Guarding Against One-Sided Views of Suchness
The Faults of Grasping the Three Natures One-Sidedly問答決擇・示執之失
Part 24 asked, of suchness, the dependent nature, and the discriminated nature in turn: does it exist? Every answer was no. This part explains why the question cannot simply be answered yes instead — by tracing, position by position, exactly which of two classical errors results: 常過, the fault of eternalism, or 斷過, the fault of nihilism. The discussion closes with one of the treatise's most striking historical moments: Fazang's own account of why Bhāviveka and Dharmapāla, who spent their careers refuting each other, were not actually disagreeing at all.
1. Grasping Suchness as Existent: Eternalism
Fazang turns from denial to consequence. If someone insists, against the fourfold guard just completed, that suchness simply is existent — fixed, self-identical, done — what actually goes wrong? An objector immediately raises the obvious counter-example: don't the scriptures themselves call suchness "fixedly constant" (凝然常)? Fazang's answer turns on a distinction between two kinds of constancy.
第二示執過者。若計真如一向是有者。有二過失。一常過。謂不隨緣故。在染非隱故。不待了因故。即墮常過。
Second, showing the faults of such grasping. If one holds that suchness is one-sidedly existent, two faults follow. The first is the fault of eternalism: an existent suchness would not follow conditions; being present within defilement, it would not be hidden; it would not depend on a revealing cause to become manifest — and so it falls into the fault of eternalism.
問諸聖教中。並說真如為凝然常。既不隨緣豈是過耶。答聖說真如為凝然者。此是隨緣成染淨時。恒作染淨而不失自體。是即不異無常之常。名不思議常。非謂不作諸法如情所謂之凝然也。
Question: The sagely teachings all speak of suchness as fixedly constant. Since, on that teaching, it does not follow conditions, how can this be a fault? Answer: When the sages speak of suchness as fixedly constant, this refers to the fact that, at the very time it follows conditions and forms the defiled and the pure, it constantly enacts the defiled and the pure without ever losing its own essence. This is precisely a constancy not different from impermanence, called an inconceivable constancy — it does not mean that suchness fails to enact any dharma at all, remaining fixed in the way deluded feeling imagines.
若謂不作諸法而凝然者。是情所計故即失真常。以彼真常不異無常之常。不異無常之常。出於情外故名真常是故經云。不染而染者。明常作無常也。染而不染者。明作無常時不失常也。
If one holds that suchness is fixed by not enacting any dharma at all, this is merely what deluded feeling conceives, and so one loses true constancy — for that true constancy is a constancy not different from impermanence. And precisely because it is a constancy not different from impermanence, going beyond what deluded feeling supposes, it is called true constancy. Hence a sutra says: "Not defiled, and yet defiled" — showing that the constant enacts the impermanent; "defiled, and yet not defiled" — showing that, in enacting the impermanent, it does not lose the constant.
This is Fazang defusing a scriptural proof-text before an opponent can use it against him. "Fixedly constant" sounds, on its face, exactly like the one-sided existence he has just ruled out. His move is to split "constant" into two senses: a naive constancy that would mean suchness never does anything, and an "inconceivable constancy" that means suchness constantly does everything — forms every defiled and pure state there is — without that activity ever costing it its own nature. The naive reading is the fault of eternalism restated; the inconceivable reading is simply Part 24's two-aspects doctrine, restated defensively against a specific objection.
2. Constant and Impermanent, Traded Both Ways
A second objector pushes the logic further: if suchness can be called constant precisely because it is inseparable from impermanence, why not simply call it impermanent, on the same grounds? And if suchness can carry both descriptions this way, must not the dependent nature — which is, after all, explicitly a dharma of arising and ceasing — carry them too?
