The Mormon Passenger Who Said Killing Was Guiltless
Continuing directly from fascicle 59's exhaustive working-out of the ten unwholesome karma-paths, the treatise examines what makes one instance of wrongdoing graver than another, traces every karma-path back to its own roots in greed, hatred, and delusion, and closes the entire topic of karma defilement with its own summary verse — before opening rebirth defilement itself, eleven kinds of existence, a bodhisattva's own journey through every heaven, and ignorance's complete anatomy as the first link binding the whole chain together.
1. Section: Five Factors That Decide Whether a Killing Becomes Grave
Fascicle 59 closed having worked out all ten unwholesome karma-paths in exhaustive detail, their defining factors, their concrete methods, and their underlying motives, down to why one particular denial alone is singled out and named wrong view. The treatise now turns to a further, closely related question: given that a karma-path has already been shown complete, what determines whether that same deed counts as grave or light? Taking killing as its example once more, the treatise names five deciding factors: motivation, method, the absence of any antidote, wrong clinging, and the object itself. Motivation decides gravity first: killing driven by intense, forceful greed, intense, forceful hatred, or intense, forceful delusion is grave killing, while killing arising instead from some milder, more passing impulse, carried out almost thoughtlessly under the sway of a lesser circumstance rather than deliberate malice, is by contrast light killing. Method decides gravity as well, and unfolds through many further particulars: rejoicing inwardly at the very thought, I shall do this, I am doing this, I have done this; carrying out the deed personally or urging another to do it, and praising the act either way; feeling genuine delight upon meeting a fellow killer, as though celebrating a shared accomplishment; harboring the intention for a long time, nursing resentment before finally acting; carrying the deed out without interruption and with real thoroughness; killing many different kinds of beings all at once; maintaining a fixed, ongoing intention to kill as a matter of livelihood; killing a being already terrified and left with nowhere to flee; and killing someone already suffering, impoverished, grieving, or in tears — every one of these particulars, the treatise concludes, makes killing grave through the very method by which it is carried out.
復次，由五因緣，殺生成重。何等為五？一、由意樂，二、由方便，三、由無治，四、由邪執，五、由其事。若由猛利貪欲意樂所作，猛利瞋恚意樂所作，猛利愚癡意樂所作，名重殺生。與此相違，名輕殺生。若有念言：我應當作、正作、已作。心便踊躍，心生歡悅；或有自作，或復勸他，於彼所作稱揚讚歎，見同法者意便欣慶，長時思量、長時蓄積怨恨心已方有所作，無間所作、殷重所作；或於一時頓殺多類；或以堅固發業因緣而行殺害；或令恐怖無所依投，方行殺害；或於孤苦、貧窮、哀慼、悲泣等者而行殺害。如是一切，由方便故，名重殺生。
Moreover, killing becomes grave through five causes and conditions. What are the five? First, through motivation. Second, through method. Third, through the absence of antidote. Fourth, through wrong clinging. Fifth, through the object. If carried out through forceful greed, forceful hatred, or forceful delusion, it is called grave killing. Opposite to this is called light killing. If one thinks: I shall do this, am doing this, have done this, and the mind leaps with joy; whether done personally or urged upon another, praised either way; delighting upon meeting a fellow practitioner of the same deed; harbored and accumulated as resentment over a long time before finally being carried out; carried out without interruption and thoroughly; killing many kinds all at once; carried out through a firm, ongoing intention; carried out upon one left terrified with nowhere to turn; or carried out upon one already solitary, impoverished, grieving, or weeping — all of this, through method, is called grave killing.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this opening question, what makes one instance of the same wrongdoing graver than another, as one of the treatise's own most practically important refinements, since it moves the discussion beyond the simple binary of complete versus incomplete karma-path toward something far closer to how any thoughtful person actually weighs moral responsibility in real life, recognizing that intention, premeditation, and the vulnerability of the victim all genuinely matter. He highlights the particular weight given to killing the already-terrified or already-suffering as this section's own quiet insistence that cruelty toward the defenseless carries its own distinct and heavier burden, beyond whatever weight the killing itself already carries on its own.
2. Section: A Chicken's Struggle, and a Fellow Passenger's Wrong View
The treatise names its third factor, the absence of any antidote: one who does nothing but kill, unable even to keep a single precept for even a single day, unable to observe the fasting days on the eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of the month or at the half-month, unable to give even occasional charity, cultivate merit, pay respects, or practice the six points of reverent harmony with fellow practitioners, unable to feel forceful shame or genuine remorse over the wrong already done, and who neither attains worldly freedom from desire through meditation nor genuine realization of the noble truths through the transcendent path — such a person's killing, entirely unmitigated by any of these countervailing practices, becomes grave killing precisely through this total absence of antidote. The fourth factor is wrong clinging: certain ascetics and brahmins, continuing a long tradition of improper sacrifice, hold the view that ritual killing is itself righteous conduct and act on this very conviction, and others hold that killing a sheep, for instance, carries no fault at all, since such animals exist purely as provisions, created by the lord of the world specifically to be consumed — killing carried out on the strength of such wrong views is likewise grave killing.
若唯行殺，不能日日乃至極少持一學處；或亦不能於月八日、十四、十五及半月等，受持齋戒；或亦不能於時時間惠施作福、問訊禮拜、迎送合掌和敬業等；又亦不能於時時間獲得猛利增上慚愧，悔所惡作；又不證得世間離欲，亦不證得真法現觀。如是一切，由無治故，名重殺生。若諸沙門、或婆羅門，繼邪祠祀，隨忍此見，執為正法而行殺戮。由邪執故，名重殺生。又作是心：殺羊無罪，由彼羊等為資生故，世主所化。諸如是等依止邪見而行殺害，皆邪執故，名重殺生。
If one only kills, unable to keep even a single precept even briefly, unable to observe the fasting days on the eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth and at the half-month, unable at any time to give charity, cultivate merit, pay respects, or practice reverent harmony, unable at any time to feel forceful, heightened shame or remorse for what was done wrong, and neither attains worldly freedom from desire nor genuine realization of the true dharma — all of this, through the absence of antidote, is called grave killing. Certain ascetics or brahmins, continuing wrongful sacrifice, accepting this view, holding it as correct dharma, carry out killing. Through wrong clinging, this is called grave killing. Also thinking: killing a sheep carries no fault, since such creatures exist as provisions, transformed by the lord of the world for this purpose. All such killing carried out relying on wrong view is, through wrong clinging, called grave killing.
Master Cháng Bǎi recalls his own first flight to San Diego, seated beside a Mormon layperson who asked why he kept a vegetarian diet; when he explained it was to avoid harming living beings, his fellow passenger replied that such creatures were made by God for human consumption, and that killing them therefore carried no guilt at all — a view he did not yet, at that time, recognize as a textbook instance of exactly the wrong clinging this passage describes. He recalls as well a fellow monastic who entered monastic life after being asked, as a child, to kill a chicken for his mother, and who was so shaken by the sight of the half-killed bird still convulsing after an incomplete cut to its throat that he begged never to be asked to do such a thing again, his own natural compassion, still uncorrupted by any wrong view rationalizing the act as harmless, becoming the very seed of his eventual renunciation.
3. Section: The Object Itself Decides Gravity — And Theft's Own Weighing Begins
The treatise names its fifth factor, the object of the deed itself: killing a large-bodied being is graver than killing a small one, since a human being, for instance, carries far greater weight than an ant. Killing a human being, or a fetus already bearing the human form, whether father, mother, or any other deeply respected benefactor; killing one who has come seeking refuge or entrusted themselves to one's own care; killing a noble learner, a bodhisattva, an arhat, or a solitary awakened one; or forming the malicious intent to harm a Tathāgata and actually drawing blood, as when Devadatta rolled a boulder down a mountain hoping to harm the Buddha and succeeded only in wounding his foot, a deed made all the graver still by the very fact that a Tathāgata's own nature makes him genuinely impossible to kill — every one of these, through the object involved, constitutes grave killing, and killing under circumstances opposite to everything now described is, by contrast, light killing. With this, the treatise completes its detailed account of killing's own gravity, and turns to theft, first by way of the object's own value: theft of items worth as little as five coins is already reckoned grave, according to the Buddhist standard, and every other unwholesome deed should be understood to follow a similar object-based principle, just as with killing. The treatise then details theft's own nine circumstances of gravity in turn: theft committed frequently and repeatedly, through sheer habituation turning even a light offense grave; theft of especially fine, precious, or valuable goods; and theft from one who has entrusted their own confidence to the thief.
若有殺害大身眾生，此由事故，名重殺生。或有殺害人或人相，或父或母，及餘尊重；或有殺害歸投委信，或諸有學、或諸菩薩、或阿羅漢、或諸獨覺；或於如來作殺害意惡心出血，如來性爾不可殺故。如是一切，由其事故，名重殺生。與如上說因緣相違而殺生者，名輕殺生。復次，當說不與取等，由其事故，輕重差別。餘隨所應，如殺應知。復次，若多劫盜，名重不與取。
Killing a large-bodied being is, through the object, called grave killing. Killing a human being or one bearing the human form, a father, a mother, or another deeply respected one; killing one who has sought refuge or entrusted themselves; killing a noble learner, a bodhisattva, an arhat, or a solitary awakened one; or forming the malicious intent to harm a Tathāgata and drawing blood, since a Tathāgata's own nature makes him impossible to kill — all of this, through the object, is called grave killing. Killing under circumstances opposite to what has been described is called light killing. Moreover, the gravity of theft and the rest, through the object, shall now be explained. The rest should be understood accordingly, just as with killing. Moreover, frequent plundering is called grave theft.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the observation that a Tathāgata's own nature makes him genuinely impossible to kill as a remarkable theological point tucked inside an otherwise straightforward ethical catalogue, Devadatta's own malicious act condemned as grave precisely because of its intent and its violence, even though its actual object could never, in the end, be destroyed at all. He highlights the five-coin threshold for grave theft as an example of the tradition's own consistent preference for concrete, specific standards over vague moral generalities, giving practitioners and monastic communities alike a genuinely workable rule rather than leaving the line between light and grave theft to individual judgment alone.
4. Section: Stealing From the Poor, Deceiving the Trusted, and Splitting the Sangha
The treatise continues theft's nine circumstances of gravity: theft from one already destitute and impoverished; theft from the Buddhist monastic community, whose very possessions were offered in good faith by devoted followers throughout the world; plundering a village, including the burning of homes, dwellings, and possessions out of pure hatred; and theft from a noble learner, an arhat, a solitary awakened one, or property belonging to the monastic community as a whole or to a Buddhist shrine or monastery, whether the community's own dwellings and provisions or the temple's own sacred possessions. Turning to sexual misconduct's own grave circumstances: approaching one's mother or a mother-like figure, the wife of one who has entrusted their own confidence to oneself, a woman observing the precepts, a nun, a novice, or a female probationer; engaging in the wrong bodily part, specifically the face; engaging at the wrong time, while precepts are being observed, at the completion of pregnancy, or during serious illness; and engaging in the wrong place, within a Buddhist shrine or monastery, itself meant for cultivating freedom from desire — every one of these, through the object involved, makes sexual misconduct grave. Turning finally to false speech's own grave circumstances: lying in order to deceive another out of especially fine or valuable wealth; lying to one who has entrusted their confidence, to one's own father or mother, or, as already explained, to any other deeply respected being, a noble learner, a bodhisattva, an arhat, a solitary awakened one, or even the Buddha himself; lying in a way that actually succeeds in causing another to commit grave killing, grave theft, or grave sexual misconduct, the resulting gravity of those deeds compounding the gravity of the lie that caused them; and, gravest of all forms of false speech without exception, a lie capable of splitting the harmonious monastic community itself apart.
如是若劫盜妙好，劫盜委信，劫盜孤貧，劫盜佛法出家之眾；若入聚落而行劫盜，劫盜有學、或阿羅漢、或諸獨覺、或復僧祇、或佛靈廟所有財物。如是一切，由其事故，名重不與取。復次，行不應行中，若母母親委信他妻，或住禁戒、或苾芻尼、或勤策女、或復正學。如是一切，由其事故，名重欲邪行。非支行中，若於面門。由其事故，名重欲邪行。非時行中，若受齋戒、若胎圓滿、若有重病。由其事故，名重欲邪行。非處行中，若佛靈廟、若僧伽藍。由其事故，名重欲邪行。復次，若為誑惑多取他財，若妙若勝而說妄語。由事重故，名重妄語。若於委信、若父若母，廣說如前乃至佛所而說妄語。由事重故，名重妄語。或有妄語令他殺生，損失財物及與妻妾，此若成辦極重殺生、重不與取、重欲邪行。此由事重，名重妄語。或有妄語能破壞僧，於諸妄語此最尤重。
Stealing especially fine goods, stealing from one who has entrusted their confidence, stealing from the destitute, stealing from the Buddhist monastic community, plundering a village, or stealing property belonging to a noble learner, an arhat, a solitary awakened one, the monastic community, or a Buddhist shrine, is, through the object, all called grave theft. Moreover, approaching one's mother, a mother-like figure, the wife of one who has entrusted their confidence, one observing the precepts, a nun, a novice, or a probationer, is all, through the object, called grave sexual misconduct. Engaging in the face rather than the proper part is, through the object, called grave sexual misconduct. Engaging while precepts are observed, at the completion of pregnancy, or during serious illness is, through the object, called grave sexual misconduct. Engaging within a Buddhist shrine or monastery is, through the object, called grave sexual misconduct. Moreover, lying in order to deceive and take especially fine or excellent wealth from another is, through the gravity of the object, called grave false speech. Lying to one who has entrusted their confidence, to one's father or mother, or, as already explained, even to the Buddha, is, through the gravity of the object, called grave false speech. Lying in a way that causes another to commit grave killing, or the loss of great wealth and of wife and concubines, if this succeeds and brings about grave killing, grave theft, or grave sexual misconduct, is, through the gravity of the object, called grave false speech. Lying capable of splitting the monastic community apart is the gravest of all false speech.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the singling out of schism-causing lies as the single gravest form of false speech as a fitting bookend to the treatise's own earlier discussion, back in fascicle 59, of the six points of harmony that make communal spiritual life possible in the first place, since a lie capable of tearing that very harmony apart attacks not merely one relationship but the entire structure that allows many practitioners to support one another's progress at all. He highlights the object-based principle running consistently through killing, theft, sexual misconduct, and false speech alike, greater harm to a more vulnerable, more trusted, or more significant object producing a graver offense, as the treatise's own coherent ethical logic, treating the karma-path's own completion and its ultimate gravity as two related but genuinely distinct questions throughout.
5. Section: Cursing One's Own Parents — Harsh Words at Their Gravest
The treatise completes divisive speech's own grave circumstances: destroying another's genuine good friends, parents, sons, or daughters, or splitting the harmonious monastic community itself apart; and divisive speech that actually succeeds in provoking grave killing, grave theft, or grave sexual misconduct in its wake, is likewise grave through the very gravity of what it causes. Turning to harsh speech, the treatise names its own gravest form: directing coarse, wounding words at one's own parents or at any other teacher, precisely because these are the very people owed the deepest respect, makes such speech an especially grievous wrong; and scolding, reviling, or reproaching another to their face using an accusation that is not even true compounds the offense of harsh speech with the offense of falsehood at once, making it graver still. Turning to idle chatter, the treatise explains that its own gravity generally follows the same pattern already established for false speech; idle chatter arising specifically from dispute, litigation, or rivalry is likewise grave; and with a mind already defiled by affliction, enthusiastically reciting, praising, and broadly expounding to others the very heretical texts capable of leading only to greed, hatred, and delusion, when the Buddhist tradition's own teachings ought to take precedence instead, makes such idle chatter grave as well, as does mocking or ridiculing one's own parents, family, or teachers with words entirely lacking in reason or respect.
