百論 破因中有果品第七

The outsider’s position has only one sentence: “What exists is not lost, and what is absent does not arise.” Change is merely the same existent taking another shape; therefore the jar already exists in the clay.

Loss and Difference Cannot Both Be Avoided

The treatise author answers: “If, because the effect arises, what exists is not lost, then because the cause is lost, what exists is lost.” If the lump of clay is not lost, the jar is precisely the lump; yet “now in fact one sees differences of shape, time, capacity, cognition, name, and the rest.” The bent-and-straightened finger fails because “bending and straightening are the finger’s activities, while the finger is the agent”; youth, maturity, and old age fail because “youth does not make maturity, and maturity does not make old age.”

If Things Abide Permanently, Demerit and Merit Both Disappear

The outsider simply asks, “What fault is there if nothing is lost?” The answer is, “If there is no impermanence, there is no demerit, merit, or the rest”—“a person of demerit would always remain a person of demerit and should not become meritorious,” so “giving and stealing, observing precepts and violating precepts” all lose their footing. Preserve an indestructible existent, and practice cannot be preserved.

Every Retreat Leaves Something Formerly Absent and Later Present

If cause and effect are one, “the three times are thus disordered.” If names change with time, “this name was formerly absent and later present.” If clay is indeterminate, “if clay is indeterminate, the effect too is indeterminate.” Establish a subtle form to explain imperceptibility, and “the coarse character was originally absent and later arose.” Use “one who makes a jar selects clay, not rushes” as evidence from what is to be, and “now that the jar is broken, the effect should be what is to be absent.” Arrange arising, abiding, and destruction in sequence, and precisely “these two were formerly absent and later present.”

Where It Comes to Rest

“Because it continues, it is not annihilated; because it is destroyed, it is not permanent”—“from grain to sprout and the rest, continuity means it is not annihilated; because grain and the other causes are destroyed, it is not permanent.” What is refuted is not cause and effect, but cause and effect installed upon something unchanging.

Hundred Treatise, fascicle two, “Refutation of the Effect Existing in the Cause, Chapter Seven,” composed by the Bodhisattva Deva, explained by the adept Vasu, and translated by Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva of the Yao Qin · Taishō T30n1569. Markers such as 〔T30 …〕 at the beginnings of passages give Taishō page, register, and line anchors.

1. What Exists Is Not Lost; What Is Absent Does Not Arise

〔T30 0177b01〕The outsider says—this sentence is Deva’s root statement: Dharmas do not fail to abide, because what already exists is not lost and what was originally absent does not arise.

The adept Vasu explains: Consider dharmas bearing the character of existence, such as a lump of clay. From the lump one makes the base of a jar; from the base one makes its belly; from the belly one makes its neck; from the neck one makes its mouth. Earlier and later stages are cause and effect for one another. When the various effects arise, the various causes are not lost. If the effect did not exist in the cause, the effect would not arise. It is only that the cause changes into the effect, and therefore dharmas exist.

2. If the Effect Has Arisen, the Cause Has Been Lost

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If, because the effect arises, what exists is not lost, then because the cause is lost, what exists is lost.

The adept Vasu explains: You say that when the effect, the jar, arises, the lump of clay is not lost; then the jar is the lump of clay. But if the effect, the jar, arises and at that time the cause, the lump of clay, has been lost, it is as though there were no cause. If the lump of clay truly were not lost, one should not distinguish the lump from the jar. Yet now one actually sees differences in shape, time, capacity, cognition, name, and the rest. Therefore, the existent of which you speak must have been lost.

3. A Bent Finger and a Straightened Finger

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: As with a finger bent and straightened.

The adept Vasu explains: Although a finger’s bent and straightened shapes differ, it is in fact the same finger. In the same way, although the shapes of the lump and the jar differ, the clay does not differ.

The treatise author answers: It is not so. Deva’s root statement: Because activity and agent differ.

