解脫道論 喜樂、初禪與五蓋總說

This passage analyzes joy and pleasure, and also lists the five factors of the first jhāna, the five hindrances, and the three sources of sleep.

A Water Chart of Joy

Joy has six sources: desire, faith, nonremorse, seclusion, concentration, and the factors of awakening. The treatise explains what each arises from. Each of the six forms its own statement; no wording makes them successive stages.

Joy is also divided into five. Smiling joy is like fine rain touching the body and making the hairs stand up. Moment-by-moment joy is like night rain, arising and ceasing without remaining. Streaming joy is like oil flowing downward, pouring for a long time without pervading the whole body. Leaping joy is like a poor person seeing hidden treasure, yet it is soon lost. Fulfilling joy is like thunder with rain. The source separately assigns access, maṇḍala means, and the place of security; fulfilling joy arises at the place of security.

Joy, Pleasure, and the Meaning of Jhāna

The distinction between joy and pleasure is given as follows: elation is joy and softness is pleasure; tranquillity of mind is pleasure and concentration of mind is joy; joy is coarse and pleasure subtle; joy belongs to the aggregate of formations and pleasure to the aggregate of feeling. The source adds that wherever joy occurs, pleasure occurs, while wherever pleasure occurs, joy may be present or absent. These contrasts stand side by side; they are not reduced here to a single definition of “movement” and “texture.”

What does jhāna mean? Evenly contemplating the matter, vigorously shaking off the five hindrances, and contemplating the antidote. Jhāna is not a limp quiet. It has the force that shakes the five hindrances away.

An Arahant Also Sleeps

Sleep is of three kinds: born of food, born of season, and born of mind. The first two are an arahant's sleep. The distinction of hindrance lies in the source: what is born of mind is a hindrance, while what is born of food and season is not a hindrance, although energy can still abandon it. 阿㝹樓馱 testifies of himself that after exhausting the influxes, his sleep was not born of mind.

What is treated first is an illness of mind, not a bodily appearance.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Joy, Pleasure, the First Jhāna, and the Five Hindrances · Doorway · Summer 2026

Four Questions on Joy and Its Six Kinds

Question: What is joy's characteristic? What is its function? What is its manifestation? What is its basis? How many kinds of joy are there? Answer: Joy has pervasive gladness as its characteristic, delight as its function, the taming of a scattered mind as its manifestation, and elation as its basis.

How many kinds of joy are there? Six: joy born of desire, of faith, of nonremorse, of seclusion, of concentration, and of the factors of awakening.

What is joy born of desire? When the mind is delighted through attachment to sensual desire, this is called joy born of desire. What is joy born of faith? A person of much faith has a joyful mind, and joy also arises on seeing a potter and others. What is joy born of nonremorse? A person who purely keeps virtue often gives rise to gladness. What is joy born of seclusion? It is the joy of one who enters the first jhāna. What is joy born of concentration? It is the joy that arises on entering the second jhāna. What is joy born of the factors of awakening? It is joy in cultivating the supramundane path in the second jhāna.

Five Kinds of Joy

Again, joy is said to be of five kinds: smiling joy, moment-by-moment joy, streaming joy, leaping joy, and fulfilling joy.

Smiling joy is like a fine rain touching the body and making every hair stand on end. Moment-by-moment joy arises and ceases without remaining, like rain at night. Streaming joy is like oil flowing downward: though it pours over the body for a long time, it never pervades it completely. Leaping joy surrounds everything and makes the mind glad, yet is soon lost, like a poor person who sees a hidden treasure. Fulfilling joy abides in the body and fills its use, like thunder with rain.

The Five Joys in Access and at the Place of Security

Here, “small joy” and moment-by-moment joy arise through faith in access; streaming joy is powerful and also arises in access. Of leaping joy, the source reads, “with respect to the maṇḍala, correct and incorrect, all arise, everywhere means.” It can be established that the sentence mentions the maṇḍala, correct and incorrect, all arising, and means everywhere, but the source does not say what “correct and incorrect” modifies or how “all arise” attaches to “means everywhere.” Fulfilling joy arises at the place of security.

What Is Pleasure?

Question: What is pleasure? Answer: At that time, it is the pleasure of mind that can be experienced, formed by mental contact. This is called pleasure.

