十二門論 觀相門第四

The treatise master establishes a verse, and all four lines turn upon it:

“Conditioned and unconditioned dharmas, these two kinds, are both without marks; because they are without marks, both kinds of dharma are empty.”

The prose adds only seven words: “Conditioned dharmas are not established by relying on marks.”

The Treatise Master Leaves Every Conventional Mark Untouched

A cow has horns, a hump, a dewlap, and tail hair; a jar has “a flat base, broad belly, narrow neck, and thick lip”; a cart has wheels, axle, shaft, and yoke; a person has head, eyes, abdomen, back, shoulders, arms, hands, and feet. All of these remain. The treatise master turns only the question: what, then, of arising, abiding, and cessation—“are they conditioned or unconditioned?”

Every Route Open to the Opponent

Call them conditioned. Then they themselves need the three marks, and those marks need another three: “proceeding recursively in this way produces an infinite regress.”

Call them unconditioned. Then “apart from arising, abiding, and cessation, who could know that this is arising?” What cannot be distinguished cannot serve as another thing’s credential.

Say that seven things arrive together. The primary arising produces six dharmas, the arising of arising produces the primary arising, and the primary arising in turn produces the arising of arising, closing the circle. But ask one question: “The primary arising has not in fact arisen; how can it bring the arising of arising into arising?” Both ends of the circle await the other.

Say it is like a lamp illuminating itself. Illumination earns its name by dispelling darkness; there is no darkness in the lamp or where its light reaches—“only dispelling darkness is called illumination, so what exactly does the lamp illuminate?” If it can dispel darkness across a distance, then “lighting a lamp here should dispel all darkness everywhere.” If the lamp illuminates itself, “darkness likewise should conceal both itself and others.”

Say arising brings itself into arising. What has not arisen “does not yet exist,” so it cannot set to work. What has arisen “is already arisen; why must it arise again?”—“Once it has arisen, there is no further arising; once an act has been done, there is no further doing.”

The Final Plain Robe

Once marks of the conditioned are exhausted, one tries to retreat to the unconditioned, and then to marklessness. The master pursues with one question: “By relying on what mark is this known to be markless?” If known by a mark, it is not markless. If known by marklessness, “what is absent cannot be known.”

The opponent points to one plain robe among a pile of patterned robes: call for it and someone can retrieve it. The master replies that the surrounding pile must first be definite. “When arising, abiding, and cessation are sought through many causes and conditions, they are all empty; no mark of the conditioned can be found”—so “which fixed and determinate mark of the conditioned have you obtained, such that by it you know a markless place to be unconditioned?”

Close

“Therefore all conditioned dharmas are empty. Because conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty. Because conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are empty, the self is also empty.”

Fasten the gate’s single word all the way through, and the gate opens.

Nāgārjuna composed and the Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva translated the Twelve Gate Treatise, fascicle one, “Examination of Marks, Gate Four,” in the Later Qin · Taishō T30n1568. Paragraph openings marked 〔T30 …〕 give page-column-line anchors in the Taishō canon.

1. Opening Verse of the Gate: Both Conditioned and Unconditioned Dharmas Are Markless

〔T30 0162c02〕Further, all dharmas are empty. Why?

Conditioned and unconditioned dharmas, these two kinds, are both without marks; because they are without marks, both kinds of dharma are empty.

Conditioned dharmas are not established by relying on marks.

2. Question: What Are the Marks of the Conditioned?

The objector asks: what counts as a mark of the conditioned?

The respondent says: every thing has its own conditioned marks. A cow, for example, is marked by horns, the hump on its shoulder, the hanging dewlap beneath its neck, and hair at the end of its tail. A jar is marked by a flat base, broad belly, narrow neck, and thick lip. A cart is marked by its wheels, axle, shaft, and yoke. A person is marked by head, eyes, abdomen, back, shoulders, arms, hands, and feet.

If, in the same way, arising, abiding, and cessation are said to be the marks of conditioned dharmas, one must ask: are they themselves conditioned or unconditioned?

3. If Arising Is Conditioned, the Three Marks Regress Infinitely; If Unconditioned, It Cannot Serve as a Mark

The objector asks: what fault follows if they are conditioned?

