Chapter 8 · Seeds, Perfuming, and Other-Dependent Arising Read Through Consciousness

Part Two · Doctrine

No self — then where do the habit-energies reside? Who is it that remembers? How does birth-and-death continue on?

Chapter One raised this question as the guiding thread of the whole book; Chapter Six laid out the support that holds the seeds (the eighth consciousness); this chapter now takes apart the seed-holding function itself: what a seed is, how perfuming is established, how seeds and manifest activity continue one another — this school's dynamics of cause and effect are concentrated in the two words 「seeds」 and 「perfuming」.

1 · Seeds — The Six Thresholds

First, ask what it is that is being stored. The definition in the Cheng Weishi Lun runs counter to intuition:

「What here is named a seed? It is, within the root consciousness, the differentiated capacity that directly gives rise to its own fruit.」

A seed is not a swarm of tiny things hidden away inside consciousness; it is, within the root consciousness, the differentiated capacity that 「directly gives rise to its own fruit」 — a power, not an object. What kind of power qualifies to be called a seed? The treatise sets up six thresholds (the six meanings of the seed); the Mahāyānasaṃgraha records their headings in a verse (「momentary cessation, co-presence; constant continuance — this one should know」), and the Cheng Weishi Lun explains each in turn; unfolded in plain speech, they run as follows:

「First, momentary cessation. That is, the instant its substance arises it must, without interval, cease; only what possesses surpassing power thereby becomes a seed.」

The first meaning is the most counterintuitive: the seed itself, too, arises and ceases in a moment — it is not some ever-abiding capsule but a force that ceases the instant it arises and, ceasing, arises again. It is precisely what is permanent and unchanging that cannot serve as a seed: 「being permanent and without transformation, it cannot be said to have any productive function」 — what does not change cannot give rise to anything.

「Second, the fruit is co-present. That is, it is co-present and conjoined with the manifest-activity fruit-dharma to which it gives rise; only thus does it become a seed.」

Cause and fruit are present at the same time — when the seed produces manifest activity, seed and fruit unite in the very same moment; it is not that the cause comes first and, after some interval, the fruit follows (a point treated on its own in section four below).

「Third, constant continuance. That is, it must continue on as a single kind over a long time, all the way to the ultimate stage; only thus does it become a seed.」

It must be able, over a long span, to follow along in the flow as a single continuous kind — and this meaning at the same time explains why seeds can dwell only in the eighth consciousness: the first six consciousnesses are intermittent, cut off and resuming by turns (Chapter Six, 「excepting these five states」), and so can store nothing.

「Fourth, fixity of nature. That is, following the force of its cause it produces the good, the evil, and the rest, its function being fixed; only thus does it become a seed.」

Here a common misreading must be guarded against. Fixity of nature is said with respect to the direct causal condition: a given kind of seed directly produces manifest activity of its own kind, so that the functions of good, evil, neutral, and the rest do not tamper with one another; it does not say that the maturation-fruit summoned by good karma is itself still good in nature, or that the maturation of evil karma is still evil in nature. When we reach the birth-and-death reckoning of verse nineteen, the karmic habit-energy is, in relation to the maturation-fruit, a remote dominant condition, determining the difference between agreeable and disagreeable recompense; it is the habit-energy of the two graspings that is the direct-causal-condition seed giving rise to the next life's maturation-consciousness and its associated mental factors. The seed's 「fixity of nature」 and karmic recompense's 「good and evil bear their fruit」 must be kept on two levels; one cannot flatten them with the single phrase 'good cause, good fruit.'

「Fifth, awaiting the manifold conditions. That is, this must await the convergence of its own manifold conditions, its function being outstanding; only thus does it become a seed.」

A seed must await the convergence of the manifold conditions before it produces its fruit — it does not detonate automatically the instant its time arrives. This meaning dismantles head-on the misreading that 「seeds = fatalism」: though the capacity, whether innate or newly perfumed, has already carried on in continuity, which one becomes manifest, and when, still awaits its several conditions — and conditions are precisely the place where one can take part right now.

「Sixth, drawing forth its own fruit. That is, upon each separate fruit — form, mind, and the rest — it draws forth its own; only thus does it become a seed.」

Each draws forth its own fruit — a form-seed produces form, a mind-seed produces mind; the lines of cause and effect are each distinct, not a single pot of chaos. Taking the six meanings together, this school's 「seed」 is a strict grammar of cause and effect: momentary, simultaneous, continuous, fixed in nature, condition-awaiting, and matched each to its own.

