中論 觀本住品第九

We casually say “my eye” and “I am suffering,” but beneath the words hides an owner. This chapter summons that owner for questioning.

The questioner names him the prior abider: “The faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure—who possesses such things? That one is called the prior abider.” And he must come first. Qingmu states the view: “By virtue of this prior abider, the faculties such as the eye are able to grow.”

First Ask How You Know Him

The respondent does not rush to say whether he exists. He asks only: “If a prior abider existed first, apart from the faculties such as the eye and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, by what could it be known?”

Jars and robes are known through faculties such as the eye; inner dharmas are known through such faculties as pain and pleasure. No path leads to one stripped of every mark.

The questioner turns to breathing, thinking, hate, and love as evidence: “Inhalation and exhalation, looking and blinking, vitality, thinking, pain and pleasure, hate and love, initiating movement, and so forth are marks of a self.” Yet everything offered as evidence is an operation of body and mind themselves.

Pillar, Armor, Lamp, and Madness

If it is inside the body “like a pillar within a wall,” the body should not decay. If outside “like a person wearing armor,” the body should not be visible—yet “we plainly see the body destroyed.”

If it can contract when an arm is severed, then “when the head is cut off it likewise should contract inward and the person should not die; yet death plainly occurs.” If the self grows with the body as lamplight grows with a lamp, “the self would change with the body and should not be permanent.” Once impermanent, “it is of the same kind as eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest,” so positing it has gained nothing.

A person afflicted by madness “does what should not be done.” If the self is master, “how could the person be said not to be in control?”

Every rescue has to borrow a new power from body and mind; the more it borrows, the less the one apart from body and mind can stand.

One Knower, or Six

Ask instead who knows objects, and there are only two paths. If one knower: perhaps “one could hear a sound with the eye”—but “this is not so.” If each faculty has its own knower: “while seeing one should also hear,” so there would be “one person but many selves”—yet “this is not so.”

There is no need to seek outside: “Eye-consciousness arises with the eye faculty as cause and visible form as condition”; the faculties are “discriminated through their different marks.” Order requires no overseer.

The Last Hiding Place

If he cannot be found apart from the faculties and pain and pleasure, retreat one step into the four great elements from which the faculties arise:

“The faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, arise from the great elements—and in those elements too there is no self.”

The four great elements are the causes of eye, ear, and the rest. If the prior abider still has somewhere to stay, this is the last place. Qingmu ends it in one sentence: “There is no prior abider in those four great elements either.” Even when the search retreats into the coarsest earth, water, fire, and wind, that one is still absent.

The Question Dissolves by Itself

Nor can one keep only eye, ear, pain, and pleasure. Qingmu presses with two questions: “Who possesses this eye, ear, and the rest? Through what conditions do they exist?”

Sought through the three times, he is absent before, absent now, and absent afterward. Qingmu does not conclude with a thesis, but says: “Such questions and answers and conceptual proliferation then cease. Because conceptual proliferation ceases, dharmas are empty.”

The owner has not been defeated; the question had nowhere to land from the beginning.

Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva, author; the brahmin Qingmu, commentator; Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva of the Later Qin, translator. Treatise on the Middle, fascicle two, “Examination of a Prior Abider, Chapter Nine,” Taishō T30n1564. Paragraph-initial〔T30 …〕marks a Taishō page-column-line anchor.

1. Question: To Whom Do the Faculties Such as Eye and Ear and Dharmas Such as Pleasure and Pain Belong?

〔T30 0013b04〕The questioner says: Someone teaches as follows—

The various faculties such as eye and ear, and the various dharmas such as pain and pleasure: who possesses such things? That one is called the prior abider. If there were no prior abider, who would possess the dharmas such as the eye? For this reason, one should know that a prior abider already existed before the faculties.