問教中既就不異無常之常故。說真如為凝然常者。何故不就不異常之無常故。說真如為無常耶。答教中亦說此義。故經云。如來藏受苦樂。與因俱若生若滅。論云。自性清淨心。因無明風動成染心等。以此教理故知。真如不異常之無常故。隨緣隱體。是非有也。
Question: Since the teachings, taking suchness as a constancy not different from impermanence, speak of suchness as fixedly constant — why do they not, taking it as an impermanence not different from constancy, speak of suchness as impermanent? Answer: The teachings do also state this meaning. Hence a sutra says: "The tathāgatagarbha undergoes suffering and pleasure; together with its causes, it both arises and ceases." And a treatise says: "The intrinsically pure mind, stirred by the wind of ignorance, becomes the defiled mind," and so on. By this teaching and this principle we know that suchness, being an impermanence not different from constancy, hides its own essence as it follows conditions — which is the sense in which it is not one-sidedly existent.
問真如是不生滅法。既不異無常之常故說為常。不異常之無常故。得說無常者。亦可依他是生滅法。亦應得有不異常之無常不異無常之常義耶。答亦得有也。何者。以諸緣起無常之法。即無自性方成緣起。是故不異常性而得無常。故經云。不生不滅是無常義。此則不異於常成無常也。
Question: Suchness is a dharma neither arising nor ceasing; and yet, being a constancy not different from impermanence, it is called constant, and being an impermanence not different from constancy, it can be called impermanent. Should not the dependent nature, which is a dharma of arising and ceasing, likewise carry the meaning of an impermanence not different from constancy, and a constancy not different from impermanence? Answer: It does indeed. Why? Because every impermanent dharma that arises from conditions is established as conditioned arising precisely through having no nature of its own — and so, without differing from a constant nature, it comes to be impermanent. Hence a sutra says: "Neither arising nor ceasing is the meaning of impermanence" — this is impermanence formed without differing from constancy.
又以諸緣起即無自性。非滅緣起方說無性。是則不異無常之常也。故經云。色即是空。非色滅空故。又云。眾生即涅槃。不復更滅等。此中二義與真中二義。相配可知。此即真俗雙融二而無二。故智論云。智障極盲闇。謂真俗別執。此之謂也。
Again, because everything that arises from conditions is without a nature of its own, and naturelessness is spoken of not by way of extinguishing conditioned arising — this, then, is a constancy not different from impermanence. Hence a sutra says: "Form just is emptiness" — not that form is extinguished and only then is there emptiness. And it also says: "Sentient beings just are nirvana; there is nothing further to extinguish," and so on. These two aspects, matched against the two aspects given earlier for suchness, may be understood correspondingly. This is precisely the true and the conventional, both fully interfused, two and yet not two. Hence the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: "The obstruction of what is known is the most utterly blind and dark of all — this refers to grasping the true and the conventional as separate." This is exactly what is meant here.
This is the same "form just is emptiness" that Nāgārjuna's tradition states as a claim about form; Fazang restates it as a claim about time. Suchness is not first constant and then, separately, also active in change — its very constancy consists in nothing other than that ceaseless activity, and the dependent nature's very impermanence consists in nothing other than the changeless naturelessness that makes conditioned arising possible in the first place. Neither side of either pair is achieved by canceling the other out.
3. Grasping Suchness as Existent, Nonexistent, Both, or Neither: All Four Faults
The eternalism argument closes, and Fazang runs the remaining three positions — nihilism, both, neither — each producing its own version of the same two faults.
是故若執真如同情所謂而凝然常者。即不隨緣隱其自體不假了因。即墮常過。又若不隨緣成於染淨。染淨等法即無所依。無所依有法又墮常也。以染淨法皆無自體賴真立故。二斷過者。如情之有即非真有。非真有故即斷有也。又若有者。即不隨染淨。染淨諸法既無自體。真又不隨不得有法。亦是斷也。
Therefore, if one grasps suchness, in the way deluded feeling supposes, as fixedly constant, then it does not follow conditions to hide its own essence and does not depend on a revealing cause — and so it falls into the fault of eternalism. Again, if it did not follow conditions to form the defiled and the pure, then the defiled and pure dharmas would have nothing to depend on; and dharmas existing with nothing to depend on is likewise a fault of eternalism, since defiled and pure dharmas, having no essence of their own, all depend on suchness to be established. The second fault, that of nihilism, is this: an existence as deluded feeling supposes is not a true existence, and because it is not a true existence, this is the nihilistic extreme of existence. Again, if suchness is taken as fixedly existent, then it does not follow the defiled and the pure; and since the defiled and pure dharmas have, of themselves, no essence, if suchness in turn does not follow conditions, then no dharma at all could come to exist — this too is nihilism.