2 · Perfuming — How Experience Scents Itself

How does a seed get into the storehouse? The answer is one of this school's most famous images. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha:

「As when sesame is perfumed by flowers: the sesame and the flowers arise together and cease together, and thereafter the sesame is produced bearing the cause that can give rise to that fragrance.」

苣蕂 is hemp-sesame — that is, sesame. The old method of making scented oil: flower and sesame are placed together, and flower and sesame 「arise together and cease together」 — abiding together, decaying together — and thereafter the sesame carries the cause that can give rise to the flower's fragrance. The flower has not stuffed anything into the sesame; merely from having abided together, the sesame is changed. Experience perfuming the mind is just so: each single act of greed becoming manifest arises and ceases together with the deep consciousness, and thereafter the stream of consciousness is 「produced bearing that generative cause」 — bearing a tendency to greed more readily again. The treatise goes straight on to give a luminous parallel of the same structure: 「Or take one who has heard much: the perfuming of much hearing, together with the attention that rests on what is heard, arises together and ceases together, and this mind is produced bearing the cause of retaining it」 — hearing the true Dharma, too, is a perfuming: hearing and mind arise together and cease together, and the mind thereafter carries the cause of retaining the Dharma. Defilement and purity travel the very same mechanism (the groundwork for Chapter Nine's 「perfuming by right hearing」 is laid right here).

For perfuming to be established, each of the two parties has its own threshold of qualification. The Cheng Weishi Lun sets out four meanings for what-is-perfumed and four for what-perfumes. The party that can be perfumed must be: firmly abiding (「a dharma that from beginning to end continues on as a single kind and can hold the habit-energies」 — it can store things); neutral (「a dharma that is even, with nothing it opposes, able to contain the habit-energies」 — only what is neutral can accommodate both good and evil, as white paper can take on every color); perfumable (its nature not hard and impervious — it takes the perfuming in); and united together with what-perfumes (same time, same place). Of these four meanings, only the eighth consciousness passes them all — and that as the maturation-consciousness at the causal stage; at the fruit of Buddhahood the purified eighth carries only the old seeds and no longer receives perfuming — hence it alone is the storehouse. The party that perfumes must be: subject to arising and ceasing (it is active); possessed of surpassing function (its force strong enough — 「this excludes the maturation-mind, its mental factors, and the like, whose force is feeble」); possessed of increase and decrease (able to be strong or weak — since at the fruit of Buddhahood, being full and complete, there is neither increase nor decrease, and so no more perfuming); and united with what-is-perfumed. These four meanings only the seven evolving consciousnesses and their mental factors pass. The concluding statement draws it together:

「Thus what-perfumes and the perfumed consciousness arise together and cease together, and the meaning of perfuming is established. It causes the seeds within the perfumed to grow, as sesame is perfumed; and so it is called perfuming.」

3 · Innate and Newly Perfumed — Three Positions Set Side by Side

Where do seeds come from? The Indian treatise-masters held three positions, and this treatise sets them side by side. One position is the innate: 「all sentient beings, from time without beginning, possess manifold germinal natures — like a cluster of akṣa berries — existing just so, by their very nature」 — seeds are innately complete by their very nature, arising in strings like akṣa fruit, and perfuming only makes them grow. One position is the newly perfumed: 「since a seed is but another name for habit-energy, and habit-energy must come to be through perfuming — as the fragrance in sesame arises because flowers perfumed it」 — every seed is formed by perfuming, accumulated by perfuming from time without beginning, nothing more. The third position is the one the treatise's author holds to:

「The seeds of all dharmas each have two kinds, the innate and the newly arisen.」

The innate seed and the newly arisen (newly perfumed) seed stand together — there is a kind that is innately complete by its very nature, and there is a kind that first arises through perfuming. This is the Cheng Weishi Lun's division of the seed's origin; it may not be directly renamed as Chapter Nine's 「the lineage that abides by nature / the lineage formed by cultivation」; how the two sets of terms subsume one another, the ancient masters have their own differing readings, and each must be reckoned according to its own treatise. The third position is this treatise's settled conclusion, and this book transmits it faithfully as the treatise has it; the disputation over the first two positions (how the innate-seed view accounts for the causal relation between the evolving consciousnesses and the ālaya, and how the newly-perfumed view accounts for the first arising of the uncontaminated) is argued out in full in the seeds chapter of the Cheng Weishi Lun edition.

