Death and the Intermediate State
The truth of suffering closes with two final topics: an eightfold scale showing that even suffering itself has gradations, from an ordinary being's full turbulence to a bodhisattva's own compassion-driven stillness in the very midst of saṃsāra, and the treatise's detailed, almost clinical account of dying itself — the three moral qualities a mind can die with, and the intermediate-existence being that bridges one life and the next.
1. Eight Grades, from Turbulent Suffering to a Bodhisattva's Stillness
復次苦法略有八種差別，謂有廣大不寂靜苦、有寂靜苦、有寂靜不寂靜苦、有中不寂靜苦、有微薄不寂靜苦、有微薄寂靜苦、有極微薄寂靜苦、有非苦似苦住大寂靜。云何廣大不寂靜苦？謂生欲界未曾積集諸善根者。云何寂靜苦？謂即此已生順解脫分善根者。云何寂靜不寂靜苦？謂即此為世間道離欲已種善根者。
Suffering, further, is briefly of eight distinct grades: vast, turbulent suffering; still suffering; suffering both still and turbulent; moderate, turbulent suffering; faint, turbulent suffering; faint, still suffering; extremely faint, still suffering; and what merely resembles suffering while actually abiding in great stillness.
What is vast, turbulent suffering? That of one born in the desire realm who has never yet gathered any wholesome roots at all. What is still suffering? That of one who has already given rise to the aids to liberation. What is suffering both still and turbulent? That of one who has, through a mundane path, already become free of desire and has planted wholesome roots on that basis.
云何中不寂靜苦？謂生色界遠離順解脫分者。云何微薄不寂靜苦？謂生無色界遠離順解脫分者。云何微薄寂靜苦？謂諸有學。云何極微薄寂靜苦？謂諸無學命根住緣六處。云何非苦似苦住大寂靜？謂已得究竟菩薩摩訶薩等，乘大悲願力故生諸有中。
What is moderate, turbulent suffering? That of one born in the form realm, still lacking the aids to liberation. What is faint, turbulent suffering? That of one born in the formless realm, likewise still lacking the aids to liberation. What is faint, still suffering? That of a trainee. What is extremely faint, still suffering? That of one beyond further training, whose life-faculty still rests on the six sense-bases. What is what merely resembles suffering while abiding in great stillness? That of a bodhisattva mahāsattva who has already reached the ultimate consummation, and who, riding on the power of great compassion and vow, is born again and again among the realms of existence.
This eightfold scale is worth reading as a single continuous gradient rather than eight unrelated cases: it runs from an ordinary desire-realm being with no spiritual cultivation at all (maximally turbulent, since every affliction is still fully active) through progressively subtler states — the aids to liberation calming some turbulence, the higher realms further calming it through cultivated concentration even without full liberation, a trainee narrowing what remains, and an arhat reducing it to an extremely faint residue tied merely to the ongoing physical fact of still having living sense-faculties. The scale's final entry is the treatise's own striking capstone: a bodhisattva who has already reached full consummation but continues, by deliberate vow, to take rebirth within saṃsāra is not actually suffering in the ordinary sense at all — from the outside, their continued embodied existence merely resembles suffering, since to any outside observer it looks exactly like an ordinary being's continued rebirth, but its true character is the profoundest stillness of all, chosen freely and moved purely by compassion for others rather than by any residual affliction of their own.
2. Three Modes of Death
復次前說死苦。死有三種，謂或善心死、或不善心死、或無記心死。善心死者，謂於明利心現行位，或由自善根力所持故、或由他所引攝故，發起善心趣命終位。不善心死者，謂亦於明利心現行位，或由自不善根力所持故、或由他所引攝故，起不善心趣命終位。無記心死者，謂若於明利心現行位、若於不明利心現行位，或由闕二緣故、或由加行無功能故，起無記心趣命終位。
As already said, death is itself a form of suffering. Death is of three modes: dying with a wholesome mind, dying with an unwholesome mind, and dying with a morally neutral mind. Dying with a wholesome mind means that, while the mind is still sharp and clear, either sustained by one's own wholesome roots or drawn forth by another's guidance, a wholesome mind arises and one proceeds toward the moment of death. Dying with an unwholesome mind means that, likewise while the mind is still sharp and clear, either sustained by one's own unwholesome roots or drawn forth by another's influence, an unwholesome mind arises and one proceeds toward the moment of death. Dying with a morally neutral mind means that, whether the mind is sharp and clear or already dulled, either lacking both of the above two conditions, or lacking the capacity for deliberate effort, a morally neutral mind arises and one proceeds toward the moment of death.
