十二門論 觀生門第十二

Only One Word Remains to Be Asked

The preceding gates have successively refuted causes and conditions, existence and nonexistence, marks, nature, the agent, and the three times. At the end, one matter has not yet been asked: surely those things that were refuted nevertheless once arose? The treatise author takes up this very word.

Arising Can Be Spoken of in Only Three Places

Already arisen, not yet arisen, or presently arising. The verse establishes three positions and leaves none behind:

“An arisen effect does not arise; what has not arisen does not arise either; apart from the arisen and not arisen, the time of arising too does not arise.”

The terms are first fixed: “Arising means that an effect has emerged; not arisen means not yet begun, not yet emerged, and not yet existent; the time of arising means just beginning to emerge but not yet complete.”

Already Arisen: What Has Been Done Is Not Done Again

If what has arisen must arise again, there will be a second, third, and fourth arising without end. Moreover, “what has been done should not be done again, what has been burned should not be burned again, and what has been realized should not be realized again.” If the arising that produces could itself produce while not yet arisen, the one word arising would contain two meanings, “and thus what you first stated as fixed is now unfixed.”

Not Arisen: The Horns of Rabbits and Horses Should Arise Too

If the not-arisen could arise merely by being not-arisen, far too much would arise: the enlightenment not yet arisen in ordinary people, the afflictions that no longer arise in an arhat of the irreversible dharma, and “the horns of rabbits, horses, and the rest” should all emerge. Moreover, arising apart from arising would mean “doing apart from doing, going apart from going, and eating apart from eating.” What first collapses is the convention governing ordinary speech.

Someone retreats: arising occurs only when all conditions are complete. The author does not deny conditions; he asks what status the effect has within the cause—previously existent, previously nonexistent, or both existent and nonexistent. “Sought through these three alternatives, arising cannot be obtained.”

The Time of Arising: That Road Exists Only through Someone Traversing It

The time of arising consists only of a portion already arisen and a portion not yet arisen, neither of which arises. Apart from arising, there is no time of arising. To say that arising arises during the time of arising counts two arisings, yet “there are not two dharmas.” The plainest question is: “Where does arising travel?”

One Sentence Closes the Gate

When none of the three positions can be established, “non-arising; abiding and cessation are the same.” When the three marks are unestablished, conditioned dharmas are unestablished; when conditioned dharmas are unestablished, unconditioned dharmas are unestablished; finally, sentient beings too are unestablished. The author writes the treatise’s last sentence: “All dharmas are non-arising because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.”

This is the last of the Twelve Gates. The gate closes—not to shut out what is outside, but so that the person who has entered need not turn back to seek an entrance.

Composed by Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva and translated by the Tripiṭaka master Kumārajīva of Later Qin: Twelve Gate Treatise, fascicle one, “Examination of Arising, Gate Twelve,” Taishō T30n1568. A marker such as 〔T30 …〕 at the start of a paragraph is a Taishō page–column–line anchor.

1. Arising Cannot Be Obtained in Any of Three Positions

〔T30 0167a20〕 Next, all dharmas are empty. Why? Because arising cannot be obtained among the three positions of arising, not arising, and the time of arising. What has now already arisen does not arise again, what has not yet arisen does not arise, and the time of arising does not arise either. As the verse states:

An arisen effect does not arise; what has not arisen does not arise either; apart from the arisen and not arisen, the time of arising too does not arise.

2. Defining the Three Terms

Arising means that the effect has already emerged. Not arisen means not yet begun, not yet emerged, and not yet existent. The time of arising means just beginning to emerge but not yet complete.

3. An Effect That Has Already Arisen Does Not Arise Again

To say that an arisen effect does not arise again means that once this arising has arisen, it does not arise once more. Why? First, there is the fault of infinite regress; second, there is the fault that what has already been done must be done again.

