Cause and Fruit, Dissolution, and the Tathāgata
Examining Cause and Fruit — Examining the Tathāgata觀因果品第二十 — 觀如來品第二十二
Chapter 20 returns to causation with one thing newly in view: the assembly of conditions, the coming-together that is supposed to do the producing. Nāgārjuna asks when the fruit could possibly appear — before the assembly, after it, or at the same moment — and finds no time available. Chapter 21 turns to coming-to-be and dissolution and shows that the series we call birth-and-death has no findable beginning, middle, or end. Then Chapter 22 turns the whole apparatus on the Buddha himself: the Tathāgata is not the aggregates, not apart from them, does not possess them, is not in them and does not contain them — and the emptiness that search discloses is not a diminishment but the plainest thing that could be said about him.
The Text
Chapter 20 · Examining Cause and Fruit 觀因果品第二十
The opponent has a new and rather good move. Grant that no single condition contains its fruit — nobody claimed it did. What produces the pot is not the clay alone or the water alone but their coming together, the 和合, the assembly. Causal power lives in the assembly, not in any of its members. Chapter 20 spends twenty-four verses on that assembly, and its method is temporal: it simply asks when the fruit shows up.
Is the Fruit in the Assembly, or Not? 和合
問曰：眾因緣和合現有果生故，當知是果從眾緣和合有。
答曰：
Question: Since a fruit is plainly seen to arise when the host of causes and conditions assembles, one should know that this fruit exists by way of that assembly.
Answer:
若眾緣和合， 而有果生者；
和合中已有， 何須和合生？
If, when the host of conditions assembles,
a fruit thereupon arises,
then it is already there in the assembly —
why should the assembly need to produce it?
若謂眾因緣和合有果生，是果則和合中已有。而從和合生者，是事不然。何以故？果若先有定體，則不應從和合生。
問曰：眾緣和合中雖無果，而果從眾緣生者，有何咎？
答曰：
If you say that a fruit arises when the host of causes and conditions assembles, then that fruit is already there within the assembly — and that it should then arise from the assembly will not do. Why? If the fruit already has a fixed substance beforehand, it ought not to arise from the assembly at all.
Question: Suppose there is no fruit in the assembly of the host of conditions, and the fruit arises from the host of conditions all the same. What fault is there in that?
Answer:
若眾緣和合， 是中無果者，
云何從眾緣， 和合而果生？
If, when the host of conditions assembles,
there is no fruit within it,
how does a fruit arise
from that host of conditions assembling?
若從眾緣和合則果生者，是和合中無果，而從和合生。是事不然。何以故？若物無自性，是物終不生。復次：
If a fruit arises when the host of conditions assembles, then there is no fruit in the assembly and yet it arises from the assembly. This will not do. Why? If a thing has no inherent nature (svabhāva), that thing never arises at all. Furthermore:
若眾緣和合， 是中有果者；
和合中應有， 而實不可得。
If, when the host of conditions assembles,
there is a fruit within it,
then it should be found in the assembly —
but in fact it cannot be found.
若從眾緣和合中有果者，若色應可眼見、若非色應可意知，而實和合中果不可得。是故和合中有果，是事不然。復次：
If there were a fruit in the assembly of the host of conditions, then if it were material it should be visible to the eye, and if it were not material it should be knowable by the mind. But in fact no fruit can be found in the assembly. Therefore that there is a fruit in the assembly will not do. Furthermore:
若眾緣和合， 是中無果者；
是則眾因緣， 與非因緣同。
If, when the host of conditions assembles,
there is no fruit within it,
then the host of causal conditions
is no different from a non-condition.
若眾緣和合中無果者，則眾因緣即同非因緣。如乳是酪因緣，若乳中無酪，水中亦無酪。若乳中無酪，則與水同，不應言但從乳出。是故眾緣和合中無果者，是事不然。
If there is no fruit in the assembly of the host of conditions, then the host of causal conditions is the same as a non-condition. Milk, for instance, is the causal condition of curds. But if there are no curds in the milk, there are no curds in water either; and if there are no curds in the milk, then milk stands on a par with water, and one ought not to say that curds come out of milk alone. Therefore that there is no fruit in the assembly of the host of conditions will not do.
The dilemma is the same one Chapter 1 put to the single condition, but the opponent has moved the causal power to a better hiding place, and it is worth seeing why the move fails. Nobody thinks the pot is in the clay. The claim is that the pot is in the clay-and-water-and-wheel-and-potter taken together, and that this is a different kind of claim. It is not. An assembly is not a new thing with new properties; it is some things standing next to each other. Ask the same question of the assembly and you get the same two answers, and both are fatal. If the pot is in there, the assembling has nothing left to do. If it is not in there, then the assembly has no more claim on the pot than anything else in the world does.
Piṅgala's milk is the sharpest form of it. We say curds come from milk and not from water, and we mean something real by that: milk turns, water does not. But where is the curd-making, if you go looking? Not in the milk — pour it out and analyze it and you will find no curds. And once you have said there are no curds in the milk, you have said exactly what you would say about the water. The distinction we all rely on has stopped being locatable at the very moment we tried to locate it.
Notice what is not being said. Nāgārjuna does not conclude that milk and water are interchangeable. He concludes that the difference between them is not a hidden curd-essence sitting inside the milk. It is a difference in how things behave in dependence on everything else — which is to say, it is exactly as real, and exactly as empty, as everything else. The mistake is not believing in causation. The mistake is thinking causation is a possession.
When Could the Fruit Arrive? 一時俱
問曰：因為果作因已滅，而有因果。無如是咎。
答曰：
Question: The cause, having acted as cause for the fruit, then ceases — and so there is cause and fruit. On that account there is no such fault.
Answer:
若因與果因， 作因已而滅，
是因有二體， 一與一則滅。
If a cause, being cause to its fruit,
ceases once it has acted as cause,
then that cause has two substances:
one that gives, and one that ceases.
若因與果作因已而滅者，是因則有二體：一謂與因；二謂滅因。是事不然，一法有二體故。是故因與果作因已而滅，是事不然。
問曰：若謂因不與果作因已而滅，亦有果生，有何咎。
答曰：
If the cause ceases once it has acted as cause for the fruit, then that cause has two substances: the first is the cause that gives, the second the cause that ceases. This will not do, since one thing would have two substances. Therefore that the cause ceases once it has acted as cause for the fruit will not do.
Question: Then suppose the cause ceases without having acted as cause for the fruit, and a fruit arises all the same. What fault is there?
Answer:
若因不與果， 作因已而滅，
因滅而果生， 是果則無因。
If the cause gives nothing to the fruit
and ceases once it has acted as cause,
and the fruit arises once the cause has ceased,
then that fruit has no cause at all.
若是因不與果作因已而滅者，則因滅已而果生，是果則無因。是事不然。何以故？現見一切果，無有無因生者。是故汝說因不與果作因已而滅亦有果生者，是事不然。
問曰：眾緣合時而有果生者，有何咎？
答曰：
If the cause ceases without having given anything to the fruit, then the fruit arises after the cause has already ceased, and that fruit has no cause. This will not do. Why? Because it is plain to see that among all fruits there is not one that arises without a cause. Therefore your claim — that the cause ceases without having given to the fruit and yet there is the arising of a fruit — will not do.
Question: Suppose the fruit arises at the very time the host of conditions comes together. What fault is there?
Answer:
若眾緣合時， 而有果生者，
生者及可生， 則為一時俱。
If, at the time the conditions come together,
a fruit thereupon arises,
then what produces and what can be produced
are together at one and the same time.
若眾緣合時有果生者，則生者可生即一時俱。但是事不爾。何以故？如父子不得一時生。是故汝說眾緣合時有果生者，是事不然。
問曰：若先有果生，而後眾緣合，有何咎？
答曰：
If a fruit arises at the time the host of conditions comes together, then the producer and the producible are together at one time. But this is not how it is. Why? A father and a son, for instance, cannot be born at the same moment. Therefore your claim that a fruit arises at the time the host of conditions comes together will not do.
Question: Then suppose the fruit arises first and the host of conditions comes together afterwards. What fault is there?
Answer:
若先有果生， 而後眾緣合，
此即離因緣， 名為無因果。
If the fruit arises first
and the conditions come together after,
then it stands apart from causal conditions
and is called a fruit without a cause.
若眾緣未合而先有果生者，是事不然，果離因緣故則名無因果。是故汝說眾緣未合時先有果生者，是事則不然。
If a fruit arises before the host of conditions has come together, this will not do; for the fruit then stands apart from causal conditions, and is called a fruit without a cause. Therefore your claim that the fruit arises before the host of conditions has come together will not do.