The respondent says:

If the mark of arising is itself conditioned, it too should have the three marks; if the mark of arising is itself unconditioned, how could it be called a mark of the conditioned?

If the mark of arising is itself a conditioned dharma, it should also possess the three marks of arising, abiding, and cessation. Since these three marks are themselves conditioned, each should again possess its own three marks. Proceeding recursively in this way produces an infinite regress. The same applies to the marks of abiding and cessation.

If the mark of arising is itself an unconditioned dharma, one must ask: how can the unconditioned serve as a mark for the conditioned? Moreover, apart from arising, abiding, and cessation, who could know that something is the mark of arising?

Further, only because arising, abiding, and cessation can each be distinguished does one speak of an arising. The unconditioned cannot be distinguished, and therefore there is no arising within it. The same applies to abiding and cessation.

Since arising, abiding, and cessation are empty, conditioned dharmas are empty with them. Since conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty, for it is precisely in reliance on the conditioned that the unconditioned is spoken of. Because both conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are empty, all dharmas are empty.

4. The Opponent Establishes Seven Co-Arising Dharmas to Halt the Regress

The objector says: you claim that each of the three marks must possess another three marks and that this produces an infinite regress, and therefore that the mark of arising should not be conditioned. I will now propose an arrangement:

What is called the arising of arising brings its primary arising into arising; and what the primary arising brings into arising, in turn, brings the arising of arising into arising.

When a dharma arises, seven dharmas arise together, including its own entity: first, the dharma itself; second, arising; third, abiding; fourth, cessation; fifth, the arising of arising; sixth, the abiding of abiding; and seventh, the cessation of cessation.

Among these seven dharmas, the primary arising, excluding its own entity, can bring the other six dharmas into arising. The arising of arising can bring the primary arising into arising, and the primary arising in turn brings the arising of arising into arising. Thus, although the three marks of arising, abiding, and cessation remain conditioned, there is no infinite regress. Abiding and cessation are arranged in the same way.

5. Refuting the Seven Dharmas: Arising of Arising and Primary Arising Await Each Other, and Neither Can Come First

The respondent says:

〔T30 0163a01〕

If this arising of arising can in turn bring the primary arising into arising, yet the arising of arising itself comes from the primary arising, how can it bring the primary arising into arising?

If the arising of arising can bring the primary arising into arising, then before the primary arising has brought forth the arising of arising, the arising of arising does not itself exist. By what could it bring the primary arising into arising?

If this primary arising can bring the arising of arising into arising, yet the primary arising itself comes from that arising of arising, how can it bring the arising of arising into arising?

Suppose the primary arising can bring the arising of arising into arising, and after the arising of arising has arisen, it in turn brings the primary arising into arising. This cannot be maintained. Why? The function of what is called the arising of arising is precisely to bring the primary arising into arising, and that is why it is called the arising of arising. Yet when the primary arising has not in fact been brought into arising, how can it bring the arising of arising into arising?

The claim that the arising of arising can bring the primary arising into arising at the very moment it is arising is equally untenable. Why?

You say that while this arising of arising is arising, it may bring the primary arising into arising; yet the arising of arising has not itself arisen, so how can it bring the primary arising into arising?

You say that while the arising of arising is arising, it can bring the primary arising into arising. Yet the entity of this arising of arising has not been produced, and it cannot bring the primary arising into arising.

6. Refuting the Lamp Analogy: There Is No Darkness in the Lamp or Where It Stands

Suppose it is said that while the arising of arising is arising, it can bring itself and others into arising, just as a lamp when lit can illuminate itself and others. This is untenable. Why?

Within the lamp itself there is originally no darkness, nor is there darkness where the lamp stands; only dispelling darkness is called illumination, so what exactly does the lamp illuminate?

The lamp’s own entity has no darkness, and the place where its light abides has no darkness. If there is no darkness within the lamp and none where the lamp stands, how can one say that the lamp illuminates both itself and others? Dispelling darkness is what is called illumination. Since the lamp dispels neither darkness in itself nor darkness elsewhere, it illuminates neither itself nor others.