或破壞他，令離善友、父母、男女，破和合僧。若離間語，能引殺生、或不與取、或欲邪行。如前所說道理應知。如是一切，由事重故，名重離間語。復次，若於父母及餘師長發麤惡言。由事重故，名重麤惡語。或以不實不真妄語，現前毀罵訶責於他。由事重故，名重麤惡語。復次，凡諸綺語隨妄語等，此語輕重，如彼應知。若依鬥訟、諍競等事而發綺語，亦名為重。若以染汙心，於能引無義外道典籍承誦、讚詠、廣為他說。由事重故，名重綺語。若於父母、眷屬、師長調弄輕笑，現作語言不近道理。亦由事重，名重綺語。
Or destroying another, causing them to be parted from good friends, parents, sons, or daughters, or splitting the harmonious community, or divisive speech capable of provoking killing, taking what is not given, or sexual misconduct, should be understood according to the principle already explained. All of this, through the gravity of the object, is called grave divisive speech. Moreover, directing coarse speech at one's parents or other teachers is, through the gravity of the object, called grave harsh speech. Reviling and reproaching another to their face with an untrue, unreal falsehood is, through the gravity of the object, called grave harsh speech. Moreover, idle chatter generally follows false speech in its gravity, as should be understood accordingly. Idle chatter arising from dispute and rivalry is likewise called grave. With a defiled mind, reciting, praising, and broadly expounding to others heretical texts capable of leading only to no benefit is, through the gravity of the object, called grave idle chatter. Mocking and ridiculing one's parents, family, or teachers with words far from reason is likewise, through the gravity of the object, called grave idle chatter.
Master Cháng Bǎi highlights harsh words directed at one's own parents as a fitting bookend to the treatise's own repeated insistence, across killing, theft, and now speech alike, that the very same act carries different weight depending on who receives it, the deepest bonds of gratitude and dependency making betrayal within them correspondingly graver than betrayal of a stranger. He notes that idle chatter's gravity being explicitly tied to false speech's own already-established pattern shows the treatise's own economy of method, refusing to repeat an entire analysis from scratch once the underlying principle, that greater harm to a more significant object makes for a graver offense, has already been thoroughly established.
6. Section: Wanting Recognition From Kings — And the Worst of All Wrong Views
The treatise turns to covetousness's own gravest forms: coveting property belonging to the monastic community as a whole or to a Buddhist shrine is grave precisely because of the significance of what is coveted; and a practitioner who, out of an overreaching conceit, mistakes their own accomplishment for genuine attainment, believing themselves wise and realized, and on this false basis actively seeks recognition and material support from kings, ministers, the wealthy and powerful, respected teachers, or wise fellow practitioners in spiritual life, generates grave covetousness through the very significance of those they seek to impress. Turning to malice, the treatise names harboring the wish to harm one's own parents, family, or teachers as grave, precisely because of who they are; harboring the wish to harm someone entirely blameless, someone already poverty-stricken, orphaned, or genuinely pitiable, who deserves compassion rather than cruelty, is likewise grave; and harboring the wish to harm someone who has sincerely come seeking refuge, or someone to whom one is personally indebted for a genuine kindness once received, is grave for the very same reason. And turning finally to wrong view, the treatise names the gravest of all wrong views as the one capable of denying every single real thing there is, cause, function, result, giving, loving care, reverent offering, and the entire moral order these depend upon, all at once; and the view that denies that any true arhat, any noble one who has genuinely reached the destination, or any noble one of upright conduct exists anywhere in the world at all is likewise grave, through the very significance of what it denies. Killing, and every karma-path following it, carried out under circumstances opposite to everything now described, is, by contrast, light.
復次，若於僧祇、佛靈廟等所有財寶，起貪欲心。由事重故，名重貪欲。若於己德起增上慢，自謂智者，乃於國王、大臣、豪貴、所尊、師長及諸聰叡同梵行等，起增上欲，貪求利養，名重貪欲。復次，若於父母、眷屬、師長，起損害心。由事重故，名重瞋恚。又於無過、貧窮、孤苦、可傷愍者，起損害心。由事重故，名重瞋恚。又於誠心來歸投者及有恩所，起損害心。由事重故，名重瞋恚。復次，若於一切餘邪見中，諸有能謗一切邪見，此謗一切事門轉故，名重邪見。又若有見，謂無世間真阿羅漢、正至、正行，乃至廣說。如是邪見，由事重故，名重邪見。
Moreover, coveting property belonging to the monastic community or a Buddhist shrine is, through the gravity of the object, called grave covetousness. Harboring an overreaching conceit about one's own virtue, considering oneself wise, and seeking recognition and support from kings, ministers, the powerful, respected teachers, and wise fellow practitioners, is called grave covetousness. Moreover, harboring the wish to harm one's parents, family, or teachers is, through the gravity of the object, called grave malice. Harboring the wish to harm one who is blameless, poor, orphaned, or pitiable is, through the gravity of the object, called grave malice. Harboring the wish to harm one who has sincerely sought refuge or one to whom a debt of kindness is owed is, through the gravity of the object, called grave malice. Moreover, among all wrong views, the view capable of denying every single real thing turns upon every matter at once, and is called grave wrong view. The view holding that there is no true arhat, no one who has reached the destination, and no one of upright conduct in the world is, through the gravity of the object, called grave wrong view.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the warning against seeking recognition from kings and ministers on the false basis of an overreaching conceit as a pointed continuation of fascicle 59's own earlier caution about craving a reputation for spiritual virtue, now sharpened further by adding the specific temptation of worldly power and prestige into the mix, a combination the tradition clearly regarded as especially corrosive for a sincere practitioner's own path. He notes that with wrong view's own gravest form now named, denying every real thing at once, the treatise has completed its full accounting of gravity across all ten unwholesome karma-paths by way of the object, closing this entire stretch of ethical analysis with the same object-based principle running consistently from killing all the way through to wrong view.
7. Section: Done Without Increasing, Increased Without Being Done
With killing's own circumstances of gravity now fully closed, every case not already described being reckoned light, the treatise turns to a further distinction: the unwholesome karma driven by killing may be committed without being habitually increased, increased without ever actually being committed, both committed and increased together, or neither committed nor increased at all. Killing committed without increase includes an act carried out by a child too young to genuinely discriminate right from wrong; an act committed only in a dream, carrying little real force; an act committed thoughtlessly, without real intention; an act committed only because another compelled it against one's own wish; and an act committed once, immediately followed by forceful regret and genuine revulsion, sincere self-reproach, and the formal undertaking of the precept against killing, so that the deed's own force grows faint, and, before its karmic fruit has even ripened, followed further still by a worldly path of meditative detachment weakening the very seed behind it, and finally by a transcendent path of genuine realization severing that seed entirely, leaving nothing whatsoever remaining. Killing increased without being committed belongs instead to one who, over a long stretch of time, repeatedly turns the thought of harming another over and over in the mind, growing the very unwholesome force of killing through sheer rumination alone, even while never actually carrying the deed out. Killing both committed and increased together includes every remaining case, an act carried out and then left entirely unaddressed, with no remorse, no precept taken, and no antidote of meditation or realization ever applied to weaken it. And killing neither committed nor increased is simply everything falling outside these three. Every remaining karma-path follows this same fourfold pattern, though greed, hatred, and wrong view, being purely mental karma-paths, have no equivalent of increase without commission at all, since forming the very thought itself already constitutes the deed.
復次，殺生所引不善諸業，或有是作而非增長，或有增長而非是作，或有亦作亦復增長，或有非作亦非增長。初句，謂無識別童稚所作，或夢所作，或不思而作，或自無欲他逼令作。或有暫作，續即還起猛利悔心及厭患心，懇責遠離，正受律儀，令彼微薄，未與果報，便起世間離欲之道，損彼種子；次起出世永斷之道，害彼種子令無有餘。增長而非作者，謂如有一，為害生故，於長夜中數隨尋伺。由此因緣，彼遂增長殺生所引惡不善法，然不能作殺生之業。於貪欲、瞋恚、邪見中，無有第二增長而非作句。
Moreover, the unwholesome karma drawn forth by killing may be committed without increase, increased without being committed, both committed and increased, or neither committed nor increased. The first phrase refers to an act done by a discriminating-incapable child, done in a dream, done without intention, or done only because another, against one's own wish, compelled it. Or committed once, immediately followed by forceful regret and revulsion, sincere self-reproach and distancing, correctly undertaking the precept, weakening it, and before the fruit has ripened, giving rise to a worldly path of freedom from desire that damages its seed, and next a transcendent path of permanent severing that destroys that seed, leaving nothing remaining. Increased without being committed refers to one who, for the sake of harming a being, repeatedly examines and reflects on it through a long night of time; by this cause and condition, the unwholesome dharma drawn forth by killing increases, yet the karma of killing itself is never actually committed. Among greed, hatred, and wrong view, there is no second phrase of increase without commission.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the description of committing killing once and then immediately following it with forceful regret, precept-taking, and eventually meditative severing as this section's own genuinely hopeful account of what real repentance actually accomplishes, showing that a single unwholesome act, however grave in itself, need not become an ever-deepening pattern if it is met quickly and thoroughly with its own proper antidote. He highlights the exclusion of greed, hatred, and wrong view from the "increased without committed" category as a precise and important clarification: unlike killing, where thought and deed remain genuinely separable, these three purely mental karma-paths collapse thought and deed into the very same event, so that dwelling on them at length is not merely a step toward the offense but is already, in full, the offense itself.
8. Section: Three Kinds of Fruit — A World Grown Barren by Its Own Killing
The treatise turns to a further question: what fruit does each karma-path actually draw forth? Killing, when closely cultivated, habitually practiced, and repeatedly engaged in, draws forth a ripening fruit of rebirth in the hells. Should one then emerge from that hell and take rebirth here among humankind, killing's own outflow fruit, resembling its own cause, is a short and truncated lifespan, cut off before its natural end. And killing's dominant fruit shapes the very world such beings come to inhabit: the fruits, food, and medicines found there carry little vitality or luster, their own strength and potency feeble and diminished, prone to spoiling once consumed and producing bodily imbalance, so that sickness spreads freely, and countless beings, their natural lifespan not yet exhausted, die well before their time. The remaining nine karma-paths' own ripening and outflow fruits follow a similar pattern, each in turn: theft yields poverty and scarcity of resources; sexual misconduct yields an unfaithful spouse; false speech yields being widely slandered by others; divisive speech yields estrangement from one's own friends and family; harsh speech yields constantly hearing disagreeable sounds; idle chatter yields words that carry no authority and win no one's trust; and covetousness, hatred, and wrong view each yield, in turn, an ever more forceful recurrence of that very same affliction, greed compounding into greater greed, hatred into greater hatred, delusion into greater delusion, each left unchecked only deepening further with every passing life. Turning to the dominant fruit specifically, theft shapes a barren world in which fruit is scarce, fails to ripen, rots easily, tastes of nothing genuine, and where drought leaves the very orchards withered, or bearing no fruit at all; and sexual misconduct shapes a world thick with filth, foul-smelling refuse, and unclean things crowding every corner, nothing in such a place ever genuinely pleasant to encounter.
復次，若於殺生親近數習多所作故，生那落迦，是名殺生異熟果。若從彼沒，來生此間人同分中，壽量短促，是名殺生等流果。於外所得器世界中，飲食果藥皆少光澤，勢力異熟及與威德並皆微劣，消變不平，生長疾病。由此因緣，無量有情未盡壽量，非時中夭，是名殺生增上果。若器世間眾果尠少，果不滋長、果多朽壞、果不真實，多無雨澤，諸果乾枯，或全無果。如是一切，名不與取增上果。若器世間多諸便穢泥糞不淨，臭處迫迮，多生不淨臭惡之物，凡諸所有皆不可樂。如是一切，名欲邪行增上果。
Moreover, if one closely cultivates, practices, and greatly pursues killing, one is born in the hells; this is called killing's ripening fruit. If, having fallen from there, one is reborn here among humankind, one's lifespan is short and truncated; this is called killing's outflow fruit. In the external material world thereby obtained, food, fruit, and medicine all carry little luster, their potency and dominance feeble, spoiling once transformed and causing imbalance, giving rise to sickness; by this cause, countless beings, their lifespan not exhausted, die before their time. This is called killing's dominant fruit. If, in the material world, fruits are scarce, fail to ripen, rot easily, and are not genuine, and rain is frequently lacking, so that fruits wither, or there is no fruit at all — all of this is called the dominant fruit of taking what is not given. If, in the material world, there is much filth, mud, dung, and impurity, foul odors crowding every space, and unclean, foul things abound, nothing there being pleasant at all — all of this is called the dominant fruit of sexual misconduct.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the dominant fruit's own shaping of the shared physical world, not merely an individual's own personal circumstances, as the treatise's own striking claim that karma operates collectively as well as individually, an entire environment's own barrenness, filth, or fertility ultimately traceable back to the aggregate unwholesome or wholesome conduct of the beings who come to inhabit it together. He highlights the outflow fruit's own precise, like-for-like correspondence, a habitual killer reborn with a shortened life, a repeated thief reborn into poverty, as the tradition's own consistent insistence that karma is never arbitrary, each result recognizably growing from the very same seed that produced it, however long the interval between cause and its eventual, unmistakable fruit.
9. Section: When Even the Finest Flowers Vanish From the World
The treatise completes its dominant fruit for the remaining karma-paths. False speech shapes a world where farming, seafaring, and every ordinary worldly enterprise fail to flourish, bringing little genuine advantage, rarely working out as hoped, and thick with occasions for real fear and dread. Divisive speech shapes a world of hills and ravines cutting one place off from another, treacherous, difficult terrain, thick likewise with fear and danger. Harsh speech shapes a world of bare, withered stumps, thorns, poisonous brambles, tiles, gravel, and sand, dried out and unnourished, without ponds, its rivers and springs run dry, its very soil turned salty and barren, its hills and gorges dangerous, thick with fear throughout. Idle chatter shapes a world where fruit trees bear at the wrong season or fail to bear at all, or bear fruit that looks ripe yet never truly is, rooted so shallowly that it cannot long endure, its gardens and pools unpleasant and overgrown. Covetousness shapes a world whose every flourishing thing, year by year, day by day, gradually diminishes, its every flavor only ever fading, never growing richer. Hatred shapes a world thick with plague, calamity, affliction, hostility, and terror, roamed by lions, tigers, wolves, and every manner of fierce beast, by serpents and venomous creatures, by malevolent spirits, and by violent bandits. And wrong view shapes a world where the very finest flowers and fruits vanish entirely, where impure things come to look pure and miserable things come to look pleasant, offering no genuine dwelling place, no genuine protection, and no genuine refuge at all. With this, the treatise closes its complete account of the dominant fruit belonging to every one of the ten unwholesome karma-paths.
