Nor Is It Absent from the Cause
Refuting the Fruit's Absence from the Cause破因中無果品第八
Chapter Seven destroyed the doctrine that the pot was in the clay all along. A reader who expected the opposite doctrine to be adopted instead now finds it destroyed with the same thoroughness — which is what the last chapter meant by standing apart from both. The question here is when: at what moment does a pot arise? Not while it is already a pot, and not while it is still clay, and not at a "moment of arising" that turns out to be half of each. The chapter closes with four short clauses that gather the whole treatise's argument about production into a single grid.
1. When Exactly Does the Pot Arise?
The Outsider opens by insisting the treatise must land somewhere: things arise, so arising either is or is not present in the cause, and one of the two must be chosen. The reply refuses the choice and then asks a question about timing that occupies the rest of the chapter.
外曰：生有故一當成(修妬路)。汝言因緣故諸法生。是生若因中先有？若因中先無？此生有故，必當有一。
內曰：生無生不生(修妬路)。若有生，因中先有？因中先無？如是思惟不可得，何況無生。
Outsider: Since there is arising, one of the two must hold.sūtra You say that things arise through causes and conditions. Is this arising there beforehand in the cause, or not there beforehand in the cause? Since this arising exists, one of the two must certainly be so.
Insider: Neither what arises nor what does not arise arises.sūtra If there is arising, is it there beforehand in the cause, or not there beforehand? Examined in this way it is not to be got — how much less what does not arise at all.
汝若有瓶生，為瓶初瓶時有耶？為泥團後非瓶時有耶？若瓶初瓶時有瓶生者，是事不然。何以故？瓶已有故，是初中後共相因待，若無中後則無初。若有瓶初，必有中後。是故瓶已先有，生復何用？
若泥團後非瓶時瓶生者，是亦不然。何以故？未有故。若瓶無初中後，是則無瓶。若無瓶，云何有瓶生？復次若有瓶生，若泥團後瓶時應有？若瓶初泥團時應有？泥團後瓶時無瓶生。何以故？已有故。亦非瓶初泥團時有瓶生。何以故？未有故。
If you hold that there is an arising of the pot: is it there at the pot's beginning, when it is already a pot? Or is it there after the lump of clay, when it is not yet a pot? That the arising of the pot should be there at the pot's beginning, when it is already a pot, will not do. Why? Because the pot is already there. Beginning, middle and end stand in mutual dependence: if there is no middle and end, there is no beginning; and if there is a beginning of the pot, there must be a middle and an end. So the pot is already there beforehand — and what further use is arising?
And that the arising of the pot should be there after the lump of clay, when it is not yet a pot, will not do either. Why? Because it is not yet there. If the pot has no beginning, middle or end, then there is no pot; and if there is no pot, how should there be an arising of the pot? Furthermore, if there is an arising of the pot, should it be at the time of the pot, after the lump of clay? Or at the time of the lump, at the pot's beginning? At the time of the pot, after the lump of clay, there is no arising of the pot. Why? Because it is already there. Nor is there an arising of the pot at the time of the lump, at the pot's beginning. Why? Because it is not yet there.
The Outsider's opening move is a demand that his opponent take a position, and the refusal is the whole method of this treatise stated in seven characters: 生無生不生. Neither of the alternatives arises, and neither does their negation. This is not evasion — Chapter Seven has just spent its length refuting one horn, and this chapter refutes the other, so the refusal is earned rather than asserted.
The timing argument then puts the same dilemma on a clock. Take the moment you want to call the pot's arising. Is the pot a pot at that moment? Then it has arrived, and arising has nothing left to do. Is it not yet a pot? Then there is no pot there for anything to happen to. Production is supposed to be a transition, and a transition requires a moment at which it occurs — and every moment falls on one side or the other of the change it was supposed to be.
The remark about beginning, middle and end is doing quiet work that will matter in section 3. The Outsider might try to locate the arising at the pot's very first instant, its 初. But a beginning is only a beginning of something that goes on: to have a first moment is already to have a middle and a last. So "the pot's beginning" is not a moment before the pot; it is a part of the pot's existence, and the pot is there.
2. At the Very Moment of Arising
Two attempts to find a third time. First a distinct "time of arising" between the two; then an identification of arising with completion.