Thus your earlier claim—“A lamp illuminates itself and others; arising likewise brings itself and others into arising”—is untenable.

7. Can the Lamp Reach Darkness or Dispel Darkness at a Distance?

The objector says: precisely because the lamp dispels darkness when it is lit, there is no darkness within the lamp or where it stands.

The respondent says:

How can one say that a lamp dispels darkness when it is lit? At the moment this lamp is first lit, it has not reached the darkness.

If the lamp does not reach where darkness is when it is lit, then because it has not reached the darkness, it should not be said to have dispelled it.

Further:

If the lamp has not reached the darkness and can nevertheless dispel it, then lighting a lamp here should dispel all darkness everywhere.

If a lamp, although unable to reach darkness, can dispel it through its power, then lighting one lamp here should dispel all darkness throughout the world, for it equally fails to reach darkness whether far or near. Yet in fact lighting a lamp here does not dispel all darkness throughout the world. Thus your claim that a lamp, although unable to reach darkness, can dispel it through its power is untenable.

8. If a Lamp Illuminates Itself and Others, Darkness Should Conceal Itself and Others

Further:

If a lamp can illuminate itself and also illuminate others, then darkness likewise should conceal both itself and others.

If a lamp illuminates itself and others, then darkness, standing in opposition to the lamp, should likewise conceal both itself and others.

Yet although darkness and the lamp are opposites, darkness neither conceals itself nor conceals others, while it is nevertheless claimed that the lamp illuminates both itself and others. This is untenable. Thus the analogy you adduce is incorrect.

9. Neither What Has Arisen nor What Has Not Arisen Can Bring Itself into Arising

As for your claim that arising brings itself and others into arising, another point must now be made:

If this arising has not yet arisen, how can it bring itself into arising? If it brings itself into arising only once it has arisen, then since it has arisen, what need is there to arise?

Concerning arising before it has arisen, two alternatives must be examined: does it arise only after it has already arisen, or does it arise while it has not yet arisen?

If it arises while it has not yet arisen, then what has not yet arisen does not yet exist. How can it bring itself into arising?

If it is said to arise after it has arisen, then once it has arisen it is already arisen. Why must it arise again? Once it has arisen, there is no second arising; once an act has been done, there is no second doing. Thus arising cannot bring itself into arising.

Since arising cannot bring itself into arising, how could it bring others into arising? Your claim that arising brings itself and others into arising is untenable. The same applies to the marks of abiding and cessation.

Therefore, the claim that arising, abiding, and cessation are the marks of the conditioned is untenable. Since arising, abiding, and cessation cannot be established as marks of the conditioned, conditioned dharmas are empty.

10. Because the Conditioned Is Empty, the Unconditioned Is Also Empty

Since conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty. Why? Because only the cessation of the conditioned is called unconditioned nirvāṇa; therefore nirvāṇa too is empty.

Further, nonarising, nonabiding, and nonceasing are said to be the marks of the unconditioned. Yet nonarising, nonabiding, and nonceasing mean that the dharma is absent, and what is absent should not be made into a mark.

11. Can Marklessness Serve as a Mark?

If it is said that marklessness is the mark of nirvāṇa, this is untenable.

If marklessness is the mark of nirvāṇa, one must ask: by relying on what mark is this known to be markless?

If it is known as markless by relying on a mark, how can it still be called markless?

If it is known as markless by relying on marklessness, marklessness is absence; because it is absent, it cannot be known.

12. The Analogy of the Unpatterned Robe and Its Refutation

Suppose it is said: among many robes bearing floral patterns, one alone bears no floral pattern. Its lack of pattern is precisely taken as its pattern. Thus when someone says, “Go fetch that markless robe,” the markless robe can be recognized and retrieved. In the same way, if arising, abiding, and cessation are marks of the conditioned, wherever arising, abiding, and cessation are absent should be known as marked by the unconditioned.

To say on this basis that marklessness is nirvāṇa is untenable. Why?

Because when arising, abiding, and cessation are sought through many causes and conditions, they are all empty; fundamentally no mark of the conditioned can be found. How, then, could it be used to know the unconditioned? Which fixed and certain mark of the conditioned have you obtained, such that by means of it you can know a markless place as the unconditioned?