修淨行者臨命終位，於身下分先起冷觸。不淨行者臨命終位，於身上分先起冷觸。不淨行者中有生時，其相顯現如黑羊羔光、或如陰暗夜分。修淨行者中有生時，其相顯現如白練光、或如晴夜分。
One who has cultivated pure conduct, at the moment of death, first feels a coldness arise in the lower part of the body. One who has not cultivated pure conduct first feels that coldness arise in the upper part of the body. When the intermediate-existence being of one who has not cultivated pure conduct arises, its appearance manifests like the dim glow of a black lamb, or like the darkness of an overcast night. When the intermediate-existence being of one who has cultivated pure conduct arises, its appearance manifests like white silk, or like a clear, moonlit night.
T1606 clarifies why the dying moment's moral quality matters so much practically, not just theoretically: it is precisely at this final, lucid moment — before the mind becomes too dulled to act deliberately at all — that either one's own accumulated wholesome or unwholesome roots naturally assert themselves, or another's active guidance (a teacher's final instruction, or conversely a bad companion's harmful influence) can still decisively shape which kind of mind actually accompanies the crossing into death. The physical signs described here — where coldness first sets in, and how the resulting intermediate-existence being's own appearance looks — are offered as observable correlates of that same underlying moral quality, not separate phenomena: a life of genuine spiritual cultivation and a life without it are said to leave visibly different traces on the very process of dying itself.
3. The Intermediate-Existence Being
又此中有在欲色界正受生位，亦從無色界命終後位，亦名意生健達縛等。極住七日，或中夭、或時移轉。住中有中亦能集諸業，先串習力所引善等思現行故。又能覩見同類有情。又中有形似當生處。又此中有所趣無礙，如具神通往來迅速，仍於生處有所拘礙。又此中有於所生處，如秤兩頭低昂道理，終沒結生時分亦爾。
This intermediate-existence being occurs specifically at the point of taking rebirth within the desire or form realm, and equally following death out of the formless realm; it is also called mind-made, or a gandharva. It persists for at most seven days, though it may die prematurely within that span, or may shift from one such interval to another.
While abiding in this intermediate state, it is still capable of accumulating further karma, since wholesome and other volitional acts, drawn along by prior habituation, still actively occur. It can also perceive beings of its own similar kind. Its own form already resembles whatever place it is about to be born into. It moves toward its destination without obstruction, traveling as swiftly as one endowed with supernormal power — yet, once it reaches the place of its actual birth, it does encounter genuine obstruction there. And, in the place it is to be born, it behaves exactly as a scale's two pans tip up and down — the very moment it perishes there is the very moment rebirth-linking occurs.
住中有中於所生處發起貪愛，亦用餘煩惱為緣助。此中有身與貪俱滅，羯邏藍身與識俱生，此唯是異熟。自此已後根漸生長，如緣起中說。於四生類，或受卵生、或受胎生、或受濕生、或受化生。
While abiding in the intermediate state, craving for the place of its coming birth arises, aided as a condition by other afflictions as well. This intermediate-existence body ceases together with that craving, and a kalala-stage body arises together with consciousness — this alone is genuine karmic ripening. From this point onward, the physical faculties gradually grow, as already explained in the account of dependent origination. Among the four kinds of birth, one is accordingly born by egg, by womb, by moisture, or by transformation.
T1606 adds the classical embryonic-development verse to close this account, tracing name-and-form's own gradual unfolding after conception through five successive stages, kept as untranslated Sanskrit terms matching this site's Abhidharmakośa pages:
"First comes the kalala, then arises the arbuda; from this arises the peśī, the peśī gives rise to the ghana; next the praśākhā, and after that hair, down, and nails; and the physical faculties' own shape and form, gradually, in this way, grow."
Two details in this section deserve special notice. First, the treatise carefully qualifies the intermediate-existence being's own freedom of movement: though it travels as swiftly and unobstructedly as a being with supernormal power across the intervening distance, it is not, in fact, entirely without obstruction — arriving at the actual place of rebirth is where a genuine constraint finally applies, since it cannot simply choose to bypass the specific womb or birth-circumstance its own karma has already determined. Second, the moment of rebirth-linking itself is described with real precision: the intermediate-existence being's own final craving-driven moment and its cessation happen simultaneously with the kalala-stage embryo's arising together with consciousness — and it is specifically this arising, not the intermediate being's own prior existence, that counts as genuine karmic ripening in the strict sense already defined in Part 24.
The Truth of Suffering Complete
This closes the truth of suffering in full: the sentient and container worlds, the eight kinds of suffering, the four shared marks of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and selflessness, the proof that even form is momentary, and this closing account of suffering's own gradations, death, and the passage between one life and the next. Part 32 opens the truth of origination — by far the treatise's most extensive single topic, beginning with the exhaustive classification of the afflictions themselves.
Continue to Part 32 — The Truth of Origination Begins →