外曰：生時生故無咎(修妬路)。我不言若已生、若未生有瓶生，第二法生時是生。
內曰：生時亦如是(修妬路)。生時如先說。若生是則生已，若未生云何有生？生時名半生半未生，二俱過，亦如前破。是故無生。
Outsider: There is no fault, since it arises at the time of arising.sūtra I do not say that the pot's arising is in what has already arisen, or in what has not yet arisen. There is a second thing, the time of arising, and that is where the arising is.
Insider: The time of arising is just the same.sūtra The time of arising is as was said above. If it has arisen, then it has already arisen; and if it has not arisen, how should there be arising? "The time of arising" means half arisen and half not yet arisen, and the faults of both attach to it, as was refuted above. Therefore there is no arising.
外曰：生成一義故(修妬路)。我不言瓶生已有生，亦不言未生有生；今瓶現成，是即瓶生。
內曰：若爾生後(修妬路)。成名生已。若無生，無初無中。若無初，亦無中無成。是故不應以成為生，生在後故。
Outsider: Because arising and completion are one in meaning.sūtra I do not say the pot's arising is in what has already arisen, nor that it is in what has not arisen. The pot stands complete before us now, and that just is the pot's arising.
Insider: If so, arising comes afterward.sūtra "Completion" means having already arisen. If there is no arising, there is no beginning and no middle; and if there is no beginning, there is no middle and no completion. Therefore one should not take completion for arising, since on that account arising would come afterward.
"Half arisen and half not yet arisen" is the treatise's standing answer to any appeal to a moment of transition, and it has been used twice before — against the lamp at the instant of ignition in Part 2, and against the simultaneous arising of seeing and knowing in Part 9. The point is not that gradual change does not happen. It is that "the time of arising" was introduced precisely as a third option, and on inspection it is not a third: it is the first and second stuck together, and it inherits both objections rather than escaping either.
The identification with completion is a different and rather clever move — an attempt to make arising ordinary. Look at the finished pot: that is what arising amounts to; there is no mysterious extra event. The reply simply reads the tenses. 成名生已, completion means having already arisen. It is a perfect tense, and a perfect tense presupposes the event it reports. Point at the finished pot and you have pointed at the aftermath of arising, not at arising, which would then have to have happened before the moment you named.
3. Beginning, Middle, and End
The Outsider stops looking for a single moment and offers a process instead: the pot is built up in stages, so no one instant has to carry the whole transition.
外曰：初中後次第生故無咎(修妬路)。泥團次第生瓶底腹咽口等，初中後次第生，非泥團次有成瓶。是故非泥團時有瓶生，亦非瓶時有瓶生，亦非無瓶生。
Outsider: There is no fault, since beginning, middle and end arise in order.sūtra From the lump of clay there arise in order the pot's base, belly, neck and mouth; beginning, middle and end arise in succession, and it is not that a completed pot follows immediately upon the lump. Therefore there is no arising of the pot at the time of the lump, nor at the time of the pot, nor is there no arising of the pot.
內曰：初中後非次第生(修妬路)。初名無前有後，中名有前有後，後名有前無後。如是初中後共相因待，若離云何有？是故初中後不應次第生。一時生亦不然(修妬路)。若一時生，不應言是初是中是後，亦不相因待，是故不然。
Insider: Beginning, middle and end do not arise in order.sūtra "Beginning" means having nothing before and something after; "middle" means having something before and something after; "end" means having something before and nothing after. In this way beginning, middle and end stand in mutual dependence — and apart from one another, how should any of them be? Therefore beginning, middle and end cannot arise in succession. Nor do they arise at the same time.sūtra If they arise at the same time, one should not call this the beginning, that the middle, and that the end; nor would they stand in mutual dependence. And so this will not do either.
The definitions given here are unusually precise for this treatise and repay attention, because the argument is entirely contained in them. A beginning is what has nothing before it and something after; a middle has both; an end has something before and nothing after. Each is defined by reference to the others — there is no way to say what a beginning is without mentioning what follows it.
So the sequential account is caught. If the beginning arises first, it arises at a time when there is as yet no middle and no end — and a "beginning" with nothing after it does not satisfy the definition of a beginning. It cannot be the first thing to arrive, because it is not anything until the others are there. And the alternative, that all three arrive together, dissolves the ordering that made them beginning, middle and end in the first place.
Notice that this is the long-and-short argument from Part 7 applied to time rather than to size. There, nothing was long except in relation to something short, and mutual dependence turned out not to be a floor to stand on. Here the same structure governs the parts of a process, and with the same result.