Qingmu then explains: the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, vitality, and so forth are called the faculties such as eye and ear. Painful experience, pleasant experience, neither-painful-nor-pleasant experience, and such mind and associated mental dharmas as perception, volition, and recollection are called the dharmas such as pain and pleasure. One treatise master says: before the dharmas such as the eye existed, a prior abider should have existed. By virtue of this prior abider, the faculties such as the eye are able to grow. If there is no prior abider, through what cause are the body and the faculties such as the eye born and enabled to grow?

The respondent answers as follows.

2. Answer: Apart from the Faculties and Dharmas, How Could a Prior Abider Be Known?

If a prior abider existed first, apart from the faculties such as the eye and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, by what could it be known?

Qingmu explains: if a prior abider existed first, apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, by what could it be spoken of? By what could it be known? External dharmas such as jars and robes are known through faculties such as the eye; internal dharmas are known through faculties such as pain and pleasure. As a sūtra says: susceptibility to destruction is the mark of form; the capacity to experience is the mark of experience; the capacity to cognize is the mark of consciousness. You say that a prior abider existed first, apart from eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest. By what could it be known and such a dharma be said to exist?

3. Question: Breathing and the Rest Are Marks of a Self

The questioner says: One treatise master says that inhalation and exhalation, looking and blinking, vitality, thinking, pain and pleasure, hate and love, initiating movement, and so forth are marks of a self. If there were no self, how could there be such marks as inhalation and exhalation? Therefore, one should know that a prior abider existed first, apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure.

4. Answer: Sought in Five Places, the Self Has Nowhere to Stand

The respondent says: If this self existed, it should be inside the body, like a pillar within a wall, or outside the body, like a person wearing armor.

If it were inside the body, the body should be indestructible, because the self always remains within it. Thus, saying that the self is inside the body is nothing more than a statement, false and without reality.

If it were outside the body and covered it like armor, the body should be invisible, because the self would envelop it densely; it should also be indestructible. Yet we plainly see the body destroyed. Therefore, one should know that no other dharma exists prior to and apart from the dharmas such as pain and pleasure.

If one says that when an arm is cut off, the self contracts inward so that it cannot be severed, then when the head is cut off it likewise should contract inward and the person should not die; yet death plainly occurs. Thus, to say that a self existed first, apart from the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, is nothing more than a statement, false and without reality.

Further, if one says that when the body is large the self is large, and when the body is small the self is small—just as a large lamp gives a large light and a small lamp gives a small light—then the self would change with the body and should not be permanent. If it follows the body, then when the body is absent the self is absent, just as when the lamp goes out its light goes out. If the self is impermanent, it is of the same kind as the eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest. Therefore, one should know that no separate self exists prior to and apart from the dharmas such as eye and ear.

Further, a person afflicted by madness is not in control and does what should not be done. If a self existed as the master of every action, how could the person be said not to be in control? If the illness of madness does not afflict the self, then there should be some other agent, apart from the self.

Sought in all these ways, no prior abider exists before and apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure. If one insists that a prior abider exists apart from those faculties and dharmas, there is no such thing. Why?

5. If Separation Works, It Should Work at Both Ends

If a prior abider exists apart from eye, ear, and the rest, then eye, ear, and the rest should likewise exist apart from the prior abider.

Qingmu explains: if the prior abider exists first, apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, then the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure should now likewise exist apart from the prior abider.

6. A Person Is Known through Dharmas; Dharmas Are Known through a Person

The questioner says: The two things may indeed be separate from one another, so long as a prior abider exists.

The respondent says:

Through dharmas, one knows that a person exists; through a person, one knows that dharmas exist. Apart from dharmas, where is the person? Apart from the person, where are the dharmas?

Qingmu explains: “dharmas” means eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest; “person” means the prior abider. You say that because dharmas exist, a person is known, and because a person exists, dharmas are known. But apart from dharmas such as eye and ear, where is a person? Apart from a person, where are dharmas such as eye and ear? Further:

7. Each Faculty Discriminates through Its Different Mark

All the faculties such as the eye in truth have no prior abider; the faculties such as eye and ear are discriminated through their different marks.