These four verses are a clock problem. There are exactly three moments at which a fruit could arrive relative to its cause — after, at the same time, or before — and the chapter walks around all three.
After. This is the common-sense answer: the cause does its work and then gets out of the way. But look at what that requires of the cause. It has to do two different things — give, and stop — and Piṅgala presses on the seam: is the giving-cause the same thing as the ceasing-cause? If it is one thing with two jobs, we have granted it two substances. If it is not, then whatever ceased is not what gave, and the fruit is left with nothing behind it. Verse 6 draws the line the whole treatise refuses to cross: no fruit arises without a cause. That is not a concession; it is the guardrail.
At the same time. Verse 7 is dispatched with the plainest image in the chapter, and it is worth pausing on because it is so ordinary. A father and a son are not born in the same instant. If they were, neither would be father or son to the other; they would just be two people. The producer must precede the produced, or the relation is not a relation at all. Simultaneous causation is not causation with the timing tightened up. It is a picture with the causation quietly removed.
Before. And a fruit that shows up ahead of its conditions is precisely the causeless fruit that verse 6 already ruled out. So the chapter has closed all three doors — not by finding something wrong with the world, but by finding that our account of production has no moment left to happen in. Nothing here says the pot never gets made. It says that the making, when you hunt for it, is not an event you can catch anywhere on the clock.
Turning, Reaching, Pervading 變．至．遍
問曰：因滅變為果者，有何咎？
答曰：
Question: Suppose the cause ceases and turns into the fruit. What fault is there?
Answer:
若因變為果， 因即至於果，
是則前生因， 生已而復生。
If the cause turns into the fruit,
then the cause reaches as far as the fruit;
and then the cause that arose before,
having already arisen, arises again.
因有二種：一者前生；二者共生。若因滅變為果，是前生因應還更生。但是事不然。何以故？已生物不應更生。若謂是因即變為果，是亦不然。何以故？若即是不名為變，若變不名即是。
問曰：因不盡滅但名字滅，而因體變為果，如泥團變為瓶，失泥團名而瓶名生。
答曰：泥團先滅而有瓶生，不名為變。又泥團體不獨生，瓶瓫甕等皆從泥中出。若泥團但有名，不應變為瓶，變名如乳變為酪。是故汝說因名雖滅而變為果，是事不然。
問曰：因雖滅失而能生果，是故有果。無如是咎。
答曰：
There are two kinds of cause: the first arises before its fruit, the second arises together with it. If the cause ceases and turns into the fruit, then the cause that arose before would have to arise once more. But this will not do. Why? Because what has already arisen ought not to arise again. And if you say that the cause is itself what turns into the fruit, that will not do either. Why? If it is the very same thing, it is not called turning; and if it turns, it is not the very same thing.
Question: The cause does not cease altogether — only its name ceases, while the substance of the cause turns into the fruit. A lump of clay turns into a pot: the name "lump of clay" is lost, and the name "pot" arises.
Answer: The lump of clay ceases first and then a pot arises; that is not called turning. Besides, the substance of a lump of clay does not give rise to one thing only — pots, basins, and jars all come out of clay. And if the lump of clay were nothing but a name, it could not turn into a pot; a real turning is what one has when milk turns into curds. Therefore your claim that the cause turns into the fruit though its name ceases will not do.
Question: Though the cause is lost in ceasing, it is still able to produce a fruit, and so there is a fruit. On that account there is no such fault.
Answer:
云何因滅失， 而能生於果？
又若因在果， 云何因生果？
How can a cause that has ceased and is lost
still be able to produce a fruit?
And if the cause is present in the fruit,
how does the cause produce the fruit?
若因滅失已，云何能生果？若因不滅而與果合，何能更生果？
問曰：是因遍有果而果生。
答曰：
If the cause has ceased and is lost, how can it produce a fruit? And if the cause has not ceased but is joined with the fruit, how can it produce that fruit all over again?
Question: The cause pervades the fruit throughout, and so the fruit arises.
Answer:
若因遍有果， 更生何等果？
因見不見果， 是二俱不生。
If the cause already pervades the fruit,
what further fruit does it produce?
Whether the cause sees the fruit or does not see it,
in neither case does it produce.
是因若不見果，尚不應生果，何況見！若因自不見果，則不應生果。何以故？若不見果，果則不隨因。又未有果，云何生果？若因先見果，不應復生，果已有故。復次：
If the cause does not see the fruit, it ought not to produce the fruit — how much less if it does see it! If the cause does not itself see the fruit, then it ought not to produce it. Why? If it does not see the fruit, the fruit does not follow upon the cause; and if the fruit is not there yet, how could it be produced? And if the cause sees the fruit beforehand, it ought not to produce it again, since the fruit is already there. Furthermore:
若言過去因， 而於過去果，
未來現在果， 是則終不合。
若言未來因， 而於未來果，
現在過去果， 是則終不合。
若言現在因， 而於現在果，
未來過去果， 是則終不合。
If you speak of a past cause
in relation to a past fruit,
or a future or a present fruit —
in the end they never meet.
If you speak of a future cause
in relation to a future fruit,
or a present or a past fruit —
in the end they never meet.
If you speak of a present cause
in relation to a present fruit,
or a future or a past fruit —
in the end they never meet.
過去果不與過去、未來、現在因合。未來果不與未來、現在、過去因合。現在果不與現在、未來、過去因合。如是三種果，終不與過去、未來、現在因合。復次：
A past fruit does not meet with a past, a future, or a present cause. A future fruit does not meet with a future, a present, or a past cause. A present fruit does not meet with a present, a future, or a past cause. So these three kinds of fruit never in the end meet with a past, a future, or a present cause. Furthermore:
若不和合者， 因何能生果？
若有和合者， 因何能生果？
If they do not come together,
how can a cause produce a fruit?
And if they do come together,
how can a cause produce a fruit?
若因果不和合則無果，若無果云何因能生果？若謂因果和合時因能生果者，是亦不然。何以故？若果在因中，則因中已有果，云何而復生？復次：
If cause and fruit do not come together there is no fruit; and if there is no fruit, how can the cause produce a fruit? And if you say the cause produces the fruit at the time cause and fruit come together, that will not do either. Why? If the fruit is in the cause, then the cause already has the fruit in it — how should it arise all over again? Furthermore:
若因空無果， 因何能生果？
若因不空果， 因何能生果？
If the cause is empty of the fruit,
how can the cause produce the fruit?
And if the cause is not empty of the fruit,
how can the cause produce the fruit?
若因無果者，以無果故因空，云何因生果？如人不懷姙，云何能生子？若因先有果，已有果故不應復生。復次，今當說果。
If the cause has no fruit in it, then, having no fruit, it is empty of it — how does such a cause produce a fruit? Just as a woman who is not pregnant: how could she bear a child? And if the cause has the fruit in it beforehand, then, the fruit being already there, it ought not to arise again. Furthermore, we shall now speak of the fruit.
The Fruit, Empty and Not Empty
果不空不生， 果不空不滅，
以果不空故， 不生亦不滅。
果空故不生， 果空故不滅，
以果是空故， 不生亦不滅。
If the fruit is not empty it does not arise;
if the fruit is not empty it does not cease;
because the fruit is not empty,
it neither arises nor ceases.
Because the fruit is empty it does not arise;
because the fruit is empty it does not cease;
because the fruit is empty,
it neither arises nor ceases.
果若不空，不應生、不應滅。何以故？果若因中先決定有，更不須復生，生無故無滅，是故果不空故不生不滅。若謂果空故有生滅，是亦不然。何以故？果若空，空名無所有，云何當有生滅？是故說果空故不生不滅。復次，今以一異破因果。
If the fruit is not empty, it ought not to arise and ought not to cease. Why? If the fruit is already fixedly present in the cause, there is no further need for it to arise; and since there is no arising, there is no ceasing. This is why it is said that because the fruit is not empty, it neither arises nor ceases. And if you say that the fruit has arising and ceasing because it is empty, that will not do either. Why? If the fruit is empty — "empty" here naming having nothing at all — how should there be arising and ceasing? This is why it is said that because the fruit is empty, it neither arises nor ceases. Furthermore, we shall now break cause and fruit by way of identity and difference.
因果是一者， 是事終不然；
因果若異者， 是事亦不然。
若因果是一， 生及所生一；
若因果是異， 因則同非因。
若果定有性， 因為何所生？
若果定無性， 因為何所生？
因不生果者， 則無有因相，
若無有因相， 誰能有是果？
若從眾因緣， 而有和合生，
和合自不生， 云何能生果？
是故果不從， 緣合不合生；
若無有果者， 何處有合法？
That cause and fruit are one —
this in the end will not do;
and that cause and fruit are different —
this will not do either.