若器世間農作、行船、世俗事業不甚滋息，殊少便宜，多不諧偶，饒諸怖畏恐懼因緣。如是一切，是妄語增上果。若器世間其地處所，丘坑間隔，險阻難行，饒諸怖畏恐懼因緣。如是一切，是離間語增上果。若器世間其地處所，多諸株杌、荊棘、毒刺、瓦石、沙礫，枯槁無潤，無有池沼，河泉乾竭，土田鹹滷，丘陵坑險，饒諸怖畏恐懼因緣。如是一切，是麤惡語增上果。若器世間所有果樹果無的當，非時結實，時不結實，生而似熟，根不堅牢，勢不久停，園林池沼多不可樂，饒諸怖畏恐懼因緣。如是一切，是綺語增上果。若器世間一切盛事，年時日夜月半月等漸漸衰微，所有氣味唯減不增。如是一切，是貪欲增上果。若器世間多諸疫癘、災橫、擾惱、怨敵、驚怖、師子、虎狼、雜惡禽獸、蟒蛇、蝮蝎、蚰蜒、百足、魍魎、藥叉、諸惡賊等。如是一切，是瞋恚增上果。若器世間所有第一勝妙華果悉皆隱沒，諸不淨物乍似清淨，諸苦惱物乍似安樂，非安居所、非救護所、非歸依所。如是一切，是邪見增上果。
If, in the material world, farming, seafaring, and worldly enterprise do not flourish, bring little advantage, and rarely succeed, thick with occasions of fear and dread — all of this is the dominant fruit of false speech. If, in the material world, hills and ravines lie between places, the terrain treacherous and hard to traverse, thick with fear and dread — all of this is the dominant fruit of divisive speech. If, in the material world, there are many bare stumps, thorns, poisonous brambles, tiles, gravel, and sand, dry and unnourished, without ponds, rivers and springs run dry, the soil salty, hills and gorges dangerous, thick with fear and dread — all of this is the dominant fruit of harsh speech. If, in the material world, fruit trees bear out of season or fail to bear, or bear what looks ripe but is not, rooted shallowly and short-lived, gardens and pools unpleasant, thick with fear and dread — all of this is the dominant fruit of idle chatter. If, in the material world, every flourishing thing gradually diminishes year by year, day by day, and every flavor only fades and never grows — all of this is the dominant fruit of covetousness. If, in the material world, there is much plague, calamity, affliction, hostility, and terror, lions, tigers, wolves, and every fierce beast, serpents, venomous creatures, malevolent spirits, and violent bandits — all of this is the dominant fruit of hatred. If, in the material world, the finest flowers and fruits all vanish, impure things appear pure, and wretched things appear pleasant, offering no dwelling, no protection, and no refuge — all of this is the dominant fruit of wrong view.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this entire catalogue of dominant fruits as the treatise's own extended meditation on a single striking claim: that a shared physical world is never morally neutral, but is itself the visible accumulation of the very conduct, wholesome or unwholesome, of the beings who come to inhabit it together, a community steeped in the ten wholesome ways of action inheriting a world of genuine beauty and abundance, a community steeped in their unwholesome counterparts inheriting exactly the barren, filthy, treacherous, and fear-ridden world just described in such careful detail. He highlights wrong view's own dominant fruit, a world where impure things come to look pure and wretched things come to look pleasant, as the treatise's own most unsettling image of all, since it describes not merely material hardship but a fundamental corruption of perception itself, an entire world rendered incapable of being seen clearly for what it actually is.
10. Section: For Meat, For Robbery, For a False Friend's Sacrifice
The treatise turns to a new question, drawn directly from the Buddha's own teaching that killing arises in three ways, generated by greed, by hatred, and by delusion, and that this same threefold pattern holds true all the way through to wrong view as well, asking how this distinction should actually be understood. Killing generated by greed takes four forms: killing for the sake of flesh and blood to consume; killing with the prior intention of then plundering the victim's own wealth; killing instigated by another, whether hired to do it, repaying a debt of past kindness, drawn in by a friend's own influence, hoping to win friendship through the very favor of killing, driven by need for food and clothing, or simply obeying a master's command; and killing driven by gain and loss, believing another capable of causing one's own decline, or capable of obstructing one's own profit, a pattern extending as well to every one of the eight worldly winds, gain and loss, disrepute and repute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, whenever any of these becomes the actual motive behind the deed. Killing generated by hatred follows the ninefold pattern of ill will already explained at length, directed at oneself across past, present, and future, at one's own loved ones, and at one's enemies in turn. And killing generated by delusion begins with computing killing itself as righteous conduct, as when one believes, I am this other being's true friend, and because I kill them, their body destroyed and their life ended, they will surely be reborn in the heavens — killing carried out on the strength of this very belief is generated by delusion.
復次，如世尊言：殺有三種，謂貪瞋癡之所生起，乃至邪見亦復如是。此差別義，云何應知？若為血肉等，殺害眾生。或作是心：殺害彼已，當奪財物。或受他雇、或為報恩、或友所攝、或希為友、或為衣食，奉主教命而行殺害。或有謂彼能為衰損，或有謂彼能障財利，而行殺害。如利衰，毀譽、稱譏、苦樂，隨其所應，當知亦爾。如是一切，名貪所生殺生業道。復次，若謂彼於己樂為無義，而行殺害。廣說乃至於九惱事，皆如是知。如是一切，名瞋所生殺生業道。復次，若計為法而行殺害，謂己是餘眾生善友，彼因我殺，身壞命終當生天上。如是殺害，從癡所生。
Moreover, as the Blessed One said: killing is of three kinds, arising from greed, hatred, and delusion, and so too even with wrong view. How should this distinction be understood? If killing beings for flesh and blood; or forming the thought, having killed them, I shall then take their wealth; or hired by another, or repaying kindness, or drawn by a friend, or hoping to gain friendship, or for food and clothing, obeying a master's command and carrying out killing; or holding that another is capable of causing decline, or capable of obstructing profit, and carrying out killing; as with gain and loss, so too with disrepute and repute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, accordingly — all of this is called killing generated by greed. Moreover, if holding that another has done oneself no benefit, and carrying out killing on this basis, and so on at length through the nine grounds of ill will, all should be understood likewise — all of this is called killing generated by hatred. Moreover, if computing killing as righteous conduct, thinking, I am this being's good friend, and because of my killing, their body destroyed and life ended, they will be reborn in the heavens — such killing arises from delusion.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the delusion-generated killing described here, believing oneself a "good friend" ensuring another's heavenly rebirth through the very act of killing them, as a genuinely disturbing example of how thoroughly a wrong view can invert ordinary moral instinct, dressing an act of violence in the language of benevolence and friendship until the killer sincerely believes they are doing their victim a kindness. He highlights the extension of greed-generated killing across the full eight worldly winds, gain, loss, disrepute, repute, praise, blame, pleasure, and pain, as the treatise's own reminder that the underlying motive behind violence is rarely a single simple craving, but is instead woven through with an entire web of ordinary human concerns about status, reputation, and comfort that a careful practitioner must learn to recognize in their own subtler forms as well.
11. Section: Abandoning the Dying, and Theft's Own Three Roots
The treatise continues delusion-generated killing: killing carried out because one's own elder or teacher commanded it, believing this alone makes it righteous conduct; killing directed at anyone who slanders the heavens, Brahmā, the lord of the world, or brahmins themselves, believing such killing is likewise sanctioned by righteous law; and encouraging another to kill by teaching them that killing generates no ripening result at all, so that the one so persuaded goes on to kill with an untroubled mind, the very teacher who persuaded them thereby incurring the offense of killing generated by delusion in their own right. A further delusion holds that placing one's own aging parents or beloved family into fire, starving them to death, casting them from a cliff, or abandoning them in the wilderness is itself righteous conduct, a practice the tradition recalls certain ancient societies actually codified into law, elderly and dying relatives cast into a pit of fire or left in open wilderness to die alone once judged too old to be of further use — the same custom, disturbingly, recorded among certain peoples even into more recent times. True filial devotion, the tradition insists, means caring for one's own parents and family through to their very last moment, never abandoning them so long as life remains, and all of these delusions together, from sacrificial killing through the abandonment of the elderly, constitute the full karma-path of killing generated by delusion. Turning to theft, killing's own remaining discussion having closed, greed generates its first form through sheer gluttonous grasping, snatching at another's wealth or food the way a starving animal devours its prey, unable to restrain the craving itself.
或作是心：為尊長故，法應殺害。或作是心：諸有誹毀天梵世主，罵婆羅門，法應殺害。如是心殺，從癡所生。或計殺生作及增長無異熟果，為他開演勸行殺業，彼由勸故，遂行殺事。時彼勸者所得殺罪，從癡所生。或有妄計以其父母親愛眷屬擲置火中、斷食、投巖、棄於曠野，是真正法。如是一切，名癡所生殺生業道。復次，若於他財食饕餮而取。是不與取，貪欲所生。
Or thinking, for the sake of an elder, this killing should be done by righteous law; or thinking, those who slander the heavens, Brahmā, or the lord of the world, or curse brahmins, should by righteous law be killed. Such killing arises from delusion. Or computing that killing, whether committed or repeated, has no ripening result, and openly teaching and urging another to carry out killing, so that they, persuaded, go on to kill — the one who so persuaded them incurs the offense of killing, arising from delusion. Or falsely computing that placing one's own parents or beloved family into fire, starving them, casting them from a cliff, or abandoning them in the wilderness is itself genuinely righteous conduct. All of this is called killing generated by delusion. Moreover, gluttonously taking another's wealth or food is taking what is not given, generated by greed.
Master Cháng Bǎi recalls reading, years ago, an account in Reader's Digest of elderly members of certain Arctic communities walking out alone into the snow to die once they sensed their own end was near, a practice he notes echoes, across an entirely different culture and climate, the very custom this passage describes as delusion-generated killing, and treats both as a sobering reminder that even genuine communal hardship can, without careful reflection, calcify into a codified wrong view treated as simple common sense. He insists that genuine filial devotion requires the opposite response entirely, sustained care extended all the way to a parent's own last breath, precisely because a life's own natural end is never a license to hasten its arrival, however difficult that care may become.
12. Section: Burning a Village Out of Pure Spite
Theft generated by greed continues: theft undertaken for hire, in return for a kindness already received, in hope of a kindness still to come, in obedience to a master's command for the sake of food and clothing, for the sake of being praised, or simply for the sake of one's own comfort — a pattern the tradition warns can begin innocently enough in a child's own small, uncorrected pilfering, only to deepen, unchecked, into something capable of costing that same child their life in later years. Theft generated by hatred follows instead the ninefold pattern of ill will already explained, carried out purely to torment another rather than out of any actual craving for their wealth, not even truly desiring the goods taken at all; burning down an entire village, its homes, possessions, and treasures, purely out of hatred toward its inhabitants, an act the treatise regards as at least equal to theft in its own gravity, if not graver still; and commanding another to plunder and scatter an enemy's own wealth, the one who gives such a command thereby incurring the very offense of theft generated by hatred, even without lifting a hand themselves. Theft generated by delusion includes believing that stealing to support one's own elders is itself righteous conduct; believing it righteous to confiscate the property of anyone who slanders the heavens, Brahmā, or brahmins; and believing it righteous to plunder wealth needed for ritual sacrifice, or the very implements the sacrifice requires, on the mistaken conviction that killing a sacrificial animal in this way ensures its own rebirth in the heavens.
或受他雇而行劫盜，或恩所攝、或祈後恩、或為衣食奉主教命、或為稱譽、或為安樂而行劫盜。如是一切不與取業，皆貪所生。復次，若作是思：彼於我所樂行無義，廣說乃至九惱害事增上力故，而行劫盜。不必貪著彼所有財，不必希求諸餘財物。是不與取，瞋恚所生。或憎他故，焚燒聚落舍宅財物珍玩資具，當知彼觸瞋恚所生，盜相似罪，或更增彊。或憎彼故，令他劫奪，破散彼財。他受教命依行事時，彼能教者不與取罪，從瞋恚生。復次，若作是心：為尊長故而行劫盜，是為正法。名癡所生不與取罪。或作是心：若有誹毀天梵世主，罵婆羅門，法應奪彼所有財物。此不與取亦從癡生。或作是心：若為祠祀、為祠祀支、為祠祀具，法應劫盜。是不與取亦從癡生。
Or committing theft for hire, out of gratitude, hoping for future kindness, for food and clothing under a master's command, for praise, or for comfort — all such taking of what is not given arises from greed. Moreover, thinking, this one has done me no benefit, and so on through the nine grounds of ill will, committing theft without craving the wealth itself or seeking any other gain — this is taking what is not given, generated by hatred. Or, out of hatred, burning down a village's homes, possessions, and treasures — this should be known as a crime resembling theft generated by hatred, or graver still. Or, out of hatred, commanding another to plunder and scatter another's wealth — the one who gives such a command incurs the offense of taking what is not given, arising from hatred. Moreover, thinking, for the sake of an elder this theft is righteous conduct — this is taking what is not given, generated by delusion. Or thinking, one who slanders the heavens, Brahmā, or brahmins should by righteous law have their wealth seized — this too arises from delusion. Or thinking, for the sake of sacrifice, its accessories, or its implements, this theft is righteous — this too arises from delusion.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats hatred-driven theft that never actually desires the stolen wealth at all, purely bent on causing another pain, as this section's own clearest proof that theft's own karmic weight has nothing essentially to do with the thief's own material gain, since the very same offense, taking what is not given, can arise from an entirely different underlying motive that seeks only another's suffering and takes no pleasure whatsoever in the goods themselves. He highlights village-burning as an act the treatise treats with unusual severity, at least equal to ordinary theft and likely graver, precisely because it destroys rather than merely transfers what belongs to its victims, compounding loss with total, irreversible ruin.
13. Section: A Parent's Command, and the Cow-Worshippers' Origin Story
Sexual misconduct generated by greed includes acting to please a friend, obeying a master's command out of need for food and clothing, or pursuing the act as a kind of trade for one's own livelihood. Sexual misconduct generated by hatred includes carrying out the act purely in retaliation, following the ninefold pattern of ill will, without any actual desire having preceded it at all, driven only by anger at some prior offense; and, out of hatred for another, arranging for that person's own wife or concubine to be shamed by inducing someone else to violate her, an offense the instigator incurs even without acting personally, and one the treatise treats as potentially graver still than direct action. Sexual misconduct generated by delusion includes believing that one's own mother, father, or another woman commanding the act has thereby made it a source of great merit rather than a wrong requiring correction, mistaking what is genuinely improper for what is genuinely righteous purely because a trusted elder demanded it. Turning to false speech, greed generates it for the sake of profit, out of fear that another might otherwise damage one's own wealth, for the sake of praise, or for the sake of comfort; hatred generates it according to the same ninefold pattern of ill will already explained; and delusion generates it in several distinct forms, lying for the sake of an elder, or lying in service of the so-called cow-precept, a practice certain outsiders held could bring purification, tracing back to a belief that in an age of great scarcity, when the earth's own nourishing essence had vanished and beings faced starvation, the heavens transformed themselves into cattle to plow the fields and sustain humankind, and that cattle, being heaven's own emanation, are themselves pure, their very dung and urine considered sacred, certain outsiders even adopting bovine habits, grazing on grass with lowered head and closed eyes, believing this itself constitutes the very discipline capable of leading to heaven.
