Karmic Ripening, Nutriment, and the Chapter's Close
The final stretch of the hundred-gate analysis: karmic ripening in its strict sense versus what merely derives from it, the four nutriments graded by purity from an ordinary being's coarse dependence to a buddha's own purely symbolic eating, and what admits something higher versus what admits nothing higher — before the treatise closes 三法品 with three summarizing schemes for how the aggregates, elements, and sense fields can be differentiated at all.
1. Karmic Ripening, Strictly Speaking
云何有異熟？幾是有異熟？為何義故觀有異熟耶？謂不善及善有漏，是有異熟。十界四處諸蘊一分，是有異熟。為捨執著能捨能續諸蘊我故，觀察有異熟。又異熟者，唯阿賴耶識及相應法，餘但異熟生非異熟。
What produces a karmic ripening? How much of everything does so? For what purpose is this examined? Unwholesome dharmas, together with contaminated-wholesome dharmas, produce a karmic ripening. A portion of ten elements, four sense fields, and the aggregates produces a karmic ripening. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as what discards one set of aggregates and continues on into another. Further, only the ālayavijñāna and its associated dharmas are, strictly speaking, karmic ripening itself; everything else that karma produces is merely born from ripening, not ripening proper.
This closing distinction — ripening proper versus what is merely "born from ripening" — is a technical refinement already anticipated in Part 3's account of feeling: only the ālayavijñāna and its own associated feeling (always neutral in tone) count as ripening in the strict sense, since only this consciousness continues, unbroken, across the entire span between one karmic act and its eventual fruit. The eye faculty, the felt pleasure or pain of a particular moment, and every other visible "fruit" of past karma are technically only "born from ripening" — genuine downstream effects, but not themselves the uninterrupted continuum that actually carries a karmic debt from cause to fruit across time.
2. The Four Nutriments, Across Four Grades of Purity
云何食？幾是食？為何義故觀食耶？謂變壞故、有變壞者境界故、有境界者希望故、有希望者取故，有取者是食義。三蘊十一界五處一分，是食。為捨執著由食住我故，觀察食。又此食差別建立，略有四種：一不淨依止住食、二淨不淨依止住食、三清淨依止住食、四示現住食。
What is nutriment? How much of everything is so? For what purpose is this examined? What alters through consumption, what serves as an object for the one who alters, what is hoped for by the one taking that object, and what is grasped by the one hoping — these four together are what nutriment means. A portion of three aggregates, eleven elements, and five sense fields is nutriment. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as abiding by means of food.
Nutriment's distinct forms, further, are established as four kinds: dependence on impure nutriment; dependence on nutriment both pure and impure; dependence on wholly pure nutriment; and nutriment that is merely a manifestation.
The four items in nutriment's own definition map directly onto the classical four nutriments: what alters through consumption is edible food, consumed and physically transformed; what serves as an object is contact, feeding a being through the sheer encounter with an agreeable object; what is hoped for is mental volition, feeding a being through sustained hope for something desired; and what is grasped is consciousness itself — specifically the ālayavijñāna, whose continued holding of the body is what keeps a living being alive at the most basic level, since without it the body simply decomposes.
T1606 maps the fourfold purity scale directly onto four kinds of being: an ordinary desire-realm being, still fully bound by affliction, depends on impure nutriment; a trainee, or an ordinary being already born into the form or formless realm, depends on nutriment both pure and impure, since some affliction still remains; an arhat, already free of every bond, depends on wholly pure nutriment; and a buddha, or a bodhisattva of great, accomplished power, depends on nutriment that is merely a manifestation — eating, when they eat at all, purely as an outward display for the sake of teaching, not out of any actual physical need.
3. What Admits Something Higher, and What Admits Nothing Higher
云何有上？幾是有上？為何義故觀有上耶？謂一切有為故、無為一分故，是有上義。除法界法處一分，一切是有上。為捨執著下劣事我故，觀察有上。云何無上？幾是無上？為何義故觀無上耶？謂無為一分故，是無上義。法界法處一分，是無上。為捨執著最勝事我故，觀察無上。
What admits something higher? How much of everything does? For what purpose is this examined? Every conditioned dharma, together with a portion of the unconditioned, admits something higher. Apart from a portion of the dharma element and dharma sense field, everything admits something higher. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as an inferior thing.
What admits nothing higher? How much of everything is so? For what purpose is this examined? A portion of the unconditioned admits nothing higher. That same portion of the dharma element and dharma sense field admits nothing higher. This is examined in order to abandon clinging to a self conceived as the supreme thing.
T1606 explains why this pair closes the run: nirvāṇa and pure suchness are, among every dharma whatsoever, "the most excellent mark" — nothing surpasses them, which is precisely what makes them the one and only thing genuinely admitting nothing higher. Every conditioned dharma, by contrast, however exalted, always stands beneath something else in the hierarchy — which is exactly the point of examining this pair at all: to abandon clinging to a self conceived as occupying either extreme, whether imagined as something inferior or as something supreme.
4. Three Closing Summaries
The hundred-gate analysis is now complete. The treatise closes 三法品 with three further summarizing schemes — not new categories to examine one by one, but three different ways of stepping back and seeing what all the preceding categories, taken together, actually amount to.
