肇論 物不遷論

The world is plainly in motion, yet Sengzhao asks: what fixed thing is there that migrates from a former time into the present? Because a past thing does not reach the present, ordinary sentiment calls it moving. Starting from the very same fact, the author sees instead that the past thing is of itself in the past and the present thing is of itself in the present, and calls this stillness. The immutability of things does not deny difference between before and after. It denies that one fixed and unchanging identity migrates from here to there. Thus the whirlwind fells the mountains, the rivers race in torrents, the mirage drifts and surges, and the sun and moon traverse the heavens: the more forceful the motion, the more clearly the former is not the latter. From moment-by-moment alteration, one speaks of going; from each remaining in one time, one speaks of abiding. The two formulations of going and abiding return to one event. The teaching of impermanence has not been canceled: going is taught to dispel attachment to permanence, and abiding is taught to dispel attachment to annihilation. Nor must a cause be transported into its fruit. The cause remains in the past without perishing; the fruit arises through the cause; though before and after are not simultaneous, the efficacy of deeds is not lost. Stillness is therefore not outside motion, and motion does not destroy stillness. Once one ceases tacitly to establish a fixed thing crossing ancient and present, one can see “immutability” in the very midst of the torrent.

Preface: People see flux; the treatise seeks stillness within motion

Birth and death alternate in increase and decline. Cold and heat take turns. Formed things move and flow. This is how people ordinarily experience the world. I maintain, however, that this is not the whole of the matter. Why? The Fangguang Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that dharmas neither go from one place to another nor undergo movement or migration. If we look closely at what the scripture means by “unmoving,” is it telling us to abandon the appearances of motion and look elsewhere for something still? No. Stillness must be sought within the very things that are moving. Precisely because stillness is sought within all motion, things may appear to move and yet are always still. Precisely because we do not abandon motion to seek stillness elsewhere, the stillness being spoken of never departs from the motion taking place.

Seen in this way, motion and stillness have never been two separate things. Deluded people take them to be different, and so competing theories obstruct the true teaching while views that delight in novelty bend the road to its purport. It is therefore no easy matter to explain the ultimate point of stillness and motion. Why? Words that speak of the real often run against the conventional view; words that follow the conventional view run against the real. To violate the real is to lose one’s way in dharma-nature and not know how to return. To run against convention leaves one’s words bland, as though without flavor. Those of middling capacity hear them and remain half-believing and half-doubting, unable to decide. Those of lower capacity hear them, clap their hands in ridicule, and refuse even to look back. The true nature of things is this near at hand and yet this difficult to know. This must be what is meant. Yet I cannot stop here. I can only lodge my mind for a time at the junction of motion and stillness and attempt an account. How could I dare claim that what I say is the final word? Let me now try to speak.

1. Citing scripture and treatise: Understanding neither coming nor going within going and coming

The Daoxing Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra says that dharmas originally have no point of departure and, when they go, reach no destination. The Madhyamaka Treatise says that by observing a direction one knows that someone is going, yet the one going does not reach any fixed direction. Both passages seek stillness in what appears to move, and so disclose the immutability of things.

Ordinary people speak of “motion” because a past thing has not come into the present; therefore they say that it moved and did not remain still. I speak of “stillness” for the very same reason: because a past thing has not come into the present, I say that it is still and does not move. Ordinary people say that it moves and is not still because they attend to the fact that a past thing has not come into the present. I say that it is still and does not move because I attend to the fact that the past thing has not left its own past. The fact before us is not different in the two cases, yet what is seen in it has never been the same. Look against this principle and everything seems blocked; follow it and everything becomes open. Once its principle is truly grasped, where could obstruction remain?

2. Pointing to things: The past is in the past; the present is in the present

Alas, people have been confused about this for far too long. They stand face to face with the real and still do not see it. They know that a past thing does not come into the present, yet imagine that a present thing can go into the past. If the past thing does not come, where could the present thing go? Why say so? Seek the past thing in the past, and it was never absent there. Ask for that past thing in the present, and it has never existed here. Its absence in the present shows that it has not come into the present. Its presence in the past shows that it has not left the past. Examine the present in reverse, and the present thing likewise does not go into the past.