或欲攝受朋友知識，或為衣食承主教命，或為存活希求財穀金銀珍寶，而行邪行。如是一切，名貪所生欲邪行罪。復次，若作是思：彼於我所樂行無義，廣說乃至九惱害事以為依止，而行邪行。非彼先有欲纏所纏，然於相違非所行事，為報怨故勉勵而行，名瞋所生欲邪行罪。或憎彼故，以彼妻妾令他毀辱，彼若受教行欲邪行，便觸瞋恚所生相似欲邪行罪，或更尤重。復次，若作是心，母及父親，或他婦女命為邪事，若不行者便獲大罪，若行此者便獲大福。非法謂法而行邪行，名癡所生欲邪行罪。復次，若為利養而說妄語，或怖畏他損己財物、或為稱譽、或為安樂而說妄語。如是一切，名貪所生妄語業道。若有依止九惱害事而說妄語，名瞋所生妄語業道。若作是心：為諸尊長、或復為牛、或為祠具，法應妄語。如是妄語，從癡所生。
Or wishing to gain friends and companions, or obeying a master's command for food and clothing, or seeking wealth, grain, gold, silver, or treasure for one's own survival, and thereby carrying out sexual misconduct — all of this is called sexual misconduct generated by greed. Moreover, thinking, this one has done me no benefit, and so on through the nine grounds of ill will, and thereby carrying out the act, not preceded by any actual entangling desire, but carried out under compulsion purely for revenge against what opposed one's wish — this is called sexual misconduct generated by hatred. Or, out of hatred, causing another's wife or concubine to be shamed by inducing someone to violate her — this incurs an offense resembling sexual misconduct generated by hatred, or graver still. Moreover, thinking, mother, father, or another woman has commanded this improper act, and that not doing it incurs great fault while doing it brings great merit, mistaking what is not righteous for what is righteous — this is called sexual misconduct generated by delusion. Moreover, lying for the sake of profit, out of fear another might damage one's own wealth, for praise, or for comfort — all of this is called false speech generated by greed. Lying according to the nine grounds of ill will is called false speech generated by hatred. Thinking, for the sake of elders, or for cattle, or for sacrificial implements, this lie is righteous by law — such lying arises from delusion.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the cow-precept's own origin story, cattle as heaven's own compassionate emanation sent to plow the fields of a starving world, as a genuinely poignant example of how gratitude toward a real, remembered kindness can, across generations, calcify into an entire system of ritual practice detached from any of the original ethical reasoning that might have justified it. He highlights the instigator of another's sexual shaming as bearing the very same offense as the one who physically commits it, treating this consistent principle, that arranging wrongdoing carries the wrongdoing's own full weight, as one of the treatise's most frequently repeated and evidently most important safeguards against moral evasion by proxy.
14. Section: Craving an Enemy's Ruin, and Longing for Rudra's Own World
Delusion continues to generate false speech through further forms: believing that lying against ascetics or brahmins who oppose the heavens, Brahmā, or brahmins themselves is thereby righteous, since such opponents are deemed unworthy of truthful treatment; and believing, through a kind of self-deceiving concealment, that a lie is genuinely lawful and disciplined, and that even a lie capable of splitting the monastic community apart is therefore no wrongdoing at all. Divisive speech and harsh speech, the treatise notes, should be understood to arise from greed, hatred, and delusion according to this very same pattern already explained for false speech. Idle chatter generated by greed includes speaking for the sake of amusement, to display one's own cleverness, or for profit, praise, and comfort; idle chatter generated by hatred follows the ninefold pattern of ill will; and idle chatter generated by delusion includes the mistaken belief that such speech genuinely serves truth, stability, liberation, or the pursuit of the Dharma itself. Turning to covetousness, greed generates it toward the wealth of one who is not even an enemy, first taking careful note of what they possess and then craving that it become one's own; hatred generates it instead toward an enemy's own wealth specifically, not because that wealth is genuinely desirable in itself, but purely through the force of the nine grounds of ill will, wishing everything the enemy possesses might somehow belong to oneself instead, simply to deny them any advantage; and delusion generates covetousness through longing for rebirth in the exalted worlds of Rudra, of Viṣṇu, of Indra, or of the lord of the Brahmā realm, believing that fixing the mind upon such a rebirth and dwelling there in thought secures great blessing and protection, even though this very longing remains, in the end, still entirely bound within the cycle of birth and death.
若作是心：諸有沙門、若婆羅門，違背諸天、違梵世主、違婆羅門，於彼妄語稱順正法。如是妄語，名癡所生妄語業道。若作是計：於法法想，於毗奈耶毗奈耶想，以覆藏想妄語破僧，無有非法。如是妄語亦從癡生。如妄語業道，離間、麤惡二語業道，隨其所應，當知亦爾。復次，若為戲樂而行綺語，或為顯己是聰叡者而行綺語，或為財利稱譽安樂而行綺語，名貪所生綺語業道。若有依止九惱害事而說綺語，名瞋所生綺語業道。若有於中為求真實、為求堅固、為求出離、為求於法而行綺語，名癡所生綺語業道。復次，若有於他非怨有情財物資具，先取其相，希望追求增上力故，起如是心：凡彼所有願當屬我。又從貪愛而生貪愛，名貪所生貪欲業道。若於他財不計為好，但九惱事增上力故，起如是心：凡彼所有皆當屬我。又從瞋恚而生貪愛，名瞋所生貪欲業道。若作是計：諸有欲求魯達羅天、毗瑟笯天、釋梵世主眾妙世界，注心多住獲大福祐。作如是意注心多住，名癡所生貪欲業道。
Thinking, ascetics or brahmins who oppose the heavens, Brahmā, or brahmins deserve lies rather than truth — such lying arises from delusion. Thinking a lie is genuinely lawful and disciplined, and, through concealment, that even splitting the community is no wrongdoing — this too arises from delusion. As with false speech, so too with divisive speech and harsh speech, accordingly. Moreover, idle chatter for amusement, to display cleverness, or for profit, praise, and comfort, is generated by greed. Idle chatter according to the nine grounds of ill will is generated by hatred. Idle chatter believed to serve truth, stability, liberation, or the Dharma is generated by delusion. Moreover, noting another non-enemy's wealth and craving it become one's own, greed generating further greed, is covetousness generated by greed. Not regarding another's wealth as genuinely desirable, but through the nine grounds of ill will wishing it all belonged to oneself, hatred generating craving, is covetousness generated by hatred. Thinking that fixing the mind upon rebirth in the worlds of Rudra, Viṣṇu, Indra, or Brahmā secures great blessing is covetousness generated by delusion.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats hatred-generated covetousness, craving an enemy's wealth not because it is genuinely wanted but purely to deny them its benefit, as this section's own sharpest illustration of how thoroughly ill will can distort even so ordinary a craving as wanting money, the wealth itself becoming almost incidental to the real underlying wish, which is simply that the other person suffer some loss. He highlights delusion-generated covetousness, longing for rebirth among the exalted gods, as a fitting closing example for this entire threefold analysis, since it shows that even a desire aimed at something conventionally regarded as sacred or elevated remains, examined honestly, still just another form of craving, still fully bound within the very cycle of birth and death it might have seemed, on the surface, to transcend.
15. Section: All Ten Roots Now Traced — Which Poison Actually Completes Each Path
Malice generated by greed arises when harming another actually serves one's own profit, reputation, praise, or comfort, without any genuine hatred toward that being at all, malice here simply being craving's own instrument. Malice generated by hatred follows the ninefold pattern of ill will already explained in full. And malice generated by delusion belongs to certain ascetics and brahmins, whether within this teaching or among outside traditions, who despise anyone holding a different view, harboring the wish to harm fellow ascetics or brahmins purely on account of that difference. Turning finally to wrong view, greed generates it when one who denies the existence of giving and its fruit does so specifically to justify seeking great offerings and clothing from kings and the wealthy, the wrong view itself functioning as a rationalization for craving; hatred generates it when one who resents those holding the correct view that giving and loving care do bring real results, refusing to share any view with a rival, therefore deliberately adopts the opposite, denying position purely out of spite; and delusion generates it through simple unreasoned thinking, faulty reflection, and mistaken examination of reality in its own right, without any further craving or resentment driving it at all. With every one of the ten unwholesome karma-paths now traced back to its own threefold root in greed, hatred, and delusion, the treatise turns to a further decisive discernment in eight parts, the first asking which affliction actually completes each karma-path, even though all three may serve as its method: killing, harsh speech, and malice are each completed specifically by hatred; theft, sexual misconduct, and covetousness are each completed specifically by greed; false speech and divisive speech may each be completed equally by any of the three; and wrong view is completed specifically by delusion.
若不如理於法思惟、籌量、觀察，由此方便所引尋伺，發起邪見，名癡所生邪見業道。復次，殺生業道三為方便，由瞋究竟。如殺業道，麤語、瞋恚業道亦爾。不與取業道三為方便，由貪究竟。如不與取，邪行、貪欲業道亦爾。除其邪見，所餘業道三為方便，由三究竟。邪見業道三為方便，由癡究竟。
Unreasoned thinking, faulty reflection, and mistaken examination of the dharmas, giving rise through this means to discursive thought that generates wrong view, is wrong view generated by delusion. Moreover, the karma-path of killing takes all three as its means, but is completed by hatred. As with the karma-path of killing, so too harsh speech and malice. The karma-path of taking what is not given takes all three as its means, but is completed by greed. As with taking what is not given, so too sexual misconduct and covetousness. Apart from wrong view, the remaining karma-paths take all three as their means, and are completed by all three. The karma-path of wrong view takes all three as its means, but is completed by delusion.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this closing distinction between what merely serves as a karma-path's own method and what actually completes it as a genuinely elegant piece of psychological precision: any of the three poisons can set an unwholesome act into motion, yet each act still carries its own natural center of gravity, killing and hatred belonging together at their core, theft and greed belonging together at theirs, wrong view remaining fundamentally a failure of clear seeing however much craving or resentment may also happen to be present alongside it. He highlights greed-generated wrong view, denying karmic fruit specifically to justify seeking royal patronage, as this whole extensive analysis's own final, sobering demonstration that even a belief about ultimate reality can be quietly manufactured to serve an entirely mundane craving underneath it.
16. Section: Four Groundings for Ten Karma-Paths
The treatise turns to its second decisive discernment, the basis or locus each karma-path actually depends upon. Killing, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, and malice, six karma-paths in all, arise specifically with respect to other sentient beings, requiring some other being as their very object. Taking what is not given and covetousness arise instead with respect to wealth and material possessions. Idle chatter arises with respect to the name-body, the inner realm of language and conceptual proliferation from which meaningless speech is drawn. And wrong view arises with respect to conditioned formations themselves, the five aggregates and the entire fabricated world these formations comprise, since it is precisely this very reality that wrong view goes on to deny. The treatise then turns to a third decisive discernment, asking through what three further conditions and causes an unwholesome karma-path becomes so fully, thoroughly evil in its own unwholesome nature that it inevitably draws forth a ripening result in the evil destinies to come.
復次，殺生、邪行、妄語、離間、麤語、瞋恚，此六業道有情處起。不與而取、貪欲業道，資財處起。綺語業道，名身處起。邪見業道，諸行處起。復次，由三因緣，不善業道成極圓滿惡不善性。
Moreover, killing, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, and malice, these six karma-paths arise with respect to sentient beings. Taking what is not given and covetousness arise with respect to wealth. The karma-path of idle chatter arises with respect to the name-body. The karma-path of wrong view arises with respect to conditioned formations. Moreover, through three causes and conditions, an unwholesome karma-path becomes fully complete in its own unwholesome, evil nature.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this fourfold grouping by locus, beings, wealth, language, and conditioned formations themselves, as the treatise's own tidy summary of everything a being can ever actually be tempted to harm, take, distort in speech, or misunderstand, showing that the ten karma-paths, seemingly a long and varied list, actually map onto only four basic categories of object once their underlying structure is properly seen. He notes that wrong view's own locus, conditioned formations themselves, fittingly closes the list, since it names not some particular being or possession but reality as a whole, the very ground every other karma-path already depends upon without exception.
17. Section: A Victim's Own Suffering Measures the Crime
The treatise answers its own question: three causes and conditions make an unwholesome karma-path fully complete in its evil, unwholesome nature. The intrinsic-nature fault, the volition drawn forth by killing and, in turn, by every one of the remaining nine karma-paths down through wrong view, is itself, in its own essential character, defiled and unwholesome, and it is precisely this intrinsic fault that first earns the name evil. The causal-condition fault arises when this same volition is driven by forceful, intense greed, hatred, or delusion, and it is this forceful driving condition that turns the deed into a truly grave, superior grade of unwholesome action, capable of drawing forth a genuinely undesirable result. And the contamination fault arises once the deed has actually reached its own completion, and here the treatise offers a striking clarification: the true measure of this fault is not whether the victim ever curses the perpetrator or wishes some terrible fate upon them, but simply the actual, felt suffering that victim genuinely experiences, since a defiled mind capable of inflicting real unwanted anguish upon another thereby draws forth a vast offense purely through the force of that suffering itself, entirely apart from whatever the victim does or does not think or wish in return — the size of the crime measured, in the end, by the size of the pain actually caused, and by nothing else besides. The treatise illustrates this natural, automatic quality of contamination through two vivid images: a lodestone need not consciously will that iron come and cling to it, and yet whatever iron lies nearby naturally clings regardless, simply by virtue of the stone's own inherent nature; and a sun-crystal need not consciously will that fire spring forth from it, and yet fire naturally springs forth the instant sunlight touches it, again simply by virtue of the crystal's own inherent nature — offense clings to a defiled deed in precisely the same natural, unwilled way.
何等為三？一、自性過故；二、因緣過故；三、塗染過故。此中殺生所引思，乃至邪見所引彼相應思，如是一切染汙性故、不善性故，由自性過說名為惡。若以猛利貪欲、瞋恚、愚癡纏所發起，即此亦名由因緣過，成重惡性、成上不善，能引增上不可愛果。若到究竟，即此亦名由塗染過，成極重惡、成上不善，能引增上不可愛果。若有用染汙心，能引發他不可愛樂欣悅之苦，彼隨苦心威勢力故，能引發苦補特伽羅思，便觸得廣大之罪，是故名為塗染過失。彼雖不發如是相心：諸能引發我之苦者，當觸大罪。然彼法爾觸於大罪。譬如磁石雖不作意：諸所有鐵來附於我。然彼法爾所有近鐵，不由功用來附磁石。此中道理，當知亦爾。日珠等喻，亦如是知。
What are the three? First, the intrinsic-nature fault. Second, the causal-condition fault. Third, the contamination fault. Here, the volition drawn forth by killing, down through the volition drawn forth by wrong view, being entirely defiled and unwholesome in nature, is called evil through this intrinsic-nature fault. If driven by forceful greed, hatred, or delusion, this is likewise called, through the causal-condition fault, becoming a grave, superior unwholesome nature capable of drawing forth an undesirable result. If reaching completion, this is likewise called, through the contamination fault, becoming an extremely grave, superior unwholesome nature capable of drawing forth an undesirable result. If a defiled mind draws forth in another an unwanted, unwelcome suffering, then, through the very force of that being's own suffering mind, a vast offense is incurred; this is called the contamination fault. Though the victim generates no such thought as, may whoever causes me this suffering incur a great offense, a great offense is naturally incurred regardless. Just as a lodestone, without willing that iron come cling to it, still has iron naturally cling nearby without any exertion — this principle should be understood the same way. The sun-crystal offers the same illustration.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the measure of contamination by the victim's own actual suffering, rather than by any curse or wish they might direct back at their attacker, as one of the treatise's own most genuinely humane pieces of ethical reasoning, locating moral weight squarely in real, experienced harm rather than in anything so unreliable as another person's own capacity or willingness to resent what was done to them. He highlights the lodestone and sun-crystal images together as an unusually elegant way of expressing something otherwise difficult to state plainly, that unwholesome consequence is not a matter of divine bookkeeping applied from outside, but something built directly into the very nature of a defiled act, arising as naturally and inevitably as iron drawn to a magnet or fire drawn from crystal by sunlight.
