解脫道論 第三禪的念、正智與身樂

With equanimity completed, the passage separately asks the characteristic, function, manifestation, and proximate cause of mindfulness and of knowledge. Mindfulness has recollection as its characteristic, not forgetting as its function, guarding as its manifestation, and the four mindfulnesses as its proximate cause. Knowledge has nondelusion as its characteristic, being attached to a condition as its function, selecting phenomena as its manifestation, and right attention as its proximate cause.

This Jhāna’s Place of Attachment

The source lists, item by item, that this jhāna easily arises and reaches that place of pleasure, is the “ground of utmost savor,” also “makes a deluded mind,” and is called a place of attachment.

The four are kept side by side as written. No causal chain among them is supplied, and no new contrast with the first two jhānas is constructed.

Following Without Grasping

Rapture and pleasure are close friends. The treatise first says that mindfulness and knowing distinguish them, so that one is without rapture but has pleasure and accomplishes dwelling with respect to the affair. It then gives the simile of a calf following its mother, not grasping her ears but bumping along after her. After the simile it again returns to no rapture but pleasure, distinction by mindfulness and knowing, and pleasure dwelling in its domain. If the distinguishing is not gentle, one returns to rapture and the jhāna becomes subject to regression.

Experiencing Pleasure with the Body and the Cessation of the Pleasure Faculty

The pleasure faculty has ceased in the third jhāna. Why, then, does the formula say “experiences pleasure with the body”? The treatise does not smooth the difficulty away; it defines the terms again. Body means the three aggregates of perception, formations, and consciousness, not the body of flesh. Pleasure means mental pleasure born from mental contact. The words remain unchanged, but their content changes, and the two noble statements can stand together. When a paradoxical question appears, look for the word to which the treatise gives changed content.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Mindfulness, Clear Knowing, and Bodily Pleasure in the Third Jhāna · Doorway · Summer 2026

[Continuing from above] The preceding unit ended by giving general explanations of equanimity and mindfulness. This unit continues with the characteristic, function, manifestation, and proximate cause of mindfulness, and then treats clear knowing and bodily pleasure.

Four Questions on Mindfulness

What is the characteristic of mindfulness? What is its function, manifestation, and proximate cause? Recollection is its characteristic, not forgetting its function, guarding its manifestation, and the four mindfulnesses its proximate cause.

Clear Knowing and Four Kinds of Knowledge

What is knowledge? Understanding is wisdom; this clear knowing is what is called knowledge.

Here clear knowing is of four kinds: knowledge of meaning, knowledge of own-characteristic, knowledge without delusion, and knowledge of the domain.

Here knowledge of meaning is “there are the four postures.” Knowledge of own-characteristic is “entering the base of space.” Knowledge without delusion is “knowing the eight worldly things.” Knowledge of the domain means “with respect to the place of affairs.”

In this scripture, knowledge of the domain is to be taken.

Four Questions on Knowledge

What is the characteristic of knowledge? What is its function, manifestation, and proximate cause? Nondelusion is its characteristic, being attached to a condition its function, selecting phenomena its manifestation, and right attention its proximate cause.

Why This Mindfulness and Clear Knowing Are “Not Excellent” / “Few” Everywhere (Variant Unresolved)

Question: The Taishō base asks, “Why are this mindfulness and clear knowing not excellent everywhere?” At the same place the Gong witness reads “few.” The two readings ask different questions, and this passage does not decide between them. Answer: If a person loses mindfulness and does not arouse clear knowing, he is incapable of arousing the access to jhāna.

Why They Are Taught in the Third Jhāna but Not in the Second or First

Question: Why are mindfulness and clear knowing taught in the third jhāna but not in the second or first?

Answer: Here rapture is foremost, because the coarse jhāna factors have ceased and right concentration is subtle. This concentration enters a subtle place. By this clear knowing one is capable of arousing the third jhāna, and therefore gains mastery through the jhāna factors.

Furthermore, this jhāna easily arises and reaches that place of pleasure; it is the “ground of utmost savor,” and it also “makes a deluded mind”—this is called a place of attachment. Therefore, in this jhāna, knowing that mastery has been gained makes one capable of abandoning rapture.

