(9.88cd) And if pleasant feelings are truly existent,
Why do delicious tastes not bring joy to one who is grieving?

The Prasangika objection here is easy to understand. When we are in a bad mood or when we are experiencing a good deal of suffering, things that would normally make us happy do not anymore. In fact, when we experience them, we want to push them away and find them to be intrusive. Our mind is simply incapable of appreciating anything good because it is entirely preoccupied with the bad.

(9.89) (Other schools) “Such a person does develop pleasant feelings, but he or she does not experience them
Because they are suppressed by the strength of the painful feelings.”

This objection from the other schools makes sense to us. If we just lost a loved one and we were at the reception after the funeral, we would be very sad. However, if we eat some cake at the reception, there would be part of us that enjoys the cake even though generally speaking we are sad. We might not enjoy it as much as we normally would on our birthday, but there is still a degree of enjoyment in our mind from eating the cake. It has simply been reduced or suppressed due to the strength of the painful feelings we have.

(9.89cd) How can there possibly be a feeling
That is not experienced?

The Prasangika answer here is the other schools are grasping at there being two different minds experiencing two different feelings that somehow cancel each other out in some way. But the reality is at any one time we only have one consciousness which experiences one feeling. The mixed feeling of sadness at the death of our loved one and enjoyment of the cake creates a single combined feeling that we experience. There are not two consciousnesses experiencing two feelings that are neutralizing each other. There is only one consciousness and one feeling of a grieving person eating cake. To say otherwise is to say there is a feeling of greater suffering from the death of the loved one that is not being experienced but nonetheless exists and likewise there is a greater feeling of pleasure from the cake that is not being experienced but nonetheless exists. How can something that is not being experienced be considered a feeling that exists since it is not actually being experienced?

(9.90) (Other schools) “When a strong pleasant feeling occurs, there is still a subtle painful feeling.
The gross feeling of pain is dispelled, and the subtle pain that remains
Becomes the nature of a subtle pleasant feeling.”

Here the other schools are saying that the full experience of sadness at the death of our loved one still exists , with part of it being manifest and part of it being in a subtle form that is suppressed from the pleasure we gain from eating the cake.  Again, this makes sense to us. We are still equally sad about the death of our loved one, and that sadness has not gone away, we just aren’t experiencing it as intensely because of pleasure associated with the cake.

Well then, that subtle feeling is a pleasant feeling, not a painful one!

The Prasangika reply if that is the case, then how can you call the painful part that is not manifest a painful feeling when it is currently being experienced as a pleasant feeling? Even conventionally, to say that the painful feeling takes the form of a pleasant feeling makes no sense because a painful feeling is not a pleasant feeling. What is actually experienced is a reduced painful feeling. The normal painful feeling we would otherwise be experiencing if we did not eat the cake is replaced with a reduced painful feeling of that experienced by a grieving person eating cake. The former feeling no longer exists and only the latter feeling exists. What need is there to say there exists a painful feeling of sadness that is not being experienced, a pleasant feeling of the cake we would be experiencing if we were not grieving that is also not being experienced, and a combined feeling of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Only the latter is actually experienced, therefore only that exists. The other two types of feeling are purely conceptual and never actually experienced by anybody. This shows two things. First, that the feelings change, and therefore do not exist inherently. And second, that the non-experienced feelings do not exist at all.