If cause and fruit were one,
producer and produced would be one;
if cause and fruit were different,
the cause would be no different from a non-cause.
If the fruit definitely has a nature,
what is there for the cause to produce?
If the fruit definitely has no nature,
what is there for the cause to produce?
If the cause does not produce the fruit,
then it has no mark of a cause;
and if there is no mark of a cause,
who could possibly have such a fruit?
If from a host of causes and conditions
there is an arising by assembly,
and the assembly does not itself arise,
how can it produce a fruit?
Therefore the fruit does not arise
from conditions assembled or unassembled;
and if there is no fruit,
where is there any assembling at all?
是眾緣和合法，不能生自體。自體無故，云何能生果？是故果不從緣合生，亦不從不合生。若無有果者，何處有合法？
This assembly of the host of conditions cannot produce its own substance. And having no substance of its own, how could it produce a fruit? Therefore the fruit does not arise from conditions assembled, nor from conditions unassembled. And if there is no fruit, where is there any assembling at all?
Verses 17 and 18 are the pair every reader of this treatise should keep in a pocket, because they show that Nāgārjuna is not running an argument for one side. Take the fruit as not empty — as having a fixed nature of its own — and it can neither arise nor cease, since what is already fully itself has nothing to become. Then take the fruit as empty in the opponent's sense, meaning "nothing whatsoever," and it can neither arise nor cease either, since sheer nothing has no career. Both horns are refused, and refused with the same four lines rearranged.
The second horn is the one to sit with. Piṅgala glosses it in five characters — 空名無所有, "'empty' naming having nothing at all" — and that gloss is the exact misunderstanding this treatise is written against. If emptiness meant nothingness, then verse 18 would be Nāgārjuna refuting himself, which is plainly not what is happening. He is refuting a homonym. The emptiness he teaches is the absence of a fixed, self-sufficient nature; the "emptiness" he demolishes here is the absence of the thing. Confuse the two and Chapter 20 reads as nihilism. Keep them apart and it reads as what it is: a demonstration that fixity is what makes change impossible, and that things arise precisely because they have no nature holding them still.
Verse 21 is the same point in one breath. If the fruit definitely has a nature, there is nothing left for the cause to do; if it definitely has none, there is nothing for the cause to work on. Notice the word doing the damage in both halves: 定 — definitely, fixedly. Remove that word and the difficulty evaporates. This is the shape of nearly every argument in the treatise, and it is why the conclusion in Chapter 24 is not a reversal but a release: it is because of emptiness that everything can be accomplished.
And so the chapter ends where it began, with the assembly — but now the assembly has been asked the question it was invented to escape. Does the coming-together of conditions itself arise? If it does, it needs its own assembly, and we are off to infinity. If it does not, it has no substance of its own, and a thing with no substance of its own is a strange place to have hidden all our causal power. The last line is almost gentle: with no fruit, where is there any assembling? Cause, fruit, and their coming-together stand or fall as one, because none of the three was ever a thing in its own right. They are three names for one dependent event.
Chapter 21 · Examining Coming-to-Be and Dissolution 觀成壞品第二十一
Two words govern this chapter. 成 is coming-to-be — formation, a thing's coming together into being. 壞 is dissolution — breaking down, falling apart. Piṅgala glosses them as plainly as they can be glossed: coming-to-be is the gathering of conditions, dissolution their scattering. The opponent opens with what looks like the most obvious observation anyone could make about the world.
Neither Apart nor Together
問曰：一切世間事現是壞敗相，是故有壞。
答曰：
Question: Everything in the world plainly shows the marks of breaking down and decay. Therefore there is dissolution.
Answer:
離成及共成， 是中無有壞；
離壞及共壞， 是中亦無成。
Apart from coming-to-be, and together with it,
there is no dissolution to be found;
apart from dissolution, and together with it,
there is no coming-to-be either.
若有成、若無成，俱無壞。若有壞、若無壞，俱無成。何以故？
Whether there is coming-to-be or there is not, in neither case is there dissolution. Whether there is dissolution or there is not, in neither case is there coming-to-be. Why?
若離於成者， 云何而有壞？
如離生有死， 是事則不然。
成壞共有者， 云何有成壞？
如世間生死， 一時俱不然。
若離於壞者， 云何當有成？
無常未曾有， 不在諸法時。
If it stands apart from coming-to-be,
how can there be dissolution?
It would be to have death apart from birth:
this will not do.
If coming-to-be and dissolution are present together,
how can there be either of them?
It would be as if birth and death in the world
occurred at one and the same time: not so.
If it stands apart from dissolution,
how should there be coming-to-be?
There has never yet been a time
when impermanence was absent from things.
若離成，壞不可得。何以故？若離成有壞者，則不因成有壞，壞則無因，又無成法而可壞。成名眾緣合，壞名眾緣散，若離成有壞者，無成誰當壞？如無瓶，不得言瓶壞，是故離成無壞。
若謂共成有壞者，是亦不然。何以故？法先別成而後有合，合法不離異。若壞離異，壞則無因，是故共成亦無壞。
若離壞共壞無有成者，若離壞有成，成則為常，常是不壞相。而實不見有法常不壞相，是故離壞無成。若謂共壞有成者，是亦不然。成壞相違，云何一時有？如人有髮無髮不得一時俱，成壞亦爾，是故共壞有成是事不然。何以故？若謂分別法者，說成中常有壞。是事不然。何以故？若成中常有壞，則不應有住法；而實有住，是故若離壞共壞不應有成。復次：
Apart from coming-to-be, dissolution cannot be found. Why? If there were dissolution apart from coming-to-be, then dissolution would not depend on coming-to-be and would have no cause; and there would be nothing that had come to be for it to dissolve. "Coming-to-be" names the gathering of a host of conditions, "dissolution" their scattering. If there were dissolution apart from coming-to-be, then with nothing come to be, what would there be to dissolve? Where there is no pot, one cannot say the pot has broken. Therefore apart from coming-to-be there is no dissolution.
And if you say there is dissolution together with coming-to-be, that will not do either. Why? Things first come to be separately and only afterwards are joined, and what is joined is not free of difference. If dissolution stood apart from that difference, dissolution would have no cause. Therefore together with coming-to-be there is no dissolution either.
As for there being no coming-to-be either apart from dissolution or together with it: if there were coming-to-be apart from dissolution, coming-to-be would be permanent, and what is permanent bears the mark of never dissolving. But in fact no thing is ever seen to bear the mark of being permanent and never dissolving. Therefore apart from dissolution there is no coming-to-be. And if you say there is coming-to-be together with dissolution, that will not do either. Coming-to-be and dissolution are mutually opposed — how could they be present at one time? Just as a person cannot have hair and be without hair at the same moment, so it is with coming-to-be and dissolution; therefore that there is coming-to-be together with dissolution will not do. Why? If someone who makes distinctions among things says that dissolution is always present within coming-to-be, that will not do. Why? If dissolution were always present within coming-to-be, there ought to be no abiding of anything at all — and yet things do abide. Therefore neither apart from dissolution nor together with dissolution should there be coming-to-be. Furthermore:
成壞共無成， 離亦無有成，
是二俱不可， 云何當有成？
Together with dissolution, no coming-to-be;
apart from it, no coming-to-be either;
since neither of the two will do,
how should there be coming-to-be at all?
若成壞共亦無成、離亦無成。若共成則二法相違，云何一時？若離則無因。二門俱不成，云何當有成？若有應說。
問曰：現有盡滅相法。是盡滅相法，亦說盡亦說不盡，如是則應有成壞。
答曰：
There is no coming-to-be together with dissolution, and none apart from it. For if they were together, the two are mutually opposed — how could they be at one time? And if they were apart, there would be no cause. Since neither gate establishes it, how should there be coming-to-be? If there is, you should say so.
Question: There plainly are things bearing the marks of exhaustion and cessation, and of such things one speaks both of exhaustion and of non-exhaustion. In that case there should be coming-to-be and dissolution.
Answer:
盡則無有成， 不盡亦無成；
盡則無有壞， 不盡亦不壞。
With exhaustion there is no coming-to-be,
and without exhaustion, none either;
with exhaustion there is no dissolution,
and without exhaustion, no dissolution either.