It is also said that rapture and pleasure are close friends. Therefore this mindfulness and knowing distinguish them, causing one to be without rapture but to have pleasure and to accomplish dwelling with respect to the affair. It is like a calf following its mother: it does not grasp her two ears but bumps along after her. In the same way, without rapture but with pleasure, mindfulness and knowing distinguish them, and pleasure comes to dwell in its domain.

If the distinguishing is not gentle, one instead enters rapture and the jhāna becomes subject to regression.

Because there is mastery of the jhāna factors, mindfulness and knowing are taught. Because this equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing are accomplished, it is said that one has equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing and experiences pleasure with the body.

What Is Mental Pleasure?

Question: What is mental pleasure? Answer: The mind’s receiving is mental pleasure. Receiving born from mental contact is the feeling of mental pleasure. This is called pleasure.

What Is the Body?

Question: What is the body? Answer: The aggregate of perception, the aggregate of formations, and the aggregate of consciousness are called the body. This pleasure is experienced with the body; hence it is said that one experiences pleasure with the body.

Why This Pleasure Is Without Rapture, and Why the Body Is Not the Faculty That Feels It

Question: Why is this pleasure without rapture, yet not experienced by the body as the faculty of feeling? Answer: Because in the third jhāna the pleasure faculty has ceased.

Why did the Blessed One say that the pleasure faculty ceases in the third jhāna? This pleasure is what noble persons taught. “Noble persons” means the Buddha and his disciples, who open and combine, establish the teaching, analyze, and disclose. This is called what the noble ones taught.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Mindfulness, Clear Knowing, and Bodily Pleasure in the Third Jhāna · Vernacular · Summer 2026

In the preceding passage, equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing were named as three factors. Equanimity was completed while mindfulness had only begun. This passage brings mindfulness and clear knowing forward for examination one by one, then answers two crucial questions: Why are these two factors taught in the third jhāna? What “body” is meant by “experiences pleasure with the body”? Along the way the source lists, item by item, that this jhāna “easily arises and reaches that place of pleasure, is the ground of utmost savor, also makes a deluded mind, and is called a place of attachment.”

The Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Cause of Mindfulness and Knowledge

“Question: What is the characteristic of mindfulness? What is its function, manifestation, and proximate cause? Answer: Recollection is its characteristic, not forgetting its function, guarding its manifestation, and the four mindfulnesses its proximate cause” 〔T32 419b16–17〕. This is the first fourfold question in the passage. The characteristic is recollection, the function not forgetting, the manifestation guarding, and the proximate cause the four mindfulnesses. What “the four mindfulnesses” denotes is not explained here, so no fixed interpretation is supplied.

The explanation of knowledge immediately follows. It first gives a definition: “What is knowledge? Understanding is wisdom; this clear knowing is what is called knowledge” 〔T32 419b17–18〕. Understanding glosses wisdom, and clear knowing gathers up knowledge; the ancient syntax of the sentence is retained. It then opens four kinds: “knowledge of meaning, knowledge of own-characteristic, knowledge without delusion, and knowledge of the domain” 〔T32 419b19〕. Each receives one explanatory sentence: knowledge of meaning “has the four postures”; knowledge of own-characteristic is “entering the base of space”; knowledge without delusion “knows the eight worldly things”; and knowledge of the domain “means with respect to the place of affairs” 〔T32 419b21〕. None of these four names occurs outside this passage, and its single explanatory sentence is the full extent given for each. What “the base of space” denotes and which eight things are meant are not stated; nothing is added. The source next says, “In this scripture, knowledge of the domain is to be taken” 〔T32 419b22〕. “Domain” and “place of affairs” both appear, but the treatise gives no further definition; the difference is preserved. The second fourfold question follows: “Nondelusion is its characteristic, being attached to a condition its function, selecting phenomena its manifestation, and right attention its proximate cause” 〔T32 419b23–24〕. Mindfulness and knowledge use the same four questions, while their eight answers remain separately listed as written.