4 · Cause and Fruit at the Same Time — The Lamp-Flame and the Bundle of Reeds

The second of the six meanings of the seed (the fruit is co-present) deserves a section of its own, for it overturns the commonsense picture of cause and effect. In common sense the cause comes first and the fruit after, as when a ball is struck; but this school's deep causality is simultaneous. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha gives two similes:

「It is like a bright lamp: the flame and the wick, the one arising, the one burning, are simultaneous and reciprocal. It is also like a bundle of reeds supporting and holding one another, at the same moment not falling.」

The lamp-flame burns the wick, the wick gives rise to the lamp-flame — flame and wick, which is before and which after? In one and the same moment they are cause and effect to each other. The bundle of reeds leans together and stands — which side props which? They hold one another up at the same time; the original text says only 「a bundle of reeds」, adding no count of stalks. The relation of the ālaya to all dharmas is just this: 「as the ālaya-vijñāna is cause of the defiled dharmas, so the defiled dharmas are in turn cause of the ālaya-vijñāna」 — the root consciousness's seeds produce manifest activity, and manifest activity perfumes the root consciousness back again, running in both directions in one and the same moment. The Cheng Weishi Lun settles the matter with a simile of the same family: 「as the wick gives rise to the flame and the flame gives rise to the charred wick, and as a bundle of reeds mutually depend on one another, cause and fruit are simultaneous, and the principle stands unshaken.」 (The full account of the five scriptural teachings and ten reasonings establishing the ālaya may be read in the selected readings, following the Cheng Weishi Lun edition.)

5 · Other-Dependent Arising Read Through Consciousness — The Wheel Turns Within the Stream

At the last, pull the lens back. The whole mechanism of birth-and-death's continuity the Triṃśikā says in a single verse (verse 19):

「By the various karmic habit-energies and the habit-energies of the two graspings together, 　when the former maturation is exhausted, a further maturation arises anew.」

The karmic habit-energy (the seed perfumed into being by deeds) and the habit-energy of the two graspings (the seed perfumed into being by the clinging of grasper and grasped) are both present; 「when the former maturation is exhausted, a further maturation arises anew」 — when the recompense of this present period is used up, the recompense of another period arises out of the seeds. Note that in this sentence there is no traveler: it is not that a soul walks from the former life to the later one, but that where the fore-wave spends itself the after-wave rises, like a cataract that never breaks off. The Cheng Weishi Lun, glossing this verse, divides the habit-energies into three: 「first, the habit-energy of verbal designation — that is, the several direct seeds of the conditioned dharmas」 (the direct cause of the myriad dharmas, perfumed by verbal designation), 「second, the habit-energy of self-clinging — that is, the seed of falsely clinging to a self and to what is the self's」 (the source of the distinction between self and other), 「third, the habit-energy of the existence-members — that is, the karmic seed that summons maturation in the three realms」 (the source of the good and evil destinies) — and it draws the whole set of the twelve members of existence into the account (the division into the four members — that which draws forth, that which is drawn forth, that which produces, that which is produced — the fine ledger following the edition). And the two concluding sentences are this school's final reading of the two words 「dependent arising」:

「By this, birth-and-death revolves without end — what need is there of any outer condition for the continuity to be had?」「Further: birth-and-death's continuity is by inner causes and conditions, not awaiting outer conditions; therefore there is consciousness alone.」

The round of rebirth needs no external pusher — habit-energy perfumes the seed, the seed produces manifest activity, manifest activity perfumes again, and the wheel turns within the stream of consciousness itself. This is at once the most thoroughgoing responsibility (there is no shifting the blame onto anything outside) and the most thoroughgoing hope (since the mechanism lies entirely within the stream, the handle that turns it also lies within the stream — the perfuming of hearing is a perfuming, practice is a perfuming; Chapter Nine sets out from here).

Part Two draws to a close here: what is clung to has been refuted (chapter five), the map has been spread out (chapter six), the way of seeing has been set up (chapter seven), the dynamics have been thought through (chapter eight). The mind's doctrine is now complete — how it becomes a road that can actually be walked, Part Three (from Chapter Nine) begins to expound.

To follow the source texts: on the reading path, Station Six — the Mahāyānasaṃgraha's "Support of the Knowable," Station Seven — the Cheng Weishi Lun, fascicle two, the seeds chapter, and Station Three — the Triṃśikā, verse 19 — await you.

Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