The Illusory Pleasant Feeling and Endless Suffering

When the manas takes the five-aggregate body as self, in the matter of food and drink it must, in order to sustain the physical body, prompt the mind consciousness and eye consciousness to be picky about the appearance, flavor, and nutrition of food, and prompt the tongue consciousness and mind consciousness to crave delicious flavors and nutrition, taking taste objects as truly real, taking the sense of taste as truly real, taking the spleen and stomach as truly real—and thus craving for food and drink arises.

In fact, delicious flavors arise and cease, change moment by moment, and do not last; the sense of taste likewise arises and ceases, changes moment by moment, and does not last. After the sense of taste vanishes, nothing is gained at all; even while the sense of taste exists, nothing is gained at all. After delicious food enters the esophagus, nothing is gained at all; even while the delicious food exists, nothing is gained at all. After digestion, the nutrition is nothing gained at all; even while the nutrition exists, nothing is gained at all. After the physical body perishes, nothing is gained at all; even while the physical body exists, likewise nothing is gained at all.

Yet because the seven consciousnesses crave food and drink, they are locked within the cycle of the six paths of the desire realm, suffering one painful feeling after another. For the sake of a momentary, fleeting feeling, they sink for tens of millions of years in the bitter ocean of birth and death. How do the suffering and the pleasure compare?

It is the same when the eye sees forms, the ear hears sounds, the nose smells scents, the body feels tangibles, and the mind discerns dharmas: a brief, impermanent, illusory pleasant feeling is exchanged for endless suffering—why bring this upon oneself?

Constantly contemplate the self within your own mind: observe whether, amid the various activities of the five-aggregate body, everything revolves around that so-called self—taking your own capacity for awareness and feeling as a truly real self, taking the various activities of the physical body as a truly real self—and then craving and grasping at these so-called selves without realizing it, so that the suffering of birth and death never ceases and the cycle of transmigration never ends.

Frequently keep the mind in meditative concentration (samādhi), observing and introspectively examining your own words and deeds, seeking out that self which the mind cherishes and treasures; contemplate it (vipaśyanā-caryā), reflect upon it, subdue it, dissolve it, and finally let go of it and eliminate it. Then you will no longer be bound by it, and only then can you attain liberation and attain ease.