The last dedicated ālambana chapter in Yogasthāna II. Kauśalya is third in the canonical four-fold order (vyāpī, carita-viśodhana, kauśalya, kleśa-viśodhana); the fourth, kleśa-viśodhana, has no separate chapter — it is treated within sbh2.0 itself, through the four-noble-truths discussion that grounds the supramundane path. The kauśalya-ālambana (skill-object) names five domains in which the practitioner cultivates skill: skandha-kauśalya (skill in the aggregates), dhātu-kauśalya (in the elements), āyatana-kauśalya (in the spheres), pratītyasamutpāda-kauśalya (in dependent origination), and sthānāsthāna-kauśalya (in the possible-and-impossible). Each is treated through both svalakṣaṇa (specific characteristic) and sāmānya-lakṣaṇa (general characteristic) framing.
What is the skill-object? It is said: skill-in-aggregates, skill-in-elements, skill-in-bases, skill-in-dependent-origination, skill-in-the-possible-and-impossible.
What are the aggregates, and what is skill-in-aggregates?
It is said: There are five aggregates. Form-aggregate, feeling-aggregate, [perception-aggregate,] formations-aggregate, and consciousness-aggregate.
The form-aggregate: whatever form there is, all of it is the four great elements, and what is derived from the four great elements. Form is also past, future, or present; inward or outward; gross or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near.
What is the feeling-aggregate?
Feeling arisen in dependence on contact to be felt as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant. The six feeling-bodies: feeling born from eye-contact, and feeling born from ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-contact.
What is the perception-aggregate?
Namely: perception-with-sign, perception-without-sign, limited perception, expansive perception, immeasurable perception, and the perception 'there is nothing' — perception of the base of nothingness. The six perception-bodies: perception born from eye-contact, and perception born from ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-contact.
What is the formations-aggregate?
The six volition-bodies: volition born from eye-contact, and from ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-contact. Setting aside volition and perception — the other mental factors are also formations.
What is the consciousness-aggregate?
Whatever is mind, mental cognition. Again, the six consciousness-bodies: eye-consciousness; ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousness. And this feeling, perception, formations, and this consciousness — Past, future, present; inward or outward — the elevenfold mode-analysis applies as before. These are called the aggregates.
What is skill-in-aggregates?
One who knows these dharmas as taught — by their distinct nature, by their manifold nature, and who does not apprehend anything beyond that, nor conceptually constructs anything beyond that. This, in summary, is called skill-in-aggregates.
What is the distinct nature of the aggregates? The form-aggregate is one thing; the feeling-aggregate is another; and so on, each distinct, up through the consciousness-aggregate. This is distinct nature.
What is manifold nature?
The form-aggregate has many kinds, and is manifold in nature. By the [Damaged/Conjectural: primary-element/derived-form] division; by past, future, present and so on; by kind-distinctions — this is called manifold nature for the form-aggregate. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the remaining aggregates.
And he does not apprehend or conceptually construct anything beyond that. He apprehends only the aggregate, only the substance — and does not, apart from the aggregates, apprehend a self. He does not apprehend anything as permanent, steady, of unchanging nature, nor anything as mine. He does not conceptually construct anything beyond that.
What are the elements?
What is skill-in-elements?
It is said: There are eighteen elements. Eye-element, form-element, eye-consciousness-element; ear-element, sound-element, ear-consciousness-element; nose-element, smell-element, nose-consciousness-element; tongue-element, taste-element, tongue-consciousness-element; body-element, tangible-element, body-consciousness-element, [mind-element,] dharma-element, mind-consciousness-element — these are called the elements.
Furthermore, when one knows that these eighteen dharmas arise from their own respective element, from their own respective seed, from their own respective lineage — that they are born, come forth, and manifest [from these]; and when one knows, accepts, and contemplates this — this is called skill-in-elements. When one knows the proceeding of the eighteen dharmas from their own respective element, this is precisely skill-in-cause-and-condition — this is what skill-in-elements amounts to.
What are the bases?
What is skill-in-bases? It is said: There are twelve bases. Eye-base, form-base; ear-base, sound-base; nose-base, smell-base; tongue-base, taste-base; body-base, tangible-base, mind-base, and dharma-base. These are called the bases.
What is skill-in-bases?
The eye is predominant; forms are the object; for the arising of eye-consciousness with its associates. The immediately-preceding mind is the immediate-condition. Likewise, the ear is predominant, sound is the object, the immediately-preceding mind is the immediate-condition, for the arising of ear-consciousness with its associates. And so on, up through: the immediately-preceding mind, the attention born from it as the predominant-condition, the dharma as object — for the arising of mind-consciousness with its associates. Thus by three conditions — immediate-condition, object-condition, and predominant-condition — the proceeding of the six consciousness-bodies happens, with their associates. Skill-in-cause-and-condition with respect to the inward and outward bases — this is called skill-in-bases.
What is dependent origination? What is skill-in-dependent-origination?
It is said: Ignorance-conditioned formations; formations-conditioned consciousness; consciousness-conditioned name-and-form; [continuing in detail through the twelve links] until: thus is the arising of this whole great mass of suffering. This is called dependent origination.
What follows: dharmas alone produce dharmas; dharmas alone carry dharmas. Formations alone are the carriers of dharmas — because of cause-arisenness, because of dependent-arisenness — not having been, they come into being. Having come into being, they pass away again. Therefore these formations are impermanent; and what is impermanent has the nature of birth, aging, disease, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and distress. By their nature-of-aging up through their nature-of-distress, they are suffering. What is suffering — being not-self-determining, weak — is not-self. When by these aspects there is, with respect to dependently-arisen dharmas, knowing-of-impermanence, knowing-of-suffering, and knowing-of-not-self — this is called skill-in-dependent-origination.
Skill-in-the-possible-and-impossible is also to be understood as just dependent-origination. The distinction is this: By skill-in-the-possible-and-impossible, he knows differentiated causation — that for wholesome and unwholesome actions there is a fruit-of-result; and that for unwholesome actions the fruit is unwished. When the knowing is thus, this is called skill-in-the-possible-and-impossible.
These five skill-domains, in summary, are skill-in-specific-characteristic, and skill-in-general-characteristic. Skill-in-aggregates declares skill-in-specific-characteristic. The remaining four declare skill-in-general-characteristic. This is called the skill-object.