第二執無者。亦有二過失。一常過者。謂無真如生死無依。無依有法即是常也。又無真如聖智無因。亦即常也。又無所依不得有法。即是斷也。又執真如是無。亦即斷也。
Second, grasping suchness as one-sidedly nonexistent likewise involves two faults. The first, a fault of eternalism: without suchness, birth-and-death would have nothing to depend on, and dharmas existing with nothing to depend on is itself eternalism. Again, without suchness, noble wisdom would have no cause — this too is eternalism. Again, with nothing to depend on, no dharma could come to exist at all — this is the fault of nihilism. And simply grasping suchness as nonexistent is likewise nihilism.
第三執亦有亦無者。具上諸失。謂真如無二。而雙計有無。心所計有無非稱於真。失彼真理故是斷也。若謂如彼所計以為真者。以無理有真。是即常也。第四非有非無者。戲論於真。是妄情故失於真理。即是斷也。戲論有真而謂為真者。理無有真故是常也。
Third, grasping suchness as both existent and nonexistent carries all the faults above. For suchness has no duality, and yet this position conceives it doubly, as both existent and nonexistent; and since what the mind thus conceives, as existent and nonexistent, does not match the true, it loses that true principle — hence this is nihilism. And if one holds what is thus conceived to be the true itself, then, there being in principle no such duality yet claiming there is a true, this is eternalism. Fourth, grasping suchness as neither existent nor nonexistent is conceptual proliferation with respect to the true; being a matter of deluded feeling, it loses the true principle — this is nihilism. And if one takes this conceptual proliferation about the true to be the true itself, then, there being in principle no such true, this is eternalism.
Eternalism (常過) and nihilism (斷過) are the two classical extremes Buddhist teaching has warned against since the earliest sutras: treating something as a fixed, independent, permanent thing on one side, treating it as so utterly without basis that cause and effect collapse on the other. What Fazang shows here is that every one of the four logically possible positions on suchness — exists, doesn't exist, both, neither — manages to fall into both extremes at once, from different angles. That is the real payoff of the tetralemma exercise from Part 24: it was never simply a rhetorical trick for refusing to answer. Each "no" was clearing the ground for exactly this demonstration, that any fixed answer collapses into the very two errors the middle way exists to avoid.
4. The Dependent Nature: Existent
The same analysis now runs against the dependent nature. An objection arises immediately: the Mahāyānasaṃgraha itself calls the dependent nature "existent" — so how can existence be a fault here?
第二依他起中。若執有者亦有二失。一常過。謂已有體不藉緣故。無緣有法即是常也。又由執有即不藉緣。不藉緣故不得有法。即是斷也。
Second, as regards the dependent nature: grasping it as one-sidedly existent likewise involves two faults. The first, eternalism: if the dependent nature already possessed its own essence, it would not depend on conditions, and a dharma existing without conditions is eternalism. Again, precisely because one grasps it as existent, it does not depend on conditions — and not depending on conditions, no dharma at all could come to exist. This is nihilism.
問若說依他性是有義。便有失者。何故攝論等。說依他性以為有耶。答聖說依他以為有者。此即不異空之有。何以故。從眾緣無體性故。一一緣中無作者故。由緣無作方得緣起。是故即非之有。名依他有。是則聖者不動真際建立諸法。
Question: If saying that the dependent nature is existent already carries this fault, why does the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and other texts speak of the dependent nature as existent? Answer: When the sages speak of the dependent nature as existent, this is an existence not different from emptiness. Why? Because, arising from manifold conditions, it has no essence of its own; because within each and every condition there is no agent producing an effect; and because it is precisely through the conditions' not themselves acting that conditioned arising is achieved. Hence this is an existence that is, precisely, a non-existence — called the existence of the dependent nature. This is how the sages, without stirring from the true, ultimate reality, establish all dharmas.