The adept Vasu explains: Bending and straightening are the finger’s activities; the finger is what performs them. If the activity itself were the agent, the finger should be lost when it bends. Further, bending and straightening should become the same thing. According to your scripture, the lump of clay itself is the jar. Therefore, the finger analogy is wrong.

4. Youth, Maturity, and Old Age

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: As with youth, maturity, and old age.

The adept Vasu explains: One person’s body is youthful, mature, and old. Cause and effect are the same.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Because they are not one.

The adept Vasu explains: Youth does not make maturity, and maturity does not make old age. Therefore, your analogy is wrong.

Further, Deva’s root statement: If what exists is not lost, there is no loss.

The adept Vasu explains: If what exists is not lost, the lump of clay should not change into a jar, and there would then be no jar. If what exists is not lost, then because there is no nonexistence, nothing should be lost. It would follow that there is no loss at all.

5. What Fault Is There If Nothing Is Lost?

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: What fault is there if nothing is lost?

The adept Vasu explains: If there is no loss because the cause is permanent, the lump of clay should not change into a jar. What fault is there if there is no impermanence?

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If there is no impermanence, there is no demerit, merit, or the rest.

The adept Vasu explains: If there were no impermanence, demerit, merit, and the rest should all be absent. Why? A person of demerit would always remain a person of demerit and should not become meritorious; a meritorious person would always remain meritorious and should not become a person of demerit. Demerit, merit, and the rest mean giving and stealing, observing precepts and violating precepts, and so forth. All such things would be absent.

6. The Effect Exists in the Cause Beforehand

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: The effect exists in the cause beforehand, because the cause exists.

The adept Vasu explains: If a jar did not already exist in clay, clay should not be the cause of a jar.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If, because the effect exists beforehand in the cause, an effect exists, then because the effect is absent, the cause has no effect.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the lump of clay is made into a jar and, because the clay is not lost, you say the effect exists in the cause. Then if this jar breaks, you should say there is no effect in the cause.

7. If Cause and Effect Are One, the Three Times Are Disordered

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because cause and effect are one.

The adept Vasu explains: Earth is the cause and clay the effect; clay is the cause and jar the effect. The cause changes into the effect, and there is no other dharma. Therefore, one should not say the effect is absent from the cause.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If cause and effect are one, there is no future.

The adept Vasu explains: The lump of clay is present, while the jar is future. If cause and effect are one, there is no future. Without a future there is also no present; without a present there is also no past. It follows that the three times are disordered.

8. It Is Merely Named According to the Time

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because names and the rest are lost, and names and the rest arise.

The adept Vasu explains: There is no new dharma, and the old dharma is not lost; only the name differs according to the time. One lump of clay, for example, is made into a jar; the jar breaks and is made into a basin; the basin breaks and returns to clay. Thus there is no going at all and no coming. Where, then, are jar and basin? Things merely receive names according to the time; in fact, there is no difference.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If so, the cause has no effect.

The adept Vasu explains: If a name is lost and arises, then this name was absent before and exists later; therefore, precisely, the effect is absent from the cause. If the name existed beforehand, the clay would already be the jar. Thus one knows that the effect did not exist beforehand.

9. What Kind of Vessel Emerges from Clay Is Not Fixed

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because it is not fixed.

The adept Vasu explains: Which kind of vessel will emerge from the lump of clay is not fixed, so the corresponding name is not fixed within the clay.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If clay is indeterminate, the effect too is indeterminate.

The adept Vasu explains: If the jar in the lump of clay is not fixed, then your claim that the effect exists beforehand in the cause is equally unfixed.

10. Subtle Form and Eight Grounds of Imperceptibility

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because a subtle form exists.