4. Arising, Abiding, Breaking Down — and a Regress
The Outsider appeals to a doctrine his opponent also holds: the three marks that make a thing conditioned. If those occur in sequence, so may beginning, middle and end. The reply turns the three marks on themselves, and produces the most famous regress in Madhyamaka.
外曰：如生住壞(修妬路)。如有為相，生住壞次第有，初中後亦如是。
內曰：生住壞亦如是(修妬路)。若次第有？若一時有？是二不然。何以故？無住則無生。若無住有生者，亦應無生有住，壞亦如是。若一時，不應分別是生是住是壞。
Outsider: As with arising, abiding and breaking down.sūtra The marks of the conditioned — arising, abiding and breaking down — occur in succession, and beginning, middle and end are just so.
Insider: Arising, abiding and breaking down are just the same.sūtra Do they occur in succession, or at the same time? Neither will do. Why? Because without abiding there is no arising; and if there could be arising without abiding, there should equally be abiding without arising, and the same for breaking down. And if they occur at the same time, one should not distinguish this as arising, that as abiding, and that as breaking down.
復次一切處有一切(修妬路)。一切處名三有為相，若生住壞亦有為相者，今生中應有三相，是有為法故。一一中復有三相，然則無窮。住壞亦如是。若生住壞中更無三相，今生住壞不名有為相。
若汝謂生生共生如父子，是事不然。如是生生，若因中先有相待？若因中先無相待？若因中先少有少無相待，是三種破情中已說。復次如父先有然後生子，是父更有父，是故此喻非也。
Furthermore, in every place there is everything.sūtra "Every place" means the three marks of the conditioned. If arising, abiding and breaking down are themselves conditioned things, then within arising there must be the three marks, since it is a conditioned thing; and within each of those three there are again three marks, and so there is no end to it. Abiding and breaking down are just the same. And if within arising, abiding and breaking down there are no further three marks, then arising, abiding and breaking down are not marks of the conditioned at all.
And if you say that arising and the arising-of-arising arise together, as father and son do, that will not do. For this arising-of-arising: does it stand in dependence as already present in its cause? or as not present in its cause? or as partly present and partly not? These three were dealt with in the refutation of the faculties. Furthermore, a father exists first and afterward begets a son — and that father has a father in his turn, so this simile does not hold.
The regress is worth stating carefully because it is one of the celebrated arguments of the tradition, and this treatise gives it in miniature where the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā gives it at length in its seventh chapter.
The Abhidharma defines a conditioned thing as one that bears three marks: it arises, abides, and breaks down. Now ask about the arising itself. Is it a conditioned thing? If it is, it must bear the three marks — so there is an arising of the arising, and an abiding of it, and a breaking down of it; and each of those, being conditioned, needs three more. There is no end. But if the arising is not conditioned, then the three marks are not marks of the conditioned after all, since here is one of them that is not conditioned itself.
The Sarvāstivāda answer to this, and it is an ingenious one, was that a primary arising and a secondary arising-of-arising produce each other reciprocally, so the series closes into a loop instead of running on. The father-and-son image is offered for that mutual production. And the reply notes what is wrong with the image in one clause: 是父更有父 — a father has a father. Fathers and sons do not produce each other; they form a line that runs back indefinitely, which is the regress rather than an escape from it.
The back-reference — 破情中已說, "dealt with in the refutation of the faculties" — points to the three-way test in Part 9, where seeing and knowing were asked whether they existed beforehand, did not, or half did. The treatise expects its reader to be carrying these results forward.
5. Arising, and What Can Arise
A new pair, and the Outsider's last structural proposal: arising and the thing that arises are correlative, established together, each requiring the other. It is the strongest form of his position, and it gets three separate refutations.
外曰：定有生可生，法有故(修妬路)。若有生，有可生；若無生，則無可生。今瓶等可生法現有，故必有生。
內曰：若有生無可生(修妬路)。若瓶有生，瓶則已生，不名可生。何以故？若無瓶，亦無瓶生。是故若有生，則無可生，何況無生。復次自他共亦如是(修妬路)。若生、可生是二，若自生、若他生、若共生，破吉中已說。
Outsider: There certainly are arising and what can arise, because the things exist.sūtra If there is arising, there is what can arise; and if there is no arising, there is nothing that can arise. Pots and other things that can arise are present before us now, and so there must be arising.