Qingmu explains: the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure in truth have no prior abider. Eye-consciousness arises with the eye faculty as cause and visible form as condition. The faculties such as eye and ear are known through causes and conditions in conjunction, not through a prior abider. Therefore, the verse says: all the faculties such as the eye in truth have no prior abider—the faculties such as eye and ear can each discriminate.

8. Question: Without Thought, How Can Each Faculty Know Its Object?

〔T30 0014a04〕The questioner says:

If the faculties such as the eye have no prior abider, how can each individual faculty such as the eye know an external object?

Qingmu explains: if all the faculties such as eye and ear and all the dharmas such as pain and pleasure have no prior abider, how can each individual faculty now know an external object? The faculties such as eye and ear do not think and should therefore have no knowing. Yet they plainly know external objects. One should know that apart from the faculties such as eye and ear, there is another knower of objects.

9. Answer: One Knower and Many Knowers—Both Ways Have Faults

The respondent says: If so, is there a separate knower in each faculty, or is there one knower within all the faculties? Both have faults. Why?

The one who sees would be the very one who hears, and the one who hears would be the very one who experiences. In that case, these faculties should have a prior abider.

Qingmu explains: if the seer is the hearer and the hearer is the experiencer, there is one self. In that case, the faculties such as the eye should have a prior abider existing before them. Visible forms, sounds, odors, and the rest would then have no determinate knower: perhaps one could hear a sound with the eye, as though a person had six directions in which to see or hear at will. If the hearer and seer are one, one could see and hear at will through any faculty such as the eye—but this is not so.

If seeing and hearing are distinct, and the experiencer too is distinct, then while seeing one should also hear; in that case, there would be many selves.

Qingmu explains: if seer, hearer, and experiencer are each distinct, then while seeing one should also hear. Why? Because a hearer exists apart from the seer. In the same way, the selves within nose, tongue, and body should operate simultaneously. If so, there would be one person but many selves, because all the faculties would know their various objects at the same time. Yet this is not so. Therefore, seer, hearer, and experiencer should not operate together. Further:

10. There Is No Self in the Four Great Elements from Which the Faculties Arise

The faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure arise from the great elements—and in those great elements too there is no self.

Qingmu explains: the claim that a separate prior abider exists apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure has already been refuted. Now consider the four great elements upon which eye, ear, and the rest depend: there is no prior abider in those four great elements either.

11. Without a Prior Abider, the Dharmas Such as Eye and Ear Are Likewise Absent

The questioner says: It may be so that the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure have no prior abider; but the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure should still exist.

The respondent says:

If the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure have no prior abider, then the dharmas such as the eye should likewise be absent.

Qingmu explains: if the dharmas such as eye, ear, pain, and pleasure have no prior abider, then who possesses this eye, ear, and the rest? Through what conditions do they exist? Therefore, eye, ear, and the rest are likewise absent. Further:

12. Sought through the Three Times, Conceptual Proliferation Ceases

Before the faculties such as the eye there is no prior abider; in the present and future there likewise is none. Because it is absent in all three times, that discrimination too is absent.

Qingmu explains: when the prior abider is considered and sought, it is absent before the faculties such as the eye, absent now, and absent afterward. If it is absent in the three times, this is nonarising and quiescence. One should no longer object: if there is no prior abider, how are there dharmas such as the eye? Such questions and answers and conceptual proliferation then cease. Because conceptual proliferation ceases, dharmas are empty.

A person closes the eyes, and sound remains; covers the ears, and the light before the eyes remains. Each of the six faculties does its own work, yet all these acts seem to belong to the same person. The mind therefore naturally asks: to whom does all this belong?

The question may seem merely a habit of speech. Yet at the opening of this chapter, someone presses that habitual expression all the way down.

From the Word “Who,” a Preexistent Person Is Set Up

The questioner at the chapter’s opening first cites another’s claim:

“The faculties such as eye and ear, the dharmas such as pain and pleasure— who possesses such things? That one is called the prior abider.”