The adept Vasu explains: The jar’s shape in the lump of clay is subtle and therefore difficult to know; through the potter’s power it becomes clear at that time. Although the jar in the clay cannot be known, one should understand that a subtle form certainly exists in the clay. There are two kinds of imperceptibility: a thing may be unknown because it is absent, or it may truly exist but be unknown because of some condition. There are eight such conditions. What are the eight? It is unknown because it is far away, as with a distant country; because it is too near, as with one’s own eyelashes; because a faculty is damaged, as with the deaf and blind; because the mind does not abide, as when a person’s thoughts are scattered; because it is subtle, as with a fine particle; because an obstruction intervenes, as with something beyond a wall; because it is overpowered by something stronger, as with a small amount of salt placed in a great body of water; or because it resembles its surroundings, as with one grain of rice cast into a great heap of rice. Thus although the eye cannot see the jar in the lump of clay, a jar never emerges from rushes. Therefore, a subtle jar certainly exists in the clay.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If a subtle form exists beforehand, the cause has no effect.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose that before the jar arises, a subtle form already exists in the clay and later becomes coarse and therefore knowable. This is precisely the effect being absent from the cause. Why? Because the coarse character was originally absent and arose only later. Therefore, the effect is absent from the cause.

11. Why Select Clay Rather Than Rushes?

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: The effect should exist in the cause, because each effect selects its cause.

The adept Vasu explains: The effect should exist beforehand in the cause. Why? One who makes a jar selects clay, not rushes. If the effect were absent from the cause, rushes could also be selected. Yet people truly know that clay can produce a jar; they knead sticky earth into a vessel able to withstand firing. Therefore, the effect exists in the cause.

〔T30 0178a03〕The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If what is to exist exists, then what is to be absent is absent.

The adept Vasu explains: You say that a jar is to emerge from clay, and therefore the effect already exists in the cause. But now that the jar has broken, one should say that the effect is to be absent; therefore, the effect is absent from the cause.

12. The Sequence of Arising, Abiding, and Destruction

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because arising, abiding, and destruction exist in sequence, there is no fault.

The adept Vasu explains: Although the character of destruction is present in a jar, the jar always first arises, next abides, and only afterward is destroyed. Why? Because before it arises, there is no destruction.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: If arising is first and not later, the same follows for the absence of the effect.

The adept Vasu explains: Suppose the jar in the clay is destroyed as soon as it arises. Why must it first arise and later be destroyed, rather than first be destroyed and later arise? You say that because it has not yet arisen, there is no destruction. It follows that before the jar arises, there is also no abiding and no destruction. These two things, abiding and destruction, were formerly absent and later exist; therefore, precisely, the effect is absent from the cause.

13. Because It Continues, It Is Not Annihilated; Because It Is Destroyed, It Is Not Permanent

The outsider says—Deva’s root statement: Because you refute the effect’s existence, you incur the fault of annihilation.

The adept Vasu explains: If it is wrong for the effect to exist in the cause, the effect must be absent from the cause. If the effect is absent from the cause, one falls into annihilation.

The treatise author answers—Deva’s root statement: Because it continues, it is not annihilated; because it is destroyed, it is not permanent.

The adept Vasu explains: Do you not know? From grain to sprout and the rest, continuity is unbroken, and therefore there is no annihilation; grain and the other causes are destroyed, and therefore there is no permanence. In this way, the Buddhas teach dharmas arising through the twelvefold dependent origination. Free from an effect existing or not existing in the cause, they cling neither to annihilation nor to permanence; they travel the middle way and enter nirvāṇa.

In “Relinquishing Demerit and Merit,” the outsider wanted something “auspicious” that could establish itself and then pass outward. In this chapter, what he wants is an “existent” able to preserve itself. His words sound perfectly steady: “Dharmas do not fail to abide, because what exists is not lost and what is absent does not arise.” What already exists cannot disappear, and what was originally absent cannot arise. Thus what the world calls change is only the same existent taking a different shape.

The claim sounds almost like common sense. The adept Vasu gives its analogy in full: take a lump of clay and proceed “from lump to base, from base to belly, from belly to neck, from neck to mouth,” each stage following another, the former as cause and the latter as effect. Moreover, “when the various effects arise, the various causes are not lost.” Conversely, “if the effect were absent from the cause, the effect would not arise.” If the jar were not already in the clay, on what basis could clay produce a jar? The conclusion is: “The cause merely changes into the effect; therefore dharmas exist.”