If one arising, after it has arisen, must further produce a second arising, and after the second arising has arisen it must produce a third, and after the third a fourth, then by following the claim that after the first arising there is a second, arising will have no end. This is untenable. Therefore arising does not arise again.

Again, suppose you say that both the arising that produces and the arising used by an already arisen dharma to produce can produce while they themselves have not yet arisen. This too is incorrect. Why? If the first arising can produce while itself not arisen, there would be two kinds of arising: one that arises after having arisen, and one able to arise while not yet arisen. What you earlier stated with certainty has now become uncertain.

Just as what has already been done should not be done again, what has already been burned should not be burned again, and what has already been realized should not be realized again, so too what has already arisen should not arise again. Therefore the dharma of arising does not arise.

4. A Dharma Not Yet Arisen Does Not Arise Either

A dharma not yet arisen does not arise either. Why? First, it does not conjoin with arising; second, there is a fault, because then everything not yet arisen would have to arise—which is absurd.

If a dharma not yet arisen could arise, there would be an arising apart from arising, and the so-called arising would still be not arising. If arising existed apart from arising, there would be doing apart from doing, going apart from going, and eating apart from eating, and worldly dharmas would be destroyed. This is untenable. Therefore a dharma not yet arisen does not arise.

Again, if a dharma not yet arisen could arise, then every not-yet-arisen dharma should arise. The unsurpassed complete awakening not yet arisen in ordinary people should arise; afflictions that no longer arise in an arhat of the irreversible dharma should arise while not arisen; and such things as the horns of rabbits and horses should arise while not arisen. This is untenable. Therefore one should not say that what has not arisen can arise.

5. Question and Answer: Arising When All Conditions Are Complete

The questioner says: To say that something not arisen arises means that when causes and conditions conjoin, the time is right, an agent is present, and facilitating conditions are complete, then the not-arisen arises. It does not mean that everything not arisen arises. Therefore one should not object that everything not arisen must arise.

The respondent says: Suppose that when a dharma arises, it does so through the conjunction of an agent, facilitating conditions, and the multitude of conditions. Within these, if it is first determinately existent, it does not arise; if it is first nonexistent, it does not arise; and if it is both existent and nonexistent, it likewise does not arise. Arising cannot be obtained through any of these three ways of seeking it, as already explained. Therefore a dharma not yet arisen does not arise.

6. The Time of Arising Does Not Arise Either

The time of arising does not arise either. Why? It has both the fault of arising again after having arisen and the fault of being able to arise without having arisen. Within the dharma called the time of arising, the portion already arisen does not arise, as explained before; the portion not yet arisen does not arise either, also as explained before.

Again, only if there were a time of arising apart from arising could one say that something arises within the time of arising. Yet in fact no time of arising exists apart from arising. Therefore the time of arising does not arise.

Again, if someone maintains that the time of arising can arise, there will be two arisings: one takes the time of arising itself as arising, while the other arises within the time of arising. Since there are not two dharmas, how can one speak of two arisings? Therefore the time of arising does not arise.

Again, before arising exists there is no time of arising. Where, then, would arising travel? If arising has no place in which to travel, there is no arising within the time of arising. Therefore the time of arising does not arise.

7. General Conclusion: All Dharmas Are Non-Arising

In this way, arising, not arising, and the time of arising are all unestablished, and therefore the dharma of arising is unestablished. Since arising is unestablished, abiding and cessation are the same.

Since arising, abiding, and cessation are unestablished, conditioned dharmas are unestablished. Since conditioned dharmas are unestablished, unconditioned dharmas are unestablished. Since conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are both unestablished, sentient beings are unestablished.

One should therefore know that all dharmas are non-arising because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.

A treatise commonly ends by looking back and summarizing. The Twelve Gate Treatise does not. The twelfth gate opens in exactly the same register as all the gates before it: “Next, all dharmas are empty.” The author neither changes his tone nor reviews what the preceding eleven gates have said. He simply takes up one more word for examination—arising.