18. Section: Māra's Corruption, and the Fire Already Latent in Every Deed
The treatise offers two further analogies. Just as the four great elements' own inherent force gives rise to solidity, wetness, warmth, and motion, these very qualities never existing as something separate from the elements themselves, but simply being what the elements' own force naturally transforms into, so too does an unwholesome deed's own transformation into a seed capable of drawing an evil result occur through nothing other than volition's own inherent force, exactly as a practitioner's own accumulated power of meditative accomplishment transforms, through its own inherent force, into visible wonders. Even Māra, the tradition recalls, corrupted the hearts of countless brahmin elders and householders against the Blessed One not by implanting anything genuinely new within their minds at all, but purely through his own scheming power, which simply triggered the very seeds of affliction already dormant within them, turning their hearts hostile without adding a single foreign element beyond what was already latently there. In just this same way, the treatise concludes, an unwholesome deed's own contamination is nothing added from outside, but simply the natural unfolding of a defiled volition's own inherent power, already carrying within it, from the very moment of its own completion, everything needed to eventually ripen into its own evil-destiny result. With its full account of what makes an unwholesome karma-path extremely evil now complete, the treatise turns to a further decisive discernment: the distinction between karma whose result is certain to be experienced and karma whose result remains uncertain.
又於思上無別有法，彼威力生來相依附，說名塗染。當知唯是此思轉變，由彼威力之所發起。如四大種業威勢力所生種種堅性、濕性、煖性、動性，非大種外別有如是種種諸性，然即大種業威勢緣，如是轉變。如業威勢緣力轉變，神足加行緣力轉變，當知亦爾。又如魔王，惑媚無量娑梨藥迦諸婆羅門長者等心，令於世尊變異暴惡。非於彼心更增別法，說名惑媚。唯除魔王加行威勢生彼諸心，令其轉變成極暴惡。此中道理，當知亦爾。
Also, there is no separate dharma existing atop volition; its own inherent power arises and naturally clings to it, and this is called contamination. It should be known that this is simply volition's own transformation, arisen through that very power. Just as the great elements' own force gives rise to solidity, wetness, warmth, and motion, these qualities not existing apart from the elements themselves, but being the elements' own force so transformed — as with the transformation wrought by karma's own force, so too the transformation wrought by the force of psychic accomplishment. Just as Māra corrupted the hearts of countless brahmin elders and householders, turning them hostile toward the Blessed One, not by adding any separate dharma to their minds, this being called corruption, but purely through Māra's own scheming power giving rise to those very minds, turning them into extreme hostility — this same principle should be understood accordingly.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the Māra story as this section's own genuinely reassuring hidden implication: if corruption works only by triggering seeds already present, then a mind genuinely free of such latent seeds has, in the end, nothing there for even Māra's own considerable power to actually exploit, making inner purification itself the only real defense worth cultivating. He highlights the parallel drawn between karma's own transformation and a practitioner's own psychic accomplishments as the treatise's own reminder that both operate by the very same underlying principle, an inherent power simply unfolding into its own natural expression, whether that expression is a fall into the evil destinies or a genuine spiritual attainment, the deciding difference lying entirely in which kind of mind, defiled or purified, first set that power into motion.
19. Section: Stealing Then Killing — One Act or Two?
The treatise closes its account of certain and uncertain karma: karma satisfying the five factors already explained, motivation, method, absence of antidote, wrong clinging, and object, becomes extremely grave and is called certain karma, definitely to be experienced; karma opposite to this is called uncertain karma. Karma may further be classified into four kinds: certain in its ripening result alone, certain in its timing alone, certain in both, or uncertain in both. Even an arhat may still carry certain, definitely-to-be-experienced unwholesome karma from a past life or from their own earlier, unawakened days in this very life, yet since no further nourishing condition remains to feed such karma once affliction has been permanently severed, its result, when it does ripen, arrives only lightly, a grave offense borne as no more than a minor discomfort, this same karma finally and permanently ceasing to ripen at all once the transformed basis of full buddhahood is achieved, its every seed exhausted for good. Turning to a further question: if someone, in one continuous motion, steals a creature and then kills it, should this be counted as a single unwholesome act or as two? The answer is two, even though the speed of the whole sequence creates the mistaken impression, an overreaching conceit born of sheer rapidity, that only one act has occurred. The very moment one forms the thought, I shall take this creature, a first volition of theft has already arisen; and the very moment one then forms the thought, I shall now kill it, a second, entirely distinct volition of killing arises in turn — the mind, moving too quickly to notice its own two separate turnings, mistakes what are genuinely two complete unwholesome acts for merely one.
復次，如先所說作及增長業，若先所說由五因緣成極重業，名定受業。與此相違，名不定受業。復有四業。一、異熟定，二、時分定，三、二俱定，四、二俱不定。諸阿羅漢所有不善決定受業，或於前生所作，或於此生先異生位所作，由少輕苦之所逼惱，便名果報已熟。若已轉依，果報種子皆永斷故，一切不受。問：若於一時亦牽亦搦，盜取眾生，即斷其命。當言一業，為二業耶？答：當言二業。以速轉故，於此二業，由增上慢，謂之為一。
Moreover, as already explained regarding karma committed and increased, if the five causes and conditions already explained are complete, an extremely grave karma results, called certain karma. Opposite to this is called uncertain karma. There are also four kinds of karma: certain in ripening result, certain in timing, certain in both, or uncertain in both. Whatever certain, definitely-to-be-experienced unwholesome karma an arhat carries, whether committed in a past life or in this life during an earlier unawakened state, is experienced through only a slight, light discomfort, and this is called the ripened result. Once the transformed basis is attained, the seeds of that result are permanently severed, and none of it is experienced at all. Question: if, in one continuous motion, one both takes and kills a creature, stealing it and then ending its life, should this be called one karma or two? Answer: it should be called two. Because of the rapid succession, an overreaching conceit regarding these two karmas mistakes them for one.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the arhat's own lightened experience of past unwholesome karma as one of the treatise's own most reassuring technical points, since it confirms that even genuinely grave past wrongdoing does not remain permanently fixed in its own weight, but can itself be transformed by the removal of whatever ongoing affliction would otherwise keep feeding it. He highlights the theft-then-killing analysis as a precise reminder that a rapid sequence of actions, however seamless it may feel from the inside, does not thereby collapse into a single moral event, since each distinct volition still carries its own full and separate karmic weight, whether or not the mind committing them was quick enough to notice the seam between the two.
20. Section: Five Marks of a Field Vast Enough to Ripen Karma in This Very Life
The treatise turns to a further decisive discernment: what makes karma ripen immediately, within this very life, rather than only in some life to come. In brief, three causes and conditions produce such immediately-ripening karma: a vast field, a vast intention, and unbroken purity. A field becomes vast through five distinguishing marks. First, one who abides in the absorption of loving-kindness, having risen from a powerful, superior aspiration to bring the very finest benefit and ease to every being without exception; offering to one who has just emerged from such an absorption is, in effect, offering to every being at once, since that very absorption's own object was every being at once. Second, one who abides in the absorption free of contention, guarding every being's own mind so carefully that no affliction is ever stirred up in them, as the venerable Subhūti was famed for cultivating so thoroughly that, foreseeing any encounter likely to provoke another's own affliction, he would simply decline to leave his dwelling that day at all. Third, one who has just emerged from the attainment of cessation, a state closely resembling nirvana's own still peace, reached only by noble ones from the third fruit onward. Fourth, a stream-enterer, already possessing the fourfold unbreakable faith and the very discipline of never again committing any unwholesome deed, permanently protected from ever falling into the evil destinies again. And fifth, an arhat, a Buddha, or the great community of monks headed by the Buddha himself, whose own continuity has reached the most thoroughly purified completion possible. Offerings made to any of these five kinds of field, the treatise explains, are vast enough in themselves to ripen their own karmic result within this very life.
復次，略由三因緣故，成現法受業。何等為三？一、田廣大故；二、思廣大故；三、相續清淨故。由五種相，田成廣大。一、從於一切有情第一利益安樂增上意樂住起，謂慈等至。二、從於一切有情第一將護他心住起，謂無諍等持。三、從第一寂靜涅槃樂相似聖住起，謂滅盡等至。四、已得一切不善不作律儀，謂預流果。五、極清淨相續究竟，謂阿羅漢及佛為首大苾芻僧。如是名為田廣大性。
Moreover, in brief, through three causes and conditions, karma comes to be experienced within this very life. What are the three? First, a vast field. Second, a vast intention. Third, unbroken purity. Through five marks, a field becomes vast. First, rising from an abiding of superior aspiration toward the very finest benefit and ease of every being, namely the attainment of loving-kindness. Second, rising from an abiding that guards every being's own mind, namely the concentration free of contention. Third, rising from a noble abiding resembling the very first, stillest bliss of nirvana, namely the attainment of cessation. Fourth, one who has already attained the discipline of never committing any unwholesome deed, namely the fruit of stream-entry. Fifth, one whose continuity has reached the most thoroughly purified completion, namely an arhat, or the Buddha together with the great community of monks he leads. This is called the vastness of the field.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the venerable Subhūti's own careful practice, checking each morning whether any encounter that day might stir up another's own affliction and simply staying home rather than risk it, as an unusually concrete and almost domestic illustration of what abiding in the absorption free of contention actually looks like in daily conduct, spiritual attainment here expressing itself not through some dramatic display but through a quiet, deliberate avoidance of even indirectly troubling another being's own peace of mind. He highlights the stream-enterer's own inclusion among these five vast fields as a genuinely hopeful detail, since it shows that vastness of field does not require the very summit of realization, a being only newly, irreversibly set upon the noble path already qualifying as worthy enough to ripen an offering's own result within this very lifetime.
21. Section: A Weak Thread, a Trickle of Water, a Single Drop of Vinegar
Vast intention, the treatise explains, is giving with a deep, earnest, wholly sincere heart toward beings who are suffering, impoverished, and without any refuge or protector, offering wealth that was itself cleanly and lawfully obtained. Unbroken purity is never having obstructed another's own giving in a past life, neither in body, speech, nor mind, and never having harbored a defiled thought of attachment toward what was given, thereby leaving one's own continuity free, in this present life, from the four obstructions that otherwise hinder giving: unfamiliarity, never having practiced giving before and so finding it difficult now; insufficiency, having too little to give in the first place; attachment to some especially fine or pleasing possession one cannot bear to part with; and giving only in eager anticipation of a future reward of wealth, a hope-driven generosity that is itself already a subtle obstruction. When all three conditions, a vast field, a vast intention, and unbroken purity, are genuinely present together, the resulting wholesome karma is certain to be experienced not only in this very life, but in the next life, and in lives further still beyond that. And precisely the same threefold pattern applies equally to unwholesome karma: harm done against an equally vast field, driven by an equally forceful and deliberate mind, and carried out with an equally unbroken pattern of prior similar conduct, likewise becomes certain to ripen immediately, within this very life. The treatise illustrates the varying reach of a single moment's karma across the three times through three vivid images: a weak thread able to hold only a single flower before its strength gives out corresponds to karma ripening only in this present life; a somewhat stronger thread able to hold two flowers corresponds to karma ripening in this life and the next; and a genuinely strong thread able to hold many flowers before finally giving way corresponds to karma ripening across this life, the next, and lives further still.
若於是處，以深厚殷重清淨信心，捨清淨財，是名思廣大性。若前生中，於他所施衣服等物，由身語意不為障礙，亦不思量興染汙心，以無有障障彼相續，當知是名相續清淨。若有於此三種因緣一切具足，當知彼業定現法受，亦於生受、亦於後受。若有與此相違三種因緣起不善業，當知亦成定現法受。或有所生一剎那業，唯現法受；或有所生一剎那業，亦現法受、亦於生受；或有所生一剎那業，三時皆受。譬如一縷其量微小，能持一華，一繫華已勢力便盡，不復能繫；復有一縷能持二華，再繫華已勢力便盡；復有一縷能持多華，多繫華已其力方盡。
Giving with a deep, earnest, pure faith, offering pure wealth, to beings who are suffering, impoverished, and without refuge, is called vast intention. Never having obstructed another's giving of clothing and the like in body, speech, or mind, and never having harbored a defiled thought regarding it, in a past life, leaving one's own continuity free of such obstruction, is called unbroken purity. When these three causes and conditions are all complete, that karma is certain to be experienced in this present life, and also in the next life, and also in a later life. When these same three causes and conditions, reversed, give rise to unwholesome karma, this too becomes certain to be experienced in this present life. Some karma arisen in a single moment is experienced only in this present life; some is experienced both in this present life and the next; and some is experienced across all three times. Just as one thread, small in measure, can hold a single flower, its strength exhausted the moment it does, unable to hold more; another thread can hold two flowers, its strength exhausted only then; and another thread can hold many flowers, its strength exhausted only after holding so many.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the naming of hope-driven generosity itself as a subtle obstruction to unbroken purity as a genuinely searching standard, since it suggests that even outwardly generous giving can remain quietly incomplete if performed with one eye already on its own future payoff, true unbroken purity requiring a giving mind entirely undistracted by what it might itself receive in return. He highlights the three graduated images, thread, water, and vinegar, as the treatise's own way of making an abstract question, how far does a single act's own consequence actually reach across time, vivid and intuitively graspable, karma's own strength, like a thread's own tensile limit, simply running out at different points depending on how forcefully and how purely it was originally generated.
22. Section: How Bodhisattvas Sever Unwholesome Karma Without Severing Affliction
The treatise turns to a further decisive discernment: bondage and freedom from bondage. All ten unwholesome karma-paths are bound solely to the desire realm, and can ripen only into desire-realm results, falling far more often into the evil destinies than into any wholesome one. Karma bound for the evil destinies is permanently and entirely severed the moment the fruit of stream-entry is attained; ordinary beings who merely achieve worldly freedom from desire through meditation, or who are reborn into the higher realms on that same strength, have only suppressed such karma temporarily, never yet severing it for good. Karma still bound to the desire realm itself is permanently severed by a non-returner, whether still dwelling here or already reborn into the pure abodes above, and by an arhat, every remaining unwholesome karma entirely exhausted. And a bodhisattva who has already entered the ground of genuinely pure, superior aspiration likewise permanently severs every unwholesome karma-path entirely, though through an entirely different mechanism from the hearers' own path: not through severing the underlying affliction-seed itself, which such a bodhisattva may still deliberately retain in subtle form precisely in order to keep taking rebirth for the sake of guiding other beings, as when a bodhisattva of the very first ground vows to become a wheel-turning monarch within the desire realm itself, but purely through the sustained power of never losing mindfulness, a vigilance so thoroughly maintained that discrimination-arisen unwholesome conduct simply never has the opportunity to arise again at all.
復次，十種不善業道唯欲界繫，亦唯能感欲界異熟，多於惡趣，少於善趣。又惡趣業，預流果時皆已斷盡。若諸異生世間離欲，或復生上，一切皆伏而未永斷。若不還果身猶住此，或復上生，及阿羅漢，諸不善業皆畢竟斷。若已證入清淨增上意樂地菩薩，一切不善業皆畢竟斷。此但由不忘念力所制持故，非由煩惱得離繫故。
Moreover, the ten unwholesome karma-paths are bound solely to the desire realm, and can bring about only desire-realm ripening results, more often in the evil destinies than in the wholesome ones. Karma bound for the evil destinies is entirely exhausted at the fruit of stream-entry. If ordinary beings become worldly free of desire, or are reborn into the higher realms, all such karma is only suppressed, not yet permanently severed. If a non-returner remains here or is reborn above, and an arhat, all unwholesome karma is permanently severed. If a bodhisattva has already entered the ground of pure, superior aspiration, all unwholesome karma is likewise permanently severed. This is achieved solely through the power of never losing mindfulness, not through affliction itself being severed and thereby freed from bondage.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this distinction between the hearer's path, severing unwholesome karma by uprooting affliction itself, and the bodhisattva's path, severing the very same karma through sustained mindfulness alone while deliberately retaining subtle affliction, as one of the treatise's own clearest articulations of what actually separates the two vehicles at a structural level, not a difference in how thoroughly each frees a being from wrongdoing, since both genuinely succeed, but a difference in why each does so, the hearer aiming at personal liberation from affliction itself, the bodhisattva aiming instead at remaining connected enough to ordinary beings, through retained affliction, to keep taking rebirth among them for their own sake. He highlights the first-ground bodhisattva's own vow to become a wheel-turning king within the desire realm as a vivid, concrete image of this very principle in action, spiritual attainment here expressed not as an escape from worldly rebirth but as a freely chosen return to it.