Thus your claim that among many patterned robes the unpatterned robe can serve as an analogy for the marklessness of nirvāṇa is untenable.

The analogy of the robe will be discussed in detail in the fifth gate below.

13. Conclusion: Because the Three Things Are Empty, All Dharmas Are Empty

Therefore all conditioned dharmas are empty. Since conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty. Because both conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are empty, the self is also empty.

Because these three things are empty, all dharmas are empty.

We recognize a cow by its horns, hump, hanging dewlap, and tuft of hair at the end of its tail. We recognize a jar by its flat base, broad belly, narrow neck, and thick lip. We recognize a person or cart in the same way: first there is a group of visible features, and then a name is applied.

This seems so reliable that we extend it all the way. Since every thing has its marks, the great class called “all things”—all conditioned dharmas—should also have shared marks. Buddhism does indeed name such a group: arising, abiding, and cessation. Whatever is conditioned arises, abides, and ceases.

The “Gate of Examining Marks” asks about precisely this claim. It does not ask whether a cow’s marks are real or a jar’s marks accurate. It asks: if you take arising, abiding, and cessation as the marks of every conditioned dharma, to which side do these three themselves belong?

The treatise master opens by taking both alternatives: “If arising, abiding, and cessation are the marks of conditioned dharmas, are they conditioned or unconditioned?”

1. The Gate’s Opening Verse: Empty Because Markless

Before the exchange begins, the treatise master establishes a verse:

“Conditioned and unconditioned dharmas, these two kinds, are both without marks; because they are without marks, both kinds of dharma are empty.”

He adds only one prose sentence: “Conditioned dharmas are not established by relying on marks.”

Those seven words form this gate’s pivot. We ordinarily assume that the marks of arising, abiding, and cessation are first attached to a dharma, thereby establishing it as conditioned: the marks are credentials, and through them the dharma acquires its identity. The treatise master is saying that these credentials cannot themselves be issued.

What follows implicates both sides. If conditioned dharmas cannot be established through marks, unconditioned dharmas cannot be established either, because the name “unconditioned” is posited only in reliance on the conditioned. Thus the verse treats both kinds of dharma together, not as two separate matters.

2. If Arising Is Conditioned, the Three Marks Need Another Three Marks Above Them

Take the first alternative. The opponent asks directly: “What fault follows if they are conditioned?” The master answers in verse:

“If arising is conditioned, it too should have the three marks; if arising is unconditioned, how can it be called a mark of the conditioned?”

The inference in the first two lines is extremely simple—almost coldly so. You say that every conditioned dharma possesses the three marks. That is a general rule. If the mark of arising is itself conditioned, it must fall under the same rule: it too must have its own arising, its own abiding, and its own cessation. Since those three are also conditioned, each must possess another three. The master closes in one sentence: “These three marks should again have three marks; proceeding recursively in this way produces an infinite regress.”

And this applies not only to arising: “Abiding and cessation are likewise.”

The master does not import another principle to suppress the opponent. He uses the opponent’s own rule. If the rule you posit is truly general, it bites the very mark by which you explain it. Calling a halt at the second level amounts to conceding that the second level is exempt from the rule. But then it is not conditioned and cannot serve as the mark of the conditioned. A rule cannot grant itself an exception halfway through.

3. If Arising Is Unconditioned, What Cannot Be Distinguished Cannot Serve as a Credential for Recognition

What of the second alternative? Since calling the mark conditioned creates an infinite regress, one might simply call the mark of arising unconditioned. The master replies with three questions, each coming closer than the last:

“If arising is unconditioned, how can the unconditioned serve as a mark for the conditioned?” This concerns the boundary between the two.

“Apart from arising, abiding, and cessation, who could know that this is arising?” This concerns recognition. If you claim there is a mark of arising independent of the events of arising, abiding, and cessation, who could recognize it as arising once those events are removed?

“Further, because arising, abiding, and cessation are distinguished, there is arising. The unconditioned cannot be distinguished, and therefore there is no arising; the same applies to abiding and cessation.” This concerns the origin of the name. We speak of an arising precisely because we distinguish the three phases of arising, abiding, and cessation. Yet the unconditioned is said to be beyond distinction. One thing cannot be both indistinguishable and the ruler by which other things are distinguished.

