The Five Aggregates as Foam and Bubbles
The verse turns to one of the oldest images in the tradition: form as gathered foam, feeling as a bubble on water, perception as a shimmering heat-haze, volitional formations as a plantain trunk with nothing solid at its core, and consciousness as an illusion — before moving to dependent origination itself, described as neither existence nor nonexistence, and entered as the middle way.
Flowing While Coming from Nowhere
The verse holds two claims together without resolving the tension: affliction, karma, and suffering, taken as cause, constantly flow and turn — and yet none of it comes from anywhere, goes anywhere, or abides anywhere at all. Dependent origination, described immediately after as neither existence nor nonexistence, is what allows both to be true.
觀色如聚沫，受如水上泡，
想如熱時焰，諸行如芭蕉。
心識猶如幻，示現種種事；
如是知諸蘊，智者無所著。
諸處悉空寂，如機關動轉；
諸界性永離，妄現於世間。
"Observing that form is like gathered foam, feeling is like a bubble upon water, perception is like a shimmering heat-haze, and volitional formations are like the trunk of a plantain tree.
Consciousness is exactly like an illusion, manifesting every kind of affair; knowing the aggregates in this way, the wise have nothing at all to cling to.
Every sense-base is entirely empty and still, like a mechanism turning through its own movements; the very nature of every element is forever free of grasping, though it falsely appears within the world.
菩薩住真實，寂滅第一義，
種種廣宣暢，而心無所依。
無來亦無去，亦復無有住，
煩惱業苦因，三種恒流轉。
緣起非有無，非實亦非虛，
如是入中道，說之無所著。
The bodhisattva abides in what is truly real, in the still extinction of the ultimate meaning, expounding it widely and fully in every kind of way, and yet the mind rests upon nothing at all.
Without coming and without going, and likewise without any abiding at all; and yet affliction, karma, and suffering as cause — these three constantly flow and turn.
Dependent origination is neither existence nor nonexistence, neither real nor unreal; entering in this way into the middle way, he speaks of it while clinging to nothing at all.
無來亦無去，亦復無有住，煩惱業苦因，三種恒流轉 — without coming and without going, and likewise without any abiding at all; and yet affliction, karma, and suffering as cause — these three constantly flow and turn. The cycle of affliction, karma, and suffering is described here as genuinely flowing and turning, never idle — and, in the same breath, as having no point of origin, no destination, and no place where it ever actually rests.
Part 817 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-nine. Part 818 continues the verse, moving from manifesting the entire three times within a single thought to establishing the three vehicles and every dharma of the path in a single teaching.