諸法日夜中念念常滅盡，過去如水流不住，是則名盡。是事不可取、不可說，如野馬無決定性可得。如是盡無決定性可得，云何可得分別說有成？是故言盡亦不成。成無故，亦不應有壞，是故說盡亦無有壞。又念念生滅常相續不斷故名不盡，如是法決定常住不斷。云何可得分別說言今是成時？是故說無盡亦無成。成無故無壞，是故說不盡亦無壞。如是推求，實事不可得，故無成無壞。
Things cease and are exhausted moment after moment, day and night; what is past flows on like water and does not stay. This is what is called exhaustion. It cannot be grasped and cannot be stated; it is like a mirage, in which no fixed nature can be found. And since exhaustion likewise has no fixed nature that can be found, how could one pick it out and say there is coming-to-be? This is why it is said that with exhaustion there is no coming-to-be; and since there is no coming-to-be there should be no dissolution either, which is why it is said that with exhaustion there is no dissolution. Again, because arising and ceasing follow one another moment by moment without a break, this is called non-exhaustion — and such a thing would be fixedly permanent and unbroken. How then could one pick out a moment and say, "now is the time of coming-to-be"? This is why it is said that without exhaustion there is no coming-to-be; and since there is no coming-to-be there is no dissolution, which is why it is said that without exhaustion there is no dissolution either. Searching in this way, no real thing can be found; and so there is neither coming-to-be nor dissolution.
The opponent's opening line is the strongest card anyone has in this debate, and it should be given its full weight: everything is visibly falling apart, therefore there is dissolution. Bodies age, buildings crumble, the milk turns. What could be more obvious?
Nāgārjuna's reply is not to deny the crumbling. It is to notice that "dissolution" is a word with a hidden second half. There is no dissolution of nothing; a pot must first be a pot before it can break. So dissolution needs coming-to-be. But dissolution also cannot happen while the thing is coming to be — Piṅgala's image is a person who cannot be haired and bald in the same instant. Which leaves the two terms unable to occupy the same moment and unable to occupy separate moments, because each requires the other to be doing something. Try to pull them apart and neither has a cause; try to lay them on top of each other and they contradict.
Verse 6 then does something quietly devastating to the standard Buddhist answer. The Abhidharma reply is momentariness: things are exhausted moment by moment, so coming-to-be and dissolution are simply successive flashes. Piṅgala accepts the description — 念念常滅盡, always ceasing thought-moment by thought-moment, the past running off like water — and then asks where in that flow you propose to plant the flag that says here is a coming-to-be. If the flow really never stops, there is no moment standing still enough to be labeled. If, on the other hand, the series is unbroken and continuous, that continuity is itself fixed and permanent, and again there is no place to plant the flag. His word for what we are looking at is 野馬 — the shimmer of heat on a road, the "wild horses" that vanish as you approach.
None of this stops the milk from turning. What it stops is the assumption that "coming into being" and "falling apart" name two findable events with edges. They name a way of talking about a continuity that has no seams where our words put seams — which is the same conclusion the grain and the sprout reached back in Chapter 1, arrived at now from the far end of the treatise.
Things, and What Produces What
問曰：且置成壞。但令有法，有何咎？
答曰：
Question: Set coming-to-be and dissolution aside, then. Just let there be things. What fault is there in that?
Answer:
若離於成壞， 是亦無有法；
若當離於法， 亦無有成壞。
Apart from coming-to-be and dissolution
there are no things either;
and standing apart from things,
there is no coming-to-be or dissolution.
離成壞無法者，若法無成無壞，是法應或無或常。而世間無有常法，汝說離成壞有法，是事不然。
問曰：若離法但有成壞，有何咎？
答曰：離法有成壞，是亦不然。何以故？若離法，誰成誰壞。是故離法有成壞，是事不然。復次：
"Apart from coming-to-be and dissolution there are no things": if a thing had no coming-to-be and no dissolution, that thing would have to be either nonexistent or permanent — and there is no permanent thing in the world. So your claim that there are things apart from coming-to-be and dissolution will not do.
Question: And if there were just coming-to-be and dissolution apart from things, what fault is there?
Answer: That there is coming-to-be and dissolution apart from things will not do either. Why? If they stand apart from things, then what is it that comes to be, and what dissolves? Therefore that there is coming-to-be and dissolution apart from things will not do. Furthermore:
若法性空者， 誰當有成壞？
若性不空者， 亦無有成壞。
If the nature of things is empty,
for what could there be coming-to-be and dissolution?
And if their nature is not empty,
there is no coming-to-be or dissolution either.
若諸法性空，空何有成壞？若諸法性不空，不空則決定有，亦不應有成壞。復次：
If the nature of things is empty, how should what is empty have coming-to-be and dissolution? And if the nature of things is not empty, then, not being empty, they exist fixedly, and there ought to be no coming-to-be or dissolution in that case either. Furthermore:
成壞若一者， 是事則不然；
成壞若異者， 是事亦不然。
That coming-to-be and dissolution are one —
this will not do;
and that coming-to-be and dissolution are different —
this will not do either.
推求成壞一則不可得。何以故？異相故、種種分別故。又成壞異亦不可得。何以故？無有別故、亦無因故。復次：
On investigation, the oneness of coming-to-be and dissolution cannot be found. Why? Because their marks differ, and because they are distinguished in every sort of way. Nor can their difference be found. Why? Because they cannot be separated out, and because neither would then have a cause. Furthermore:
若謂以眼見， 而有生滅者，
則為是癡妄， 而見有生滅。
If you say that because the eye sees them
there is arising and ceasing,
then it is by delusion and error
that you see arising and ceasing.
若謂以眼見有生滅者，云何以言說破？是事不然。何以故？眼見生滅者，則是愚癡顛倒故。見諸法性空、無決定、如幻如夢，但凡夫先世顛倒因緣得此眼，今世憶想分別因緣故，言眼見生滅。第一義中實無生滅，是事已於〈破相品〉中廣說。復次：
You say that arising and ceasing are seen with the eye — how then can they be broken by mere words? But this objection will not do. Why? Because seeing arising and ceasing with the eye is itself delusion and inversion. The nature of things is seen to be empty, unfixed, like an illusion and like a dream; it is only that ordinary people, through the inverted causes and conditions of former lives, come by such eyes, and through the causes and conditions of memory and discrimination in this present life, say that the eye sees arising and ceasing. In the ultimate truth there is really no arising and ceasing. This has already been set out at length in the chapter on Breaking the Marks. Furthermore:
從法不生法， 亦不生非法；
從非法不生， 法及於非法。
From a thing no thing is produced,
nor is a non-thing produced from it;
and from a non-thing there is produced
neither a thing nor a non-thing.
從法不生法者，若失若至，二俱不然。從法生法，若至若失，是則無因，無因則墮斷常。若已至從法生法，是法至已而名為生，則為是常，又生已更生，又亦無因生。是事不然。若已失從法生法者，是則失因，生者無因，是故從失亦不生法。
從法不生非法者，非法名無所有、法名有，云何從有相生無相？是故從法不生非法。從非法不生法者，非法名為無，無云何生有？若從無生有者，是則無因，無因則有大過，是故不從非法生法。不從非法生非法者，非法名無所有，云何從無所有生無所有？如兔角不生龜毛，是故不從非法生非法。
問曰：法非法雖種種分別故無生，但法應生法。
答曰：
"From a thing no thing is produced": whether the thing is lost or whether it carries over, neither will do. If a thing produces a thing, then whether it carries over or is lost there is no cause; and where there is no cause one falls into annihilation or permanence. If a thing produces a thing by carrying over, then the thing has carried over and is still called arising, which makes it permanent; and further, having arisen it arises again; and further, it arises without a cause. This will not do. And if a thing produces a thing having been lost, then the cause is lost and what arises has no cause; so from what is lost no thing is produced either.
"Nor is a non-thing produced from a thing": "non-thing" names having nothing at all, and "thing" names what exists — how should what bears the mark of existence produce what bears no mark at all? Therefore from a thing no non-thing is produced. "From a non-thing no thing is produced": "non-thing" means what is not, and how should what is not produce what is? If existence came from nonexistence there would be no cause, and to be without a cause is a very great fault; therefore a thing is not produced from a non-thing. "Nor is a non-thing produced from a non-thing": "non-thing" names having nothing at all — how should nothing at all produce nothing at all? A rabbit's horn does not produce a tortoise's hair. Therefore a non-thing is not produced from a non-thing.
Question: Granted that there is no arising once thing and non-thing have been distinguished in all these ways — still, a thing ought to produce a thing.
Answer:
法不從自生， 亦不從他生，
不從自他生， 云何而有生？
A thing does not arise from itself,
nor does it arise from another,
nor from both itself and another —
how then is there any arising?