The faculties of eye and ear and the experiences of pain and pleasure must have someone who possesses them. That one is called the prior abider.

Qingmu first fixes the two terms: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, vitality, and the rest are faculties; painful, pleasant, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant experience, together with mind and associated mental dharmas such as perception, volition, and recollection, are the dharmas such as pain and pleasure. He then states the questioner’s reason: “By virtue of this prior abider, the faculties such as the eye are able to grow.” Not only must there be an owner, but that owner must come first: he exists first, and only then can the faculties such as the eye grow.

The questioner therefore gathers the claim into one sentence: “If there were no prior abider, who would possess the dharmas such as the eye?” Unable to infer anything else, he concludes that “a prior abider already existed before them.”

We must see where the force of this question lies. It is not established from scripture but from the feel of language: if one says “my eye,” there ought to be an I; if one says “I am suffering,” there ought to be a person who suffers. From a possessive, it infers an owner; from the owner’s supposed power to nurture the faculties, it infers that he precedes them.

An ordinary phrase has thus been stretched into an entity.

The First Step Does Not Ask Whether It Exists, Only How It Is Known

The respondent’s first verse does not immediately say that the prior abider is absent. It asks a question that comes earlier:

“If a prior abider existed first, apart from the faculties such as the eye, and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure, by what could it be known?”

You say that this one exists first, apart from the faculties such as eye and ear and apart from the dharmas such as pain and pleasure. Then—from where do you know him?

Qingmu makes the question concrete: “External dharmas such as jars and robes are known through faculties such as the eye; internal dharmas are known through faculties such as pain and pleasure.” Jars and robes outside are known through eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body; inner events are known through experiences such as pain and pleasure. Nothing a person can speak of is known without some avenue. Qingmu also cites a sūtra: “Susceptibility to destruction is the mark of form; the capacity to experience is the mark of experience; the capacity to cognize is the mark of consciousness.” Form has susceptibility to destruction as its mark, experience the capacity to experience, and consciousness the capacity to cognize. Each has its own mark, and people recognize it by that mark.

Yet the prior abider posited by the questioner is declared to be apart from every faculty and every experience. If so, it has no mark to indicate; with no mark to indicate, no path can reach it.

This step matters. The respondent is not saying that whatever cannot be seen does not exist. He returns the burden to the one advancing the thesis: if you say it exists, explain how you know it. A name may be set down, but its evidence cannot be left empty.

Marks of a Self: Using Operations of Body and Mind to Prove a Master Apart from Body and Mind

The questioner immediately supplies evidence. He now says: “Inhalation and exhalation, looking and blinking, vitality, thinking, pain and pleasure, hate and love, initiating movement, and so forth are marks of a self.” Breathing, blinking, being alive, thinking, pain and pleasure, hate and love, raising a hand or taking a step—are these not all plainly present? “If there were no self, how could there be such marks as inhalation and exhalation?”

The rescue accords readily with ordinary feeling. Yet it has a difficulty: every example is precisely an operation of the faculties such as eye and ear or of the dharmas such as pain and pleasure. A moment ago the prior abider was said to precede and stand apart from these; now these very things are asked to prove it. The one to be proven stands outside the door, while all the witnesses brought forward stand inside.

The respondent therefore takes up the claim and searches for the “self” in relation to the body.

Pillar, Armor, Severed Head, Lamplight, and Madness: Five Searches

In this passage Qingmu’s extended commentary applies five successive tests. They do not repeat one sentence five times; each closes off a different route of rescue.

The first asks about location. If a self exists, it can only be inside or outside the body: inside “like a pillar within a wall,” or outside “like a person wearing armor.” If inside, trouble follows: “If it were inside the body, the body should be indestructible, because the self always remains within it.” If a permanent thing braces the body from inside, how could the body decay? Yet the body plainly decays. Therefore, saying the self is inside the body is “nothing more than a statement, false and without reality.” If outside and densely covering the body like armor, the body should be invisible and indestructible—yet “we plainly see the body destroyed.” Neither inside nor outside can be sustained.