Four Questions on Pleasure and Its Five Kinds

Question: What is pleasure's characteristic? What is its function? What is its manifestation? What is its basis? How many kinds of pleasure are there? What is the difference between joy and pleasure? Answer: Its characteristic is savor; loving an agreeable object is its agreeable function; receiving is its manifestation; and its tranquillity is its basis.

How many kinds of pleasure are there? Five: causal pleasure, pleasure of requisites, pleasure of seclusion, undefiled pleasure, and felt pleasure.

What is called causal pleasure? As the Buddha said, “The pleasure of virtue endures old age.” This is called causal pleasure; it is the quality of pleasure. Pleasure of requisites is as the Buddha said: “The arising of a Buddha is pleasure in the world.” Pleasure of seclusion means the arising of concentration, equanimity, and the concentration of cessation-jhāna. Undefiled pleasure is as the Buddha said: “Foremost is the felt pleasure of Nibbāna”—that is, felt pleasure. In this treatise, felt pleasure is what is agreeable.

The Difference between Joy and Pleasure

As for the difference between joy and pleasure: elation of mind is joy, and softness of mind is pleasure; tranquillity of mind is pleasure, and concentration of mind is joy; joy is coarse, and pleasure subtle; joy is included in the aggregate of formations, and pleasure in the aggregate of feeling. Where there is joy, there is pleasure; where there is pleasure, there may or may not be joy. The source then says, “The first is form; the second is name.” It does not explain what “the first” and “the second” respectively indicate or how “form” and “name” are opposed, so the sentence is retained without assigning it another definition.

The Factors of the First Jhāna and the Meanings of Jhāna

The jhāna factors of one who has fulfilled access and enters the first jhāna are applied thought, sustained thought, joy, pleasure, and one-pointedness.

What does jhāna mean? It means evenly contemplating the matter, vigorously shaking off the five hindrances, and contemplating the antidote. One who enters the first jhāna and gains attainment has gained, touched, realized, and abides.

Threefold Excellence

Again, “secluded from sensual desire and unwholesome states” describes the first jhāna as excellent from the ground of the sensual realm; “with applied and sustained thought” describes the second jhāna as excellent; and because there are joy and pleasure born of seclusion, the joy and pleasure born of seclusion are described as excellent.

A Further Explanation of the Words and Entering and Abiding

Again, “secluded from sensual desire and unwholesome states” means being able to abandon through the antidote; “with applied and sustained thought” describes the characteristic of jhāna as born of seclusion; “joy and pleasure” describes the attainment of a corresponding jhāna. “Entering and abiding” means gaining the first jhāna, being separated from five factors, accomplishing five factors and three kinds of goodness, fulfilling ten characteristics, and being associated with twenty-five qualities. Through this merit and goodness, one is reborn above in a sublime dwelling in the Brahmā world.

The Five Hindrances

To be separated from five factors means to be separated from the five hindrances. What are the five? Sensual desire, ill will, sloth-and-torpor, agitation-and-remorse, and doubt.

Sensual desire means that the mind gives rise to loving attachment toward the five sense objects. Ill will means acting in the ten grounds of vexation. Sloth means that the mind is lazy. Torpor means that the body is dull and heavy and wants to sleep.

Three Kinds of Sleep and the Statement of 阿㝹樓馱

Sleep is of three kinds: first, born of food; second, born of season; and third, born of mind. If it is born of mind, it is abandoned through contemplation. If it is born of food and season, it is an arahant's sleep; it is not born of mind, because there is nothing that hinders. If sleep is born of food and season, it can be abandoned through energy.

As 阿㝹樓馱 said: “When I first exhausted the influxes, I attained sleep not born of mind. Now, fifty-five years; in the interval, ‘cut off food season lying down,’ already twenty-five years.” Whether “now, fifty-five years” gives an age or a span of years, and how “cut off food season lying down” is to be punctuated, are not explained in this passage; the wording is therefore left unresolved.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Joy, Pleasure, the First Jhāna, and the Five Hindrances · Vernacular · Summer 2026

This passage first analyzes joy and pleasure, then explains the formulation of the first jhāna, and finally lists the five hindrances to be left behind and the three sources of sleep.

The central observation can be stated at once: the passage separately lists six sources from which joy is born, five forms of joy and the places where they arise, five kinds of pleasure, and four paired contrasts between joy and pleasure. Its statement of inclusion reads, “Where there is joy, there is pleasure; where there is pleasure, there may or may not be joy” 〔T32 416a23–24〕. It also explicitly says, “Joy is coarse, and pleasure subtle,” and “Joy is included in the aggregate of formations, and pleasure in the aggregate of feeling” 〔T32 416a22–23〕. The six kinds of joy are listed according to what each arises from; there is no wording of succession from one item to the next.