法未生時無所有故，又即自不生故，是故法不自生。若法未生則亦無他，無他故不得言從他生。又未生則無自，無自亦無他，共亦不生。若三種不生，云何從法有法生？復次：
Because a thing is nothing at all so long as it has not arisen, and because nothing produces its very self, a thing does not arise from itself. And if the thing has not arisen there is no other either; and with no other, one cannot say it arises from another. And if it has not arisen there is no self; and with no self there is no other; so it does not arise from both together either. And if it does not arise in these three ways, how should a thing arise from a thing? Furthermore:
Verse 10 is the chapter's most uncomfortable line and deserves to be met head-on rather than softened. The objector makes the appeal that always feels final: I can see it happening. And the answer is that seeing arising and ceasing is itself the inversion under discussion. That sounds arrogant on first reading — as though the argument has decided to overrule the evidence.
But read Piṅgala's gloss closely and something more careful is going on. He does not say the eye reports nothing, or that there is a hidden world behind the visible one. He says that what we call "seeing an arising" is a compound: an eye that came to us through a long history, and a present act of 憶想分別, memory and discrimination, laid over what the eye delivers. The seeing is real; the arising is the part we supply. Watch a flame or a face closely enough and you will find that no instant of it announces itself as a beginning. The beginnings and endings arrive with the naming.
Then verse 11 makes the point structurally, and its four options should be read slowly because the vocabulary is easy to misread. 法 here means what exists, 非法 what does not — Piṅgala says so in as many words. Existence from existence: then either the cause carried over into the effect, and it is permanent, or it was lost, and the effect stands there uncaused. Existence from nonexistence: something from nothing, the great fault. Nonexistence from either: the rabbit's horn does not grow a tortoise's hair. Four corners, four failures.
Verse 12 then restates Chapter 1's fourfold refutation of arising almost word for word, twenty chapters later. This is not padding. The treatise has spent the intervening chapters showing that motion, the senses, the aggregates, fire and fuel, karma, and time all fail in the same way, and it comes back to the original verse to say: the failure was always the same failure. Everything since Chapter 1 has been the working-out.
The Series, and What Carries Over 相續
若有所受法， 即墮於斷常，
當知所受法， 為常為無常。
If there is anything one takes up,
one falls into annihilation or permanence;
for one must hold that what is taken up
is either permanent or impermanent.
受法者，分別是善是不善、常無常等，是人必墮若常見若斷見。何以故？所受法應有二種：若常、若無常。二俱不然。何以故？若常即墮常邊，若無常即墮斷邊。
問曰：
To take up a thing is to distinguish it as good or not good, permanent or impermanent, and so on; and such a person must fall into either the view of permanence or the view of annihilation. Why? Because what is taken up must be of two kinds: either permanent or impermanent. Neither will do. Why? If permanent, one falls to the extreme of permanence; if impermanent, one falls to the extreme of annihilation.
Question:
所有受法者， 不墮於斷常，
因果相續故， 不斷亦不常。
One who takes up things
does not fall into annihilation or permanence;
for since cause and fruit continue in series,
there is neither cutting off nor permanence.
有人雖信受分別說諸法，而不墮斷常。如經說五陰無常苦空無我，而不斷滅；雖說罪福無量劫數不失，而不是常。何以故？是法因果常生滅相續故往來不絕，生滅故不常，相續故不斷。
答曰：
There are people who accept and distinguish things when they speak of them, and yet do not fall into annihilation or permanence. As the sūtras say, the five aggregates are impermanent, suffering, empty, and without self — and yet they are not cut off and annihilated; and though it is said that the fruits of wrongdoing and merit are not lost across incalculable eons, they are not thereby permanent. Why? Because in these things cause and fruit are always arising and ceasing in continuous series, so that the coming and going never breaks off: because they arise and cease they are not permanent, and because they continue in series they are not cut off.
Answer:
若因果生滅， 相續而不斷；
滅更不生故， 因即為斷滅。
If cause and fruit arise and cease,
continuing in series without a break —
since what has ceased does not arise again,
the cause is precisely what is cut off.
若汝說諸法因果相續故不斷不常。若滅法已滅更不復生，是則因斷。若因斷，云何有相續？已滅不生故。復次：
You say that because cause and fruit continue in series, things are neither cut off nor permanent. But if what ceases, having ceased, does not arise again, then the cause is cut off. And if the cause is cut off, how is there any series at all — since what has ceased does not arise? Furthermore:
法住於自性， 不應有有無；
涅槃滅相續， 則墮於斷滅。
A thing abiding in its inherent nature
should have neither existence nor nonexistence;
and nirvāṇa, ending the series,
would then fall into annihilation.
法決定在有相中，爾時無無相，如瓶定在瓶相，爾時無失壞相。隨有瓶時無失壞相，無瓶時亦無失壞相。何以故？若無瓶則無所破，以是義故滅不可得。離滅故亦無生。何以故？生滅相因待故。又有常等過故，是故不應於一法而有有無。
又汝先說因果生滅相續故，雖受諸法不墮斷常。是事不然。何以故？汝說因果相續故有三有相續，滅相續名涅槃。若爾者，涅槃時應墮斷滅，以滅三有相續故。復次：
When a thing is fixedly within the mark of existence, at that time it has no mark of nonexistence — as a pot, fixed in the mark of a pot, has at that time no mark of breaking. So long as there is a pot there is no mark of breaking; and when there is no pot there is no mark of breaking either. Why? If there is no pot, there is nothing to break. On this reasoning, ceasing cannot be found; and apart from ceasing there is no arising either. Why? Because the marks of arising and ceasing depend upon one another. And there is besides the fault of permanence and the rest. Therefore one and the same thing should not have both existence and nonexistence.
And as for what you said before — that because cause and fruit arise, cease, and continue in series, one does not fall into annihilation or permanence even while taking up things — this will not do. Why? You say that because cause and fruit continue in series there is the continuing series of the three modes of existence, and that the ending of that series is called nirvāṇa. If so, then at nirvāṇa one would fall into annihilation, since the series of the three modes of existence is brought to an end. Furthermore:
若初有滅者， 則無有後有；
初有若不滅， 亦無有後有。
If the earlier existence ceases,
there is no later existence;
and if the earlier existence does not cease,
there is no later existence either.
初有名今世有，後有名來世有。若初有滅次有後有，是即無因。是事不然，是故不得言初有滅有後有。若初有不滅，亦不應有後有。何以故？若初有未滅而有後有者，是則一時有二有。是事不然，是故初有不滅無有後有。
問曰：後有不以初有滅生、不以不滅生，但滅時生。
答曰：
"The earlier existence" means existence in this present life; "the later existence" means existence in the life to come. If the earlier existence ceases and a later existence follows, that later existence has no cause. This will not do; so one cannot say that the earlier existence ceases and a later existence comes to be. And if the earlier existence does not cease, there ought to be no later existence either. Why? If a later existence came while the earlier one had not yet ceased, there would be two existences at one time. This will not do; so if the earlier existence does not cease, there is no later existence.
Question: The later existence does not arise by the earlier one's having ceased, nor by its not having ceased, but arises at the very time of ceasing.
Answer:
若初有滅時， 而後有生者，
滅時是一有， 生時是一有。
If at the time the earlier existence ceases
the later existence arises,
then the time of ceasing is one existence
and the time of arising is another.
若初有滅時後有生者，即二有一時俱：一有是滅時，一有是生時。
問曰：滅時生時二有俱者則不然。但現見初有滅時後有生。
答曰：
If the later existence arises at the time the earlier one ceases, then two existences are together at one time: one existence at the time of ceasing, one at the time of arising.
Question: That two existences should be together at the time of ceasing and the time of arising will not do. But it is plainly seen that when the earlier existence ceases, the later one arises.
Answer:
若言於生滅， 而謂一時者，
則於此陰死， 即於此陰生。
If you say that arising and ceasing
occur at one and the same time,
then one dies in these very aggregates
and is born in these very aggregates.
若生時滅時一時無二有，而謂初有滅時後有生者，今應隨在何陰中死，即於此陰生，不應餘陰中生。何以故？死者即是生者。如是死生相違法，不應一時一處。是故汝先說滅時生時一時無二有，但現見初有滅時後有生者，是事不然。復次：
If there are not two existences when arising and ceasing are at one time, and yet you say the later existence arises when the earlier one ceases, then whatever aggregates a person dies in, he would have to be born in those very aggregates and in no others. Why? Because the one who dies would be the very one who is born. But dying and being born are mutually opposed, and should not be at one time and in one place. Therefore what you said before — that there are not two existences at the time of ceasing and the time of arising, but that the later existence is plainly seen to arise when the earlier one ceases — will not do. Furthermore:
三世中求有， 相續不可得，
若三世中無， 何有有相續？
Searching for existence in the three times,
the series cannot be found;
and if it is not in the three times,
how is there a series of existences?