The source thus gives two different groups of four under knowledge. The first is knowledge of meaning, own-characteristic, nondelusion, and domain, attached respectively to the four postures, entering the base of space, knowing the eight worldly things, and the place of affairs. Only the second group gives knowledge’s characteristic, function, manifestation, and proximate cause: nondelusion, being attached to a condition, selecting phenomena, and right attention. Although both groups contain four, the source does not pair them one to one.

Reading mindfulness and knowledge together strictly in the question-and-answer order: the characteristic of mindfulness is recollection, and that of knowledge nondelusion; the function of mindfulness is not forgetting, and that of knowledge being attached to a condition; the manifestation of mindfulness is guarding, and that of knowledge selecting phenomena; the proximate cause of mindfulness is the four mindfulnesses, and that of knowledge right attention. Each of these eight answers keeps its original place. “The four mindfulnesses” remains unexplained within the passage.

“Question: Why are this mindfulness and clear knowing not excellent everywhere? Answer: If a person loses mindfulness and does not arouse clear knowing, he is incapable of arousing the access to jhāna” 〔T32 419b24–26〕. The character 妙, “excellent,” is 少, “few,” in the Gong witness. The two readings point the question in different directions and are recorded without adjudication. The answer explicitly says that losing mindfulness and failing to arouse clear knowing makes one incapable of arousing the access to jhāna. Only the next question asks why they are taught in the third jhāna but not in the first two.

The Place of Attachment Listed for This Jhāna

“Question: Why are they taught in the third jhāna but not in the second or first?” 〔T32 419b26〕

The answer has three levels. The first concerns timing: “Here rapture is foremost, because the coarse jhāna factors have ceased and right concentration is subtle. This concentration enters a subtle place. By this clear knowing one is capable of arousing the third jhāna, and therefore gains mastery through the jhāna factors” 〔T32 419b27–29〕. The coarse factors headed by rapture have ceased and concentration has entered a subtle place. What jhāna 此, “here,” denotes is not expressly stated—the preceding passage explicitly called the first two jhānas “於二種禪” 〔T32 419b12〕—and therefore remains unresolved. As concentration becomes subtler, subtler knowing must receive it.

The second level lists four statements in the source’s own order: “this jhāna easily arises and reaches that place of pleasure,” “the ground of utmost savor,” “also makes a deluded mind,” and “this is called a place of attachment” 〔T32 419b29–419c01〕. “The ground of utmost savor” and “also makes a deluded mind” receive no further explanation here. They are preserved without supplying causal links among the four or constructing a contrast with the first two jhānas. The source then only continues, “Therefore in this jhāna, knowing that mastery has been gained makes one capable of abandoning rapture” 〔T32 419c01–02〕. The four statements remain separately preserved, and the following statement is read in its original order; no later claim is used to impose a causal scheme on them. All five must remain present.

The third level concerns distinction by mindfulness and knowing. “It is also said that rapture and pleasure are close friends. Therefore this mindfulness and knowing distinguish them, causing one to be without rapture but to have pleasure and to accomplish dwelling with respect to the affair” 〔T32 419c02–03〕. The answer first calls rapture and pleasure close friends, then expressly says that mindfulness and knowing distinguish them so that one is without rapture yet has pleasure and accomplishes dwelling with respect to the affair. The source of the cited saying is not named and remains unresolved. The simile follows: “It is like a calf following its mother: it does not grasp her two ears but bumps along after her. In the same way, without rapture but with pleasure, mindfulness and knowing distinguish them, and pleasure comes to dwell in its domain” 〔T32 419c03–05〕. The calf follows its mother, does not grasp her ears, and bumps along behind. After the simile the source directly returns to no rapture but pleasure, the distinction made by mindfulness and knowing, and pleasure dwelling in its domain. It then says, “If the distinguishing is not gentle, one instead enters rapture and the jhāna becomes subject to regression” 〔T32 419c05–06〕, joining ungentle distinguishing, returning into rapture, and regression of the jhāna in that order. Four repetitions of “therefore” close the answer—“therefore there is mastery through the jhāna factors,” “therefore in this jhāna,” “therefore this mindfulness and knowing distinguish,” and “therefore it is said to have equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing” 〔T32 419c07〕—and return to the formula: “Because this equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing are accomplished, it is said that one has equanimity, mindfulness, and knowing and experiences pleasure with the body” 〔T32 419c07–08〕.