23. Section: Karma Defilement's Own Closing Verse — And Rebirth Defilement Opens
The treatise closes its distinction between karma and karma-path: killing through idle chatter, the seven bodily and verbal deeds, are each both karma and karma-path at once, since volition itself, expressed through body and speech, is genuinely karma, while its own unwholesome character, capable of drawing forth a ripened result, makes it equally a karma-path. Greed, hatred, and wrong view, by contrast, are karma-path but not karma in their own right, since, on the hearers' own account, karma proper belongs to a subtle form generated by bodily and verbal action, while these three purely mental states remain simply the affliction accompanying volition rather than volition's own active expression, even though the Great Vehicle's own account treats the matter somewhat differently, volition itself being a mental dharma throughout. With this, the treatise notes that no further elaboration on these karma-paths will appear, and offers its own closing verse, gathering together the seven gates by which karma defilement has now been fully examined: its own self-nature, in brief and in full detail; its method; its gravity; its increase or lack of increase, and its association with the very afflictions that generate it; the fruit it draws forth; and the decisive discernment gathering these threads together in eight further parts. With this verse, the deciding discernment of karma defilement has now been fully explained. The deciding discernment of rebirth defilement, the third and final kind of defilement framing this entire stretch of the treatise, shall now be explained in turn, beginning with eleven kinds of existence in brief: an exclusively pleasant existence, belonging to a portion of the gods, those dwelling in the first three meditative absorptions; an exclusively painful existence, belonging to the beings of hell; a mixed existence of both pleasure and pain, belonging to a portion of the gods, humans, spirits, and animals, the six heavens of the desire realm, some humans, some spirits, and even certain fortunate animals, pampered household pets dressed and groomed and housed as though royalty, or celebrated creatures kept in vast, climate-controlled enclosures with their own attendants; and an existence neither painful nor pleasant, belonging to a portion of the gods dwelling in the fourth meditative absorption and the four formless attainments beyond it.
殺生乃至綺語，亦業亦業道。貪、恚、邪見，業道非業。此諸業道餘決擇文，更不復現。後嗢柁南曰：自性相略廣，方便與輕重，增減及瑜伽，引果生決擇。如是已說業道決擇。生雜染決擇，我今當說。如先所說生雜染義，當知此生略有十一。一、一向樂生，謂一分諸天。二、一向苦生，謂諸那落迦。三、苦樂雜生，謂一分諸天、人、鬼、傍生。四、不苦不樂生，謂一分諸天。
Killing down through idle chatter are both karma and karma-path. Greed, hatred, and wrong view are karma-path, not karma. No further deciding-discernment text on these karma-paths will appear. The closing verse says: self-nature in brief and detail, method and gravity, increase and association, drawn-forth fruit and decisive discernment. Thus the deciding discernment of karma-paths has been explained. The deciding discernment of rebirth defilement shall now be explained. As already explained regarding the meaning of rebirth defilement, it should be known that existence is, in brief, of eleven kinds. First, exclusively pleasant existence, belonging to a portion of the gods. Second, exclusively painful existence, belonging to the beings of hell. Third, mixed existence of pleasure and pain, belonging to a portion of gods, humans, spirits, and animals. Fourth, existence neither painful nor pleasant, belonging to a portion of the gods.
Master Cháng Bǎi marks this transition as the treatise's own arrival at the third and final kind of defilement framing this entire four-fascicle stretch, affliction defilement now fully closed since fascicle 58, karma defilement now fully closed as well, spanning the remainder of fascicle 59 and the whole of fascicle 60 up to this point, ten root afflictions, twenty-six secondary afflictions, all ten unwholesome karma-paths worked out through every conceivable angle, gravity, increase, fruit, arising, and eightfold decisive discernment, the treatise's attention now turning at last to rebirth itself, the very existence that affliction and karma together actually produce. He highlights the vivid, almost comic modern examples of pampered pets living amid genuine luxury as his own illustration of mixed pleasure-and-pain existence extending even into the animal realm, a reminder that even an animal's own rebirth can carry real comfort alongside real limitation, karma's own complexity refusing to sort neatly along species lines alone.
24. Section: Ten Kinds of Mastery, and a Bodhisattva's Journey Through Every Heaven
The treatise continues its eleven kinds of existence: an exclusively impure existence belongs to ordinary beings of the desire realm, their own dwelling place and their own body and mind alike unclean; an exclusively pure existence belongs to a bodhisattva who has already attained mastery, one who, effortlessly and without any need for deliberate striving, abides in a signless state and has thereby attained ten kinds of mastery, over life, over mind, over possessions, over karma, over rebirth, over aspiration, over resolve, over miraculous power, over the Dharma, and over wisdom, taking rebirth for the most part as the great Brahmā king himself, in a place and body both genuinely pure. Such bodhisattvas, ground by ground, take rebirth throughout the very heavens and worlds they mean to guide: a bodhisattva of the first ground vows for the most part to become a wheel-turning monarch ruling a single continent; of the second ground, a golden-wheeled monarch ruling all four continents; of the third ground, though capable of the form realm's own higher rebirth, chooses instead to be reborn in the desire realm by the very force of their own vow; of the fourth ground, the king of the Yāma heaven; of the fifth, the king of Tuṣita heaven; of the sixth, the king of the heaven of transformed delights; of the seventh, the king of the heaven of mastery over others' transformations; of the eighth, a great Brahmā king ruling a thousand world-systems; of the ninth, a great Brahmā king ruling two great-thousand world-systems; and of the tenth ground, Maheśvara himself, sovereign of the very highest of the pure abodes, where this treatise itself records that a tenth-ground bodhisattva, for the most part, finally attains complete buddhahood. Pure-and-impure existence belongs instead to ordinary beings of the form and formless realms, their own dwelling place genuinely pure even while their own minds remain unpurified.
五、一向不清淨生，謂欲界異生。六、一向清淨生，謂已證得自在菩薩。七、清淨、不清淨生，謂色無色界異生。八、不清淨、清淨處生，謂在欲界般涅槃法、有暇處生。九、清淨、不清淨處生，謂生色無色界異生。十、不清淨、不清淨處生，謂生欲界異生不般涅槃法，設般涅槃法無暇處生。十一、清淨、清淨處生。謂生色無色界，非異生，諸有學者。
Fifth, exclusively impure existence, belonging to ordinary beings of the desire realm. Sixth, exclusively pure existence, belonging to a bodhisattva who has attained mastery. Seventh, pure-and-impure existence, belonging to ordinary beings of the form and formless realms. Eighth, impure-place-pure existence, belonging to one with the potential for final nirvana born in the desire realm in a place of leisure. Ninth, pure-place-impure existence, belonging to ordinary beings born in the form and formless realms. Tenth, impure-place-impure existence, belonging to ordinary beings of the desire realm without the potential for final nirvana, or, possessing it, born in a place without leisure. Eleventh, pure-place-pure existence, belonging to noble learners, not ordinary beings, born in the form and formless realms.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this ground-by-ground correspondence between a bodhisattva's own spiritual attainment and the specific heavenly or worldly throne they come to occupy as one of the treatise's own most striking visions of what advanced practice actually looks like from the outside, power and influence here treated not as temptation to be avoided but as instrument to be skillfully wielded, a bodhisattva's own growing capacity to benefit beings expressed quite literally as growing capacity to govern the very worlds those beings inhabit. He highlights the tenth ground's own culmination at Maheśvara's own throne in the highest pure abode, where buddhahood itself is finally attained, as the treatise's own vivid closing image for this extraordinary ascent, sovereignty over an entire cosmos becoming, in the end, simply the final threshold crossed on the way to complete awakening.
25. Section: Five Ways Beings Act Mad Without Being Mad
The treatise explains that the scriptural term rendered as beings' own long-accumulated affliction simply names craving itself, craving being what the truth of origination actually points to, while the dripping blood constantly experienced names the truth of suffering, beings bound by craving forever wandering through the three realms and forever experiencing this very suffering as a result. The Brāhmaṇa Simile Sutra records a further teaching on rebirth's own defilement: five things exist that, though not madness, are carried out exactly as madness would carry them out. First, dismembering one's own limbs, when other genuine means of livelihood remain available, purely because one has grown accustomed to cutting apart bodies, whether one's own or another's, simply to sustain a living. Second, miserliness, hoarding wealth acquired through greed, neither consuming it oneself nor giving any of it away, right up until death, only then leaving behind vast treasuries never once actually enjoyed — the tradition recalling the elder Bhadrika of Śrāvastī, who died leaving behind eighty thousand measures of pure gold and yet, throughout his own life, ate only coarse food, wore only ragged clothing, and drove only feeble, undernourished horses, a fate traced back to an earlier life in which he had joyfully fed a solitary awakened one and vowed boundless future wealth on the strength of that single offering, only to regret the very gesture afterward and curse the very recipient he had fed, a regret that left him reborn into genuine wealth yet trapped by his own miserliness inside it, and, the Buddha told King Prasenajit, ultimately reborn into the great hell of weeping and lamentation. Third, longing for rebirth in the heavens, and, though other genuinely wholesome means of body, speech, and mind remain available to bring this about, instead throwing oneself into fire, drowning oneself in water, or leaping from a high cliff, believing self-destruction itself the very cause of heavenly rebirth. Fourth, longing for liberation, and, ignorant that the noble eightfold path alone genuinely leads there, instead tormenting and afflicting oneself through extreme austerities, believing self-inflicted suffering itself the very cause of liberation. And fifth, mourning the dead, cutting one's own flesh, covering oneself in ashes, tearing out one's own hair, and starving oneself, hoping through such self-harm that the departed might somehow be restored to life.
復次，婆羅門喻經中，世尊依生雜染說如是言：有五非狂，如狂所作。何等為五？一、解支節者。謂更有餘活命方便，而樂分析所有支節以自活命。是名第一非狂如狂所作。二、慳貪者。謂慳貪所蔽，慳貪因緣所獲財寶，不食不施，唯除命終，欻然虛棄大寶庫藏。是名第二非狂如狂所作。三、樂生天者。謂更有餘身語意攝種種妙行生天方便，而樂妄執投火、溺水、顛墜高崖自害身命作生天因。是名第三非狂如狂所作。四、樂解脫者。謂更有餘八支聖道解脫方便，而樂妄執自逼自惱種種苦行作解脫因。是名第四非狂如狂所作。五、傷悼死者。謂依傷悼亡者因緣，種種哀歎剺攫其身，坌灰拔髮，斷食自毀，欲令亡者還復如故。是名第五非狂如狂所作。
Moreover, in the Brāhmaṇa Simile Sutra, the Blessed One, speaking of rebirth defilement, said this: there are five things not madness, yet carried out as madness would carry them out. What are the five? First, dismembering the limbs — though other means of livelihood remain, delighting in dismembering the limbs of bodies to sustain one's own life. This is the first thing not mad, yet carried out as madness. Second, miserliness — covered by miserliness, neither eating nor giving away wealth gained through it, only at death suddenly abandoning great treasuries. This is the second. Third, delighting in heavenly rebirth — though other wholesome means of body, speech, and mind remain, delighting in the false conviction that throwing oneself into fire, drowning, or falling from a cliff is the cause of heavenly rebirth. This is the third. Fourth, delighting in liberation — though the noble eightfold path remains as the means, delighting in the false conviction that self-inflicted austerity is the cause of liberation. This is the fourth. Fifth, mourning the dead — cutting the flesh, covering oneself in ashes, pulling out hair, fasting and self-harm, hoping to restore the departed to life. This is the fifth.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the elder Bhadrika's own story as one of the most quietly devastating in the entire canon, a single moment's ungracious regret after an act of genuine generosity, cursing the very pratyekabuddha he had just fed, transforming what should have been a life of wholesome abundance into a life of wealth experienced as poverty, and finally into rebirth in a hell defined by nothing but weeping — proof, he notes, that the mind's own follow-through on a wholesome deed matters every bit as much as the deed itself. He highlights all five of these behaviors as sharing a single underlying structure the treatise wants its reader to notice, mistaking a means entirely disconnected from an end for that very end, self-mutilation for survival, hoarding for security, self-destruction for heaven, self-torment for liberation, and self-harm for resurrection, none of these actually accomplishing what the sufferer so desperately hopes they will.
26. Section: A Mother Becomes a Wife — The Verse on Saṃsāra's Endless Shuffle
The treatise then offers an extended verse on rebirth's own restless wandering. Nothing in this world is fixed, it begins, yet beings, deluded, take hold of a self, and call others father, mother, spouse, child, sibling, and friend, as though these bonds were themselves fixed and lasting. Yet a being once a mother may, in some later life, become a wife; that same wife may become a daughter-in-law; that daughter-in-law may become a servant, or even the wife of a former enemy. A being once a father may become a son; that son may become an enemy; that enemy may become a servant or a slave in turn. A being once a king may become a minister; that minister may fall into destitution; that destitute one may be born into the lowest, most despised quarter of society, scorned by the very world that once bowed before them. A being once a learned brahmin of the very highest caste may, turning through one life after another, fall through the lower castes entirely, even into the very outcaste class charged with handling the dead. Across countless hundreds of thousands of eons, beings become father and then son to one another, and enemy and kin in turn, appearing among the illusory crowd of existence in one shifting form after another, exactly as a magician conjures one apparition after another from the very same stage. It is affliction and karma together, the verse continues, that drive this endless, repeated accumulation of formations, arising and dissolving exactly like a magician's own illusions, and yet beings, encountering this vast illusion again and again, remain covered by their own lack of wisdom, endlessly delighting in these very formations without ever once growing weary of them. Deluded by their own illusion, they cover themselves in ashes and weep in anguish at what never truly called for grief in the first place, generating needless sorrow over kinship that was only ever a passing, provisional name, abandoning the very practice of the true path for the sake of empty lamentation, their raised hands beating uselessly at the sky — confused, arrogant, and endlessly indulgent, this, the verse concludes, is the full and thorough condition of beings still wandering unaware through birth and death.
