The Three Natures, and How They Are Not Two
The Sameness and Difference of the Three Natures三性同異義
A new fascicle begins here — the fourth and last of the source text's own four — and with it the treatise's tenth and final gate: 義理分齊, the principle itself. Everything before this point has classified teachings, lineages, stages, and buddha-bodies. Now Fazang turns to state the metaphysics underneath all of it, starting with the three natures inherited from Yogācāra: the perfectly accomplished, the dependent, and the discriminated, attached-to nature. Each, he says, has two aspects — and it is by holding those two aspects together, never letting either eclipse the other, that the true is shown to fully pervade the false to its very root, and the false to penetrate back to the true source.
1. The Fourfold Gate of the Principle Itself
The source text marks the turn with a bare colophon — "Fascicle Four," and beneath it, the name of the monk who composed the whole work. Then, without further preamble, the treatise's tenth and final gate opens, and announces its own four-part structure in a single breath.
唐大薦福寺沙門法藏述
第十義理分齊者有四門。一三性同異義。二緣起因門六義法。三十玄緣起無礙法。四六相圓融義。初三性同異說有二門。先別明後總說。別中亦二。先直說後決擇。前中三性各有二義。
Composed by Fazang, a śramaṇa of the Great Recommending-Fortune Monastery of the Tang.
The tenth [gate], the principle itself, has four sub-gates within it: first, the sameness and difference of the three natures; second, the six meanings of a cause in dependent origination; third, the ten mysterious gates of unobstructed dependent origination; fourth, the perfect interfusion of the six characteristics. The first topic, the sameness and difference of the three natures, is treated under two headings: first stated distinctly, then stated as a whole. The distinct statement itself has two parts: first a direct exposition, then a resolving discussion by question and answer. In the direct exposition, each of the three natures has two aspects.
This is the treatise's philosophical summit, and Fazang tells the reader so by the sheer weight of structure he hangs on it: four sub-gates, the last two of which — the Ten Mysterious Gates and the Six Characteristics — are themselves famous enough to be studied as freestanding doctrines centuries later. Parts 24 through 27 of this collection cover only the first two sub-gates, the three natures and the six meanings of a cause; the Ten Mysterious Gates and the Six Characteristics follow from Part 28 onward. Everything here is, in effect, the foundation those two culminating doctrines are built on: a cause cannot mean six things at once, and a single instant cannot be shown to contain the whole cosmos, unless the three natures have first been shown to be neither simply the same nor simply different.
2. Each Nature, Two Aspects
Fazang names the two aspects of each nature, then draws the conclusion that matters most: taken one way, all three collapse into a single, undifferentiated sameness.
真中二義者。一不變義。二隨緣義。依他二義者。一似有義。二無性義。所執中二義者。一情有義。二理無義。
Suchness's two aspects are, first, the unchanging aspect, and second, the condition-following aspect. The dependent nature's two aspects are, first, the aspect of seeming to exist, and second, the aspect of having no nature of its own. The discriminated, attached-to nature's two aspects are, first, the aspect of existing to deluded feeling, and second, the aspect of being, in truth, nonexistent.
由真中不變．依他無性．所執理無。由此三義故。三性一際同無異也。此則不壞末而常本也。經云。眾生即涅槃。不復更滅也。
Because suchness is unchanging, because the dependent nature has no nature of its own, and because the discriminated nature is nonexistent in truth — by these three aspects the three natures are one and the same, without difference. This is the branch left undestroyed while the root remains constant. A sutra says: "Sentient beings just are nirvana; there is nothing further to extinguish."
又約真如隨緣．依他似有．所執情有。由此三義亦無異也。此則不動本而常末也。經云。法身流轉五道。名曰眾生也即。由此三義與前三義是不一門也。是故真該妄末妄徹真源。性相通融無障無礙。
Again, taking suchness as condition-following, the dependent nature as seeming to exist, and the discriminated nature as existing to deluded feeling — by these three aspects, likewise, there is no difference. This is the root left unmoved while it remains constantly the branch. A sutra says: "The dharma-body, turning through the five destinies, is called a sentient being." These three aspects, together with the former three, together form a gate of non-identity. This is why the true fully pervades the false to its very root, and the false thoroughly penetrates back to the true source — nature and characteristic interfuse without obstruction and without hindrance.