With both alternatives blocked, the master gives his first conclusion: “Because arising, abiding, and cessation are empty, conditioned dharmas are empty. Because conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty, for it is because of the conditioned that there is the unconditioned. Because conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are empty, all dharmas are empty.”

Notice the small reason at the end: “because of the conditioned there is the unconditioned.” The unconditioned stands only because the conditioned stands. When the conditioned side gives way, the unconditioned is not another thing left safely intact.

4. Seven Co-Arising Dharmas: Replacing Infinite Regress with Mutual Support

Here the opponent proposes the most carefully devised solution in the entire gate. He first concedes that the challenge “you say the three marks must again have three marks and therefore regress infinitely” is formidable, and then says: I have another arrangement. The verse reads:

“What the arising of arising brings into arising is its primary arising; what the primary arising brings into arising in turn brings the arising of arising into arising.”

The prose lays out the plan: “When a dharma arises, seven dharmas arise together, including its own entity: first, the dharma; second, arising; third, abiding; fourth, cessation; fifth, the arising of arising; sixth, the abiding of abiding; seventh, the cessation of cessation.”

When one dharma arises, seven things arrive together, counting the dharma itself. Among them, “the primary arising, excluding its own entity, can bring the other six dharmas into arising.” The primary mark of arising produces the other six but does not produce itself. What, then, produces it? “The arising of arising can bring the primary arising into arising, and the primary arising in turn brings the arising of arising into arising.” The second-level arising produces it, and it in turn produces the second level.

The opponent’s calculation is ingenious. Infinite regress occurs because each level requires another level above it. Now the first and second levels support each other, putting a roof over the staircase at the second floor. Thus he dares to say: “Although the three marks are conditioned, there is no infinite regress.” And “abiding and cessation are likewise”; the same arrangement applies to all three.

This proposal is not evasion. It genuinely tries to complete the account within a finite structure. The treatise master next shows what it has substituted for infinity.

5. Refuting the Seven Dharmas: Both Wait for the Other to Move First

The master’s refutation comes in three consecutive verses, each pressing closer than the last.

The first verse:

〔T30 0163a01〕“If this arising of arising can in turn bring the primary arising into arising, yet the arising of arising comes from the primary arising, how can it bring the primary arising into arising?”

The prose offers just one sentence: “If the arising of arising can bring the primary arising into arising, but the primary arising has not brought the arising of arising into arising, how can the arising of arising bring the primary arising into arising?” The arising of arising is supposed to produce the primary arising, yet it is itself produced by the primary arising. Before the primary arising produces it, it simply is not there. How can something not yet there set to work?

The second verse turns the same question around:

“If this primary arising can bring the arising of arising into arising, yet the primary arising comes from that arising of arising, how can it bring the arising of arising into arising?”

The prose is more precise: “The dharma called arising of arising should bring the primary arising into arising and is therefore named arising of arising. Yet the primary arising has not in fact arisen; how can it bring the arising of arising into arising?” The very meaning of the name “arising of arising” is that it is charged with producing the primary arising. Before it performs that function, the primary arising has not arisen. By what could a primary arising that has not arisen produce the arising of arising?

The opponent’s final retreat concerns tense: do not speak of before and after; speak of the process underway. While the arising of arising is arising, it simultaneously produces the primary arising. The master’s third verse:

“While this arising of arising is arising, it may bring the primary arising into arising; yet the arising of arising has not arisen, so how can it bring the primary arising into arising?”

The prose adds only: “Yet the entity of this arising of arising has not arisen and cannot bring the primary arising into arising.”

After these three verses the matter is clear. The seven-dharma proposal has not brought the staircase to a top; it has bent an endless straight road into a circle. The circle looks closed and complete, but every point on it awaits the point before it. In an infinite regress, one never reaches the end; in mutual dependence, one cannot take even the first step. The opponent meant to avoid the first difficulty and has entered a tighter one.