The second closes the escape route. Someone says that when an arm is cut off, the self contracts inward, so it cannot be severed. Qingmu’s response is direct: “When the head is cut off it likewise should contract inward and the person should not die; yet death plainly occurs.” If it truly has the ability to contract, the moment of beheading is when it should do so most of all; nevertheless, the person dies.

The third asks about size. Another says that a large body has a large self and a small body a small self, “just as a large lamp gives a large light and a small lamp gives a small light.” The rescue sounds natural but surrenders permanence by itself: “The self would change with the body and should not be permanent.” If it follows the body, then it follows the body to the end: “When the body is absent the self is absent, just as when the lamp goes out its light goes out.” Qingmu’s next sentence cuts deepest: “If the self is impermanent, it is of the same kind as eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest.” If impermanent, it belongs to the same class as eye, ear, pain, and pleasure. Why posit it at all? It was posited precisely to supply something that preceded and differed from them.

The fourth asks about mastery. “A person afflicted by madness is not in control and does what should not be done.” Such a person does what ought not be done and cannot govern himself. But the self was introduced as master: “If a self existed as the master of every action, how could the person be said not to be in control?” If the illness cannot afflict that self, then the body is still moving and something other than the self must be moving it; one would have to admit a separate agent.

Across these four tests, one rescue route after another closes: location fails, escape from severance fails, permanence fails, and mastery fails. Each fails at the same place—every power added to save the self must be borrowed from body and mind; once borrowed, the self is no longer a prior abider apart from body and mind.

If It Can Truly Be Separate, Separation Should Work at Both Ends

At this point the respondent changes the point of attack. The verse says:

“If a prior abider exists apart from eye, ear, and the rest, then eye, ear, and the rest should likewise exist apart from the prior abider.”

You say that the prior abider can exist first, apart from eye, ear, and the rest. Very well—then follow the reasoning honestly to its end: eye, ear, and the rest should also be able to exist apart from the prior abider.

This sentence is not arguing for the independence of eye and ear. It is testing the questioner’s partiality. Separation means separation; there is no reason to allow only one side to separate while forbidding the other. What the questioner really wants is one-way separation: the prior abider need not depend on the faculties and dharmas, but the faculties and dharmas must depend on the prior abider. He can offer no reason for that one-way privilege.

The questioner’s retreat is revealing: “The two things may indeed be separate from one another, so long as a prior abider exists.” He would rather surrender his reasoning than surrender that one.

The respondent therefore opens the last layer:

“Through dharmas one knows a person; through a person one knows dharmas. Apart from dharmas, where is the person? Apart from the person, where are the dharmas?”

Qingmu aligns the terms: “Dharmas means eye, ear, pain, pleasure, and the rest; person means the prior abider.” Your earlier argument had two inferences: dharmas prove a person, and a person proves dharmas. Then answer this: apart from dharmas, where is the person? Apart from the person, where are the dharmas?

Person and dharmas are a pair known in dependence upon one another. Such mutual indication establishes the names through which the two sides refer to each other; it cannot establish either side as a body that stands apart from the other. The questioner thought mutual indication could prove a preexistent person. In fact, it proves precisely that his person cannot move a single step apart from dharmas.

No Overseer Need Come First: The Six Faculties Distinguish for Themselves

Without a prior abider, then, would seeing and hearing dissolve into confusion? The next verse answers:

“All the faculties such as the eye in truth have no prior abider; the faculties such as eye and ear are discriminated through their different marks.”

Qingmu is concrete: “Eye-consciousness arises with the eye faculty as cause and visible form as condition. The faculties such as eye and ear are known through causes and conditions in conjunction, not through a prior abider.” When the eye faculty meets visible form, eye-consciousness arises. The eye faculty is known through this conjunction of causes and conditions, not through a prior abider. The faculties “can each discriminate”: each has its own mark and each meets its own object, so there is no confusion.