若謂依他如言有者。即緣起有性。緣若有性即不相藉。不相藉故即壞依他。壞依他者良由執有。是故。汝意恐墮空斷。勵力立有。不謂不達緣所起法無自性故。即壞緣起便墮空無斷依他故也。
But if one takes the dependent nature to be existent just as the word says, then what arises from conditions would have a nature of its own; and if conditions had a nature of their own, they would not depend on one another — and not depending on one another, the dependent nature itself would be destroyed. The destroying of the dependent nature comes precisely from grasping it as existent. So although your intention, fearing to fall into the nihilism of emptiness, strains to establish existence, you fail to realize that, by not penetrating to the fact that what arises from conditions has no nature of its own, you thereby destroy conditioned arising itself and fall into the very nihilistic destruction of the dependent nature that empty nihilism represents.
The move is the same one Fazang used for suchness's "fixedly constant": a scriptural word that looks, on the surface, like exactly the fault being warned against turns out to name the opposite of that fault, once its own internal logic is followed through. "Existent" applied to the dependent nature never meant self-standing existence; it meant an existence made entirely of dependence, which is to say an existence that is, in the very same breath, an emptiness. Trying to secure the dependent nature's existence by insisting on it literally is, on this analysis, the one sure way to destroy it.
5. The Dependent Nature: Nonexistent — and the Bhāviveka–Dharmapāla Question
The same reasoning runs in reverse for "the dependent nature is empty," a formula the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā itself uses at length. And then Fazang reaches for a live controversy from his own intellectual world: Bhāviveka and Dharmapāla, two towering seventh-century masters, spent their careers refuting each other over exactly this point. Were they simply wrong about each other?
二若執無者亦有二失。若謂依他是無法者。即緣無所起。無所起故不得有法。即是斷也。問若說緣生為空無故。即墮斷者。何故中論等內。廣說緣生為畢竟空耶。答聖說緣生以為空者。此即不異有之空也。何以故。以法從緣生方說無性。是故緣生有者方得為空。若不爾者無緣生因。以何所以而得言空。是故不異有之空名緣生空。此則聖者不動緣生說實相法也。
Second, grasping the dependent nature as one-sidedly nonexistent likewise involves two faults. If one holds the dependent nature to be no dharma at all, then conditions would give rise to nothing; and giving rise to nothing, no dharma at all could come to exist. This is nihilism. Question: If saying that what arises from conditions is empty and nonexistent already falls into nihilism, why does the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and other texts say at length that what arises from conditions is ultimately empty? Answer: When the sages speak of what arises from conditions as empty, this is an emptiness not different from existence. Why? Because it is only of a dharma that arises from conditions that naturelessness is spoken at all — so only where what arises from conditions is existent can it be called empty. Were it otherwise, there would be no cause of conditioned arising by which emptiness could be spoken of at all. Hence this emptiness not different from existence is called the emptiness of conditioned arising — this is how the sages, without stirring from conditioned arising, expound the dharma of true reality.
若謂緣生如言空者。即無緣生。無緣生故即無空理。無空理者良由執空。是故汝意恐墮有見。猛勵立空。不謂不達無性緣生故。即失性空。失性空故還墮情中惡趣空也。
But if one takes what arises from conditions to be empty just as the word says, then there would be no conditioned arising at all; and with no conditioned arising, there would be no principle of emptiness either. The absence of any principle of emptiness comes precisely from grasping emptiness in this fixed way. So although your intention, fearing to fall into the view of existence, fiercely strains to establish emptiness, you fail to realize that, by not penetrating to the fact that naturelessness just is conditioned arising, you thereby lose the emptiness of true nature — and having lost the emptiness of true nature, you fall back into the ruinous emptiness that belongs to deluded feeling.