Joy: Six Sources and Five Movements of Water

“Question: What is joy's characteristic? What is its function? What is its manifestation? What is its basis? How many kinds of joy are there? Answer: Joy has pervasive gladness as its characteristic, delight as its function, the taming of a scattered mind as its manifestation, and elation as its basis” 〔T32 415c23–25〕. The answer gives one statement each: pervasive gladness is the characteristic, delight the function, taming the scattered mind the manifestation, and elation the basis. It then separately asks how many kinds of joy there are.

Characteristic, function, manifestation, and basis each receive their own phrase in this answer and should not be interchanged: “pervasive gladness” belongs only to the characteristic, “delight” only to the function, “taming the scattered mind” only to the manifestation, and “elation” only to the basis 〔T32 415c23–25〕. After these four statements, the source separately answers “how many kinds of joy?” by first listing six sources and then explaining each. The four answers and the six names thus form two successive levels, not one inventory.

Joy has six sources: “born of desire, born of faith, born of nonremorse, born of seclusion, born of concentration, and joy born of the factors of awakening” 〔T32 415c26–27〕. The source explains each in turn. Joy born of desire is “the mind's joy through attachment to sensual desire” 〔T32 415c28〕. Joy born of faith occurs in a person of much faith and when one “sees a potter and others and joy arises” 〔T32 415c29〕. Joy born of nonremorse occurs in a person who purely keeps virtue 〔T32 416a01〕. Joy born of seclusion is the joy of one who enters the first jhāna, while joy born of concentration is the joy born on entering the second jhāna 〔T32 416a01–02〕. Joy born of the factors of awakening is “joy in cultivating the supramundane path in the second jhāna” 〔T32 416a03〕. The six are listed in this order and each is assigned its source; no connective says that one develops into the next.

Joy is then divided into five: “smiling joy, moment-by-moment joy, streaming joy, leaping joy, and fulfilling joy” 〔T32 416a04–05〕. Each is tied to a simile: “Smiling joy is like a fine rain touching the body and making every hair stand on end. Moment-by-moment joy arises and ceases without remaining, like rain at night. Streaming joy is like oil flowing downward: though it pours over the body for a long time, it never pervades it completely. Leaping joy surrounds everything and makes the mind glad, yet is soon lost, like a poor person who sees a hidden treasure. Fulfilling joy abides in the body and fills its use, like thunder with rain” 〔T32 416a05–09〕. The source immediately gives their places of arising: “Small joy and moment-by-moment joy arise through faith in access. Streaming joy is powerful and arises in access. Leaping joy: with respect to the maṇḍala, correct and incorrect, all arise, everywhere means. Fulfilling joy arises at the place of security” 〔T32 416a09–12〕. What can be established is each joy's simile, the places called access and the place of security, and the discrepancy between “smiling joy” in the list and “small joy” in the placement sentence. The passage gives these appearances and places, but no further diagnostic procedure for practice.

The wording emphasized by each simile also differs. Smiling joy says only that fine rain touches the body and the hairs stand up. Moment-by-moment joy explicitly “arises and ceases without remaining.” Streaming joy, although it “pours over the body for a long time,” “never pervades it completely.” Leaping joy, although it “surrounds everything and makes the mind glad,” is explicitly “soon lost.” Fulfilling joy “abides in the body and fills its use” 〔T32 416a08–09〕. Thus the source records differences in duration, pervasion, and loss; the kinds cannot be collapsed merely because their similes draw on water or hidden treasure.

Pleasure: Five Kinds and Its Difference from Joy

“Question: What is pleasure? Answer: At that time, it is the pleasure of mind that can be experienced, formed by mental contact. This is called pleasure” 〔T32 416a12–13〕. After four items—“its characteristic is savor, loving an agreeable object is its agreeable function, receiving is its manifestation, and its tranquillity is its basis”—the passage lists five kinds: causal pleasure, for which “as the Buddha said, the pleasure of virtue endures old age”; this is causal pleasure and the quality of pleasure; pleasure of requisites, for which “as the Buddha said, the arising of a Buddha is pleasure in the world”; pleasure of seclusion, meaning “the arising of concentration, equanimity, and the concentration of cessation-jhāna”; undefiled pleasure, for which “as the Buddha said, foremost is the felt pleasure of Nibbāna”; and felt pleasure 〔T32 416a14–21〕. Three statements of the Buddha are cited as evidence (see apparatus section 4), and the author adds, “In this treatise, felt pleasure is what is agreeable” 〔T32 416a20–21〕. What this passage establishes is the list of five, each explanation, and this treatise's use of felt pleasure as what is agreeable. It gives no further sequence among the five.