The chapter’s twenty-five root statements press this single “not lost” all the way to its limit.

1. One Who Says “Not Lost” Has Already Lost the Cause

The treatise author’s first root statement gathers both sides: “If, because the effect arises, what exists is not lost, then because the cause is lost, what exists is lost.”

The sentence first follows the outsider: “You say that when the effect, the jar, arises, the lump of clay is not lost; then the jar is the lump of clay.” If the lump has lost nothing, the jar in your hand must wholly be that lump. But when the jar arises, the lump’s rounded shape is no longer there. “At that time the cause, the lump of clay, has been lost, and so there is no cause.” To preserve nonloss, one must say that no difference can be drawn between lump and jar; yet “if the lump of clay were not lost, one should not distinguish a difference between the lump and the jar.”

The treatise author therefore points to the thing before one’s eyes: “Now in fact one sees differences of shape, time, capacity, cognition, name, and the rest; therefore what exists must be lost.” The shape differs, the time differs, what it can do differs, how people recognize it differs, and its name differs—difference appears in five places. The outsider’s nonloss can hold only where nothing changes, yet the very evidence he offers is an event of change.

2. Bent Finger, Youth, Maturity, and Old Age: Two Borrowed Legs

The outsider immediately finds an analogy to support the claim. First comes the finger: “As with a finger bent and straightened”—“although the finger’s bent and straightened shapes differ, in fact it is one finger.” The shapes of bending and straightening indeed differ, yet there is only one finger; are lump and jar not the same?

The treatise author answers, “Because activity and agent differ.” He separates the two things within the analogy: “Bending and straightening are the finger’s activities; the finger is the agent.” Bending and straightening are activities performed by the finger; the finger is what performs them. The analogy works precisely because activity and agent are two things: the finger remains when it bends. But your claim is different—“According to your scripture, the lump of clay itself is the jar.” You require cause and effect to be one. If activity and agent were truly merged, “if activity itself were the agent, the finger should be lost when it bends”; further, “bending and straightening should be one,” and no difference between them would remain. The analogy can rescue itself, but not the claim for which it was borrowed.

The second analogy is a human life: “As with youth, maturity, and old age”—the same body is youthful, mature, and old. The treatise author replies with only “Because they are not one,” then explains: “Youth does not make maturity; maturity does not make old age.” Youth does not set to work making itself mature, nor maturity making itself old. People speak of one person on the basis of continuity; the outsider requires one unchanging entity to pass through all three stages exactly as it was.

3. If Nothing Is Truly Lost, a Person of Demerit Is Forever a Person of Demerit

The treatise author next lets “not lost” run within the outsider’s own words: “If what exists is not lost, there is no loss.” This has two levels. First, “if what exists were not lost, the lump of clay should not change into a jar, and then there would be no jar.” Preserve nonloss to the end, and clay remains clay forever; no jar can emerge. Second, if there is no nonexistence, there can be nothing called loss: “It would follow that there is no loss at all.”

The outsider simply accepts this: “What fault is there if nothing is lost?” Because things are permanent they are not lost; what fault is there in having no impermanence?

The treatise author turns from clay and jar to the person, giving the chapter’s weightiest reply: “If there is no impermanence, there is no demerit, merit, or the rest.” Why? “A person of demerit would always remain a person of demerit and should not become meritorious. A meritorious person would always remain meritorious and should not become a person of demerit.” He makes “demerit, merit, and the rest” concrete: “giving and stealing, observing precepts and violating precepts—all such things would be absent.”

An existent that can never be lost may sound like a support for cause and effect, but in fact it abolishes cause and effect. A harmful person can turn back, and a good person can fall away, only because of the very impermanence that unsettles the outsider. Preserve the unchanging, and practice cannot be preserved.

4. If the Effect Exists in the Cause, When the Effect Breaks the Cause Should Have No Effect

The outsider returns to the main thesis and states it directly: “The effect exists in the cause beforehand, because the cause exists”—“if a jar did not exist beforehand in clay, clay should not be the jar’s cause.”