There is a reason this word closes the work. In the end, all that the preceding eleven gates refute is one thing: the belief that somewhere there is something able to stand on its own. Yet the statement “there is something” must finally rest on the statement “it arose.” So long as arising can stand, the intrinsic nature already refuted retains one road by which to return. The final gate adds no new meaning; it only follows that road to its end. If arising is not established, what was refuted before has nowhere to arise again.

1. The Opening Gives Three Positions, Not One

The author first gives the statement in full: “Because arising cannot be obtained in arising, not arising, or the time of arising, what has now already arisen does not arise, what has not arisen does not arise either, and the time of arising does not arise.”

There are only three times at which one could say that a thing arises: it has already arisen, it has not yet arisen, or it is presently arising. There is no fourth position. The author sets out all three together and then gives a verse:

“An arisen effect does not arise; what has not arisen does not arise either; apart from the arisen and not arisen, the time of arising too does not arise.”

The third line must be seen clearly: “apart from the arisen and not arisen.” What is called the time of arising is posited as another interval apart from what has already arisen and what has not yet arisen. The author means that if you establish this time of arising outside the already and the not-yet as the site where arising occurs, this interval too does not arise. Once the three positions have been stated exhaustively, no route of retreat remains.

2. First Fix the Three Terms

Before refuting, the author first defines his terms, as he consistently does: “Arising means that the effect has emerged; not arisen means not yet begun, not yet emerged, and not yet existent; the time of arising means just beginning to emerge but not yet complete.”

Arising is an effect already begun and emerged; not arisen is what has not begun, has not emerged, and does not yet exist; the time of arising is what has just begun to emerge but is not complete. Once these three terms are fixed, the inquiry below has precision. The question is not whether a jar is present, but where the word arising can coherently be placed.

3. What Has Arisen Does Not Arise: Two Faults

The first section is shortest, but its reasons hit hardest: “because there is the fault of infinite regress and the fault that what has already been done must be done again.”

First, infinite regress. If one arising itself needs another arising to make it arise, then “if after the first arising has arisen, it produces a second arising; after the second has arisen, it produces a third; after the third, a fourth”—this line has no endpoint. The author closes it with one sentence: “This is untenable. Therefore arising does not arise.”

Next, “doing again what has been done.” The author gives three immediate examples: “Just as what has been done should not be done again, what has been burned should not be burned again, and what has been realized should not be realized again, so too what has arisen should not arise again.” A completed act need not be performed another time; what has already burned need not burn again; what has already been realized need not be realized again. Apply the same operation again to what it has already completed, and the operation comes to nothing. Arising is the same.

4. One Step of Retreat: What Was First Fixed Is Now Unfixed

The opponent may retreat: the arising that produces can itself be “not arisen yet able to produce.” It need not first be produced. The author answers with care: “If the first arising can produce while not arisen, there are then two kinds of arising: arising after having arisen, and arising while not arisen. Thus what you first stated as fixed is now unfixed.”

See where this blade falls. The author does not say that “arising while not arisen” is verbally incoherent. He says that the opponent first proposed arising as one fixed meaning but, to escape infinite regress, now installs beneath the same word arising two mutually opposed kinds: one counts as arising only after it has arisen, the other counts as arising without having arisen. In saving one point, you have made unfixed the very meaning you originally fixed. A device that saves the claim once thereby concedes that the meaning was never fixed.

5. What Has Not Arisen Does Not Arise: Arising Apart from Arising Destroys Worldly Dharma

The second section turns to the not-arisen. The author gives two reasons: “because it does not conjoin with arising, and because there is the fault that every not-arisen thing would arise.”

The first reason concerns relation. Precisely because a not-arisen dharma has not arisen, it has not conjoined with arising. To say that something not conjoined with arising nevertheless arises is to posit “arising apart from arising.” The author displays the fault in worldly language: “If arising existed apart from arising, there would be doing apart from doing, going apart from going, and eating apart from eating; in this way worldly dharmas would be destroyed.”