The two sets of questions on joy and pleasure do not have the same form. Joy is first asked about characteristic, function, manifestation, basis, and number, and after the first four are answered the source lists six kinds by source 〔T32 415c23–416a03〕. Pleasure is first asked about separately—“What is pleasure?”—and only afterward are characteristic, function, manifestation, basis, number, and the difference between joy and pleasure combined in one question 〔T32 416a12–14〕. The answer first gives four items, then five kinds of pleasure, and only then answers the difference between joy and pleasure 〔T32 416a14–24〕. The six kinds of joy, five forms of joy, five kinds of pleasure, and differences between joy and pleasure are consequently four inventories belonging to distinct questions, not stages of a single sequence.

The five pleasures likewise have only the explanations given by the source. Causal pleasure is illustrated by “the pleasure of virtue endures old age” and called a quality of pleasure. Pleasure of requisites is illustrated by “the arising of a Buddha is pleasure in the world.” Pleasure of seclusion is tied to the arising of concentration, equanimity, and the concentration of cessation-jhāna. Undefiled pleasure is illustrated by “foremost is the felt pleasure of Nibbāna.” Felt pleasure is defined by the treatise here as what is agreeable 〔T32 416a15–21〕. The five appear side by side in this order; the passage does not say that one arises from another.

The source gives a series of paired contrasts: “Elation of mind is joy, and softness of mind is pleasure. Tranquillity of mind is pleasure, and concentration of mind is joy. Joy is coarse, and pleasure subtle. Joy is included in the aggregate of formations, and pleasure in the aggregate of feeling” 〔T32 416a21–23〕. The four pairs—elation and softness, concentration and tranquillity, coarse and subtle, formations and feeling—stand side by side in the source; they need not be reduced to one abstract definition. The source then says, “Where there is joy, there is pleasure; where there is pleasure, there may or may not be joy” 〔T32 416a23–24〕. The asymmetry should be preserved. The referents and syntax of the following sentence, “The first is form; the second is name” 〔T32 416a24–25〕, are unclear in this passage.

The two halves of the inclusion statement are unequal. The first explicitly says that where joy occurs, pleasure occurs. The second says that where pleasure occurs, joy may be present or absent 〔T32 416a23–24〕. This is the range directly given by the source. Since “the first is form; the second is name” receives no identification of its referents here, it cannot be used to impose another definition on the four preceding contrasts.

Three Meanings of Jhāna and Threefold Excellence

“The jhāna factors of one who has fulfilled access and enters the first jhāna are applied thought, sustained thought, joy, pleasure, and one-pointedness” 〔T32 416a25–26〕. The five factors are listed in this order. The treatise then asks the meaning of jhāna and answers: “evenly contemplating the matter, vigorously shaking off the five hindrances, and contemplating the antidote” 〔T32 416a26–27〕. These three meanings are juxtaposed; the source does not assign them separate levels.

The formulation of the first jhāna is then explained word by word: “Secluded from sensual desire and unwholesome states means being able to abandon through the antidote. With applied and sustained thought describes the characteristic of jhāna as born of seclusion. Joy and pleasure describes the attainment of a corresponding jhāna” 〔T32 416b02–04〕. The passage also gives threefold excellence: it describes the first jhāna as excellent from the ground of the sensual realm, the second jhāna as excellent from applied and sustained thought, and joy and pleasure born of seclusion as excellent 〔T32 416a28–416b02〕. “One who enters the first jhāna and gains attainment has gained, touched, realized, and abides” 〔T32 416a27–28〕. “Entering and abiding” is further explained as gaining the first jhāna, being separated from five factors, accomplishing five factors and three kinds of goodness, fulfilling ten characteristics, and being associated with twenty-five qualities, and thereby being reborn above in a sublime dwelling in the Brahmā world 〔T32 416b04–06〕. In this unit, the three kinds of goodness, ten characteristics, and twenty-five qualities are given only by name and number, not explained item by item.