Insider: If there is arising, there is nothing that can arise.sūtra If the pot has arising, then the pot has already arisen and is not called something that can arise. Why? Because if there is no pot, there is no arising of a pot either. So if there is arising, there is nothing that can arise — how much less if there is no arising. Furthermore, from self, from other, from both — it is the same.sūtra If arising and what can arise are two, then whether they arise from themselves, from another, or from both, this was dealt with in the refutation of the auspicious.
外曰：定有生可生共成故(修妬路)。非先有生後有可生，一時共成。
內曰：生可生不能生(修妬路)。若可生能成生者，則生是可生，不名能生。若無生，何有可生？是故二事皆無。復次有無相待不然(修妬路)。今可生未有故，無生則是有，有無何得相待？是故皆無。
Outsider: There certainly are arising and what can arise, because they are established together.sūtra It is not that arising comes first and what can arise afterward; they are established together at one time.
Insider: Arising and what can arise cannot produce.sūtra If what can arise is able to establish the arising, then the arising is itself a thing that can arise, and is not what does the producing. And if there is no arising, how should there be anything that can arise? So both are absent. Furthermore, mutual dependence between what is and what is not will not do.sūtra What can arise is not yet there, while the arising, not being absent, is there. How should what is and what is not stand in mutual dependence? So both are absent.
外曰：生可生相待故諸法成(修妬路)。非但生可生相待成，是二相待故，瓶等諸物成。
內曰：若從二生，何以無三(修妬路)。汝言生可生相待故諸法成。若從二生果者，何不有第三法，如父母生子。今離生可生，更無有瓶等第三法，是故不然。
Outsider: Because arising and what can arise depend on each other, things are established.sūtra It is not only that arising and what can arise are established in mutual dependence; it is because these two depend on each other that pots and all other things are established.
Insider: If they arise from two, why is there no third?sūtra You say that because arising and what can arise depend on each other, things are established. But if a fruit arises from two, why is there no third thing, as a father and mother beget a son? In fact, apart from arising and what can arise there is no third thing such as a pot — and so this will not do.
The objection about what is and what is not is the sharpest of the three and is easy to skim past. Mutual dependence requires two terms. But look at what the Outsider's pair actually consists of at the moment production is supposed to occur: the arising is present — it is happening — while the thing that can arise is by definition not yet there. One relatum exists and the other does not. A relation cannot hold between something and nothing, so there is no dependence for the two to be established by.
The third refutation is a small piece of wit and also a serious point. If two things in combination produce a result, there should be a third item, distinct from both, as a child is distinct from its parents. Search the situation for that third item and it is not there: subtract arising and what can arise and no pot remains over. So the "production" here is not production at all — nothing has been made, and the vocabulary of parents and offspring has been borrowed for a relation that yields no offspring.
The back-reference 破吉中已說 — "dealt with in the refutation of the auspicious" — sends the reader all the way to Part 2, where the self-other-both analysis was run against the auspicious opening of a book. It is a striking indication of how this treatise is built: an argument established on the lightest possible subject in Chapter One is now being cited, eleven chapters later, against arising itself.
6. The Cause Breaks Down, and the Milk
The Outsider argues from the destruction of the cause: clay is used up in the making, and something must have been made for the using-up to be for. And then the chapter runs the pre-existence question one last time, with a dairy.
外曰：應有生，因壞故(修妬路)。若果不生，因不應壞。今見瓶因壞，故應有生。
內曰：因壞故生亦滅(修妬路)。若果生者，是果為因壞時有耶？為壞後有耶？若因壞時有者，與壞不異，故生亦滅。若壞後有者，因已壞故無因，無因故果不應生。
Outsider: There must be arising, because the cause breaks down.sūtra If the fruit did not arise, the cause should not break down. We see the pot's cause break down, and so there must be arising.
Insider: Since the cause breaks down, the arising ceases too.sūtra If the fruit arises, is that fruit there at the time the cause breaks down, or after it has broken down? If it is there at the time of the breaking, then it is not different from the breaking, and so the arising is also a ceasing. And if it is there after the breaking, then the cause has already broken down and there is no cause; and there being no cause, the fruit should not arise.