三有名欲有、色有、無色有。無始生死中不得實智故，常有三有相續。今於三世中諦求不可得。若三世中無有，當於何處有有相續？當知有有相續，皆從愚癡顛倒故有，實中則無。
The three modes of existence are existence in the desire realm, in the form realm, and in the formless realm. Because in beginningless birth-and-death one does not attain true knowledge, the series of the three modes of existence goes on and on. But when it is searched for truly in the three times, it cannot be found. And if there is no existence in the three times, where should there be a series of existences? Know then that a series of existences is there only through delusion and inversion; in reality it is not there at all.
This last stretch of Chapter 21 is where the abstractions become personal, because the series under discussion is the one the reader is in. 初有 and 後有 — this life and the next; and behind them 三有, the three realms of existence, the whole of saṃsāra.
The Buddhist opponent here is not a fool, and his answer is the standard one that most practitioners still carry: nothing permanent passes from life to life, but a series does — cause and fruit, arising and ceasing, link after link, so that karma is not lost and no soul is required. Neither eternalism nor annihilation. It is an elegant solution and it is the one the tradition had settled on.
Nāgārjuna does not deny the series; he asks it the same clock question Chapter 20 asked the assembly. Does this life end and then the next begin? Then there is a gap, and what arises across a gap arises causelessly. Does this life not end before the next begins? Then for some interval a person is living two lives at once. Does the ending coincide exactly with the beginning? Then, as verse 19 puts it with terrible economy, one dies in these very aggregates and is born in them — the dying and the being born are the same event, in the same place, to the same person, which is not a rebirth but a contradiction. And then verse 16 lands the sharpest blow of all against the opponent's own position: if the series is what makes existence real, then nirvāṇa, which ends the series, is annihilation. The solution designed to avoid the two extremes has walked straight into one of them.
What the chapter concludes is not that there is no rebirth and not that karma fails. It is that the continuity we lean on is 相續 — a "series," a stringing-together — and that a series is a way of regarding, not a thing found among the three times. Look for it in the past and it has gone; look in the future and it has not come; look in the present and there is nothing standing still enough to be a link. Piṅgala's closing line has both edges: this going-on-and-on is there only through delusion and inversion. Which is to say that saṃsāra is not a place you are trapped in. It is a way of seeing that has no bottom to it — and that is exactly why the treatise can go on to say, in Chapter 25, that nirvāṇa and saṃsāra have not the slightest difference between them.
Chapter 22 · Examining the Tathāgata 觀如來品第二十二
Everything the treatise has done to motion, to fire, to karma, and to time, it now does to the Buddha. A reader who has come this far with devotion in hand may feel the ground tilt here, so it is worth saying at the outset what this chapter is and is not. It is not an argument that the Buddha did not exist, and it is not a debunking. It is the discovery that the Tathāgata is empty in exactly the way everything else is empty — and, in its final verse, that this is not a lesser status but the one thing he shares with the whole world.
The Fivefold Search
問曰：一切世中尊，唯有如來正遍知號為法王，一切智人是則應有。
答曰：今諦思惟，若有應取；若無何所取？何以故？如來，
Question: Among all the honored ones in the world, the Tathāgata alone, the Fully and Perfectly Awakened, is called the King of the Dharma. An omniscient one — surely such a one must exist.
Answer: Consider it truly now. If he exists, he should be apprehended; and if he does not, what is there to apprehend? Why? The Tathāgata —
非陰不離陰， 此彼不相在；
如來不有陰， 何處有如來？
is not the aggregates, nor apart from the aggregates;
neither of the two is in the other;
the Tathāgata does not possess the aggregates —
where, then, is there a Tathāgata?
若如來實有者，為五陰是如來？為離五陰有如來？為如來中有五陰？為五陰中有如來？為如來有五陰。是事皆不然。
五陰非是如來。何以故？生滅相故。五陰生滅相，若如來是五陰，如來即是生滅相。若生滅相者，如來即有無常斷滅等過。又受者受法則一，受者是如來、受法是五陰。是事不然，是故如來非是五陰。
離五陰亦無如來，若離五陰有如來者，不應有生滅相。若爾者，如來有常等過。又眼等諸根不能見知，但是事不然，是故離五陰亦無如來。
如來中亦無五陰。何以故？若如來中有五陰，如器中有果、水中有魚者，則為有異。若異者，即有如上常等過，是故如來中無五陰。
又五陰中無如來。何以故？若五陰中有如來，如床上有人、器中有乳者，如是則有別異，如上說過，是故五陰中無如來。
如來亦不有五陰。何以故？若如來有五陰，如人有子，如是則有別異。若爾者，有如上過。是事不然，是故如來不有五陰。如是五種求不可得，何等是如來？
If the Tathāgata really exists, then: are the five aggregates the Tathāgata? Or is there a Tathāgata apart from the five aggregates? Or are the five aggregates in the Tathāgata? Or is the Tathāgata in the five aggregates? Or does the Tathāgata possess the five aggregates? None of these will do.
The five aggregates are not the Tathāgata. Why? Because they bear the mark of arising and ceasing. The five aggregates bear the mark of arising and ceasing; and if the Tathāgata were the five aggregates, the Tathāgata would bear that mark too, and bearing it he would incur the faults of impermanence and of being cut off. Besides, the one who takes up and the thing taken up would then be one and the same — the one who takes up being the Tathāgata, the thing taken up being the five aggregates. This will not do. Therefore the Tathāgata is not the five aggregates.
Nor is there a Tathāgata apart from the five aggregates. If there were a Tathāgata apart from the five aggregates, he would not bear the mark of arising and ceasing; and in that case the Tathāgata would incur the fault of permanence and the rest. Moreover, he could not be seen or known by the eye and the other faculties — and that will not do. Therefore apart from the five aggregates there is no Tathāgata either.
Nor are the five aggregates in the Tathāgata. Why? If the five aggregates were in the Tathāgata, as fruit is in a vessel or a fish in water, then they would be different from him; and if different, the fault of permanence and the rest given above follows. Therefore the five aggregates are not in the Tathāgata.
Nor is the Tathāgata in the five aggregates. Why? If the Tathāgata were in the five aggregates, as a person is on a bed or milk in a vessel, then they would be separate and different, with the faults stated above. Therefore the Tathāgata is not in the five aggregates.
Nor does the Tathāgata possess the five aggregates. Why? If the Tathāgata possessed the five aggregates, as a person has a son, then they would be separate and different; and in that case the faults given above follow. This will not do. Therefore the Tathāgata does not possess the five aggregates. Since he cannot be found by these five searches, what is the Tathāgata?
For a devotional reader this is the hardest page in the treatise, and it helps to know at once that the search being run here is not a special indignity reserved for the Buddha. It is the identical fivefold search the tradition had always run on the self — is the self the aggregates, apart from them, in them, containing them, possessing them? — and the answer had always been no. Nāgārjuna's move is simply to notice that the Buddha is not exempt from his own analysis. To hold that the search comes up empty for you and me but finds something for him would be to make the Buddha the one genuine self in the universe, which is the precise opposite of what he taught.
Notice how ordinary the images are. Fruit in a bowl. A fish in water. A person on a bed. Milk in a jar. A father with a son. These are the five ways one thing can be related to another and still be two things, and each of them, applied here, produces a Buddha who is separate from his own body and mind — which is a soul by another name, with all the permanence problems a soul brings. The alternative, that he simply is the aggregates, makes him arise and cease with them, and makes the one who takes up identical with what is taken up: a container that is its own contents.
So what is left? Nothing to point at — and that is the finding, not a failure of the search. What the chapter has established so far is only that the Tathāgata is not a findable thing standing behind the appearing. It has said nothing yet about whether there is a Buddha. That question is coming, and the answer, when it arrives in verse 13, will refuse both of the answers a reader is currently braced for.
Not by Own Nature, Not by Another's
問曰：如是義求如來不可得，而五陰和合有如來。
答曰：
Question: Searched for in this way the Tathāgata cannot be found — but he exists as the assembling of the five aggregates.
Answer:
陰合有如來， 則無有自性；
若無有自性， 云何因他有？
If the Tathāgata is the aggregates assembled,
then he has no inherent nature;
and if he has no inherent nature,
how could he exist in dependence on another?
若如來五陰和合故有，即無自性。何以故？因五陰和合有故。
問曰：如來不以自性有，但因他性有。
答曰：若無自性，云何因他性有？何以故？他性亦無自性。又無相待因故，他性不可得，不可得故不名為他。復次：
If the Tathāgata exists because the five aggregates assemble, then he has no inherent nature. Why? Because he exists in dependence on the assembling of the five aggregates.
