The Second Treatise on the Perfections – 2797 

 

unhappy he will be then. His sorrow at the loss of his wealth will be far greater 
than his happiness on becoming suddenly rich. 

In the field of worldly affairs, everything is associated with both enjoyment and 
sorrow. The five sense-pleasures are enjoyable to worldlings. But the Buddha 
says that they are more suffering than enjoyment. Unlike worldlings, however, 
the Buddha’s disciples do not find them enjoyable, much less the Buddha. Yet, 
the Buddha does not say that they are totally devoid of pleasantness; he only 
says that there is little pleasantness but much sorrow in them. 

In any situation, the wise and virtuous always consider first whether there is 
fault or no fault but never whether there is pleasantness or unpleasantness. If 
there is fault, they take no interest in it, even if there is pleasantness. They 
decide it is undesirable to them. If there is no fault, they take it to be desirable 
even if pleasantness is absent. 

Supposing someone is told that he could rule a country as a Universal Monarch 
just for one day, but that the next day he would be executed. Then there would 
be none who dares or desires to rule. From the point of view of a worldling, a 
Universal Monarch’s life for one day, which has never been enjoyed before, may 
be entirely attractive. But as there is the impending death on the following day, 
which is a great disadvantage, there would be nobody who will enjoy one day’s 
life of such a Universal Monarch. 

In the same way, seeing that everything is perishable, the noble ones cannot hold 
temporary pleasure, which occurs just before it vanishes, as enjoyment. One can 
become a noble person only through contemplation that “there is no such thing 
as happiness in this world; everything is impermanent; as there is no 
permanence, there is no happiness; there is but sorrow.” 

Only by developing insight through the contemplation that everything in the 
world is of the nature of suffering, it is possible to become a noble one (

ariya

). 

The aggregates of phenomena, which 

[1629]

 are the objects of such meditation, 

is called a noble truth. In other words, since the noble ones meditate on this 
aggregate of mundane phenomena as they really are, it is called a noble truth. 

The insight that, in the cycle of existence which are called the three worlds, 
there is no enjoyment at all but only suffering, according to the right view held 
by those who are working for the attainment of the noble state and by those who