世間無決定 顛倒謂為我 父母及妻孥 兄弟親友等。曾母轉為妻 妻復為兒婦 兒婦轉為婢 或作怨家妻。曾父轉為子 子復為怨敵 怨敵復為奴 或為僕隸等。曾王轉為臣 臣復為貧匱 或閭邑下賤 為世所輕鄙。煩惱業緣因 令種種諸行 數數而積集 如幻化所起。雖遭是眾幻 然無智所覆 常於諸行中 樂著曾無厭。既自幻惑已 坌灰泣傷歎 於不應憂悲 橫生諸悲惱。離假名親屬 種種自憂悲 棄捐正法行 舉手而號泣。癡憍慢所亂 數行諸放逸 如是等種類 廣說遍應知。
The world has nothing fixed; deluded, beings grasp a self, calling others father, mother, spouse, child, sibling, and friend. A former mother becomes a wife; that wife becomes a daughter-in-law; that daughter-in-law becomes a servant, or an enemy's own wife. A former father becomes a son; that son becomes an enemy; that enemy becomes a servant or slave. A former king becomes a minister; that minister becomes destitute; or is born into a low, despised quarter, scorned by the world. Affliction and karma, as cause and condition, give rise to formations of every kind, accumulated again and again, arising just as illusions do. Though meeting this vast illusion, covered by a lack of wisdom, beings constantly delight in these very formations, never once growing weary. Already deluded by their own illusion, they cover themselves in ash and weep in sorrow, generating needless grief where none was ever truly called for. Parting from merely nominal kin, generating all manner of private sorrow, they abandon the practice of the true path, raising their hands and wailing. Disturbed by delusion and pride, indulging again and again in heedlessness — such kinds as these should be broadly understood in full.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this verse as one of the treatise's own most genuinely moving passages, precisely because its point is never merely abstract, a former mother becoming a wife, a former father becoming an enemy, painting a picture specific and startling enough that no reader can hold onto the comfortable assumption that their own present relationships are somehow permanently fixed by nature rather than simply the current, temporary shape of an endlessly reshuffling deck. He highlights the closing lines on grief, abandoning genuine practice to weep uselessly over what was only ever a provisional, "false name" relationship, not as counsel toward coldness but as an invitation to a different and ultimately kinder response, one that holds every relationship, present or ended, with the same tender seriousness precisely because none of them, the verse insists, were ever going to last in the form they presently take.
27. Section: "He Came Without Regret, He Left Without Sorrow" — Śakra's Own Revealing Laughter
The commentary tradition recalls two further stories illustrating rebirth's own defiled confusion. A certain arhat had left his wife and infant child to become a renunciant, quickly attaining full awakening through diligent practice; his former wife, testing him, brought their child to the road where he passed and accused him bitterly of abandoning them, weeping and pleading for his return, and when he showed no response at all, threatened at last to place the child directly in the path of an oncoming cart rather than be ignored any longer — yet the arhat remained entirely unmoved even by this, until the wife herself finally relented, remarking that her husband had genuinely attained the noble path, and carried the child home to raise willingly on her own. The Buddha, hearing of this, praised the monk directly: he came without regret, he left without sorrow — one who dwells so completely within the true Dharma is a true monk indeed. A further tale recalls the bodhisattva, then reborn as Śakra, lord of the gods, who, disguised as a merchant, visited a marketplace and laughed, again and again, at ordinary scenes passing before him: a woman scolding and beating her own son for being slow, whom Śakra recognized as her own former father, now reborn as her child, unrecognized after only a single lifetime's passage; a boy joyfully beating a drum, unaware that its very hide had once been his own body in a former life as the family's own ox; a father sacrificing an ox to cure his sick son, unaware the ox's spirit would only return again as a human, endlessly slaughtered in an endless cycle; and a small child scratching his own mother's face until it bled, this same mother, in a former life, having cruelly beaten the very concubine now reborn as her own vengeful son. Śakra, revealing his own true identity at last, urged the astonished woman toward diligent practice of the six perfections before vanishing; the Buddha later told his own disciple Śāriputra that the woman in this story was, in fact, Maitreya, and that Śakra himself was none other than the Buddha in an earlier life.
佛陀又說：來時亦無惜，去時亦無憂。這樣的人真正是：如是住正法，是名真比丘。眾生的心總是在反覆變化，從前憎惡的現在又愛戀不捨，從前喜歡的現在又厭惡不已，哪裏有常恒不變的？這些還都不過是只隔了一世，見後就不知的，更何況累劫長期？世俗榮華富貴猶若電光恍惚即滅，你應當懂得無常的道理，不要與那些愚昧無知之輩混雜在一起。你要樹立高尚的德操，修習六度妙行。佛告訴鶖鷺子：那時的婦人是彌勒，天帝釋就是我。菩薩就是如此意志堅定行精進度無極。
The Buddha further said: he came without regret, he left without sorrow. One who thus dwells in the true Dharma is called a true monk. The minds of beings are forever shifting, what was once hated now cherished, what was once loved now despised, nothing remaining constant. And this is so even within a single intervening lifetime, forgotten once it has passed, how much more so across many accumulated eons. Worldly glory and wealth are like a flash of lightning, gone in an instant; you should understand the principle of impermanence, and not mix among the ignorant and unlearned. You should establish noble virtue, and cultivate the wondrous practice of the six perfections. The Buddha told Śāriputra: the woman at that time was Maitreya, and the lord of the gods was myself. Thus does a bodhisattva, with such firm resolve, practice diligence to its very utmost limit.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the arhat's own unmoved response to his former wife's escalating threats as this whole discussion's own clearest embodiment of genuine liberation, not coldness or indifference toward suffering, but a mind so thoroughly freed from grasping at fixed relationships that even the most calculated emotional provocation simply finds nothing left inside it to take hold of. He treats Śakra's own laughter, provoked by ordinary street scenes concealing such extraordinary hidden histories, as the treatise's own vivid dramatization of everything the preceding verse already described in the abstract, every face in that marketplace secretly bound to every other by relationships running impossibly deep beneath their own present, entirely unremarkable appearance.
28. Section: Twelve Links, Five Aspects — Ignorance's Own Portrait Begins
The treatise turns next to the kalpa of strife, the present degenerate age following, in succession, the five-hundred-year periods of liberation, meditative concentration, learning, and stupa-building after the Buddha's own final nirvana, marked by four distinct declines: a decline in lifespan, countless beings dying young; a decline in happiness, as the ten unwholesome ways flourish and mutual theft and discord spread; a decline in genuine merit, wholesome conduct itself growing rare; and a general decline across every flourishing worldly circumstance. Within this same age, beings further come to disregard one another across eight distinct areas: no longer valuing the correct Dharma; no longer praising one another's genuine reputation and real virtue; no longer maintaining close kinship bonds; no longer feeling compassion for one another's suffering; no longer serving as good spiritual friends to each other; no longer cultivating genuine merit; no longer repaying kindness already received; and no longer sustaining real friendship at all. Turning from persons to principle, the treatise then poses a further question: how should the differences among the twelve links of dependent origination, from ignorance conditioning volitional formations through birth conditioning old age and death, actually be understood? In brief, through five aspects: characteristic marks, intrinsic nature, function, classification into dharmas, and cause and effect. Taking up ignorance first, its characteristic marks include the marks of greed, hatred, and conceit; the mark of computing a self and what belongs to a self; the mark of shamelessness and lack of conscience; the mark of pervasive heedlessness; the mark of weak, dull faculties; the mark of excessive sleep, the Buddha himself once scolding the drowsy Aniruddha directly, asking why he slept like a snail or a clam, since such creatures, once asleep, may pass a thousand years without ever hearing the Buddha's own name; the mark of sorrow and distress; and the mark of manifesting every kind of unwholesome conduct in turn.
復次，鬥諍劫中有四過失。謂壽量衰退、安樂衰退、功德衰退、一切世間盛事衰退。復次，鬥諍劫中諸有情類，略於八處互不相數。一、不數正法，二、不數名聞，三、不數宗族，四、不數可愍，五、不數善友，六、不數有德，七、不數有恩，八、不數親友。問：先說生雜染中，無明緣行乃至生緣老死，此無明等十二支差別義，云何應知？答：略由五相。一、由相故；二、由自性故；三、由業故；四、由法故；五、由因果故。何等為無明相？答：貪、瞋、慢相是無明相，計我我所相、無慚無愧相、多放逸相、性羸鈍相、饒睡眠相、心愁慼相、種種惡業現行等相，是無明相。
Moreover, in the kalpa of strife, there are four faults: decline of lifespan, decline of happiness, decline of merit, and decline of every flourishing worldly circumstance. Moreover, in the kalpa of strife, beings, in brief, disregard one another across eight areas: not valuing the correct Dharma, not valuing reputation, not valuing kinship, not valuing compassion, not valuing good friends, not valuing virtue, not valuing kindness received, and not valuing friendship. Question: as already explained regarding rebirth defilement, ignorance conditioning formations down through birth conditioning old age and death, how should the differences among these twelve links of ignorance and the rest be understood? Answer: in brief, through five aspects. First, through characteristic marks. Second, through intrinsic nature. Third, through function. Fourth, through classification into dharmas. Fifth, through cause and effect. What are the marks of ignorance? Answer: the marks of greed, hatred, and conceit are marks of ignorance; the mark of computing self and what belongs to self, the mark of shamelessness and lack of conscience, the mark of pervasive heedlessness, the mark of weak and dull nature, the mark of excessive sleep, the mark of sorrowful distress, and the mark of manifesting every kind of unwholesome deed, are all marks of ignorance.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the Buddha's own rebuke of Aniruddha, comparing his drowsiness to a snail or clam sealed inside its own shell for a thousand years without ever hearing the Buddha's name, as one of the canon's own most vivid images for how thoroughly ordinary heedlessness can cut a being off from the very teaching that could free them, sleep here standing for every form of unexamined comfort that quietly consumes an entire lifetime's own opportunity for practice. He highlights this newly opened analysis of the twelve links through five aspects as a genuinely systematic undertaking, promising to examine dependent origination's own every link with the same rigor already applied throughout this fascicle to affliction and karma alike, beginning appropriately with ignorance, the very root from which every subsequent link in the chain unfolds.
29. Section: Eleven Objects of Confusion, and Five Kinds of Foolish Beings
Ignorance's own function, the treatise explains, is generating confusion, and it does so with respect to eleven distinct kinds of object: matters not directly perceived, whether past or future; matters directly perceived in the present; the inferior desire realm, the middling form realm, and the superior formless realm; beneficial, wholesome dharmas and harmful, unwholesome ones; genuine truth and mistaken doctrine; and cause and result alike, confusion here naming, in full, ignorance of the four noble truths themselves. Beyond this, ten kinds of foolish being together cover the entire range of ignorant beings without exception. The first, deficiency-foolishness, belongs to one lacking a sense faculty, blind or deaf, unable to grasp form or sound at all. The second, madness-foolishness, belongs to one whose mind has been driven to derangement by overwhelming pressure, severe pain, grave illness, or epileptic affliction, no longer able to distinguish wholesome conduct from unwholesome. The third, distraction-foolishness, belongs to one whose mind wanders to some other object entirely even while nominally engaged in some wholesome or unwholesome task, never actually completing it with genuine mindfulness. The fourth, intrinsic foolishness, belongs to every being who has, since beginningless time within the cycle of birth and death, simply never understood the four truths or the selflessness of both beings and things. And the fifth, attachment-foolishness, belongs to outsiders who, taking self-view as their own foundation, become entangled in the sixty-two speculative views without ever recognizing them as mistaken.
於不現見義而生迷惑，是無明業。如是於現見義、劣義、中義、勝義、利益義、不利益義、真義、邪義、因義、果義而生迷惑，是無明業。又有十種愚癡有情，遍攝愚癡諸有情類。一、闕減愚癡，二、狂亂愚癡，三、散亂愚癡，四、自性愚癡，五、執著愚癡，六、迷亂愚癡，七、堅固愚癡，八、增上愚癡，九、無所了別愚癡，十、現見愚癡。闕減愚癡者，謂如有一，或闕於眼、或闕於耳，於眼所識色、耳所識聲一切境界皆不領解，是故愚癡。狂亂愚癡者，謂如有一，或遭逼迫、或遭大苦、或遭重病、或痛所切、或復顛癇令心狂亂，由此不了善作、惡作，是故愚癡。散亂愚癡者，謂如有一，心散異境，不能了餘善作、惡作，是故愚癡。自性愚癡者，謂如有一，於生死中無始以來，自性不了苦集滅道、眾生無我、法無我等，是故愚癡。執著愚癡者，謂如有一，墮外道中，彼於身見、身見為本諸見趣中不能解了，是故愚癡。
Generating confusion regarding what is not directly perceived is ignorance's function. Likewise generating confusion regarding what is directly perceived, the inferior, middling, and superior realms, the beneficial and harmful, the true and the false, and cause and result, is ignorance's function. There are also ten kinds of foolish being, fully covering every kind of foolish being there is. First, deficiency-foolishness, belonging to one lacking an eye or an ear, unable to grasp any object known through form or sound at all, and so foolish. Second, madness-foolishness, belonging to one whose mind is driven to derangement by pressure, great suffering, grave illness, sharp pain, or epilepsy, unable to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome action, and so foolish. Third, distraction-foolishness, belonging to one whose mind scatters to another object, unable to complete a wholesome or unwholesome act with genuine understanding, and so foolish. Fourth, intrinsic foolishness, belonging to one who, since beginningless time in birth and death, has by nature never understood suffering, origination, cessation, the path, or the selflessness of beings and dharmas, and so is foolish. Fifth, attachment-foolishness, belonging to one fallen among outsiders, unable to understand self-view and the views rooted in it, and so foolish.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this tenfold catalogue of foolish beings, still only half unfolded, as the treatise's own genuinely comprehensive attempt to classify ignorance not as one uniform failing but as a family of genuinely distinct conditions, some rooted in physical impairment, some in mental derangement, some in simple inattention, and some in nothing more than the ordinary, universal condition of an unawakened being who has simply never yet encountered or absorbed the four truths. He notes that ignorance's own function, generating confusion across eleven distinct kinds of object, spans everything from the unseen past to the very truths of suffering and its cessation, showing that no corner of experience is naturally exempt from the reach of this single root affliction.
30. Section: A Torch Spun Into a Wheel — And the Fool Who Never Expects to Age
The treatise completes its tenfold catalogue of foolish beings. The sixth, confusion-foolishness, belongs to one unable to see through seven kinds of perceptual illusion: a mirage's shimmer mistaken for real water, as a thirsty deer races toward it in vain; a torch, spun quickly enough in a circle, mistaken for an actual wheel of fire; one color mistaken for another; the sensation, watching trees pass outside a moving train's own window, that the trees themselves are racing by rather than one's own self; a double image seen through faulty vision, taking one object for two; and delight taken in, and stubborn attachment formed toward, these very illusions once they have already arisen. The seventh, firm foolishness, belongs to one entirely lacking the potential for final nirvana, an ignorance so deeply fixed that not even a Buddha's own teaching can uproot it. The eighth, excessive foolishness, belongs to one who, fully aware of the suffering their own habitual wrongdoing brings, continues indulging in it anyway, exactly as one addicted to a substance, or hopelessly devoted to gambling, continues even after vowing repeatedly to stop. The ninth, non-comprehending foolishness, belongs to one who neither hears the teaching, nor reflects upon it, nor actually practices it, and so never comes to understand either its letter or its meaning. And the tenth, foolishness in the face of direct perception, belongs to one who, having directly witnessed that all conditioned things are impermanent, still clings to the notion of permanence; having witnessed that they are all suffering, still clings to the notion of pleasure; having witnessed the body's own impurity, still clings to the notion of purity; having witnessed the very absence of any real self, still clings to the notion of a self; and, having directly witnessed sickness, old age, and death befall others again and again, still imagines themselves somehow exempt, entirely secure, never once suspecting that this very same fate awaits them too.