This means that a past thing is of itself in the past; it did not retreat from the present into the past. A present thing is of itself in the present; it did not migrate from the past into the present. Confucius therefore said to Yan Hui: “Hui, what you see has already become new. In the brief instant in which our arms cross, the person before you is no longer the one of a moment ago.” It is therefore clear that things do not go from one time into another or return from another time into this one. If there is not even the faintest trace of going or returning, what thing could truly move from here to there? Thus the whirlwind that fells high mountains may be said to be ever still; rivers racing in torrents may be said not to flow; a mirage drifting and surging may be said not to move; the sun and moon coursing through the heavens may be said not to complete their circuit. Once one understands that no identical thing passes from an earlier moment to a later one, what is there to find astonishing in these four lines?

3. Dispelling confusion: To teach impermanence is not to say that a thing can be sent away

Ah! The sages have said that human life passes with extreme speed, faster than the current of a river. Śrāvakas awaken to impermanence and thereby realize the path; pratyekabuddhas awaken to the dispersal of conditions and thereby enter the real. If none of the myriad changes of things were transformation and passage, how could one follow the principle of impermanent transformation, stage by stage, into the noble path? Yet when we turn back and examine the sages’ teaching closely, we see that its purport is subtle, hidden, and not easily measured: a thing seems to move and is precisely still; it seems to be departing and yet abides in its own time. This can be apprehended only in the mind and is difficult to seek through surface appearances alone.

When the teaching therefore speaks of “going,” it does not necessarily mean that there is a thing that can actually be sent away. It aims to stop the ordinary assumption that everything permanently abides. When the teaching speaks of “abiding,” it does not necessarily mean that there is a thing that can actually be retained. It aims to release people from their conviction that everything has departed. How could this mean that there is a real going to be expelled or a real abiding to be preserved? The Chengju scripture therefore says that when bodhisattvas are among beings who reckon things permanent, they expound the teaching of the non-permanent and impermanent. The Mahāyāna Treatise likewise says that all dharmas are originally unmoving and have no fixed place from which they come or to which they go. These teachings guide beings in every direction, bringing two different formulations home to one purport. How could their intentions be called opposed merely because their words differ?

Thus to speak of “permanence” is not to speak of fixed abiding, and to speak of “going” is not to speak of migration from here to there. Because there is no migration, what appears to go is ever still. Because there is no fixed abiding, what is ever still is also ever going. Precisely because it is still and ever going, its going is not migration. Precisely because it goes and is ever still, its stillness is not something retained in one place.

Zhuangzi says that even a mountain hidden in a marsh may, without anyone knowing, be carried away on the back of a mighty person. Confucius, standing by a river, lamented that what passes is like flowing water. Both lamented that what has passed cannot be retained. How could they mean that a fixed present thing can be pushed into the past? The mind of the sages therefore cannot be understood solely by following what ordinary eyes see.

Why? Ordinary people suppose that youth and maturity are one body and that a person who lives a hundred years remains one and the same form throughout. They know only that the years have passed; they do not see that the form too passes with every stretch of years. Long ago, a brahmin left home and did not return until his hair had turned white. When his neighbors saw him, they asked, “Is the person from long ago still here?” The brahmin replied, “I still resemble that former person, yet I am not that former person.” His neighbors were all astonished and could not accept his words. Is this not what is meant when one says that a mighty force carries all things swiftly onward while those in darkness remain wholly unaware?

4. Reconciling the teachings: Motion and stillness are two gates taught according to confusion

The Tathāgata therefore follows the places in which beings are stuck and uses different formulations to clarify their confusion. With the nondual true mind as his vehicle, he speaks teachings that take more than one distinct form. Their words appear contrary, yet their purport cannot be divided in two. This must be true above all of the sages’ teaching. Thus, when speaking of the real, there is the designation “immutable”; when guiding the conventional, there is the teaching of “flow.” Though a thousand roads sing in different voices, all return at last to one purport.

Those who inquire only by following words, however, hear “immutable” and say merely that a past thing does not reach the present. When they hear “flow,” they imagine that a present thing can go into the past. Once the ancient and the present have already been named separately, why migrate one into the temporal position of the other? To say “going” does not necessarily mean that a thing truly goes. The ancient is in the ancient and the present is in the present, each always remaining in its own temporal position; this is precisely what shows that they do not move. To say “departing” does not necessarily mean that a thing truly departs. It means that a present thing does not go from the present into the ancient, for it does not travel into the ancient. Precisely because the ancient does not come into the present and the present does not go into the ancient, things do not race between ancient and present. Precisely because nothing migrates from one time to another, each thing abides according to its nature within its own time.