Match this against the site's own Cheng Weishi Lun and Mahāyānasaṃgraha pages and the terms are identical: the perfectly accomplished nature (圓成實性), the dependent nature (依他起性), and the discriminated, attached-to nature (遍計所執性) are exactly Vasubandhu's parikalpita, paratantra, and pariniṣpanna. What is new here is Fazang's move: rather than simply defining the three, he pairs each with a second, opposite-facing aspect — unchanging and condition-following for suchness, seeming-existent and natureless for the dependent nature, deluded-existent and truly-nonexistent for the discriminated nature — and then shows that one member of each pair (unchanging, natureless, truly-nonexistent) is the same fact stated three ways, and the other member of each pair (condition-following, seeming-existent, deluded-existent) is likewise the same fact stated three ways. Two ways of grouping the same six aspects, two different sames.
真該妄末，妄徹真源 — "the true fully pervades the false to its very root, and the false thoroughly penetrates back to the true source" — is the sentence this whole section exists to earn. It is not a devotional flourish. It says, technically, that there is no floor beneath the false where suchness stops reaching, and no depth to suchness that samsara's turning fails to touch.
3. Two Aspects, One Nature — Not a Contradiction
Two questions test the claim just made. The first asks whether the dependent nature's "seeming existence" secretly collapses into the discriminated nature's "existing to deluded feeling." The second, larger question asks how any single nature can have two aspects — one affirming, one negating — without simply contradicting itself. Fazang answers with the treatise's best-loved image: a mirror.
問依他似有等。豈同所執是情有耶。答由二義故。故無異也。一以彼所執執似為實故無異法。二若離所執似無起故。真中隨緣當知亦爾。以無所執無隨緣故。
Question: The dependent nature's seeming existence and so forth — how could that be the same as the discriminated nature's existing to deluded feeling? Answer: For two reasons there is, in fact, no difference. First, because the very attachment involved in the discriminated nature grasps the seeming as real, so that no separate dharma is set up. Second, because apart from that attachment, the seeming itself would never arise. Suchness's condition-following aspect should be understood in just the same way: without the attachment there would be no condition-following.
問如何三性各有二義不相違耶。答以此二義無異性故。何者無異。且如圓成。雖復隨緣成於染淨而恒不失自性清淨。秪由不失自性清淨故。能隨緣成染淨也。猶如明鏡現於染淨。雖現染淨而恒不失鏡之明淨。秪由不失鏡明淨故。方能現染淨之相。以現染淨知鏡明淨。以鏡明淨知現染淨。是故二義唯是一性。雖現淨法不增鏡明。雖現染法不污鏡淨。非直不污。亦乃由此反顯鏡之明淨。
Question: How can each of the three natures have two aspects without those two aspects contradicting one another? Answer: Because these two aspects have no separate essence of their own — they are not two different natures. How so? Take the perfectly accomplished nature: although it follows conditions and forms the defiled and the pure, it never loses its own intrinsically pure essence; and it is precisely because it never loses that intrinsically pure essence that it is able to follow conditions and form the defiled and the pure. It is like a bright mirror manifesting defiled and pure images: although it manifests the defiled and the pure, it never loses the mirror's own brightness and purity, and it is precisely because it never loses that brightness and purity that it is able to manifest the marks of the defiled and the pure. From its manifesting the defiled and the pure we know the mirror's brightness and purity; from the mirror's brightness and purity we know its manifesting the defiled and the pure. Therefore the two aspects are simply one and the same essence. Although it manifests pure things, the mirror's brightness is not increased; although it manifests defiled things, the mirror's purity is not stained — and not merely is it not stained, but by this very manifesting the mirror's brightness and purity are, conversely, made manifest.
當知真如道理亦爾。非直不動性淨成於染淨。亦乃由成染淨方顯性淨。非直不壞染淨明於性淨。亦乃由性淨故方成染淨。是故二義全體相收一性無二。豈相違耶。
Suchness's own principle should be understood in exactly the same way: not only does its unmoving, intrinsically pure nature form the defiled and the pure, but it is precisely by forming the defiled and the pure that its intrinsically pure nature is made manifest; and not only does its unceasing formation of the defiled and the pure make the intrinsically pure nature clear, but it is precisely because of that intrinsically pure nature that the defiled and the pure come to be formed at all. Therefore the two aspects, in their entirety, gather into one another as a single, undivided nature. How could they be in contradiction?