The treatise author answers, “If, because the effect exists beforehand in the cause, an effect exists, then because the effect is absent, the cause has no effect.” He uses the outsider’s own calculation: “If the lump of clay is made into a jar and, because the clay is not lost, the effect exists in the cause, then when this jar breaks one should say there is no effect in the cause.” If the jar’s presence proves its presence in the cause, the jar’s absence makes the same clay prove its absence in the cause. A rule that judges what exists in the cause by whether the effect is now present runs in both directions and therefore can rest in neither.

The outsider recasts the claim: “Because cause and effect are one.” Earth is cause and clay is effect; clay is cause and jar is effect; “the cause changes into the effect, and there is no different dharma.” The treatise author answers, “If cause and effect are one, there is no future.” “The lump of clay is present, while the jar is future.” If cause and effect are one, the future jar is already here; without future there is no contrasting present, and without present no past—“the three times are thus disordered.” Merging cause and effect saves their difference only by forfeiting time.

5. Only the Name Is Changing

The outsider finds another route: the dharma has not moved; only its designation has. “There is no new dharma, and the old dharma is not lost; only the name differs according to the time.” One lump is made into a jar; “the jar breaks and becomes a basin; the basin breaks and returns to clay.” There is no coming or going, so where are jar and basin? “Things merely receive names according to the time; in fact, there is no difference.”

The treatise author answers swiftly, “If so, the cause has no effect”: “This name was formerly absent and later exists; therefore the effect is absent from the cause.” You yourself say that names are lost and arise. The name “jar” was absent before and present afterward—is this not precisely an effect absent from its cause? “If the name existed beforehand, the clay itself would be the jar.” Moving change into the name does not make change disappear; it only relocates it, and in its new location it is still formerly absent and later present.

The outsider retreats once more: “Because it is not fixed”—“which vessel will emerge from the lump of clay is not fixed,” and therefore the name in the clay is not fixed. The treatise author gathers the concession: “If clay is indeterminate, the effect too is indeterminate.” If you require clay to be indeterminate, your original statement that the effect already exists in the cause becomes indeterminate with it.

6. Subtle Form—and Eight Ways Something Goes Unseen

Here the outsider makes his strongest move: “Because a subtle form exists.” The jar is not absent from the clay; it is too small to see—“the jar’s shape in the lump of clay is subtle and therefore difficult to know; through the potter’s power it becomes clear at that time.” He even supplies a full classification of what is unseen. Imperceptibility has two kinds: “unknown because it is absent, or truly present but unknown because of conditions.” There are eight conditions for what exists but is not known: “unknown because distant, as with a distant land”; “unknown because too near, as with one’s own eyelashes”; a damaged faculty, as in deafness or blindness; an unsettled mind, as when thoughts scatter; subtlety, as with a fine particle; obstruction, as with something beyond a wall; “unknown because overpowered, as with a small amount of salt in a great body of water”; and “unknown because similar, as with one grain of rice cast into a great heap.” All eight examples are true: eyelashes are too near to see, salt disappears in a great body of water, and one grain cannot be recovered from the heap. His closing line is equally firm. Though the eye does not see the jar in clay, “in the end it does not emerge from rushes; therefore the subtle jar certainly exists in the clay.”

The treatise author does not dispute the eight examples. He takes up the word “subtle” that the outsider himself added: “If a subtle form exists beforehand, the cause has no effect.” You say a subtle form exists first in clay and only later becomes coarse and knowable—“because the coarse character was originally absent and later arose, the effect is absent from the cause.” To explain why the jar is unseen, the outsider shrinks the effect into a subtle form; once shrunk, the complete preexistent effect he sought to prove has disappeared. Only the subtle existed before; the coarse character still arises later, and what arises later was not in the cause.