Question: The Tathāgata does not exist by inherent nature, but exists in dependence on other-nature.
Answer: If there is no inherent nature, how could he exist in dependence on other-nature? Why? Because other-nature too has no inherent nature. And since there is no cause of mutual dependence, other-nature cannot be found; and not being found, it is not called "other" at all. Furthermore:
法若因他生， 是即為非我；
若法非我者， 云何是如來？
If a thing arises in dependence on another,
it is not a self;
and if a thing is not a self,
how should it be the Tathāgata?
若法因眾緣生，即無有我。如因五指有拳，是拳無有自體。如是因五陰名我，是我即無自體。我有種種名，或名眾生、人、天、如來等。若如來因五陰有，即無自性，無自性故無我。若無我，云何說名如來？是故偈中說「法若因他生，是即為非我；若法非我者，云何是如來？」復次：
If a thing arises from a host of conditions, it has no self. Just as a fist exists in dependence on five fingers, and that fist has no substance of its own — so a self is named in dependence on the five aggregates, and that self has no substance of its own. The self goes by many names: it is called a sentient being, a human, a god, a Tathāgata, and so on. If the Tathāgata exists in dependence on the five aggregates, then he has no inherent nature; and having no inherent nature, he has no self. And if there is no self, how is he to be called the Tathāgata? This is why the verse says: "If a thing arises in dependence on another, it is not a self; and if a thing is not a self, how should it be the Tathāgata?" Furthermore:
若無有自性， 云何有他性？
離自性他性， 何名為如來？
If there is no inherent nature,
how should there be other-nature?
And apart from inherent nature and other-nature,
what is to be called the Tathāgata?
若無自性，他性亦不應有。因自性故名他性，此無故彼亦無，是故自性、他性二俱無。若離自性、他性，誰為如來？復次：
If there is no inherent nature, there should be no other-nature either. It is on the basis of inherent nature that anything is called other-nature; and since this is not there, neither is that. So inherent nature and other-nature are both absent. And apart from inherent nature and other-nature, who is the Tathāgata? Furthermore:
若不因五陰， 先有如來者，
以今受陰故， 則說為如來。
今實不受陰， 更無如來法，
若以不受無， 今當云何受？
若其未有受， 所受不名受，
無有無受法， 而名為如來。
若於一異中， 如來不可得，
五種求亦無， 云何受中有？
又所受五陰， 不從自性有，
若無自性者， 云何有他性？
If, not depending on the five aggregates,
a Tathāgata existed beforehand,
then it would be by now taking up the aggregates
that he is called a Tathāgata.
But in fact he does not now take up the aggregates,
and there is no other thing that is a Tathāgata;
and if, without the taking-up, he is not there,
how shall he take them up now?
If there has as yet been no taking-up,
what is taken up is not called taken up;
and there is nothing without any taking-up
that could be called a Tathāgata.
If within identity and difference
the Tathāgata cannot be found,
and the fivefold search finds nothing either,
how should he be in what is taken up?
Moreover the five aggregates taken up
do not exist by inherent nature;
and if they have no inherent nature,
how should they have other-nature?
若未受五陰先有如來者，是如來今應受五陰已作如來，而實未受五陰時先無如來，今云何當受？又不受五陰者，五陰不名為受，無有無受而名為如來。又如來一異中求不可得，五陰中五種求亦不可得。若爾者，云何於五陰中說有如來？又所受五陰，不從自性有。若謂從他性有。若不從自性有。云何從他性有？何以故？以無自性故，又他性亦無。復次：
If a Tathāgata existed before taking up the five aggregates, then this Tathāgata would have to take up the five aggregates now in order to become a Tathāgata. But in fact, when the five aggregates have not been taken up, there is no prior Tathāgata — so how shall he take them up now? And if the five aggregates are not taken up, they are not called what is taken up; and there is nothing without any taking-up that is called a Tathāgata. Again, searching for the Tathāgata within identity and difference he cannot be found, and the fivefold search among the aggregates finds nothing either. That being so, how can one say there is a Tathāgata in the five aggregates? Moreover, the five aggregates taken up do not exist by inherent nature. Suppose you say they exist by other-nature: if they do not exist by inherent nature, how should they exist by other-nature? Why? Because there is no inherent nature — and other-nature is likewise absent. Furthermore:
The fist is the image to carry away from this passage, and it is one of the best in Chinese Buddhist literature. Close your hand. There is now a fist. Where is it? Not in any finger — no finger is a fist. Not somewhere between the fingers. Not a sixth thing added to the five. And yet you can strike a table with it, and the table will know. The fist is entirely real and has no substance of its own whatsoever; it is a shape that fingers take, named from outside.
Piṅgala then does something a devotional reader might miss on a first pass. He lists what this fist-like thing gets called: 眾生, a sentient being; a human; a god; a Tathāgata. He has put the Buddha in the same list as you. Not to demote him — to make the grammar plain. "Tathāgata," like "self" and "person," is a name given to a configuration, not a label attached to a substance found underneath one.
Verses 5 through 7 then close the last exit, the one most readers privately hold: surely there was someone who then took up a body and became the Buddha. Ask when. Before the taking-up, there was no one there to do it — Piṅgala's phrasing is exact: with the aggregates not yet taken up, there is no prior Tathāgata, so who is doing the taking? And a Tathāgata with no taking-up at all is a Tathāgata with no body, no mind, no history, no teaching — nothing anyone has ever meant by the word. Between the two there is no third moment. The one who takes up and what is taken up arise together or not at all, which is why 受空受者空 is coming next: what is taken up is empty, and so is the one who takes it.
What Cannot Be Said 但以假名說
以如是義故， 受空受者空，
云何當以空， 而說空如來？
For these reasons,
what is taken up is empty and the taker is empty;
how then, by way of what is empty,
should one speak of an empty Tathāgata?
以是義思惟，受及受者皆空。若受空者，云何以空受而說空如來？
問曰：汝謂受空、受者空，則定有空耶？
答曰：不然。何以故？
Considering it in this sense, both what is taken up and the one who takes it up are empty. And if what is taken up is empty, how should one speak of an empty Tathāgata by way of an empty taking-up?
Question: You say that what is taken up is empty and the one who takes it up is empty. Then is there definitely such a thing as emptiness?
Answer: No. Why?
空則不可說， 非空不可說，
共不共叵說， 但以假名說。
"Empty" cannot be said,
"not empty" cannot be said,
both and neither cannot be said;
one speaks only by conventional designation.
諸法空則不應說，諸法不空亦不應說，諸法空不空亦不應說，非空非不空亦不應說。何以故？但破相違故以假名說。如是正觀思惟，諸法實相中不應以諸難為難。何以故？
That things are empty should not be said; that things are not empty should not be said; that things are both empty and not empty should not be said; that they are neither empty nor not empty should not be said. Why? Because such things are said only as conventional designations, in order to break the opposing view. Contemplating rightly in this way, one should not press objections against the reality of things. Why?
寂滅相中無， 常無常等四；
寂滅相中無， 邊無邊等四。
Within the mark of quiescence there is not
the four of permanent, impermanent, and the rest;
within the mark of quiescence there is not
the four of finite, infinite, and the rest.
諸法實相如是微妙寂滅，但因過去世起四種邪見：世間有常、世間無常、世間常無常、世間非常非無常；寂滅中盡無。何以故？諸法實相畢竟清淨不可取，空尚不受，何況有四種見。四種見皆因受生，諸法實相無所因受。四種見皆以自見為貴、他見為賤，諸法實相無有此彼。是故說寂滅中無四種見。如因過去世有四種見，因未來世有四種見亦如是。世間有邊、世間無邊、世間有邊無邊、世間非有邊非無邊。
The reality of things is subtle and quiescent in this way. But on account of past time four wrong views arise: the world is permanent; the world is impermanent; the world is both permanent and impermanent; the world is neither permanent nor impermanent. In quiescence all of them are absent. Why? The reality of things is ultimately pure and cannot be grasped; it does not even accept emptiness — how much less the four views. All four views arise on account of taking-up, and in the reality of things there is nothing on account of which anything is taken up. All four views prize one's own view and despise another's, and in the reality of things there is no this and that. This is why it is said that within quiescence there are none of the four views. And just as there are four views on account of past time, so likewise there are four on account of future time: the world is finite; the world is infinite; the world is both finite and infinite; the world is neither finite nor infinite.
