Bodhicharyavatara Chapter 9, Stanzas 93-97

The previous verses, 89-92, looked at the nature of feeling, and the role of imputation in our interpretation of what is experienced. The next four verses here summarised and discussed by Ringu Tulku look into the cause of feeling: here again using mindful analysis he breaks down in detail the habit of constructing a feeling sensation into something solid. Shantideva’s line of thinking examines three aspects––a sense organ, an object, and consciousness––that are said to come together to create feeling or sensation, and he discusses the widely held belief in part-less particles that philosophers purport to be the basis of the meeting of a sense and an object.

Shantideva dismisses the argument that the sense perception and its object can come together to form something else, and arrives at the conclusion that in truth it is not possible for that to happen. He explains that feeling is a mental construct, rather than an actual event, and it is this habit we have of continually forming constructs and judgements that perpetuate samsaric existence.

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