Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra: Volume 34 (Part IV)

Here I rely on the reasoning of the supreme scriptural authority. As the World-Honored One said: "All conditioned phenomena are impermanent." Furthermore, these conditioned phenomena are briefly of two kinds: 1) the sentient world, and 2) the material world. The World-Honored One, referring to that sentient world, spoke thus: "O monks, you should know, with my superhuman purified divine eye, I observe sentient beings at the time of death and at the time of birth, and so forth, up to after the dissolution of the body, when they will be reborn in the happy destinies, in the world of the devas." By this method, it is shown that the World-Honored One, with his purified divine eye, directly perceives that the entire sentient world is of an impermanent nature.

Explanation: To contemplate the Truth of Suffering, one must rely on the reasoning of the supreme scriptural authority taught by the World-Honored One, such as the principle of the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena stated by the World-Honored One. The impermanence of all conditioned phenomena is itself suffering; contemplating the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena is to contemplate the Truth of Suffering and the Truth of the Origin of Suffering. The Buddha said the "conditioned phenomena" (sankhāra) are broadly of two kinds: one is the sentient world, the other is the material (non-sentient) world. The Buddha said: "I, with my superhuman purified divine eye, observe sentient beings at the time of death and at the time of birth, and so forth, up to after the dissolution of the body, when they will be reborn in the happy destinies, in the world of the devas." The World-Honored One, with his purified divine eye, directly perceives that the entire sentient world is of an impermanent nature.

Starting from this passage, the World-Honored One specifically expounds on the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena. "Conditioned phenomena" (sankhāra) refer to dharmas characterized by arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing. Anything that undergoes arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing is a conditioned phenomenon. All such phenomena are called "all conditioned phenomena" (sankhārā), and all conditioned phenomena are impermanent because they exhibit the characteristics of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing. The World-Honored One, with his purified divine eye, sees all these phenomena completely. Whatever dharmas the Buddha perceives, whether worldly or supramundane, all are directly perceived; there is no inferential reasoning or erroneous conjecture that is not directly perceived, due to his perfectly complete wisdom. Sentient beings' perception of dharmas is divided into three kinds: direct perception (pratyakṣa), inferential cognition (anumāna), and erroneous cognition (viparyaya). The Buddha is entirely direct perception, whereas sentient beings are not so. For the impermanence of the material world, one can refer to the account of the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the material world as described in the Dīrgha Āgama scripture, the Sūtra on the Arising of the World (起世因缘经).