..續本文上一頁 the mind a soothing calm comparable to the cool shade offered by a tree to travelers oppressed by the sun”s heat. Tranquility operates in two co-occurrent forms, "tranquility of body" and "tranquility of mind," where "mind" signifies the aggregate of consciousness and "body," not the physical organism, but the group of consciousness-adjuncts included in the aggregates of feeling, perception, and mental formations. [19] Thence the arising of tranquility results in the subsiding of disturbances throughout the full extent of the psychodynamic system. It allays the propensity towards excitement, soothes the innervations brought on by rapture, and casts over the meditative endeavor a profound stillness paving the way for deeper states of concentration to follow.

　　Tranquility further induces in both consciousness and its adjuncts the qualitative factors of lightness, malleability, wieldiness, proficiency, and rectitude. These factors, present to some extent in every wholesome state of consciousness, perform the respective tasks of eliminating sluggishness, rigidity, unwieldiness, disability, and insincerity. By holding at bay these mental corruptions destructive to moral and spiritual progress, they enhance the functional efficiency of the mind, rendering it a more tractable instrument for application to the higher stages of the path.

　　Happiness (Sukha)

　　"Tranquility is the supporting condition for happiness": As the yogin”s psychosomatic system is brought to a state of tranquil composure, a feeling of inner happiness or bliss (sukha), unobtrusively present from the start, gains in prominence until it emerges in its own right as a salient feature of the training. Though closely associated with rapture, happiness is not identical with the latter and can arise in its absence. Rapture denotes a mental factor belonging to the fourth of the five aggregates into which Buddhism classifies the psychophysical organism, namely, the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakkhandha). It is a cognitive rather than affective phenomenon, which fuses zestful interest with a sense of joyous delight. Happiness, on the other hand, is a purely hedonic factor belonging to the second aggregate, the aggregate of feelings (vedanakkhandha). It is pleasurable feeling, here, as the happiness conditioned by tranquility, the pleasure, which springs up in meditation as disturbances subside.

　　Rapture is relatively coarse in quality and happiness subtle. Thence, though rapture is always accompanied by happiness, in the higher meditative attainment of the third jhana happiness can remain even after rapture has faded away. The Atthasalini, a commentary to the Abhidhamma-Pitaka, illustrates the difference between them with a vivid simile:

　　A man who, traveling along the path through a great desert and overcome by the heat is thirsty and desirous of drink, if he saw a man on the way, would ask, "Where is water

　　" The other would say, "Beyond the wood is a dense forest with a natural lake. Go there, and you will get some." He hearing these words would be glad and delighted. Going onwards, be would see men with wet clothes and hair, hear the sound of wild fowl and pea-fowl, etc., see the dense forest of green like a net of jewels by the edge of the natural lake, he would see the water lily, the lotus, the white lily, etc., growing in the lake, he would see the clear transparent water, he would be all the more glad and delighted, would descend into the natural lake, bathe and drink at pleasure and, his oppression being allayed, he would eat the fibers and stalks of the lilies, adorn himself with the blue lotus, carry on his shoulders the roots of the mandalaka, ascend from the lake, put on his clothes, dry the bathing cloth in the sun, and in the cool shade where the bree…

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