This answers a common worry. One imagines that without an owner the eye will hear and the ear will see. The truth is the reverse: order is not given by an owner but by each faculty’s own mark. The eye sees only form because the eye is just such a set of conditions; no one above it assigns the work.

Then Who Knows the Object—One Knower, or Six?

The questioner tries another path.〔T30 0014a04〕

“If the faculties such as the eye have no prior abider, how can each individual faculty such as the eye know an external object?”

Qingmu fills out the reason: “The faculties such as eye and ear do not think and should therefore have no knowing.” A faculty is an insensible thing and cannot think. How, then, could it know an external object? Since knowing plainly occurs, “one should know that apart from the faculties such as eye and ear, there is another knower of objects.”

This question is cleverer than the first. It no longer begins from “whose?” but from “who knows?”

The respondent first divides the road: “Is there a separate knower in each faculty, or is there one knower within all the faculties? Both have faults.” The knower you infer must be either one per faculty or one shared by all six. There is no third path. Each path then receives one verse.

First, the shared knower:

“The one who sees would be the one who hears, the one who hears the one who experiences; in that case, these faculties should have a prior abider.”

If the one who sees, hears, and experiences is one, that one is not bound to any particular faculty. If not bound to a faculty, when operating through the eye it should not be limited to seeing: perhaps “one could hear a sound with the eye,” or even act “as though a person had six directions in which to see or hear at will,” choosing any of the six. Qingmu cuts it off in one sentence: “But this is not so.” The eye simply cannot hear sound.

Now consider one knower per faculty:

“If seeing and hearing are distinct, and the experiencer too is distinct, then while seeing one should also hear; in that case, there would be many selves.”

If seer, hearer, and experiencer are distinct, each is independent and continually present. While the seer sees, the hearer has not ceased and should hear at the same time. The selves in nose, tongue, and body should likewise all operate together. The result is “one person but many selves, because all the faculties would know their various objects at the same time.” Qingmu again says simply: “Yet this is not so.”

With one knower, the six faculties should exchange functions; with six knowers, one person splits into six. Since present seeing and hearing neither exchange functions nor split apart, they are not produced by a knower standing apart from the faculties.

Nor Is It in the Four Great Elements

The search can go one layer deeper. Someone may think: if it is not found in the faculties, perhaps it hides in the material from which they are made. The verse blocks that retreat:

“The faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure arise from the great elements—and in those great elements too there is no self.”

Qingmu is concise: the four great elements on which eye, ear, and the rest depend contain no prior abider. It is not found in an operation, and it remains unfound when the search retreats to the operation’s cause. However deep the location changes, the same thing is still missing—the mark that could indicate it.

Once the Person Is Withdrawn, Dharmas Cannot Be Preserved

The questioner’s last move is to preserve half the claim: perhaps the prior abider can be abandoned, but surely eye, ear, pain, and pleasure exist?

The respondent does not allow it:

“If the faculties such as eye and ear and the dharmas such as pain and pleasure have no prior abider, then the dharmas such as the eye should likewise be absent.”

Qingmu presses two questions: “Who possesses this eye, ear, and the rest? Through what conditions do they exist?” You previously called eye, ear, pain, and pleasure a ready-made group only because they were placed under the name of one owner. Once the owner is withdrawn, on what basis does this group remain ready-made?

This does not say that seeing, hearing, and feeling do not occur. It says that they can be understood only through the conditions on which they exist; they cannot change their signboard and continue as self-standing bodies. Once the person is refuted, no dharma may remain behind as a substitute.

Unfindable in the Three Times, the Question and Answer Dissolve

The last verse gathers the chapter:

“Before the faculties such as the eye there is no prior abider; in the present and future there likewise is none. Because it is absent in all three times, that discrimination too is absent.”

Qingmu says: when the prior abider is considered and sought, it is absent before the faculties such as the eye, absent now, and absent afterward. “If it is absent in the three times, this is nonarising and quiescence.”