The mirror does not become dirty when it reflects mud, and it does not become brighter when it reflects gold — its own brightness and clarity are exactly what make either reflection possible in the first place, and the reflecting is, in turn, the only way that brightness and clarity ever become visible to anyone. Neither side of the pair is prior to the other; each is the other's own evidence. That circularity is not a flaw in the argument. It is the argument: two "aspects" that turn out, on inspection, never to have been separable events to begin with, only two descriptions of a single fact.
4. Why the Dependent and the Discriminated Are the Same Way
Having settled the perfectly accomplished nature, Fazang gives the identical treatment — one aspect proving the other, rather than opposing it — to the dependent nature and then to the discriminated, attached-to nature, closing the direct exposition with citations from the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.
依他中。雖復因緣似有顯現。然此似有必無自性。以諸緣生皆無自性故。若非無性即不藉緣。不藉緣故。故非似有。似有若成必從眾緣。從眾緣故必無自性。是故由無自性得成似有。由成似有是故無性。
As for the dependent nature: although it manifests as a seeming existence produced by causes and conditions, this seeming existence necessarily has no nature of its own, since everything born from conditions is without a nature of its own. Were it not without a nature of its own, it would not depend on conditions at all — and not depending on conditions, it could not be a seeming existence. If a seeming existence is to come about, it must arise from manifold conditions; and arising from manifold conditions, it must be without a nature of its own. So it is that, precisely because it is without a nature of its own, it comes to be a seeming existence — and precisely because it comes to be a seeming existence, it is without a nature of its own.
故智論云。觀一切法從因緣生。從因緣生即無自性。無自性故即畢竟空。畢竟空者。是名般若波羅蜜。此則由緣生故。即顯無性也。中論云。以有空義故。一切法得成者。此則由無性故即明緣生也。涅槃經云。因緣故有。無性故空。此則無性即因緣。因緣即無性。是不二法門故也。非直二義性不相違。亦乃全體相收畢竟無二也。
Hence the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: "Observe that all dharmas are born from causes and conditions; being born from causes and conditions, they are without a nature of their own; being without a nature of their own, they are ultimately empty. What is ultimately empty is called the perfection of wisdom." This shows naturelessness precisely by way of conditioned arising. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā says: "It is because there is the meaning of emptiness that all dharmas can be established" — this clarifies conditioned arising precisely by way of naturelessness. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says: "Because of causes and conditions there is existence; because there is no nature of its own, there is emptiness." This means that naturelessness just is causes-and-conditions, and causes-and-conditions just is naturelessness — this is the dharma-gate of non-duality. Not only, then, do the two aspects not contradict each other in nature; in their entirety they gather into one another, and in the end are utterly without duality.
所執性中。雖復當情稱執現有。然於道理畢竟是無。以於無處橫計有故。如於木杌橫計有鬼。然鬼於木畢竟是無。如於其木鬼不無者。即不得名橫計有鬼。以於木有非由計故。今既橫計。明知理無。由理無故得成橫計。成橫計故方知理無。是故無二唯一性也。當知所執道理亦爾。上來直明竟。
As for the discriminated, attached-to nature: although it appears to exist, matching a deluded feeling of attachment, in truth and in the end it does not exist — since one wrongly conceives existence in a place where there is none. It is like wrongly conceiving a ghost in a tree-stump: the ghost is, in the end, simply not there in the stump at all. If the ghost were not absent from the stump, one could not call it a wrongly-conceived ghost, since in that case the stump's having a ghost would not be due to conception in the first place. But since it is, here, a matter of wrongly conceiving, this shows plainly that in principle there is nothing there — and it is precisely because there is nothing there in principle that the wrong conception can come about, and precisely because the wrong conception comes about that one knows there is nothing there in principle. Therefore these are not two but a single nature. The discriminated nature's own principle should be understood in just the same way. This concludes the direct exposition above.
Three citations, three schools, one point. The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā are Nāgārjuna's own tradition — the emptiness teaching this site's Sanlun-school pages translate in full — and Fazang reads them as saying the very same thing from opposite ends: one text moves from conditioned arising to naturelessness, the other from naturelessness to conditioned arising, and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra states both directions in a single line. For a Huayan thinker, Madhyamaka emptiness and Yogācāra's "dependent nature" are not two rival analyses that must be adjudicated between — they are the same insight, examined from its two ends.