7. Selecting Clay Rather Than Rushes

The outsider’s last question is the most practical: “The effect should exist in the cause, because each effect selects its cause”—“one who makes a jar selects clay, not rushes.” If the effect were absent from the cause, rushes should also make a jar. Yet everyone knows that clay can produce a jar: “sticky earth is kneaded into a vessel able to withstand firing.”

〔T30 0178a03〕The treatise author answers, “If what is to exist exists, then what is to be absent is absent.” You say that because “a jar is to emerge from clay,” the effect exists beforehand. Then, “now that the jar has broken, the effect should be what is to be absent.” If “is to exist” proves existence, “is to be absent” proves absence; the word “to be” works in both directions. Used to prove a preexistent effect, it simultaneously proves no effect.

The outsider has one move left: “Because arising, abiding, and destruction exist in sequence, there is no fault.” Although the jar contains a character of destruction, it must first arise, then abide, and only afterward be destroyed, “because before arising there is no destruction.” The treatise author answers, “If arising is first and not later, the same follows for the absence of the effect.” He first asks: “Why must it first arise and later be destroyed, rather than first be destroyed and later arise?” If everything already exists, whence comes sequence? Then he gathers the outsider’s own words: you say that before arising there is no destruction; likewise before the jar arises there is no abiding and no destruction. “These two were formerly absent and later present; therefore the effect is absent from the cause.” The sequence you arrange for arising, abiding, and destruction is precisely a sequence of former absence and later presence.

8. Because It Continues, It Is Not Annihilated; Because It Is Destroyed, It Is Not Permanent

The outsider’s final question is one every teaching of refutation encounters: “Because you refute the effect’s existence, you incur the fault of annihilation.” If you refute the effect in the cause, you must say it is absent; “if the effect is absent from the cause, one falls into annihilation.”

The treatise author’s answer is where the entire chapter comes to rest: “Because it continues, it is not annihilated; because it is destroyed, it is not permanent.”

“Do you not know?” He points to something in the field: “From grain to sprout and the rest, continuity means it is not annihilated; because grain and the other causes are destroyed, it is not permanent.” A grain enters the earth, the grain is destroyed, and a sprout emerges. To see only destruction and declare before and after unrelated is annihilation; to see only continuity and imagine an unchanged grain passing intact into the sprout is permanence. Destruction and continuity are two faces of one event. If the grain is not destroyed, the sprout does not arise; if there is no continuity, this sprout does not come from this grain. What the treatise author has always refuted is not cause and effect, but cause and effect installed upon something unchanging.

The final sentence joins the chapter back to the whole treatise: “In this way, the Buddhas teach dharmas arising through the twelvefold dependent origination. Free from an effect existing or not existing in the cause, they cling neither to annihilation nor to permanence; they travel the middle way and enter nirvāṇa.”

9. What a Reader Can Carry Away from This Chapter

First, observe where every retreat by the outsider comes to rest. He retreats from “what exists is not lost” to the finger, to youth, maturity, and old age, to names differing with time, to indeterminacy, to subtle form, to choosing clay rather than rushes, and to the sequence of arising, abiding, and destruction. Every retreat is reasoned, and every one leaves within its own words something “formerly absent and later present.”

Second, remember the sentence, “If there is no impermanence, there is no demerit, merit, or the rest.” People tend to regard impermanence as bad news. This chapter shows that precisely because things can perish and change, giving differs from stealing, observing precepts differs from violating them, and practice can move.

Carried Forward

This chapter refutes “the effect existing beforehand in the cause,” and hence is titled “Refutation of the Effect Existing in the Cause.” In its final sentence the treatise author states his position in advance: “Free from an effect existing or not existing in the cause, they cling neither to annihilation nor to permanence”—both sides are left together. Refuting an existent effect therefore does not establish a nonexistent effect. The following “Refutation of the Effect Not Existing in the Cause” walks the other side to its end; only when neither side remains does the middle way avoid becoming a new place to stand.

The analogy of grain and sprout appears only once, yet it carries the entire chapter: To explain how before and after are related, one need not first hide the later within the earlier.