The final sentences deserve attention. Qingmu does not say, “Therefore the answer is that the prior abider does not exist.” He says: “Such questions and answers and conceptual proliferation then cease. Because conceptual proliferation ceases, dharmas are empty.”

It is not the answer that ceases, but the entire chain of question and answer. The chapter’s opening question—if there is no prior abider, who possesses the dharmas such as the eye?—already placed an owner inside the question. When the thing placed there cannot be found in any of the three times, the question has no way to arise. It has not been defeated; it has dissolved on its own.

This also continues the movement of the preceding chapters. First, the one installed behind seeing, hearing, pain, and pleasure is refuted. But the search does not stop there. The respondent next says: “If there is no prior abider, then the dharmas such as the eye should likewise be absent.” If the dharmas such as eye, ear, pain, and pleasure have no prior abider, “who possesses this eye, ear, and the rest? Through what conditions do they exist? Therefore, eye, ear, and the rest are likewise absent.” Once that one cannot be indicated, the dharmas supposedly owned by it undergo the same search and cannot be left standing as realities. The end says further: “Because conceptual proliferation ceases, dharmas are empty.” What ceases is the whole exchange, together with the entities presupposed at both its ends. What remains is not a hard set of seeing, hearing, pain, and pleasure, but only what exists through conditions and is distinguished by differing marks.

What a Reader Can Carry Away from This Chapter

First, replace “whose?” with “through what conditions?” When pain comes, one habitually searches first for the self who suffers. This chapter shows that such a one cannot be indicated in any of the three times. Only conditions can be indicated.

Second, notice every power added in an attempt to rescue him. The self must contract, change size with the body, and escape illness. Each addition is borrowed from body and mind. The more it borrows, the less the one apart from body and mind can stand.

Third, do not fear that without an owner there will be chaos. “Eye-consciousness arises with the eye faculty as cause and visible form as condition.” The eye sees form, the ear hears sound; each is discriminated through its different mark. Order never awaited an overseer.

Carried Forward: Jizang’s Mirror

The preceding is the meaning of the chapter itself. What follows uses the Sui–Tang Three Treatises tradition as a mirror held alongside it—a mirror is not the treatise, but another way to see the same verses.

In his Commentary on the Treatise on the Middle, Jizang divides the chapter into three parts: first refuting the prior abider to illuminate the emptiness of sentient beings; next refuting the faculties to illuminate the emptiness of dharmas; and finally rebuking the opponent’s imposed constructions of person and dharmas. He also divides the places searched for a prior abider into three levels: before the six faculties (also described as outside them), within the six faculties, and within the four great elements. This is to seek a self in every place and find none. As for why this chapter follows the refutation of action and agent, he says that the preceding chapter refuted the functioning of person and dharmas, while this chapter refutes their body: only after a self and faculties are posited can the function of acting be posited. The function has been refuted, but its root has not yet been removed, so this chapter is required.

He also gives a name to each of four passages in Qingmu’s responses: searching inside and outside the body is the refutation through location; contraction when a limb is severed is the refutation through drawing out the implication; change with bodily size is the refutation through impermanence; and lack of control in madness is the refutation through non-mastery. He says that these four refutations respectively disclose emptiness, suffering, impermanence, and non-mastery. As for the two verses on the knower, he divides them into the refutation of one self and the refutation of many selves. If one self occupies all six faculties, they incur the fault of exchanging functions: confusion among faculties means confusion among their objects. If six selves occupy six faculties, one person has six selves and incurs the further fault of simultaneously apprehending all six objects. In both verses the first half states the other’s position and the second half exposes its fault.

This mirror supplies the chapter with an outline, names the four refutations, and places the chapter sequence within the Three Treatises interpretive structure of refuting error and disclosing the correct. The outline and names are Jizang’s additions, not the original words of Nāgārjuna’s verses or Qingmu’s extended commentary. The readings are recorded side by side without adjudication, each returned to its own place.