The Sentient World and the Container World
本事分, the Foundations, is complete. The treatise now opens 決擇分, the Determinations — four further topics, headed by the four noble truths, by far the longest single topic in the entire work. The truth of suffering opens with its own two halves: the sentient world across six destinies, and the physical container world that holds them, mapped out in full classical Buddhist cosmology, before a brief but striking exception — pure worlds that lie outside the truth of suffering's reach entirely.
1. The Determinations, and the Truth of Suffering Named
云何決擇？略說決擇有四種，謂諦決擇、法決擇、得決擇、論議決擇。云何諦決擇？謂四聖諦，苦諦、集諦、滅諦、道諦。云何苦諦？謂有情生及生所依處。
What is a determination? Briefly, determination is of four kinds: the determination of the truths, the determination of the Dharma, the determination of attainment, and the determination of debate. What is the determination of the truths? The four noble truths: the truth of suffering, the truth of origination, the truth of cessation, and the truth of the path. What is the truth of suffering? A sentient being's own birth, together with what that birth depends on.
2. The Sentient World, Across Six Destinies
何等有情生？即有情世間。謂諸有情生在那落迦、傍生、餓鬼、人、天趣中。人謂東毘提訶、西瞿陀尼、南贍部洲、北俱盧洲。天謂四大王眾天、三十三天、夜摩天、覩史多天、樂變化天、他化自在天，梵眾天、梵輔天、大梵天、少光天、無量光天、極光淨天、少淨天、無量淨天、遍淨天、無雲天、福生天、廣果天、無想有情天、無煩天、無熱天、善現天、善見天、色究竟天，無邊空處天、無邊識處天、無所有處天、非想非非想處天。
What is a sentient being's own birth? Precisely the sentient world. Sentient beings are born among the hell-beings, animals, hungry ghosts, humans, and gods. Humans: Pūrvavideha in the east, Aparagodānīya in the west, Jambudvīpa in the south, Uttarakuru in the north.
Gods: the Heaven of the Four Great Kings, the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, Yāma Heaven, Tuṣita Heaven, the Heaven of Enjoying Transformations, the Heaven of Mastery over Others' Transformations; Brahmā's Retinue, Brahmā's Ministers, the Great Brahmā Heaven; Lesser Light, Immeasurable Light, Light-Sound; Lesser Purity, Immeasurable Purity, All-Pervasive Purity; the Cloudless Heaven, the Merit-Born Heaven, the Heaven of Great Reward, the Heaven of Sentient Beings Without Perception, the Heaven Without Affliction, the Heaven Without Heat, the Heaven of Skillful Appearance, the Heaven of Skillful Vision, and Akaniṣṭha, Ultimate Form; and the four formless spheres — infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothing whatsoever, and neither perception nor non-perception.
3. The Container World
何等生所依處？即器世間。謂水輪依風輪，地輪依水輪。依此地輪，有蘇迷盧山、七金山、四大洲、八小洲、內海外海。蘇迷盧山四外層級四大王眾天。三十三天所居處別，外輪圍山虛空宮殿。若夜摩天、覩史多天、化樂天、他化自在天，及色界天所居處別。諸阿素洛所居處別。及諸那落迦所居處別，謂熱那落迦、寒那落迦、孤獨那落迦。及一分傍生餓鬼所居處別。乃至一日一月周遍流光所照方處名一世界，如是千世界中有千日千月、千蘇迷盧山王、千四大洲、千四大王眾天、千三十三天、千夜摩天、千覩史多天、千樂變化天、千他化自在天、千梵世天，如是總名小千世界。千小千界總名第二中千世界，千中千界總名第三大千世界。如此三千大千世界，總有大輪圍山周匝圍繞。又此三千大千世界同壞同成。譬如天雨滴如車軸，無間無斷從空下注，如是東方無間無斷無量世界，或有將壞、或有將成、或有正壞、或壞已住、或有正成、或成已住。如於東方，乃至一切十方亦爾。
What does that birth depend on? Precisely the container world. The water wheel rests on the wind wheel; the earth wheel rests on the water wheel. Resting on this earth wheel are Mount Sumeru, the seven gold mountains, the four great continents, the eight intermediate continents, and the inner and outer seas. Sumeru's four outer terraces house the Heaven of the Four Great Kings; the Heaven of the Thirty-Three has its own distinct dwelling, palaces of open space beyond the surrounding mountain ring. Yāma, Tuṣita, the Heaven of Enjoying Transformations, the Heaven of Mastery over Others' Transformations, and the form realm's gods each have their own distinct dwelling. The asuras have their own distinct dwelling. The hells have their own distinct dwellings: the hot hells, the cold hells, and the solitary hells. And a portion of animals and hungry ghosts have their own distinct dwellings.