The stump-and-ghost example is a stock illustration of 遍計所執, and it is worth being precise about what it is illustrating, since it is easy to mistake it for simple skepticism ("there is no ghost, full stop"). The point is narrower and stranger: the very fact that a mistake is possible already proves there is nothing there to be mistaken about. If the stump actually harbored something ghost-like, then seeing a ghost in it would not be a wrong conception at all — it would be an accurate perception. Error, in other words, is not evidence against the discriminated nature's total unreality; it is the proof of it.
5. Guarding Against One-Sided Views
The direct exposition is finished. Fazang now turns to a resolving discussion in three parts — first guarding against discriminating attachment, then showing the faults such attachment falls into, then revealing the true meaning directly — and opens the first part with an extended fourfold pattern of denial: is suchness existent? Is it nonexistent? Both? Neither? Every answer is no, and each "no" is followed by a reason that keeps the question from being answerable any other way either.
第二問答決擇者。於中有三門。第一護分別執。第二示執之失。第三顯示其義。初門護執者。問真如是有耶。答不也。隨緣故。問真如是無耶。答不也。不變故。問亦有亦無耶。答不也。無二性故。問非有非無耶。答不也。具德故。
Second, the resolving discussion by question and answer has three parts within it: first, guarding against discriminating attachment; second, showing the faults of such attachment; third, revealing the true meaning. The first part, guarding against attachment: Question: Does suchness exist? Answer: No — because it follows conditions. Question: Is suchness nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is unchanging. Question: Is it both existent and nonexistent? Answer: No — because it has no two separate natures. Question: Is it neither existent nor nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is replete with every virtue.
又問有耶。答不也。不變故。何以故。由不變故。隨緣顯示。問無耶。答不也。隨緣故。何以故。由隨緣故。不變常住也。餘二句可知。又問有耶。答不也。離所謂故。下三句例然。
Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it is unchanging. Why? Because, being unchanging, it is nonetheless manifested through following conditions. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it follows conditions. Why? Because, following conditions, it is nonetheless unchanging and ever-abiding. The remaining two positions may be understood accordingly. Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it is apart from whatever could be so designated. The three remaining positions follow the same pattern.
又問有耶。答不也。空真如故。問無耶。答不也。不空真如故。問亦有亦無耶。答不也。離相違故。問非有非無耶。答不也。離戲論故。又問有耶。答不也。離妄念故。問無耶。答不也。聖智行處故。餘句準之。
Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it is empty suchness. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is non-empty suchness. Question: Is it both existent and nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is free of mutual contradiction. Question: Is it neither existent nor nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is free of conceptual proliferation. Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it is apart from deluded thought. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is the very domain in which noble wisdom moves. The remaining positions follow accordingly.
The pattern running through this whole exchange — existent? nonexistent? both? neither? — is the classical Indian tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi), a device that exhausts every logically available position on a question and then denies all four. It is not evasion. The claim is that "existence" and "nonexistence," as ordinarily understood, are both built for talking about conditioned things that either are or are not there — and suchness is neither a conditioned thing nor simply absent, so no answer built from that vocabulary can fit it without distortion. Fazang runs the same fourfold pattern, with fresh reasons each time, against the dependent nature and the discriminated nature later in this same discussion (continued in the next part of this collection), showing that all three natures resist being pinned down the same way, each for reasons proper to what it is.
6. The Dependent Nature and the Discriminated Nature, Guarded the Same Way
The fourfold guard now runs against the dependent nature, and then against the discriminated, attached-to nature — each denial answered, again, with a reason proper to that nature.
依他性者。問依他是有耶。答不也。緣起無性故。問依他是無耶。答不也。無性緣起故。問亦有亦無耶。答不也。無二性故。問非有非無耶。答不也。有多義門故。
As for the dependent nature: Question: Does the dependent nature exist? Answer: No — because what arises from conditions has no nature of its own. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because what has no nature of its own arises from conditions. Question: Is it both existent and nonexistent? Answer: No — because it has no two separate natures. Question: Is it neither existent nor nonexistent? Answer: No — because it has many gates of meaning.