6. The Lamp Illuminates Itself: If Dispelling Darkness Is Illumination, What Did the Lamp Illuminate?

Pressed this far, the opponent introduces a powerful analogy—an everyday experience that everyone assumes needs no proof: “Suppose that while the arising of arising is arising, it can bring itself and others into arising, just as a lamp, when lit, can illuminate itself and others.”

When a lamp is lit, it illuminates the things in the room and at the same time reveals itself. If illumination can illuminate itself and others, why can arising not bring itself and others into arising?

The master’s reply does not begin with arising. It first dismantles the lamp itself:

“Within the lamp itself there is originally no darkness, nor is there darkness where it stands; only dispelling darkness is called illumination, so what exactly does the lamp illuminate?”

The third line is crucial: how does the word “illuminate” earn its meaning? Illumination is not an isolated power; it is spoken in relation to darkness—only the dispelling of darkness is called illumination. The prose is steady: “The lamp’s own entity has no darkness, and the place where its light abides has no darkness.” There is originally no darkness inside the lamp, and where the light is present darkness is already absent. If there is no darkness to dispel in either place, what portion of darkness does so-called self-illumination remove?

Thus the master concludes: “The lamp does not dispel darkness in itself or elsewhere; therefore it illuminates neither itself nor others.”

This refutation does not claim that the room is not bright. Of course the room is bright. The master dismantles the word “illumination” when treated as a single activity possessing its own intrinsic nature. You hoped to use it to prove that one thing can act upon itself, but the word itself can be established only through what stands opposite it.

7. Does the Lamp Reach Darkness? One Lamp and All the Darkness in the World

The opponent is unconvinced and replies naturally: “Because a lamp can dispel darkness when it is lit, there is no darkness within the lamp or where it stands.” Precisely because the lamp dispelled the darkness at the moment it was lit, no darkness can now be seen. You say there is no darkness to dispel only because it has already been dispelled.

The master answers in two verses. The first asks about time:

“How can one say that a lamp dispels darkness when it is lit? At the moment this lamp is first lit, it has not reached the darkness.”

“If the lamp does not reach darkness when it is lit, then because it has not reached the darkness, it should not be said to have dispelled it.” At the moment the lamp is first lit, its light has not reached the darkness. Without reaching it, one cannot speak of dispelling it.

If the opponent says contact is unnecessary and the lamp can dispel darkness across a distance, the master’s second verse immediately presses the principle to its limit:

“If the lamp has not reached the darkness and can nevertheless dispel it, then lighting a lamp here should dispel all darkness everywhere.”

“Lighting a lamp here should dispel all darkness throughout the world, because it equally fails to reach any of it.” If noncontact permits dispelling, noncontact applies equally to nearby darkness, distant darkness, and all darkness under heaven. One lamp lit here should extinguish the whole world’s darkness at once. “Yet in fact lighting a lamp here cannot dispel all darkness throughout the world.”

This is the master’s consistent method: accept the opponent’s principle and carry it through completely. If it is truly a principle, it must hold everywhere. If it becomes absurd somewhere, it was not a principle.

8. Darkness Should Also Conceal Itself: Privilege Cannot Be Granted to Only One Side

The refutation is not yet complete. The master adds a stroke from the side of symmetry:

“If a lamp can illuminate itself and also illuminate others, then darkness likewise should conceal both itself and others.”

Lamp and darkness stand in opposition. If you grant the lamp a power that acts upon itself—illuminating itself and others—then the darkness on the opposite side should likewise conceal itself and others: it should obscure elsewhere and obscure itself as well.

Yet “although darkness and the lamp are opposed, darkness cannot conceal itself or others.” No one says that darkness has concealed itself. The master therefore concludes: “The claim that a lamp illuminates itself and others is untenable; thus your analogy is incorrect.”

Once the analogy falls, the measure of persuasiveness borrowed from it falls too. An analogy can accompany an argument for a distance, but it cannot stand in the argument’s place.

9. Neither What Has Arisen nor What Has Not Arisen Can Bring Itself into Arising

With the analogy dismantled, the master returns to the issue and directly examines the words “self-arising”:

“If this arising has not yet arisen, how can it bring itself into arising? if it brings itself into arising only after it has arisen, then since it has arisen, what need is there to arise?”

There are only two possibilities: “It should arise either after it has arisen or while it has not yet arisen.”