Doing apart from doing, going apart from going, and eating apart from eating—these statements are not abstruse. They show that if an operation can exist independently of the event upon which it depends, the entire convention of worldly speech becomes disordered. The author is protecting the conventional here, not refuting it.

The second reason presses the statement to its limit: “The unsurpassed complete awakening not yet arisen in ordinary people should all arise; afflictions that no longer arise in an arhat of the irreversible dharma should arise while not arisen; and the horns of rabbits, horses, and the rest should arise while not arisen.”

If what has not arisen can arise merely in virtue of not having arisen, then everything not arisen should arise. The unsurpassed complete awakening not yet produced in ordinary people should appear at once; the afflictions that will no longer arise in an arhat of the irreversible dharma should arise anew; and things that have never existed, such as rabbit horns and horse horns, should emerge. The three examples descend from highest to lowest, and the last is uncompromising. The author’s closing words are only, “This is untenable.”

6. An Exchange: Is the Completion of Conditions an Exception?

Someone therefore sets a limit: “What is not arisen arises when causes and conditions conjoin, the time and agent are present, and facilitating conditions are complete. Then the not-arisen arises; it is not that every not-arisen thing arises.” The objector adds: I do not say that everything not arisen arises, only that the not-arisen arises when the multitude of conditions conjoin and time, agent, and means are all complete.

This is a sincere objection and the most concrete thought in an ordinary person’s mind: when the conditions are complete, does the effect not arise?

The author’s answer does not deny conditions. He asks what status the produced effect has within the cause at the moment the conditions are complete. “Within this, if it is first determinately existent, it does not arise; if it is first nonexistent, it does not arise; if it is both existent and nonexistent, it likewise does not arise. Sought through these three alternatives, arising cannot be obtained, as explained before.”

If determinately existent beforehand, it need not arise; if nonexistent beforehand, existence does not emerge from nonexistence; if both, mutually opposed alternatives cannot coexist. All three have already been examined, so the author says, “as explained before,” referring to a road traversed in earlier gates. The conjunction of conditions is precisely evidence for the absence of intrinsic nature, not an exception permitting arising by intrinsic nature. Conditions explain what becomes manifest and what does not; they never place within the cause a thing waiting to emerge.

7. The Time of Arising Does Not Arise: Four Inquiries

The third section is densest. The author first says that the time of arising commits the faults of both preceding sections: “it has the fault of arising after arising and the fault of arising without having arisen,” because “within the time of arising, the already arisen portion does not arise, as explained before; the not-yet-arisen portion does not arise either, also as explained before.” The interval called the time of arising has only two portions when analyzed: the part already arisen and the part not yet arisen. Neither portion arises, and combining them cannot produce a third arising.

The succeeding inquiries grow progressively tighter:

First, through dependence: “If a time of arising existed apart from arising, something could arise within the time of arising; yet in fact there is no time of arising apart from arising.” To say that something arises during the time of arising, one must first have an interval called the time of arising independently of arising. Yet the time of arising is identified only through the operation of arising. Before arising exists, from where could this interval be spoken?

Second, through duplication. If one maintains that the time of arising arises, “there are two arisings: one takes the time of arising as arising, and one arises within the time of arising.” One occurrence is counted as two arisings. The author asks, “There are not two dharmas. How can one speak of two arisings?”

Third, through place: “Before arising exists, there is no time of arising. Where does arising travel?” Without arising there is no time of arising; where, then, would arising move? The question is plain yet reaches the hinge. The mind commonly imagines arising as a road that can be traversed—but that road exists only by relying on someone traversing it.

8. When Arising Fails, Abiding and Cessation Are the Same

After traversing the three positions, the author gathers them in one sentence: “Thus arising, not arising, and the time of arising are all unestablished, and therefore the dharma of arising is unestablished.”

He then carries all three marks with seven characters: “Non-arising; abiding and cessation are the same.”