問若由依他有二義故。是則前代諸論師。各述一義融攝依他不相違者。何故後代論師。如清辯等。各執一義互相破耶。答此乃相成非相破也。何者。為末代有情根機漸鈍聞說依他是其有義。不達彼是不異空之有故。即執以為如謂之有也。是故清辯等。破依他有令至於無。至畢竟無方乃得彼依他之有。若不至此徹底性空。即不得成依他之有。是故為成有故破於有也。
Question: If the dependent nature has these two aspects, such that the treatise-masters of an earlier age, each expounding one aspect, could gather up the dependent nature without contradiction — why is it that later treatise-masters, such as Bhāviveka and others, each grasp one aspect and refute one another? Answer: This is, in fact, a mutual completion, not a mutual refutation. How so? Because, in this latter age, sentient beings' faculties have grown ever duller, so that on hearing the dependent nature spoken of as existent, they fail to grasp that this is an existence not different from emptiness, and instead grasp it as existent just as the word literally says. And so Bhāviveka and others refute the existence of the dependent nature, driving it all the way to nonexistence — for only by reaching that utter nonexistence can the true existence of the dependent nature be attained. Without reaching this thoroughgoing emptiness of nature, the existence of the dependent nature could never be established. Hence, it is precisely in order to establish existence that existence is refuted.
又彼有情聞說依他畢竟性空。不達彼是不異有之空故。即執以為如謂之空。是故護法等。破彼謂空以存幻有。幻有立故方乃得彼不異有之空。以若有滅非真空故。是故為成空故破於空也。以色即是空清辯義立。空即是色護法義存。二義鎔融舉體全攝。若無後代論師以二理交徹全體相奪。無由得顯甚深緣起依他性法。是故相破反相成也。
Again, those same sentient beings, on hearing the dependent nature spoken of as ultimately empty in nature, fail to grasp that this is an emptiness not different from existence, and instead grasp it as empty just as the word literally says. And so Dharmapāla and others refute this fixed notion of emptiness, so as to preserve illusory existence — for only once illusory existence is established can that emptiness not different from existence be attained, since an emptiness that comes only from the extinguishing of existence is not true emptiness. Hence, it is precisely in order to establish emptiness that emptiness is refuted. "Form just is emptiness" is the meaning Bhāviveka establishes; "emptiness just is form" is the meaning Dharmapāla preserves. The two meanings, fused together, take each other up in their entirety. Had there been no later treatise-masters to let the two principles interpenetrate and mutually claim the whole, there would have been no way to bring to light the profound dharma of the dependent nature's conditioned arising. Their mutual refutation is, in fact, a mutual completion.
Bhāviveka (清辯, c. 500–570) and Dharmapāla (護法, 530–561) represent two rival readings of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra that genuinely clashed in sixth-century Indian Buddhism — this is not a dispute Fazang invented for the occasion. His resolution is a distinctively Huayan move: rather than adjudicating which side was right, he reframes the entire quarrel as an instance of the very two-aspects structure this whole section has been establishing. Bhāviveka drives toward emptiness because a duller age needs existence-talk stripped away before it can be trusted; Dharmapāla drives toward existence because that same age needs emptiness-talk anchored before it collapses into nihilism. Neither master, on this reading, was defending a partial truth against the other's error. Each was supplying the corrective an audience prone to one particular misunderstanding actually needed — and it is only because both correctives exist, pulling against each other, that the dependent nature's real character (an existence that just is an emptiness) becomes visible at all. Sharp disagreement, expertly aimed at different failure modes, functioning as a single teaching.
6. The Dependent Nature: Both, Neither — and the Discriminated Nature, All Four
The remaining two positions for the dependent nature are dispatched briefly, and then the same fourfold fault-analysis runs one last time against the discriminated, attached-to nature, closing the whole discussion of faults.
是故如情執無即是斷過。又若說無法為依他者。無法非緣。非緣之法即墮常也。第三亦有亦無者。具上諸失。可以準之。問若據上來所說。依他起性有無偏取。此應不可。雙取有無應契道理。如何亦有具上失耶。答依他起性中。雖具彼有無之理。然全體交徹空有俱融。而如所計亦有亦無者。即成相違具上失也。
So it is that grasping the dependent nature as nonexistent, in the way deluded feeling supposes, is the fault of nihilism. And if one says that the dependent nature is no dharma at all, then this "no dharma" is not itself a condition, and a dharma that is not a condition falls into eternalism. The third position, grasping it as both existent and nonexistent, carries all the faults above and may be understood accordingly. Question: Given what has been said above, taking the dependent nature one-sidedly as either existent or nonexistent should indeed be impossible — should not taking both existence and nonexistence together, then, accord with the principle? How can this too carry the faults above? Answer: Although the dependent nature does contain within it both the principle of existence and of nonexistence, these interpenetrate in their entirety, emptiness and existence both fused together — whereas grasping it, as this position does, as both existent and nonexistent side by side sets up a mutual contradiction, and so it too carries the faults above.