復次因中果定故(修妬路)。若因中先有果、先無果，二俱無生。何以故？若因中無果者，何以但泥中有瓶、縷中有布？若其俱無，泥應有布、縷應有瓶。若因中先有果者，是因中是果生。是事不然。何以故？是因即是果，汝法因果不異故。是故因中若先有果、若先無果，是皆不生。
Furthermore, because the fruit in the cause is settled either way.sūtra Whether the fruit is there beforehand in the cause or is not there beforehand, in neither case is there arising. Why? If there were no fruit in the cause, why is it only in clay that there is a pot, and only in thread that there is cloth? If the fruit were absent from both alike, there should be cloth in clay and a pot in thread. And if the fruit were there beforehand in the cause, then it is in this cause that this fruit arises — which will not do. Why? Because then the cause just is the fruit, since in your doctrine cause and fruit are not different. Therefore whether the fruit is there beforehand in the cause or not, in neither case does anything arise.
復次因果多故(修妬路)。若因中先有果者，則乳中有酪酥等，亦酥中有酪乳等。若乳中有酪酥等，則一因中多果。若酥中有酪乳等，則一果中多因。如是先後因果一時俱有過。若因中無果，亦如是過。是故因中有果無果，是皆無生。
Furthermore, because causes and fruits become many.sūtra If the fruit were there beforehand in the cause, then in milk there would be curds and butter and the rest, and in butter there would be curds and milk and the rest. If in milk there are curds and butter, then there are many fruits within one cause; and if in butter there are curds and milk, then there are many causes within one fruit. In this way earlier and later, cause and fruit, would all be present at once — which is a fault. And if there is no fruit in the cause, the same fault follows. Therefore whether there is a fruit in the cause or not, in neither case is there any arising.
The clay-and-thread objection in the middle of this passage is the Outsider's own best argument from Part 11, and it is worth noticing that the Insider states it here himself, in his own mouth, as one horn of a dilemma he is constructing. He is not conceding it; he is showing that both doctrines fail, and the selectivity of materials is the point at which the no-fruit doctrine fails. This is what it looks like to hold neither position.
The dairy argument is a good one and is easy to picture. Milk becomes curds, curds become butter. If the later is already in the earlier, then milk contains curds and butter both — many fruits in one cause. But the relation runs the other way too, and butter would then contain the curds and milk it came from — many causes in one fruit. Push it out and every stage of the process is inside every other stage, and the sequence milk-curds-butter has collapsed into a simultaneous heap. This is the three-times argument from Part 7 arriving at a specific and homely case.
7. A Thing Does Not Produce a Thing
The chapter's conclusion, and one of the treatise's set pieces. Four terms exhaust the possibilities, and the first of them — the only one anybody actually believes — is tested against four different models of how a thing might produce a thing.
外曰：因果不破故，生可生成(修妬路)。汝言因中多果、果中多因為過，不言無因果，是故生可生成。
內曰：物物非物，非物互不生(修妬路)。物不生物，非物不生非物，物不生非物，非物不生物。
Outsider: Since cause and fruit are not refuted, arising and what can arise are established.sūtra You say it is a fault that there should be many fruits in one cause and many causes in one fruit; you do not say that there is no cause and fruit at all. And so arising and what can arise are established.
Insider: A thing and a thing, a non-thing and a non-thing — none of them produce one another.sūtra A thing does not produce a thing; a non-thing does not produce a non-thing; a thing does not produce a non-thing; a non-thing does not produce a thing.
若物生物，如母生子者，是則不然。何以故？母實不生子。子先有，從母出故。若謂從母血分生，以為物生物者，是亦不然。何以故？離血分等母不可得故。若謂如變生，以為物生物者，是亦不然。何以故？壯即變為老，非壯生老故。若謂如鏡中像，以為物生物者，是亦不然。何以故？鏡中像無所從來故。復次如鏡中像與面相似，餘果亦應與因相似。而不然，是故物不生物。
Suppose a thing produces a thing, as a mother bears a son: that will not do. Why? Because a mother does not really produce the son; the son is there beforehand and comes out from the mother. And if you say he arises from a portion of the mother's blood, and take that for a thing producing a thing, that will not do either. Why? Because apart from the portion of blood and the rest, no mother is to be found. And if you say it is like production by change, and take that for a thing producing a thing, that will not do either. Why? Because the prime simply changes into old age; it is not that the prime produces old age. And if you say it is like an image in a mirror, and take that for a thing producing a thing, that will not do either. Why? Because the image in the mirror comes from nowhere at all. Furthermore, as the image in a mirror resembles the face, so every other fruit should resemble its cause — but it does not, and so a thing does not produce a thing.