There is no need to establish two more gates to refute abiding and cessation. Abiding and cessation would have to face the same threefold inquiry into what has already abided, what has not yet abided, and the time of abiding, or what has already ceased, what has not yet ceased, and the time of cessation. The pattern is the same. The author’s refusal to repeat it is economy of form, not insufficiency of statement.

9. The Final Gate’s Conclusion: All Dharmas Are Non-Arising, Ultimately Empty and Quiescent

The final sentence is the place where all twelve gates of the treatise come to ground together:

“Because arising, abiding, and cessation are unestablished, conditioned dharmas are unestablished. Because conditioned dharmas are unestablished, unconditioned dharmas are unestablished. Because conditioned and unconditioned dharmas are unestablished, sentient beings are unestablished. Therefore one should know that all dharmas are non-arising because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.”

The order of this chain must be seen: first the three marks, next the conditioned, then the unconditioned, and finally sentient beings. It precisely echoes the first gate’s “therefore conditioned dharmas, unconditioned dharmas, and self are all empty.” The opening gate begins from dependent arising and reaches conditioned, unconditioned, and self; the final gate begins from the mark of arising and reaches conditioned, unconditioned, and sentient beings. The treatise begins with dharmas produced from a multitude of conditions and ends with all dharmas non-arising: these are the two ends of a single road.

Notice where the reason in the final sentence falls. The author says that all dharmas are non-arising “because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.” He does not first observe that nothing arises and infer that things are empty; because they are ultimately empty and quiescent, he speaks of non-arising. Non-arising is another way of speaking emptiness, not a separate conclusion established outside dependent arising.

What Can a Reader Carry Away from This Gate?

First, know why the last gate must ask about arising. If the intrinsic nature refuted through the preceding eleven gates retains the thought “it nevertheless did arise,” a crack in the door remains. The final gate examines all three positions of arising and closes even that crack.

Second, remember that the three positions are exhaustive: already arisen, not yet arisen, and the time of arising. There is no fourth position. Any claim that something arises by intrinsic nature must fall into one of the three.

Third, do not read “non-arising” as saying that nothing exists. Throughout the gate the author is concerned that “doing apart from doing, going apart from going, and eating apart from eating” would destroy the conventional. What he protects is precisely this dependently spoken world. Non-arising cancels the self-standing point of origin imagined within arising.

Fourth, the twelve gates close here. The first gate says, “one should enter the meaning of emptiness through the Twelve Gates,” and the final gate says, “all dharmas are non-arising because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.” Entrance and what is entered become one sentence here.

Carried Forward: Illumination from Treatises along the Same Axis

The preceding is the meaning of this gate itself. What follows is a cross-light from the axis of the Three Treatises. The illumination is not this treatise; it simply records without deciding how the same doctrinal meaning is stated elsewhere.

The Treatise on the Middle, “Examination of the Three Marks,” likewise examines arising through the three times. Its verse reads:

“Arising does not arise after it has arisen, nor does what is unarisen arise; the time of arising too does not arise—this has already been answered under going and coming.”

After completing its inquiry, the extended prose in that chapter concludes: “Sought in this way, what has arisen has no arising, what has not arisen has no arising, and the time of arising has no arising.” The three positions examined are the same as in this gate. Yet that chapter states them after a series of objections concerning secondary arising and primary arising and a lamp illuminating itself, while this gate directly establishes its inquiry through the three positions and does not enter the distinction between secondary and primary arising. What is examined is the same; the objections traversed differ.

Within this treatise itself, this gate and the first form the head and tail of the work. The first says, “one should enter the meaning of emptiness through the Twelve Gates”; this gate says, “therefore one should know that all dharmas are non-arising because they are ultimately empty and quiescent.” One opens and one closes; what is entered is the same meaning.

Read together along one axis, each remains in its own place. The meaning of this gate is still governed by this gate’s own extended prose.