BUDDHACARITA 14.64: Feeling Arises Depending on Contact (7→6)

[No Sanskrit text]

Tibetan: 

| de nas slar yaṅ tshor ba yi | | skye ba’i gnas ni gaṅ źes bsams |

| tshor ba tshor ba mthar byed kyis | | reg pa’i rgyu can ñid du mkhyen | 

de nas: then

slar yang: again

tshor ba: feeling (受, vedanā)

yi: [genitive particle]

skye: produce

bsams: thought, wisdom

tshor ba: feeling

mthar byed: lord of death who puts an end to every thing ; destroy; abolish

kyis: [instrumental particle]

reg pa: contact (觸; saṁsparśa)

rgyu: cause (因)

rgyu can:  'that which has cause'; result; caused by

nyid du: self; same (eva)

mkhyen: knowing, seeing

EHJ's translation from the Tibetan:

64. Then he again meditated, “What is the source of sensation? ” He, who had put an end to sensation, saw also the cause of sensation to be in contact.

Revised:

64. Then he again meditated, “What is the source of feeling? ” He, who had put an end to feeling, saw the cause of feeling to be in contact.

Chinese:

諸受觸爲因

then contact (sparśa) is the cause of all sensation (SB)

Any experiencing has contact as its cause. (CW)

COMMENT:
I got ahead of myself and commented yesterday on what is discussed in today's verse as putting an end to feeling, which must mean putting an end to feeling as a skandha of taking hold, or putting an end to feeling as fuel for attachment. 

Verse by verse, it becomes clearer that the Theravada emphasis on dependent arising, and the emphasis that the Zen ancestors of China and Japan placed upon the dropping off of body and mind, would not have been recognized as two different approaches, by Aśvaghoṣa or by Nāgārjuna. 

punar-bhavāya saṁskārān avidyā-nivṛtas tridhā |

abhisaṁskurute yāṁs tair gatiṁ gacchati karmabhiḥ ||MMK26.1||

vijñānaṁ saṁniviśate saṁskāra-pratyayaṁ gatau |

saṁniviṣṭe 'tha vijñāne nāma-rūpaṁ niṣicyate ||2||

niṣikte nāma-rūpe tu ṣaḍāyatana-saṁbhavaḥ |

ṣaḍāyatanam āgamya saṁsparśaḥ saṁpravartate ||3||

cakṣuḥ pratītya rūpaṁ ca samanvāhāram eva ca |

nāma-rūpaṁ pratītyaivaṁ vijñānaṁ saṁpravartate ||4||

saṁnipātas trayāṇāṁ yo rūpa-vijñāna-cakṣuṣām |

sparśaḥ saḥ tasmāt sparśāc ca vedanā saṁpravartate ||5||

vedanā-pratyayā tṛṣṇā vedanārthaṁ hi tṛṣyate |

tṛṣyamāṇa upādānam upādatte catur-vidham ||6||

upādāne sati bhava upādātuḥ pravartate |

syādd hi yady anupādāno mucyeta na bhaved bhavaḥ ||7||

pañca skandhāḥ sa ca bhavaḥ bhavāj jātiḥ pravartate |

jarā-maraṇa-duḥkhādi śokāḥ sa-paridevanāḥ ||8||

daurmanasyam upāyāsā jāter etat pravartate |

kevalasyaivam etasya duḥkha-skandhasya saṁbhavaḥ ||9||

saṁsāra-mūlaṁ saṁskārān avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ |

avidvān kārakas tasmān na vidvāṁs tattva-darśanāt ||10||

avidyāyāṁ niruddhāyāṁ saṁskārāṇām asaṁbhavaḥ |

avidyāyā nirodhas tu jñānasyāsyaiva bhāvanāt ||11||

tasya tasya nirodhena tat tan nābhipravartate |

duḥkha-skandhaḥ kevalo 'yam evaṁ samyaṅ nirudhyate ||12||

The doings that lead to yet further becoming, the one enclosed in ignorance, in three ways, does do; and by these actions he goes to a sphere of existence. Divided consciousness, with doings as its causal grounds, seeps into the sphere of existence. And so, divided consciousness having seeped in, psycho-physicality is instilled. 

Conversely, once psycho-physicality is instilled, there is the coming about of six senses; six senses having arrived, there occurs contact; and – depending upon an eye, upon physical form, and upon the two being brought together – depending thus upon psycho-physicality, there occurs divided consciousness. 

Combination of the threesome of physical form, consciousness and eye, is contact; and from that contact there occurs feeling. With feeling as its causal grounds, there is thirsting – because the object of feeling is thirsted after. While thirsting is going on, taking hold takes hold in the four ways. While there is taking hold, the becoming arises of the taker – because becoming, if it were free of taking, would be liberated and would not become becoming. The five aggregates, again, are becoming itself. Out of the becoming arises birth. The suffering and suchlike of aging and death; sorrows accompanied by lamentations; dejectedness, troubles: all this arises out of birth. In this way this whole aggregate of suffering comes into being. 

The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. The ignorant one therefore is the doer; the wise one is not, because of realizing reality. In the destruction of ignorance, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings. The destruction of ignorance, however, is because of the bringing-into-being of just this knowing. By the destruction of this one and that one, this one and that one no longer advance. This whole aggregate of suffering in this way is well and truly destroyed.