Wherever a single sun and moon's light pervades and illuminates is called one world-system. A thousand such world-systems — a thousand suns, a thousand moons, a thousand Sumerus, a thousand sets of four great continents, a thousand Heavens of the Four Great Kings, a thousand Heavens of the Thirty-Three, a thousand Yāma Heavens, a thousand Tuṣita Heavens, a thousand Heavens of Enjoying Transformations, a thousand Heavens of Mastery over Others' Transformations, and a thousand Brahmā-worlds — together make one small chiliocosm. A thousand small chiliocosms make one medium chiliocosm. A thousand medium chiliocosms make one great trichiliocosm. This great trichiliocosm is entirely encircled by a great surrounding mountain ring.
This great trichiliocosm, further, is destroyed and formed as a single whole. Just as rain falls in axle-thick drops, unbroken and continuous, from the sky, so too do countless world-systems, unbroken and continuous, extend in every direction — some about to be destroyed, some about to be formed, some in the very midst of destruction, some already destroyed and abiding as such, some in the very midst of formation, some already formed and abiding. As in the east, so too in every one of the ten directions.
This cosmology is shared, term for term, with the Abhidharmakośa's own account already translated on this site, since both texts draw on the same classical Buddhist cosmological scheme rather than each inventing its own. Worth noting for readers coming from that page: the terminology here is kept identical — the same six destinies, the same twenty-eight named heavens, the same wind/water/earth-wheel structure, the same small/medium/great chiliocosm scale — precisely because this treatise, though a Yogācāra work, inherits this specific cosmological framework wholesale from the shared Abhidharma tradition it is built on top of, rather than proposing anything distinctively Mahāyāna about the physical structure of the universe itself.
4. What "Suffering" Names Here, and the Pure Worlds That Fall Outside It
若有情世間、若器世間，業煩惱力所生故、業煩惱增上所起故，總名苦諦。復有清淨世界，非苦諦攝，非業煩惱力所生故、非業煩惱增上所起故，然由大願清淨善根增上所引。此所生處不可思議，唯佛所覺；尚非得靜慮者靜慮境界，況尋思者。
Both the sentient world and the container world are collectively named the truth of suffering, since both are produced by the power of karma and affliction, and arise through karma and affliction's own dominant force. There are, further, pure worlds that are not included under the truth of suffering at all, since they are produced neither by the power of karma and affliction, nor arise through karma and affliction's dominant force — instead, they are drawn forth by the dominant force of great vows and pure wholesome roots. Where such worlds arise is inconceivable, known only to buddhas — not even within the reach of one who has attained dhyāna through meditative absorption, much less within the reach of mere discursive thought.
This short passage carries real doctrinal weight for a Mahāyāna Abhidharma text: the entire preceding cosmology, and every world within it, is explicitly identified as karma-and-affliction-produced, and therefore genuinely, fully covered by the truth of suffering — but the treatise then immediately carves out an exception for the pure buddha-lands that a bodhisattva's own vows and accumulated merit bring into being, which are not suffering in this technical sense at all, since nothing about their arising traces back to karma or affliction. This is the same category of world already discussed on this site's Pure Land pages — Amitābha's own Sukhāvatī being the paradigm case — and the treatise's own explicit statement that even an accomplished meditator's dhyāna-attained insight cannot fathom how such a world arises is a notably strong claim: this is knowledge reserved for buddhahood alone, not something any degree of ordinary meditative attainment can access.
Part 26 Complete
The truth of suffering opens with its full cosmological scope: the sentient world across six destinies, the container world in its classical structure, and the pure worlds that fall entirely outside suffering's reach. Part 27 turns to the treatise's detailed analysis of suffering itself: the eight kinds of suffering, and how they map onto the classical three kinds and two truths of suffering already introduced in Part 23.
Continue to Part 27 — The Eight Kinds of Suffering →