非物不生非物者，如兔角不生兔角。物不生非物者，如石女不生子。非物不生物者，如龜毛不生蒲。是故無有生法。
復次若物生物者，是應二種法生：若因中有果、若因中無果。是則不然。何以故？若因中先無果者，因不應生果，因邊異果不可得故。若因中先有果，云何生滅？不異故(修妬路)。若瓶與泥團不異者，瓶生時泥團不應滅，泥團亦不應為瓶因。若泥團與瓶不異者，瓶不應生瓶，亦不應為泥團果。是故若因中有果、若因中無果，物不生物。
That a non-thing does not produce a non-thing: as a rabbit's horn does not produce a rabbit's horn. That a thing does not produce a non-thing: as a barren woman does not bear a son. That a non-thing does not produce a thing: as a tortoise's hair does not produce rushes. Therefore there is no such thing as arising.
Furthermore, if a thing produces a thing, it must arise in one of two ways: either there is a fruit in the cause, or there is not. And neither will do. Why? If there were no fruit beforehand in the cause, the cause should not produce the fruit, since no fruit different from the cause is to be found beside it. And if there were a fruit beforehand in the cause, how should there be any arising and ceasing? Because they are not different.sūtra If the pot is not different from the lump of clay, then when the pot arises the lump should not cease, and the lump should not be the pot's cause. And if the lump of clay is not different from the pot, then the pot should not produce a pot, nor be the lump's fruit. Therefore whether there is a fruit in the cause or not, a thing does not produce a thing.
The four terms are a grid, and it is worth seeing that three of the four are conceded immediately by everyone. Nothing produces from nothing — a rabbit's horn begets no rabbit's horns; a barren woman bears no son; tortoise hair grows no rushes. Those three are given the shortest treatment in the chapter, one clause each, because nobody disputes them. All the weight falls on the first, which is the only one anyone believes: that a real thing produces another real thing.
And that one is tested against four models of production, each of a different kind, which is what makes the passage more than a list.
A mother bearing a son. The most natural case of one thing producing another, and the reply is that on inspection nothing was produced: the child was already formed and came out. Birth is an exit, not a manufacture.
Formation from the mother's blood. A better, more material model — the child is built from her substance. But then the "mother" who does the producing is nothing over and above blood and the rest, and there is no producer standing behind the material.
Change. Perhaps production is what happens when a thing alters. The answer is that alteration is not production at all: 壯即變為老，非壯生老 — the prime turns into old age; it does not beget old age. There is one thing in two conditions, and no second thing has been made.
The image in a mirror. The subtlest of the four, and the reply is doubly good. First, a reflection comes from nowhere — 無所從來; it is not a thing that was made and then arrived, which is precisely why mirror-images are the standard image for what appears without being produced. And second, if production were like reflection, every effect would resemble its cause the way an image resembles a face. But effects mostly do not resemble their causes at all: a pot is not clay-shaped, a fire is not wood-shaped, a sprout is not seed-shaped.
The chapter's last dilemma then closes the book on Chapters Seven and Eight together, and it is worth reading as their joint conclusion. If the pot is not different from the clay, then the clay did not perish when the pot came, and was not its cause. If the clay is not different from the pot, then the pot produced itself. Between them, Chapter Seven and Chapter Eight have shown that a fruit already in its cause cannot arise and a fruit absent from its cause cannot arise — which does not leave the treatise with no account of change, but with the one Part 11 gave: continuation without anything carried over, and breaking down without anything cut off.
Part Twelve Complete
This closes Part Twelve, and with it the treatise's treatment of causation: the moment of arising sought and found to fall always on one side of the change or the other; the "time of arising" that is half of each; completion, which is a perfect tense and so reports what is already over; beginning, middle and end, each of which needs the others in order to be what it is; the three marks of the conditioned turned on themselves and running away without end; arising and what can arise, which cannot depend on each other because one of them is not yet there; the milk that would contain its own butter and be contained by it; and the four terms of production, of which only one was ever believed and which fails on the mother, the blood, the change, and the mirror alike.
Two chapters remain. Chapter Nine turns to the things the Outsider has been keeping in reserve all along — the ones with no causes at all, and therefore nothing to be refuted by an argument about causes: space, time, direction, the atom, and nirvāṇa itself. And then Chapter Ten turns on the treatise, and asks the question a reader has been holding since Chapter One.