第四非有非無者。戲論緣起亦非理也。何者。以其執者於有無中所計不成故。即以情謂非有非無。為道理也。此既非理。亦具上失。思以準之。
Fourth, grasping the dependent nature as neither existent nor nonexistent is likewise conceptual proliferation about conditioned arising, and not the true principle. How so? Because, since what this position conceives within existence and nonexistence cannot be established, it simply takes the deluded notion of "neither existent nor nonexistent" to be the principle. Since this is not the true principle, it too carries the faults above — this should be considered and understood accordingly.
第三遍計所執性中。若計所執為有者有二過失。謂若所執是其有者。聖智所照理應不空。即是常也。若妄執遍計於理有者。即失情有。故是斷過也。二若執遍計為情無者。即凡夫迷倒不異於聖。即是常也。亦即無凡故是斷也。又既無迷亦即無悟。亦無悟故即無聖人。亦是斷也。
Third, as regards the discriminated, attached-to nature: grasping the discriminated nature as existent carries two faults. If the discriminated nature really were existent, then what noble wisdom illuminates ought not to be empty — this is eternalism. And if one falsely grasps the discriminated nature as existing in principle, then one loses its proper status of merely existing to deluded feeling — this is the fault of nihilism. Second, grasping the discriminated nature as nonexistent even to deluded feeling means that the ordinary being's delusion and inversion would be no different from the sage's realization — this is eternalism; and it also means there would be no ordinary beings at all — this is nihilism. And further, if there is no delusion, then there is no awakening either; and without awakening, there would be no noble ones at all — this too is nihilism.
三亦有亦無者。性既無二。而謂有無即相違故。具上失也。四非有非無者。戲論遍計亦具上失。準以知之。第二執成過竟。
Third, grasping it as both existent and nonexistent: since this nature has no duality, to claim it as both existent and nonexistent sets up a mutual contradiction, and so this too carries the faults above. Fourth, grasping it as neither existent nor nonexistent is likewise conceptual proliferation about the discriminated nature, and carries the faults above as well — this may be understood accordingly. This concludes the second topic, showing the faults of such grasping.
Watch what happens to "both" and "neither" across all three natures: they are never treated as safer middle options between two extremes. Each time, Fazang shows that grasping a nature as literally both existent and nonexistent merely juxtaposes the same two fixed positions side by side rather than actually fusing them — which is a different thing from the genuine, non-oppositional two-aspects unity described back in Part 24 — and that grasping it as neither is not humility but a third fixed position in disguise, "conceptual proliferation" (戲論) masquerading as reticence. The lesson threaded through this entire part is that no verbal formula, however carefully hedged, substitutes for actually seeing how the two aspects of a single nature complete rather than cancel each other.
This closes the treatise's resolving discussion of faults. Part 26 turns to its third and final part — revealing the true meaning directly, nature by nature — before opening an entirely new topic: the six meanings that make something a cause at all.
Part Twenty-Five Complete
This closes Part 25: the faults of grasping suchness fixedly as existent, nonexistent, both, or neither; the same fourfold analysis run against the dependent nature, including Fazang's resolution of the Bhāviveka–Dharmapāla controversy as a mutual completion rather than a contradiction; and the same analysis closing with the discriminated, attached-to nature.
Part 26 gives the positive statement Fazang has been building toward — suchness, the dependent nature, and the discriminated nature each shown to genuinely hold every one of the four positions, existent, nonexistent, both, and neither, without any of the faults just catalogued — and then closes the three-natures topic with a summary showing how the true and the provisional fully interpenetrate, before opening the treatise's next great topic: the six meanings of a cause.