On the side of not yet arisen: “If it arises while it has not yet arisen, ‘not yet arisen’ means that it does not yet exist. How can it bring itself into arising?” Not yet arisen means the thing is not yet there. Something not yet there cannot perform any act—including the act that would produce itself.

On the side of already arisen: “If one says that it arises after it has arisen, once it has arisen it is already arisen. Why must it arise again?” Once it has arisen, the work of arising is complete; doing it again is superfluous. The master stamps the point with an everyday sentence: “Once it has arisen, there is no further arising; once an act has been done, there is no further doing.”

Both sides empty out, and the conclusion follows: “Therefore arising does not bring itself into arising. If arising does not bring itself into arising, how can it bring another into arising?”

Something that cannot produce itself has no means to produce another. Thus “abiding and cessation are likewise”: abiding cannot make itself abide, and cessation cannot make itself cease.

At this point the gate’s positive work is complete: “Therefore the claim that arising, abiding, and cessation are the marks of the conditioned is untenable. Since arising, abiding, and cessation cannot be established as marks of the conditioned, conditioned dharmas are empty.”

10. The Unconditioned Side: Only the Cessation of the Conditioned Is Called Unconditioned

The master does not stop at the conditioned. He turns the same ruler toward the other side: “Because conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty. Why? The cessation of the conditioned is called unconditioned nirvāṇa; therefore nirvāṇa too is empty.”

The name “unconditioned” originates in the cessation of the conditioned. If what is ceased has no intrinsic nature, the side that ceases it likewise has no real basis upon which to depend.

The master then speaks once more from the unconditioned’s own marks: “Further, nonarising, nonabiding, and nonceasing are called the marks of the unconditioned. Nonarising, nonabiding, and nonceasing mean that the dharma is absent; what is absent should not serve as a mark.”

People often take nonarising, nonabiding, and nonceasing as the marks of nirvāṇa. But these three negations say precisely that the dharma is absent, and what is absent cannot serve as a credential. A negation does not become something one can hold merely because it is spoken solemnly.

11. Can Marklessness Serve as a Mark?

The opponent now refines this move: let marklessness itself be the mark—the mark of nirvāṇa is precisely that it has no mark.

The master’s pursuit consists of a single question, yet there is nowhere to hide: “If marklessness is the mark of nirvāṇa, by relying on what mark is this known to be markless?”

If you claim to know that it is markless, by what do you know it?

“If it is known as markless by relying on a mark, how can it be called markless?” If a positive mark allows you to recognize it, then it is still recognized by relying on a mark, and the word “markless” collapses.

“If it is known as markless by relying on marklessness, marklessness is absence; what is absent cannot be known.” If marklessness recognizes marklessness, marklessness is simply absence. Absence offers nothing to recognize.

One alternative collapses; the other offers no point of entry. Marklessness can function as a name but cannot stand as a credential.

12. The Unpatterned Robe: Why Can This Robe Be Recognized?

The opponent’s final example is clever precisely because it seems entirely successful: “Just as many robes all possess marks, while a single robe is markless, its marklessness is precisely taken as its mark; thus, when someone says to fetch the markless robe, the markless robe can be known and retrieved.”

A pile of robes all bear patterns, and only one is plain. Tell someone to bring the markless robe and the person really can bring it. This proves that marklessness can serve as a mark. Accordingly, “if arising, abiding, and cessation are marks of the conditioned, wherever arising, abiding, and cessation are absent should be known as a mark of the unconditioned.”

The master’s reply identifies the condition that makes the example work: “When arising, abiding, and cessation are sought through many causes and conditions, they are all empty; no mark of the conditioned can be found. How could the unconditioned be known through them?”

The plain robe can be recognized only because the patterned robes beside it are definite and countable. “Plain” is spoken relative to that group. Yet the work of this gate has been to dismantle that group of conditioned marks. If the three marks are conditioned, they regress infinitely; if unconditioned, they cannot serve as marks. The seven dharmas await one another and cannot begin; the lamp analogy fails; and both alternatives of self-arising are exhausted. That group never stood. There is therefore no fixed field of comparison that can, in reverse, point here and call it the unconditioned.