In the order of the answer, rapture and pleasure are first called close friends; next comes distinction by mindfulness and knowing, absence of rapture but presence of pleasure, and dwelling with respect to the affair. The calf following its mother without grasping her ears is then introduced. After the simile, the source restates no rapture but pleasure, distinction by mindfulness and knowing, and pleasure dwelling in its domain. Only at the end does it say that ungentle distinguishing turns back into rapture and makes the jhāna subject to regression 〔T32 419c02–06〕. What all these sentences expressly share is distinction by mindfulness and knowing, absence of rapture but presence of pleasure, and pleasure dwelling in its domain.

Pause at the Question: If the Pleasure Faculty Has Ceased, What “Body” Experiences Pleasure?

The four words “experiences pleasure with the body” in the noble formula collide with a doctrinal fact. Pause at this question:

“Question: Why is this pleasure without rapture, yet not experienced by the body as the faculty of feeling? Answer: In the third jhāna the pleasure faculty has ceased” 〔T32 419c11–12〕. The pleasure faculty has ceased in the third jhāna, yet the preceding passage expressly says “experiences pleasure with the body.” Do the words contradict one another?

The treatise’s solution is not to smooth the difficulty away. It puts the terms through examination again. First it asks about the body: “Question: What is the body? Answer: The aggregate of perception, the aggregate of formations, and the aggregate of consciousness are called the body. This pleasure is experienced with the body; hence it is said that one experiences pleasure with the body” 〔T32 419c09–11〕. This “body” is not the body of flesh: three aggregates constitute it, excluding the aggregate of form and the aggregate of feeling. The same list of three occurs later in Chapter Ten 〔T32 445c16〕. It then asks about pleasure: “Question: What is mental pleasure? Answer: The mind’s receiving is mental pleasure. Receiving born from mental contact is the feeling of mental pleasure. This is called pleasure” 〔T32 419c08–09〕. The pleasure of the third jhāna is mental pleasure and is born from mental contact. “Receiving” appears twice within the answer, once attached to mind and once to mental contact; the treatise does not judge the difference, and both are preserved. Body and pleasure are each restated according to this passage’s answers. The paradox resolves itself: the pleasure faculty—the bodily faculty of pleasure—has ceased, while mental pleasure remains. That mental pleasure is experienced by the “body” of the three aggregates of perception, formations, and consciousness. Not one character of 身受樂 has changed, yet each has received a changed content. The remaining question is raised by the treatise itself: “Why did the Blessed One say that the pleasure faculty ceases in the third jhāna? This pleasure is what noble persons taught. Noble persons are the Buddha and his disciples, who open and combine, establish the teaching, analyze, and disclose. This is called what the noble ones taught” 〔T32 419c12–14〕. The authority for the judgment is “what the noble ones taught,” and the passage positively explains “noble” as the Buddha and his disciples. Unit 08-17 cited “what the noble ones taught” without explaining the phrase; its explanation is here, and the two passages should be read together.

This passage offers a reading method: its answer to the paradox redefines the terms. When “experiences pleasure with the body” meets “the pleasure faculty has ceased,” the treatise alters neither noble statement. Instead it defines “body” and “pleasure” again, allowing both to stand. When the treatise later raises a dilemma in which earlier and later words seem opposed, first ask whether its next move changes the content of one term. The term whose content changes is the place where the knot is untied.

Conclusion

Return to the passage. Mindfulness has recollection as its characteristic and guarding as its manifestation; knowledge has nondelusion as its characteristic and selecting phenomena as its manifestation. The treatise places together this jhāna’s ease of reaching pleasure, “ground of utmost savor,” making a deluded mind, and place of attachment. It uses the calf following its mother as a simile for being without rapture yet having pleasure, and says that if distinguishing is not gentle one returns to rapture and the jhāna regresses. Finally, it defines “body” as the three aggregates of perception, formations, and consciousness, and “pleasure” as receiving born from mental contact, explaining “experiences pleasure with the body” in the terms of this passage.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Mindfulness, Clear Knowing, and Bodily Pleasure in the Third Jhāna · Exposition · Summer 2026