The objector's question at verse 11 is the one every careful reader eventually asks, and it is asked here in its sharpest form: if everything is empty, then is emptiness at least a thing? The answer is one syllable — no — and then the verse takes away all four ways of saying it. Not "empty." Not "not empty." Not both. Not neither. This is the catuṣkoṭi used as it is meant to be used: not to select the best of four options but to close the exits.
What is left is 假名, conventional designation — literally "borrowed name." Everything said in this treatise, including the word "emptiness," is a borrowed name, deployed for a job. Piṅgala's phrase for the job is precise and modest: 但破相違故, "only in order to break the opposing view." The word is a tool for prying something loose, not a description of how things finally are. Which means the reader who finishes this chapter holding a doctrine called Emptiness has picked up the crowbar and taken it home.
The sentence in the commentary that should stop anyone is 空尚不受，何況有四種見 — it does not even accept emptiness, how much less the four views. Reality is not shy about permanence and impermanence and open to emptiness. It declines to be any position at all, including the one this treatise has spent twenty-two chapters arguing for. That is not evasiveness. It is the difference between a medicine and a diet: the medicine is taken because there is a sickness, and a person who keeps taking it after the sickness is gone has found a new sickness.
And notice the four views themselves. They are the classic unanswered questions the Buddha famously set aside — is the world eternal, is it finite — and Piṅgala's diagnosis of why they cannot be answered is not that they are too deep but that they are all built out of taking-up, and all of them run on the same fuel: my view is precious, yours is cheap. Where there is no this and that, the questions have nothing to stand on.
Neither There Nor Not There 如來所有性，即是世間性
問曰：若如是破如來者，則無如來耶？
答曰：
Question: If the Tathāgata is broken in this way, then is there no Tathāgata?
Answer:
邪見深厚者， 則說無如來；
如來寂滅相， 分別有亦非。
Those whose wrong views run deep
say that there is no Tathāgata;
the Tathāgata bears the mark of quiescence,
and to make him out as existing is wrong as well.
邪見有二種：一者破世間樂；二者破涅槃道。破世間樂者是麁邪見，言無罪無福，無如來等賢聖。起是邪見，捨善為惡，則破世間樂。破涅槃道者，貪著於我，分別有無，起善滅惡。起善故得世間樂，分別有無故不得涅槃。是故若言無如來者，是深厚邪見，乃失世間樂，何況涅槃！若言有如來，亦是邪見。何以故？如來寂滅相，而種種分別故。是故寂滅相中，分別有如來亦為非。
There are two kinds of wrong view: the first destroys the happiness of the world, the second destroys the path to nirvāṇa. The kind that destroys the happiness of the world is the coarse wrong view: it says there is no wrongdoing and no merit, and no Tathāgata or other worthy and holy ones. Giving rise to this view, a person abandons the good and does evil, and so destroys the happiness of the world. The kind that destroys the path to nirvāṇa clings greedily to a self and distinguishes existence from nonexistence, while still raising up the good and putting down evil. Because such a person raises up the good, he gains the happiness of the world; because he distinguishes existence from nonexistence, he does not gain nirvāṇa. Therefore to say that there is no Tathāgata is a deep and heavy wrong view, and loses even the happiness of the world — how much more nirvāṇa! And to say that there is a Tathāgata is also a wrong view. Why? Because the Tathāgata bears the mark of quiescence, and this is to make distinctions of every sort. Therefore, within the mark of quiescence, to make out that there is a Tathāgata is likewise wrong.
如是性空中， 思惟亦不可，
如來滅度後， 分別於有無。
Within this emptiness of nature,
even thinking will not do —
to work out, after the Tathāgata has passed away,
whether he exists or does not exist.
諸法實相性空故，不應於如來滅後思惟若有、若無、若有無。如來從本已來畢竟空，何況滅後！
Since the reality of things is empty of nature, one should not think, after the Tathāgata's passing, that he exists, or does not exist, or both. The Tathāgata has been ultimately empty from the very beginning — how much more so after his passing!
如來過戲論， 而人生戲論，
戲論破慧眼， 是皆不見佛。
The Tathāgata has passed beyond elaboration,
yet people give rise to elaboration;
elaboration destroys the eye of wisdom,
and not one of them sees the Buddha.
戲論名憶念取相分別此彼。言佛滅不滅等，是人為戲論，覆慧眼故，不能見如來法身。此〈如來品〉中，初中後思惟，如來定性不可得。是故偈說：
"Elaboration" names remembering, seizing on marks, and distinguishing this from that. To say that the Buddha ceases or does not cease, and the like — such a person is engaged in elaboration; and because it covers over the eye of wisdom, he cannot see the Dharma-body of the Tathāgata. Throughout this Chapter on the Tathāgata, considered at its beginning, in its middle, and at its end, no fixed nature of the Tathāgata can be found. This is why the verse says:
如來所有性， 即是世間性；
如來無有性， 世間亦無性。
Whatever nature the Tathāgata has
is the very nature of the world;
the Tathāgata has no nature,
and the world has no nature either.
此品中思惟推求，如來性即是一切世間性。
問曰：何等是如來性？
答曰：如來無有性，同世間無性。
Considering and searching through this chapter, the nature of the Tathāgata is precisely the nature of the whole world.
Question: And what is the nature of the Tathāgata?
Answer: The Tathāgata has no nature — just as the world has no nature.
Verse 13 is where the chapter shows its hand, and it should be a relief. The objector asks the question the reader has been holding since the first page — so there is no Buddha? — and the answer opens with the strongest language in the chapter, aimed not at devotion but at its denial: 邪見深厚, wrong view run deep. To say there is no Tathāgata is not a purified version of this analysis. It is the coarse view that also says there is no wrongdoing and no merit, and Piṅgala says plainly where it lands a person: abandoning the good, doing harm, losing even ordinary worldly happiness, never mind nirvāṇa.
So the search that found nothing was never heading toward denial. And yet the verse's second half will not let the reader settle on the other side either: to make him out as existing is also wrong — not false, exactly, but a making-out, a distinguishing, laid over what is by nature quiet. Both halves of the verse are needed, and neither is the answer without the other. The two wrong views are ranked, not balanced: one destroys the world's happiness, the other only blocks nirvāṇa. This is a text that would rather you revere the Buddha imprecisely than deny him precisely.
Then verse 15, which is the chapter's warning and worth taking personally. The Buddha has gone beyond elaboration — that was the very thing he was praised for in the treatise's opening homage, 善滅諸戲論 — and what do people do about him? They elaborate. They argue about whether he still exists after death, whether he is in a pure land or dispersed, what precisely his nature is. Piṅgala's definition of elaboration is worth memorizing for how ordinary it is: remembering, seizing on marks, sorting this from that. There is no wickedness in it. It is what a devout and studious mind does all day. And the verse says it blinds: not one of them sees the Buddha. What is lost is not an argument but a sight.
And so the closing verse, which turns the whole chapter from a subtraction into a gift. 如來所有性，即是世間性 — whatever nature the Tathāgata has is the nature of the world. This is not the deflating claim that the Buddha is nothing special. It is that the emptiness disclosed by looking for him is the same emptiness disclosed by looking for anything at all: this table, this breath, this reader. He is not empty in some rarefied way that removes him from the world; he is empty in the world's own way, which means he was never elsewhere. Chapter 25 will say the same thing from the other direction, when it finds not the slightest difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. Someone who wanted to find the Buddha, on this reading, would not look up.
Key Terms
| Term | Chinese | What it means here |
|---|---|---|
| assembly, coming-together | 和合 | The gathering of conditions that is supposed to do the producing. Chapter 20's target: causal power relocated from any single condition to the group, where it turns out not to be either. |
| coming-to-be / dissolution | 成／壞 | Formation and breaking-down. Piṅgala glosses them as the gathering and the scattering of conditions — which is why neither can be found without the other, or with it. |
| series, continuum | 相續 | The unbroken succession of cause and fruit by which the tradition explained rebirth without a soul. Chapter 21 asks where in the three times this series is to be found. |
| the three modes of existence | 三有 | Existence in the desire, form, and formless realms — the whole of saṃsāra. 初有 and 後有 are this life and the next. |
| upādāna — taking-up | 受／受者 | The appropriating of the aggregates as one's own, and the one who appropriates. Chapter 22 shows the two arise together, which is why neither can be the Tathāgata. |
| the mark of quiescence | 寂滅相 | The character of things as they are when elaboration stops. Not a state achieved but what remains when the four positions are set down — it "does not even accept emptiness." |
| conventional designation | 假名 | Literally "borrowed name." The status of every term in this treatise, "emptiness" included: a tool used to break an opposing view, not a description of how things finally are. |