迷亂愚癡者，謂如有一，或名想亂、或形量亂、或色相亂、或業用亂，於亂處法不能解了，是故愚癡。堅固愚癡者，謂如有一，畢竟無有般涅槃法，所有愚癡自性堅固，乃至諸佛亦不能拔。增上愚癡者，謂如有一，常恆無間習諸邪行，又邪行因所生眾苦之所逼切，雖知雖見，而故奔趣樂著嬉戲；或復貪等行者，亦是增上愚癡。無所解了愚癡者，謂如有一，不聞不思不修習故，於法於義不能解了，是故愚癡。現見愚癡者，謂如有一，現見諸行皆悉無常，而起常想；現見皆苦，而起樂想；現見不淨，而起淨想；現見無我，而起我想；現見病法、老法、死法，起安隱想，無逼惱想。
Confusion-foolishness belongs to one confused by perceptual, dimensional, coloristic, or functional illusion, unable to understand the deluded matter, and so foolish. Firm foolishness belongs to one utterly without the potential for final nirvana, their own foolish nature fixed so firmly that not even the buddhas can uproot it. Excessive foolishness belongs to one who constantly, without interruption, practices wrong conduct, and though pressed by the very suffering that wrong conduct produces, and though fully aware and fully seeing it, still races toward it in delighted indulgence; one given over to greed and the like is likewise excessively foolish. Non-comprehending foolishness belongs to one who, neither hearing, reflecting, nor practicing, cannot understand the teaching or its meaning, and so is foolish. Foolishness in the face of direct perception belongs to one who, directly witnessing that all conditioned things are impermanent, still conceives them as permanent; witnessing that they are suffering, still conceives them as pleasant; witnessing impurity, still conceives purity; witnessing selflessness, still conceives a self; and witnessing sickness, old age, and death, still conceives security, free of any oppressive affliction.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the closing image of foolishness in the face of direct perception, watching others sicken, age, and die and still somehow believing oneself exempt, as perhaps the single most universally recognizable form of ignorance in this entire catalogue, since it requires no outside teaching to expose, only honest attention to something every person has already witnessed many times over, and yet remains, he notes, one of the hardest illusions to genuinely dislodge from one's own felt sense of the future. He highlights the seven perceptual illusions, the mirage, the torch spun into a wheel, the trees rushing past a train's own window, as the treatise's own deliberate progression from the most literal kind of misperception toward the far subtler illusion of a permanent self, suggesting that the very same faculty responsible for mistaking a torch's motion for a solid wheel is also, at bottom, responsible for mistaking an ever-changing stream of aggregates for a single, continuous self.
31. Section: Three Degrees of Ignorance, and Darkness Across the Three Realms
Ignorance further obstructs beings in five specific ways: obstructing the very joy that comes with genuine wisdom, the deep gladness of directly realizing suchness itself; obstructing the actual attainment of affliction's own cessation; obstructing the noble path from ever reaching its own completion; obstructing rebirth into the fortunate destinies; and obstructing auspicious circumstances within this very life. The treatise then distinguishes three degrees of ignorance among persons. Some carry only the dormant seed of ignorance, not yet troubled, stained, or seduced by it at all — these do not yet count as genuinely foolish. Others experience ignorance's own active manifestation, troubled by it, yet still refrain from acting on it and so remain untainted and unseduced — these too do not yet count as foolish. Still others, troubled and stained by ignorance, go on to actually commit unwholesome deeds under its influence, yet still feel genuine shame afterward — even these are not yet called foolish in the full sense. Only one troubled, stained, and seduced by ignorance all at once, committing unwholesome deeds and feeling no shame whatsoever for having done so, is truly called a foolish person, the very target of the Buddha's own reproach. Ignorance also differs across the three realms: in the desire realm, it is a darkness-ignorance, the mind entirely without light; in the form realm, it is a dimness-ignorance, some measure of light present, yet the truth of selflessness with respect to the aggregates still not understood; and in the formless realm, it is a cataract-ignorance, a vast inner brilliance now shining, yet a subtle film still clinging over the mind's own eye, the deepest attachment to a self still not yet cleared away, exactly as a single grain of sand or stray eyelash, however small, can still obstruct an otherwise clear line of sight.
又此無明，於五處所能為障礙。一、能障礙真實智喜，二、能障礙煩惱滅得，三、能障礙聖道成滿，四、能障礙往於善趣，五、能障礙世間現法諸吉祥事。何等名無明法？答：或有由無明故，墮無明趣，說名愚癡；非癡所嬈，不為癡垢，非癡所媚。謂住隨眠無明。此中由前三種，說名愚癡，墮無明趣，不名癡人。由後一種，說名癡人。或有闇法無明，謂在欲界；或有昧法無明，謂在色界；或有翳法無明，謂在無色界。
This ignorance obstructs beings in five places. First, it obstructs the joy of genuine wisdom. Second, it obstructs the attainment of affliction's cessation. Third, it obstructs the completion of the noble path. Fourth, it obstructs rebirth in the fortunate destinies. Fifth, it obstructs auspicious worldly circumstances in this very life. What is called the dharma of ignorance? Answer: some, on account of ignorance, fall into the class of the foolish, called foolish, yet are not troubled by foolishness, not stained by its impurity, and not seduced by it — this refers to dwelling in dormant ignorance alone. Of these, the first three kinds are called foolish, falling into the class of the foolish, yet not called a foolish person. Only the last is called a foolish person. There is a darkness-dharma ignorance, belonging to the desire realm; a dimness-dharma ignorance, belonging to the form realm; and a cataract-dharma ignorance, belonging to the formless realm.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats the four-tiered distinction between merely carrying a dormant seed, experiencing manifest trouble without acting, acting with shame, and finally acting without any shame at all as a genuinely important moral clarification, since it means that ignorance's own mere presence, or even its own troubling activity, does not by itself make anyone a fool in the fullest, most condemned sense, so long as shame and the capacity for genuine self-correction still remain intact. He highlights the cataract image for the formless realm's own subtle ignorance as this whole section's own most philosophically important detail, since it warns that even the most refined and luminous meditative attainment can still harbor a nearly invisible residue of self-clinging, something so faint it resembles nothing more than a single eyelash caught across an otherwise perfectly clear eye.
32. Section: Ignorance's Cause and Fruit — The First Link Now Complete
Turning to its final aspect, cause and effect, the treatise explains that ignorance's own cause is simply improper attention, already explained in the Basic Section, while its own fruit is nothing less than every remaining link of existence that follows it in turn, formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six sense-bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, and old age and death together, the entire remaining chain unfolding as ignorance's own extended fruit. With respect to suchness and the meaning of the four truths specifically, ignorance manifests either as outright inability to understand them at all, as lingering doubt about them, or, worse still, as a wrongly settled conviction actively opposed to them, and this happens through three further causes in turn: through a distorted grasping that either exaggerates or diminishes the truths themselves, mistaking impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and selflessness for their very opposites; through an overreaching conceit that mistakes some genuine but lesser meditative attainment, the calm, the inner brightness, the blissful abiding, or the temporary absence of ordinary discrimination experienced in access concentration, for the transcendent wisdom of the noble path itself, not yet realized at all; and through a self-deprecating sense of one's own unworthiness, doubting one's own capacity to ever actually realize the truths, and so never even attempting the confidence such realization genuinely requires. With this, the treatise completes its full account of ignorance through all five aspects, characteristic marks, intrinsic nature, function, classification into dharmas, and cause and effect, bringing the very first of the twelve links of dependent origination to its own thorough and complete examination.
因，如本地分已說。果，謂一切後有支。又於真如及諸諦義不能解了，或復猶豫，或即於此生邪決定。謂於諦理或增、或減，顛倒執著無常等故；或由增上慢故；或由自輕懱故。
Its cause is as already explained in the Basic Section. Its fruit is every subsequent link of existence. Also, with respect to suchness and the meaning of the truths, either an inability to understand, or lingering doubt, or a wrongly settled conviction, arises. This is because of a distorted, exaggerating or diminishing grasp of impermanence and the rest; or because of overreaching conceit; or because of self-deprecation.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats overreaching conceit's own mistaking of access concentration's genuine calm and brightness for the transcendent wisdom of the noble path itself as one of the treatise's own most practically urgent warnings for serious meditators, since the experience being mistaken is entirely real and often genuinely blissful, making the error correspondingly easy to make and correspondingly difficult to notice from the inside without careful guidance from someone who has already walked the same ground. He highlights self-deprecation as ignorance's own quieter, less dramatic cousin to overreaching conceit, doubting one's own capacity rather than overestimating one's own attainment, yet equally capable of keeping a sincere practitioner from ever actually completing the path, and treats the completion of ignorance's own fivefold analysis here as a genuinely significant milestone, the very first of the twelve links now examined with the same thoroughness the treatise has already brought to affliction and karma alike.
33. Section: Why Scripture Calls the Eye a Cause When the Seed Is the True Cause
A third cause of confusion about the four truths arises from simple self-deprecation, looking down upon oneself as inferior, one's own body weak, one's own preparation incomplete, and so never actually relying on one's own effort and one's own wisdom at all, drifting instead toward some wrongly settled conviction, whether trusting a mistaken teacher, accepting a mistaken teaching, or supposing the aggregates arise from no cause whatsoever or from some fundamentally unequal cause. Through these three causes and conditions together, beings become confused about the four truths and generate wrong view. With ignorance's own five-aspect analysis now fully complete, the treatise notes that no further deciding-discernment text on the remaining eleven links will appear here in the same depth, and turns instead to a further scriptural puzzle: the Blessed One taught that the eye serves as cause and form as condition for the arising of eye-consciousness, and so on through the body serving as cause and touch as condition for the arising of body-consciousness, that contact serves as condition for feeling, and that a generating attention serves as cause for whatever consciousness it generates — yet strictly speaking, the eye is not actually the generating cause of eye-consciousness, contact is not the generating cause of feeling, and generating attention is not the generating cause of the consciousness it accompanies, since each and every dharma's own true generating cause is nothing other than its own individual seed. Why, then, does scripture speak of the eye and the rest as cause at all? The answer lies in the inducing cause, the very co-existing support each arising dharma depends upon: it is not that the eye itself generates eye-consciousness, but that eye-consciousness, lacking the eye's own simultaneous support, could never actually turn toward its own object at all, arising only ever in dependence on some such support, never without it — and it is specifically this supporting role, the inducing cause rather than the true generating cause, that the Blessed One had in mind when speaking this way.
又於真如及諸諦義不能解了...或由自輕懱故。餘有支決擇文，更不復現。復次，如世尊言：眼為因，色為緣，眼識得生；乃至身為因，觸為緣，身識得生。此中非眼等是眼識等生因，由彼諸法各自種子為生因故。何故此中，說眼等為眼識等因？當知此依俱有依攝引發因說，非生起因。所以者何？由俱有眼等根為依止故，眼等諸識彼彼境轉，非無依止。
With respect to suchness and the meaning of the truths... or because of self-deprecation. No further deciding-discernment text on the remaining links appears here. Moreover, as the Blessed One said: the eye is cause, form is condition, and eye-consciousness arises; down through the body being cause, touch being condition, and body-consciousness arising. Here, the eye and the rest are not actually the generating cause of eye-consciousness and the rest, since every dharma's own individual seed is its generating cause. Why, then, is the eye and the rest here called the cause of eye-consciousness and the rest? It should be known that this speaks according to the inducing cause included within the co-existing support, not the generating cause. Why is this so? Because, in dependence on the co-existing eye faculty and the rest as support, the eye-consciousness and the rest turn toward their respective objects; they do not arise without such support.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats this careful distinction between a true generating cause, always a dharma's own seed, and a merely inducing or supporting cause, the co-existing organ a consciousness depends on to actually function, as the treatise's own precise correction of an imprecision built directly into the Buddha's own everyday teaching language, offered not to contradict the sutras but to explain exactly what they actually meant by speaking loosely. He notes that this same distinction quietly protects a crucial point about karma and rebirth, since if the eye itself, rather than its own seed, were truly what generates eye-consciousness, an entirely mechanical process would replace what is, in truth, a seed ripening according to its own accumulated causes and conditions.
34. Section: Four Sequences Through Which a Single Life Unfolds — Fascicle Sixty's Own Close
The treatise adds a further clarification: just as a past, already-ceased eye cannot serve as the support for an eye-consciousness only now arisen, so too can a past, already-ceased contact never serve as support for a feeling only now arisen, nor a past, already-ceased generating attention ever serve as support for a consciousness only now arisen, support and supported alike needing to exist together, in the very same moment. The treatise then closes this entire stretch of the text by naming four sequences through which dependent origination itself actually unfolds. The drawing-forth sequence belongs to ignorance conditioning formations and formations conditioning consciousness, the very stage at which karmic seeds are first planted, sown into the storehouse consciousness to draw forth some future result. The arising sequence belongs to consciousness conditioning name-and-form and name-and-form conditioning the six sense-bases, the stage of actual gestation and development, a new life taking shape faculty by faculty. The stage of experiencing objects belongs to the six sense-bases conditioning contact and contact conditioning feeling, the point at which a now-developed being actually begins to encounter and register the world around it. And the stage of experiencing suffering belongs to feeling conditioning craving, craving conditioning clinging, clinging conditioning existence, existence conditioning birth, and birth conditioning old age and death, the entire remaining unfolding of a life's own accumulated suffering, from its first craving response to feeling all the way through to its own final dissolution. With this fourfold account, the treatise notes, no further elaboration on this subject remains to be given here.
非已滅眼能為已生眼識所依，耳等亦爾。非已滅觸能為已生受所依止，亦非已滅能生作意能為已生所生識依。復次，緣起次第略有四種。一、牽引次第，二、生起次第，三、受用境界次第，四、受用苦次第。無明緣行、行緣識，是牽引次第。識緣名色、名色緣六處，是生起次第。六處緣觸、觸緣受，是生起已受用境界次第。受緣愛、愛緣取、取緣有、有緣生、生緣老死，是受用苦次第。於此處所餘決擇文，更不復現。
A past, already-ceased eye cannot serve as support for an already-arisen eye-consciousness, and likewise for the ear and the rest. A past, already-ceased contact cannot serve as support for an already-arisen feeling, nor can a past, already-ceased generating attention serve as support for an already-arisen consciousness. Moreover, the sequence of dependent origination is, in brief, of four kinds. First, the drawing-forth sequence. Second, the arising sequence. Third, the sequence of experiencing objects. Fourth, the sequence of experiencing suffering. Ignorance conditioning formations, and formations conditioning consciousness, is the drawing-forth sequence. Consciousness conditioning name-and-form, and name-and-form conditioning the six sense-bases, is the arising sequence. The six sense-bases conditioning contact, and contact conditioning feeling, is the sequence of experiencing objects once arisen. Feeling conditioning craving, craving conditioning clinging, clinging conditioning existence, existence conditioning birth, and birth conditioning old age and death, is the sequence of experiencing suffering. On this point, no further deciding-discernment text appears here.
Master Cháng Bǎi treats these four sequences as the treatise's own elegant final summary of an entire life's own arc, seeds quietly planted through ignorance and karma long before any experience begins, a new existence then actually taking shape moment by moment, that existence finally opening onto the world through its own senses, and every subsequent chapter of that same life simply working out, in real time, the suffering already set in motion from the very start. He marks this point as fascicle sixty's own natural close, the treatise having carried its reader from the five factors deciding a deed's own gravity, through the three fruits karma draws forth, through the three roots from which every unwholesome deed arises, through an eightfold decisive discernment closing karma defilement entirely, and finally into rebirth defilement's own opening territory, eleven kinds of existence, the five ways beings act as though mad without being mad, and ignorance's own complete, five-aspect anatomy, the very first link in the chain that binds together everything this entire four-fascicle stretch of the treatise has been patiently, thoroughly unpacking.