..續本文上一頁iking it or hitting himself on the head is grasping and clinging in the same way. He is taking those body parts to be selves. If he is rather more intelligent than that, he may seize on feeling, or perception or active thinking, or consciousness, at any one of these groups as being a self. If he is unable to distinguish them inpidually, he may grasp at the whole lot collectively as being a self, that is, take all five groups together to be "his self."

　　After the physical body, the group next most likely to be clung to as being a self is feeling pleasurable, painful, or neutral. Let us consider the situation in which we find ourselves, entranced with sensual pleasures, in particular delectable sensations, caught up heart and soul in the various colors and shapes, sound, scents, tastes and tactile objects that we perceive. Here feeling is the pleasure and delight experienced, and it is to that very feeling of pleasure and delight that we cling. Almost everyone clings to feeling as being a self, because there is no one who does not like delightful sensations, especially tactile sensations by way of the skin. Ignorance or delusion blinds a person to all else. He sees only the delightful object and grasps at it as being a self; he regards that object as "mine." Feeling, whether of pleasure or displeasure, is truly a site of suffering. Spiritually speaking, these feelings of pleasure and displeasure may be considered as synonymous with suffering, because they give rise to nothing but mental torment. Pleasure renders the mind buoyant; displeasure deflates it. Gain and loss, happiness and sorrow, amount in effect to mental restlessness or instability; they set the mind spinning. This is what is meant by grasping at feeling as being a self. We should all do well to have a closer look at this process of grasping at feeling as being a self, as being "ours," and try to gain a proper understanding of it. Understanding feeling as an object of clinging, the mind will be rendered independently of it. Feeling normally has control over the mind, luring us into situations that we regret later on. In his practical path to perfection or arahantship, the Buddha teaches us repeatedly to give particular attention to the examination of feeling. Many have become arahants and broken free from suffering by means of restricting feeling to simply an object of study.

　　Feeling is more likely than any of the other aggregates to serve as a handhold for us to cling to because feeling is the primary objective of all our striving and activity. We study industriously and work at our jobs in order to get money. Then we go and buy things: utensils, food, amusements, things covering the whole range from gastronomy to sex. And then we partake of these things with one single objective, namely pleasurable feeling, in other words delightful stimulation of eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. We invest all our resources, monetary, physical, mental, simply in the expectation of pleasurable feeling. And everyone knows well enough in his own mind that if it weren”t for the lure of pleasurable feeling, he would never invest study, work and physical energy in the search for money. We can see, then, that feeling is no small matter. A knowledge and understanding of it puts us in a position to keep it under control, makes us sufficiently high-minded to remain above feelings, and enables us to carry out all our activities far better than we otherwise could. In similar fashion even the problems that arise in a social group have their origins in pleasurable feeling. And when we analyze closely the clashes between nations, or between opposing blocs, we discover that there too, both sides are just slaves to pleasurable feeling. A war is not fought because of adherence to a doctrine or an idea…

《The Things We Cling To》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…