由此所說差別道理，餘無量門可類觀察。復次蘊界處差別略有三種，謂遍計所執相差別、所分別相差別、法性相差別。何等遍計所執相差別？謂於蘊界處中遍計所執我、有情、命者、生者、養者、數取趣者、意生者、摩納婆等。何等所分別相差別？謂即蘊界處法。何等法性相差別？謂即於蘊界處中我等無性、無我有性。
By the principle of differentiation just given, countless further such gateways could be examined in the same manner. Furthermore, the aggregates, elements, and sense fields are, in brief, differentiated three ways: by their discriminated-and-attached-to mark, by their discriminated mark, and by their own true nature's mark.
What is the discriminated-and-attached-to mark? Self, sentient being, life-force, the one born, the one nurtured, the one who takes up rebirth after rebirth, the mind-made being, the young man, and the like — all superimposed onto the aggregates, elements, and sense fields, though none of these actually has any such nature there at all. What is the discriminated mark? Precisely the aggregates, elements, and sense fields themselves, as the very ground onto which self and the rest are falsely discriminated. What is the true nature's mark? Precisely the absence, within the aggregates, elements, and sense fields, of any self and the rest, together with the genuine presence there of a selfless nature.
復有四種差別，謂相差別、分別差別、依止差別、相續差別。何等相差別？謂蘊界處一一自相差別。何等分別差別？謂即於蘊界處中實有假有、世俗有勝義有、有色無色、有見無見，如是等無量差別分別如前說。何等依止差別？謂乃至有情依止差別有爾所，當知蘊界處亦爾。何等相續差別？謂一一剎那蘊界處轉。
There are, further, four kinds of differentiation: differentiation by own-mark, by discrimination, by basis, and by continuity. Differentiation by own-mark is each aggregate, element, and sense field's own distinct particular characteristic. Differentiation by discrimination is the countless further distinctions drawn within the aggregates, elements, and sense fields — real versus nominal existence, conventional versus ultimate truth, having form versus formless, visible versus invisible, and so on, exactly as already given above. Differentiation by basis is that, just as sentient beings themselves differ in number, so too do the aggregates, elements, and sense fields differ correspondingly, one set for each being. Differentiation by continuity is that the aggregates, elements, and sense fields turn over, moment by single moment, without exception.
於相差別善巧為何所了知？謂了知我執過患。於分別差別善巧為何所了知？謂了知聚想過患。於依止差別善巧為何所了知？謂了知不作而得、雖作而失想過患。於相續差別善巧為何所了知？謂了知安住想過患。
What does skill in differentiation by own-mark bring one to understand? The drawbacks of self-grasping. What does skill in differentiation by discrimination bring one to understand? The drawbacks of the notion of a solid heap. What does skill in differentiation by basis bring one to understand? The drawbacks of imagining that something could be gained without acting, or that what has been rightly gained could be lost despite one's action. What does skill in differentiation by continuity bring one to understand? The drawbacks of the notion of a fixed, abiding thing.
又蘊界處有六種差別，謂外門差別、內門差別、長時差別、分限差別、暫時差別、顯示差別。何等外門差別？謂多分欲界差別。何等內門差別？謂一切定地。何等長時差別？謂諸異生。何等分限差別？謂諸有學，及除最後剎那蘊界處所餘無學。何等暫時差別？謂諸無學最後剎那蘊界處。何等顯示差別？謂諸佛及已得究竟菩薩摩訶薩所示現諸蘊界處。
The aggregates, elements, and sense fields, further, admit six kinds of differentiation: outward-facing, inward-facing, long-duration, bounded-duration, momentary, and manifested. Outward-facing differentiation is, for the most part, the desire realm's own differentiation. Inward-facing differentiation is every meditative-absorption realm. Long-duration differentiation belongs to ordinary beings. Bounded-duration differentiation belongs to trainees, and to non-trainees apart from their very last moment. Momentary differentiation belongs specifically to a non-trainee's very last moment. And manifested differentiation belongs to whatever aggregates, elements, and sense fields buddhas and bodhisattvas who have reached the ultimate consummation deliberately display.
These three closing schemes are worth reading together as the treatise's own retrospective on the entire chapter just completed. The three-mark scheme is the three-natures framework used across this site's Cheng Weishi Lun and Mahāyānasaṃgraha pages, applied here specifically to the aggregates: the discriminated-and-attached-to mark is exactly the error the whole chapter has been dismantling one category at a time (superimposing a self where none exists); the discriminated mark is the aggregates themselves, the actual ground of that error; and the true nature's mark is what remains once the superimposition is seen through — not a blank absence, but the genuine presence of a selfless nature. The four-fold and six-fold schemes then each name what a specific kind of skillful examination is actually for: seeing through self-grasping, through the illusion of a solid "heap," through anxious calculation about gain and loss, and through the notion of anything permanently fixed. Taken all together, they close the loop back to the treatise's very first move in Part 1: naming the aggregates, elements, and sense fields was never simply an exercise in classification for its own sake, but a sustained campaign, category by category, against every possible way of smuggling a self back into what is actually there.
三法品 Complete
This closes 三法品 — the treatise's first and by far its longest chapter — in full: the count and marks of the three categories, their detailed internal construction down to the last mental factor, dependent origination and the four conditions, and this closing run of paired and grouped categories dismantling every remaining way a self might be superimposed onto experience. Part 25 turns to the three short chapters that complete 本事分: how the aggregates, elements, and sense fields subsume one another, how they associate, and what it means to possess them at all.
Continue to Part 25 — Subsumption, Association, and Possession →