Thus the master presses: “Which fixed and determinate mark of the conditioned have you obtained, such that by it you know a markless place to be unconditioned?” Which determinate mark of the conditioned do you actually hold in your hand?

At the end the master adds an ordinary aside: “The analogy of the robe will be discussed in detail in the fifth gate below.” The robe will be examined once more. He has not expelled the analogy; he has reserved it for the place where it belongs.

13. Because the Three Things Are Empty, All Dharmas Are Empty

The gate closes in three sentences: “Therefore all conditioned dharmas are empty. Because conditioned dharmas are empty, unconditioned dharmas are also empty. Because conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are empty, the self is also empty. Because these three things are empty, all dharmas are empty.”

Conditioned, unconditioned, and self—the three avenues of retreat are closed at once, with the same gesture that closes the first gate. The difference lies in the entrance. The first gate enters through conditions and counts jars, cloth, houses, butter, and sprouts. This gate enters through marks and counts the cow’s horns, jar’s lip, cart’s yoke, and a person’s hands and feet. Conditions ask how something came to be; marks ask by what it is recognized. The paths differ, but behind the gates lies the same ground.

What Can a Reader Carry Away from This Gate?

First, distinguish recognizability from intrinsic entity. The master never once denies a cow’s horns or a jar’s lip. From beginning to end, he asks only this: can the three things you use as the shared credentials of conditioned dharmas stand on their own? Marks can be used for recognition; that does not make them a dharma’s intrinsic entity.

Second, notice whether a rule bites itself. The entire difficulty of the three marks lies here. If a general rule is truly general, it governs the very thing used to explain it. If you want to call a halt midway, you must first explain why that level receives an exemption.

Third, see that a circle too can be motionless. The seven-dharma proposal looks most like a solution because it has boundaries, a number, and assigned functions. Yet every item on the circle waits for another to move first. Avoiding infinity does not necessarily supply a starting point.

Fourth, do not let an analogy replace reasoning. Self-illumination by a lamp comes so readily to the tongue that one assumes it needs no examination. Once examined, the word “illumination” turns out to rely on darkness for its establishment.

Fifth, negation is not a final place to stand. Once the marks of the conditioned are refuted, one tries to retreat to the unconditioned; once marks of the unconditioned fail, one tries to retreat to marklessness. Even marklessness must have a credential if it is to be established. This gate examines that final plain robe as well.

Carried Forward: Illumination along the Same Axis

Everything above belongs to this gate’s own meaning. What follows looks alongside it through the “Examination of the Three Marks” in the Treatise on the Middle. This illumination is not the present treatise, but another formulation of the same principle elsewhere. Record without adjudicating.

On the difficulty of the three marks, the Treatise on the Middle establishes a verse almost identical to this gate:

“If arising is conditioned, it too should have the three marks; if arising is unconditioned, how can it be called a mark of the conditioned?”

The proposal of seven co-arising dharmas also appears in that chapter unchanged, its verse differing from this gate only in punctuation. The lamp analogy does as well. That chapter’s objection reads:

“Just as a lamp can illuminate itself and also illuminate others, the dharma of arising likewise brings itself and others into arising.”

Its answer reads:

“Within the lamp itself there is no darkness, nor is there darkness where it stands; only dispelling darkness is called illumination; without darkness there is no illumination.”

The two texts disclose one distinction. In this chapter of the Treatise on the Middle, Nāgārjuna gives the verses and Qingmu comments. The prose pursues an additional line through “because they mutually oppose”: abiding and cessation should not coexist at the time of arising, “just as light and darkness do not coexist.” This gate does not take that route but proceeds directly through infinite regress and mutual dependence. Further, the Treatise on the Middle ends the verse “without darkness there is no illumination,” whereas this gate asks “what exactly does the lamp illuminate?” One is a judgment, the other a question. The mark examined is the same; the force employed differs.

As for the analogy of the unpatterned robe, this gate itself states that it “will be discussed in detail in the fifth gate below.” That is an internal matter of the present treatise and need not be sought outside it.

Let parallel axes illuminate one another while each remains in its own place. This gate’s meaning is still governed by the prose of this gate.