滅非離繫。何等擇滅？謂是滅是離繫。何等不動？謂已離遍淨欲、未離上欲，苦樂滅。何等想受滅？謂已離無所有處欲，超過有頂，暫息想作意為先故，諸不恒行心心所滅，及恒行一分心心所滅。又若五種色，若受想行蘊，及此所說八無為法，如是十六總名法界。
What is cessation not through discernment? A cessation that is not, itself, release from bondage. What is cessation through discernment? A cessation that is, itself, release from bondage.
What is the unmoved? One who has left behind desire for the Third Dhyāna, not yet left behind desire for what lies above it — the cessation, here, of both pleasure and pain.
What is the cessation of perception and feeling? One who has left behind desire for the sphere of nothing whatsoever, surpassing even the summit of existence, preceded by an intention to briefly still perception — the cessation, on this basis, of the mental activities not constantly present, together with a portion of those that are constantly present.
Further: the five kinds of form, the aggregates of feeling, perception, and formations, and these eight unconditioned dharmas just described — sixteen items altogether — are collectively named the dharma element.
T1606 makes a point of noting that this eightfold list, although presented under three headings of suchness (wholesome, unwholesome, and morally neutral), is only nominally divided into three: suchness itself, as the treatise's own etymology insists, "undergoes no alteration" — its own single, undifferentiated nature is simply approached, and named, from three different angles depending on what kind of dharma is being examined when it is realized. Note also that the treatise's own definitions of "the unmoved" and "the cessation of perception and feeling" here are worded almost identically to its earlier definitions of the attainment without perception and the attainment of cessation among the formations dissociated from mind — the difference is that those earlier items name the meditative attainment itself, the deliberate entering of the state, while these two unconditioned dharmas name the resulting cessation considered as a permanent, unconditioned reality in its own right, once genuinely attained through the corresponding degree of realization.
3. The Twelve Sense Fields
云何建立處？謂十色界即十色處，七識界即意處，法界即法處。
How are the sense fields established? The ten form-elements are precisely the ten form sense fields; the seven consciousness-elements are precisely the mental-faculty sense field; the dharma element is precisely the dharma sense field.
T1606 explains why the sense fields receive no separate defining marks of their own here, unlike the aggregates and elements: having already given each item its own particular characteristic when establishing the aggregates, and its own further distinguishing treatment when establishing the elements, the treatise now simply draws the twelve sense fields out of the eighteen elements already fully defined — a pure act of regrouping under a third heading, needing no fresh definitions of its own. This is also why the seven consciousness-elements collapse into a single sense field (the mental-faculty sense field) here, where they were seven separate elements above: "sense field" groups by which of the twelve doorways of experience something opens through, and every one of the six consciousnesses together with manas opens through that same single doorway, whatever their differences considered as elements.
Part 9 Complete
The eighteen elements — with their eight unconditioned dharmas — and the twelve sense fields are now fully established, completing the treatise's full mapping of the three categories onto one another. Part 10 closes 三法品 entirely: which single item from each category actually subsumes all the others, the treatise's own tetralemma questions testing the boundary between "eye" and "the eye element," why the aggregates and elements come in the particular order they do, and the treatise's own account of what "aggregate," "element," and "sense field" ultimately mean — ending in the five similes that have described the five aggregates for the whole tradition since: foam, a bubble, a mirage, a banana tree, and an illusion.
Continue to Part 10 — Mutual Inclusion, and the Meaning of Aggregate, Element, and Sense Field →