又問有耶。答不也。緣起故。何以故。以諸緣起皆無性故。問無耶。答不也。無性故。何以故。以無性故。成緣起也。餘二句可知。又以緣起雖於四句。又以無性故亦離四句。並可知矣。
Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it arises from conditions. Why? Because everything that arises from conditions is without a nature of its own. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is without a nature of its own. Why? Because it is precisely by being without a nature of its own that conditioned arising is accomplished. The remaining two positions may be understood accordingly. Again: though conditioned arising can be spoken of within the four positions, yet because it is without a nature of its own it is also apart from all four positions — this too may be understood.
又問依他有耶。答不也。約觀遣故。問無耶。答不也。能現無生故。下二句離相違故。離戲論故可知。又問有耶。答不也。異圓成故。又約遍計分故。又離所謂故。問無耶。答不也。異遍計故。以圓成分故。又智境故。餘句準之。
Question again: Does the dependent nature exist? Answer: No — because contemplation dispels it. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is able to manifest the truth of non-arising. The remaining two positions may be understood as, respectively, free of mutual contradiction and free of conceptual proliferation. Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because it differs from the perfectly accomplished nature, and again because of its discriminated portion, and again because it is apart from whatever could be so designated. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it differs from the discriminated nature, being, in part, the perfectly accomplished nature, and again because it is the domain of wisdom. The remaining positions follow accordingly.
遍計所執者。問遍計是有耶。答不也。理無故。問是無耶。答不也。情有故。問亦有亦無耶。答不也。無二性故。問非有非無耶。答不也。所執性故。
As for the discriminated, attached-to nature: Question: Does the discriminated nature exist? Answer: No — because in principle it does not exist. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because it exists to deluded feeling. Question: Is it both existent and nonexistent? Answer: No — because it has no two separate natures. Question: Is it neither existent nor nonexistent? Answer: No — because it is, precisely, the attached-to nature.
又問有耶。答不也。無道理故。問無耶。答不也。無道理故。餘句準知。又問有耶。不也。執有故。又問無耶。不也。執有故。又亦有亦無耶。不也。執有故。又非有非無耶。不也。執成故。
Question again: Does it exist? Answer: No — because there is no principle to it. Question: Is it nonexistent? Answer: No — because there is no principle to it. The remaining positions follow accordingly. Question again: Does it exist? No — because it is precisely the attachment to existence. Question: Is it nonexistent? No — because it is precisely the attachment to existence. Is it both existent and nonexistent? No — because it is precisely the attachment to existence. Is it neither existent nor nonexistent? No — because it is precisely what that attachment establishes.
又有耶。不也。由無相故。又無耶。不也。無相觀境故。餘句準之。又有耶。不也。無體故。又無耶。不也。能曀真故。餘句準之。
Again: does it exist? No — because it is without a characteristic. Again: is it nonexistent? No — because it is the very object contemplated in the absence of characteristics. The remaining positions follow accordingly. Again: does it exist? No — because it has no substance of its own. Again: is it nonexistent? No — because it is able to obscure suchness. The remaining positions follow accordingly.
Notice how the same fourfold pattern gives structurally different answers for each of the three natures. Suchness is denied every position because it stands outside the vocabulary of existence and nonexistence altogether. The dependent nature is denied every position because, arising from conditions, it undercuts the very distinction between existing and not existing that the question presupposes. The discriminated nature is denied every position for a third reason again: whatever is said about it — that it exists, that it does not, that it is both, that it is neither — is itself only more attachment, since the discriminated nature just is attachment, and attachment cannot certify its own object from the outside. Fazang is not being evasive fourteen times over. He is showing that the tetralemma itself needs to be run differently against a real thing that transcends the categories (suchness), an interdependent process that undercuts them (the dependent nature), and a pure projection that exemplifies them without limit (the discriminated nature).
The discussion continues in the next part of this collection with an account of the faults — eternalism on one side, nihilism on the other — that follow from actually holding any one of these four positions fixedly, rather than merely being asked about it.
Part Twenty-Four Complete
This closes Part 24: the opening of Gate 10, the principle itself, in the source text's fourth and final fascicle; the naming of each of the three natures' two aspects; the mirror simile showing why those two aspects never contradict one another; the citations from the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra that seal the point for the dependent nature; the stump-and-ghost illustration for the discriminated nature; and the opening round of the fourfold guard against grasping suchness, the dependent nature, and the discriminated nature each one-sidedly.
Part 25 continues the same resolving discussion with its second part: the faults — eternalism and nihilism, named and shown in each case — that result from actually holding any of the four positions the previous part only asked about.