philosophical background, or we may call it the psychological exposition, of the cause
of pleasure and pain in life.
Now, the sutra takes us to a startling conclusion which makes out that there is no
such thing as pleasure, really; it is all pain only. Even what we call pleasure is only a
confusion of our mind. There is no such thing as pleasure in life. The real substance
behind our experience is only sorrow. It is a kind of trouble that is arisen, but even
this trouble may look like a joy on account of certain prejudiced habits of the mind. If
it insists on taking a particular experience in a particular manner—well, it is left to its
free will and choice. But if we logically analyse the substance of an experience, we will
find that it has not got the character of what we may really call pleasure or happiness.
It is a negative condition that is at the root of all our experiences in life. It is nothing
positive. We are never in a positive state of affairs. We are always in a negative
condition. And, the persistence of something positive, even in the midst of all
negativities, is the cause of misconceiving pain as pleasure.
This is brought out in the famous sutra: pariṇāma tāpa saṁskāra duḥkaiḥ guṇavṛtti
virodhāt ca duḥkham eva sarvaṁ vivekinaḥ (II.15). This painful character of experience
is not visible to the gross mind. Only the subtle perceiving mind can know what an
experience is really made of. The subtlety of vision which is required to detect this
defect in every type of experience is not to be found in every individual. The organ of
perception which is required to discover this fact is something super-physical.
If we put a heavy substance like a chair on our legs, the legs may not feel pain; we
may feel a little weight, but it will not be so painful. But, when we touch our eyeballs
with even a fine silken thread, they will feel it very much and they cannot tolerate it.
Even a huge chair is not felt by our legs, but a fine silken thread cannot be tolerated
by our eyes because of the subtlety of their constitution. Likewise, it is only a very
subtle perception that can discover the defect in things. The gross mind cannot know
that and it will take for granted that everything is all right. The mutation that is
involved in the transitory nature of things in the usual experiences of life is not
discoverable by ordinary perception because the mind of the individual cannot catch
up with the speed of this transitory process.
Because of the inability of the mind to catch up with the speed with which things
move, there is an illusion of substantiality in things, while really there is no such
thing as substantiality. It is all a process. Everything in the world changes
instantaneously during every moment of time, and sometimes this process of change
is compared to the flow of a river or the movement of a flame, which cannot be
regarded as an immovable substantiality but is a constantly moving, changing
process. Though the water in a flowing river may look continuously present, it does
not mean that it does not flow. Every moment we see new water in the river; we are
not seeing the same water. When we go on looking at the Ganges River flowing in
front of us, we are not seeing the same water the next moment, notwithstanding the
fact that we are seeing a continuous presence of a river there. When a flame jets
forth, it does not mean that we are seeing a single substance called the flame of fire.
It is a movement. What we are seeing is a movement, but inasmuch as we are unable
to perceive the gap that is there between one bit of process and another bit, we seem
to be perceiving a continuity, a substantiality, a solidity, and so on.