Shared Experience, Appropriation, Faculties, and Suffering
Four further categories, nearing the close of the hundred-gate analysis: how a physical faculty tracks consciousness (or merely resembles that tracking), what a living body physically appropriates as its own, what "faculty" itself technically means across all twenty-two named faculties, and — closing this section — the treatise's own analysis of three kinds of suffering hidden inside pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling alike.
1. Tracking Consciousness, Versus Merely Resembling It
云何同分彼同分？幾是同分彼同分？為何義故觀同分彼同分耶？謂不離識彼相似根於境相續生故、離識自相似相續生故，是同分彼同分義。色蘊一分、眼等五、有色界處一分，是同分彼同分。為捨執著與識相應不相應我故，觀察同分彼同分。
What is "tracking" versus "merely resembling" experience? How much of everything falls under each? For what purpose is this examined? A faculty that continues to arise, alike in kind, together with its consciousness, with respect to an object — this is what "tracking" experience means. A faculty that continues to arise, alike only in its own kind, apart from any accompanying consciousness — this is what "merely resembling" that tracking means. A portion of the aggregate of form, the five faculties from eye onward, and a portion of the physical elements and sense fields, fall under one or the other. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as either associated or not associated with consciousness.
T1606 illustrates the distinction with a functioning eye versus a blind one: a sighted person's eye faculty continues moment to moment genuinely together with eye-consciousness, jointly engaging its object — this pairing of faculty and consciousness together is what "tracking" experience means. But a congenitally blind person's eye faculty, though it exists and shares the same physical kind as a sighted person's, never actually accompanies any eye-consciousness at all — it merely resembles, in its own bare physical continuity, what a functioning faculty looks like, without ever doing the cognitive work a faculty does when genuinely paired with its consciousness.
2. What Is Physically Appropriated
云何執受？幾是執受？為何義故觀執受耶？謂受生所依色故，是執受義。色蘊一分、五有色界處全及四一分，是執受。為捨執著身自在轉我故，觀察執受。
What is physically appropriated? How much of everything is so appropriated? For what purpose is this examined? Form that serves as the support for feeling's own arising is what "physically appropriated" means. A portion of the aggregate of form, the five physical elements entire, and a portion of the remaining four, are physically appropriated. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as freely operating a body.
T1606 explains what physical appropriation actually marks out: form is "appropriated" precisely when it is bound up closely enough with a living continuum that damaging it directly produces feeling — striking a living hand hurts; striking a severed fingernail clipping does not, even though both are, in some loose sense, "part of the body." Appropriated form specifically covers the five physical sense faculties themselves, together with whatever touch, smell, and taste inseparably accompany those faculties' own physical location — the living tissue a faculty is embedded in, not merely its immediate sensory function.
3. The Faculties
云何根？幾是根？為何義故觀根耶？謂取境增上故、種族不斷增上故、眾同分住增上故、受用淨不淨業果增上故、世間離欲增上故、出世離欲增上故，是根義。受識蘊全、色行蘊一分、十二界六處全，法界法處一分，是根，為捨執著增上我，故觀察根。
What is a faculty? How much of everything is a faculty? For what purpose is this examined? Six senses make up what "faculty" means: dominant influence in apprehending an object; dominant influence in sustaining a family lineage; dominant influence in continuing a given class of existence; dominant influence in experiencing the ripened fruit of pure or impure karma; dominant influence in mundane freedom from desire; and dominant influence in supramundane freedom from desire. The aggregates of feeling and consciousness entire, a portion of the aggregates of form and formations, twelve elements and six sense fields entire, and a portion of the dharma element and dharma sense field, are faculties. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as the very source of dominant power.
T1606 anchors "faculty" (根, indriya) in the sense of a governing, dominant capacity, matched to twenty-two specific faculties across the six senses just given: the six sense-faculties and six consciousnesses exercise dominance in apprehending an object; the male and female faculties exercise dominance in sustaining lineage across generations, since without them no offspring could continue a family line; the life-faculty exercises dominance in holding a given rebirth's continuity together for its full span; feeling and its five specific varieties (pleasure, pain, joy, distress, and equanimity) exercise dominance in experiencing karma's own ripened fruit; faith, diligence, recollection, concentration, and wisdom exercise dominance specifically in the mundane path toward freedom from desire; and the three uncontaminated faculties — already-known, fully-known, and completely-known — exercise dominance in the supramundane path all the way through to full liberation.
4. Three Kinds of Suffering
云何苦苦性？幾是苦苦性？為何義故觀苦苦性耶？謂苦受自相故、隨順苦受法自相故，是苦苦性義。一切一分是苦苦性。為捨執著有苦我故，觀察苦苦性。
What is the suffering of suffering? How much of everything is so? For what purpose is this examined? Painful feeling's own defining character, together with the defining character of whatever accords with painful feeling, is what the suffering of suffering means. A portion of everything falls under this. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as possessing suffering.
云何壞苦性？幾是壞苦性？為何義故觀壞苦性耶？謂樂受變壞自相故、隨順樂受法變壞自相故、於彼愛心變壞故，是壞苦性義。一切一分是壞苦性。為捨執著有樂我故，觀察壞苦性。
What is the suffering of change? How much of everything is so? For what purpose is this examined? Pleasant feeling's own defining character as it changes and passes away, the defining character of whatever accords with pleasant feeling as it likewise passes away, and the mind's own craving for that pleasure turning into distress as it passes — these together are what the suffering of change means. A portion of everything falls under this. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as possessing pleasure.
云何行苦性？幾是行苦性？為何義故觀行苦性耶？謂不苦不樂受自相故、隨順不苦不樂受法自相故、彼二麁重所攝受故、不離二無常所隨不安隱故，是行苦性義。除三界二處諸蘊一分，一切是行苦性。為捨執著有不苦不樂我故，觀察行苦性。
What is the suffering of conditioned existence itself? How much of everything is so? For what purpose is this examined? Neutral feeling's own defining character; the defining character of whatever accords with neutral feeling; being held within the underlying heaviness shared by both the suffering of suffering and the suffering of change; and being an unsettled state, inescapably subject to the very same impermanence that both other forms of suffering share — these together are what the suffering of conditioned existence itself means. Apart from a portion of the aggregates belonging to the mental-faculty element, dharma element, and mental-consciousness element, everything else falls under this. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as possessing neither pleasure nor pain.
T1606 identifies "neutral feeling" specifically as the feeling associated with the ālayavijñāna — meaning the suffering of conditioned existence, unlike the other two, is not confined to any single moment of felt experience at all, but runs as an unbroken undercurrent beneath every state, pleasant, painful, or neutral alike, simply by virtue of being conditioned and therefore impermanent. This three-way analysis is exactly what makes the treatise's earlier claim (in Part 1's closing similes) that "everything is suffering" defensible without collapsing into the crude claim that everyday life is nothing but agony: painful feeling is suffering in the most obvious sense; pleasant feeling is suffering because it never lasts, and its passing produces its own distinct pain; and even neutral feeling — the least obviously painful of the three — still counts as suffering, in this deepest and most pervasive sense, purely because it, too, is conditioned, impermanent, and therefore never a genuinely stable refuge.
Part 23 Complete
Four more categories are now examined, including the treatise's own threefold analysis of suffering — a preview of the far more extensive treatment 諦品 will give this same topic later in the treatise. Part 24 closes 三法品 entirely: karmic ripening, the four nutriments, what admits something higher versus what admits nothing higher, and the treatise's own three closing summaries of how the three categories can be differentiated.
Continue to Part 24 — Karmic Ripening, the Four Nutriments, and 三法品's Close →