The numbers are first announced without expansion. The five factors left behind are immediately explained below as the five hindrances—sensual desire, ill will, sloth-and-torpor, agitation-and-remorse, and doubt 〔T32 416b06–08〕. The five factors accomplished have already been listed as applied thought, sustained thought, joy, pleasure, and one-pointedness 〔T32 416a25–26〕. The three kinds of goodness, ten characteristics, and twenty-five qualities occur together only in the statement on entering and abiding; none is enumerated in this unit. What can be established here is the juxtaposition of “being separated from five factors” and “accomplishing five factors,” together with the stated numbers of the three later groups.

The statement on entering and abiding has a complete source order: first gaining the first jhāna; then being separated from five factors, accomplishing five factors and three kinds of goodness, fulfilling ten characteristics, and being associated with twenty-five qualities; and finally, through this merit and goodness, being reborn in a sublime dwelling in the Brahmā world 〔T32 416b04–06〕. The passage only strings these items together and does not enumerate the three kinds of goodness, ten characteristics, or twenty-five qualities. Their names, numbers, and order are therefore retained here without anticipation.

The Five Hindrances and an Arahant's Sleep

Being separated from five factors is being separated from the five hindrances: “sensual desire, ill will, sloth-and-torpor, agitation-and-remorse, and doubt” 〔T32 416b07–08〕. The passage then explains four terms: sensual desire is “the mind's loving attachment toward the five sense objects,” ill will is “acting in the ten grounds of vexation,” sloth is “the mind being lazy,” and torpor is “the body being dull and heavy and wanting to sleep” 〔T32 416b10〕. Agitation-and-remorse and doubt are only named in this passage, not explained further.

After the list of hindrances, sleep is divided by source into three: born of food, born of season, and born of mind 〔T32 416b10–11〕. What is born of mind is abandoned through contemplation. What is born of food and season is called an arahant's sleep, because it “is not born of mind and there is nothing that hinders.” The source then says that sleep born of food and season can be abandoned through energy 〔T32 416b11–13〕. These statements respectively give source, whether there is a hindrance, and the antidote; each is retained in the source order.

In the list of five hindrances, “agitation-and-remorse” joins agitation and remorse as one hindrance, while “sloth-and-torpor” joins laziness and bodily heaviness as one. Ill will is given the ten grounds of vexation as its shortest point of application, and sensual desire the five sense objects. The treatise spends more words on “sleep,” because this hindrance is readily confused with a bodily appearance. Sleep is divided into three: “first, born of food; second, born of season; and third, born of mind” 〔T32 416b10–11〕. Pause here with one question: Does an arahant sleep? The treatise answers plainly: “If it is born of food and season, it is an arahant's sleep; it is not born of mind, because there is nothing that hinders” 〔T32 416b11–13〕. The distinction lies in the source of the hindrance, not in the body's appearance. Drowsiness after food or according to the season belongs to the body's conditions and occurs even for an arahant; torpor born of mind is the hindrance and is “abandoned through contemplation.” The passage cites 阿㝹樓馱: “When I first exhausted the influxes, I attained sleep not born of mind. Now, fifty-five years; in the interval, cut off food season lying down, already twenty-five years” 〔T32 416b14–16〕. The reckoning of the years and the punctuation of “cut off food season lying down” remain unclear in this passage. Only one point is secure: one who has exhausted the influxes does not sleep from mind. The text thereby draws the boundary of the hindrance at the mind, not the bodily appearance. It also distinguishes the antidotes. What is born of mind is abandoned through contemplation, while what is born of food and season “can be abandoned through energy” 〔T32 416b13〕. Bodily sleep is not wholly beyond response; energy can abandon it. Whether sleep is or is not a hindrance depends on its source, while its abandonment depends on energy.

Conclusion

The passage lists six sources and five forms of joy with their places of arising, and five kinds of pleasure. It distinguishes joy and pleasure through four pairs—elation and softness, concentration and tranquillity, coarse and subtle, formations and feeling—and through the statement that joy entails pleasure while pleasure may occur without joy. Each of the six joys is read by its own source, and each of the five forms by its own simile and placement. Sleep born of mind is abandoned through contemplation; what is born of food and season is an arahant's sleep, and the source further says that it can be abandoned through energy 〔T32 416b10–13〕.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Joy, Pleasure, the First Jhāna, and the Five Hindrances · Exposition · Summer 2026