The many scriptures may therefore use different words and the hundred schools may advance different formulations. But if their point of convergence is grasped, how could their surface differences cause confusion? What ordinary people call “abiding,” I call “going” from the side of moment-by-moment alteration. What ordinary people call “going,” I call “abiding” from the side of each remaining in its own time. Though the names “going” and “abiding” differ, the purport to which they point is one. A scripture therefore says: right words sound like contrary words—who can believe them? The saying is not without reason.

Why? Ordinary people search in the present for a thing of ancient times. When they fail to find it, they say that it did not abide. I instead search in ancient times for a present thing and know that the present thing has not left the present to go into the ancient. If the present could reach the ancient, the ancient should contain the present. If the ancient could come into the present, the present should contain the ancient. Since the present does not contain the thing of the ancient, we know that the ancient thing does not come. Since the ancient does not contain the thing of the present, we know that the present thing does not go. The ancient does not reach the present, and the present does not reach the ancient. Things each abide by their nature within their own time; what thing could still come or go? Thus the scenes of spring, summer, autumn, and winter race like the wind, and the pivot of the Northern Dipper wheels like lightning. Yet if one can apprehend their finest principle, one knows that, however swift they may be, no fixed thing turns from an earlier position into a later one.

5. Reversing the ordinary view: One event is called going from the side of alteration and abiding from the side of each remaining in its time

Ordinary people suppose that the person from youth to old age remains the same and call this “abiding.” I, attending to the fact that the earlier person is not the later person, call it “going.” Ordinary people suppose that the former person has departed and call this “going.” I, attending to the fact that the former person is only in the former time, call it “abiding.” Though the formulations of going and abiding are opposed, they still point to one event: from the side of moment-by-moment alteration, it is called going; from the side of each remaining in one time, it is called abiding. Abiding is just such a going; going is just such an abiding. Grasp either side as a fixed thing, and the reconciliation taught in this treatise is lost.

6. Concluding the reconciliation: The cause remains in the past without perishing; the fruit comes to be through the cause

The Tathāgata’s merit therefore endures through ten thousand generations, and his path grows firmer through a hundred eons. Building a high mountain depends on beginning with the first basket of earth. Completing a long road depends on taking the first step and proceeding until the end. This is possible precisely because the work done before does not decay and vanish. Because that work does not decay and vanish, although it is in the past, it does not perish there. Because it does not perish in the past, it is called immutable. Because it is immutable, its efficacy remains lucid and clear. A scripture therefore says that even when the three calamities fill the world, the activity of deeds remains lucid and undiminished. This saying is indeed trustworthy.

Why? The fruit does not exist together with the cause at the same time and in the same place, yet it becomes fruit in dependence on the cause. Because the fruit becomes fruit in dependence on the cause, the cause has not perished in the past. Because the fruit is not simultaneous with the cause, the past cause has not migrated into the present. Since the cause neither perishes in the past nor comes from the past into the present, the meaning of immutability is perfectly clear. Why remain confused about going and remaining, hesitating between motion and stillness? Seen in this way, even if heaven and earth overturn and collapse, do not say that they are not still. Even if floodwaters reach the sky, do not insist that some fixed thing truly moves. If the mind can accord with this principle in the very things before it, the meaning of immutability is not far away. It can be understood here and now.

The scriptural question first: Where are neither coming nor going to be seen?

The wind blows, rivers rush, the sun and moon travel, and a person passes from youth into white-haired age. Everything before our eyes is changing. Why, then, does “On the Immutability of Things” insist that things do not shift? If immutability means that nothing happens, then the whirlwind, the torrent, birth and death, cold and heat all become empty words. Yet if we admit only flux, how are we to read the Fangguang scripture’s statement that dharmas have neither going nor coming and undergo no movement or turning?

Sengzhao does not ask us to close our eyes and deny motion. He first places before us two pieces of evidence from Prajñāpāramitā and Madhyamaka. The Daoxing says that dharmas originally have no place from which they come and, in going, have no place they reach. The Madhyamaka sentence says that, by observing a direction, one knows that someone is going, yet the one going does not reach a direction. The question therefore changes. It is no longer only, “Did it move?” It becomes, “What fixed ‘it’ is there that moved from here to there?”

Yuankang brings the issue to a sharp point: there is no single thing fixedly abiding that migrates from here toward there; this is why it is called immutable. Immutability is not the absence of difference between before and after. Precisely because before and after already differ, no fixed and unchanging identity can be found that has been transported from the earlier moment into the later one. If this boundary is kept clear, the treatise will be read neither as permanence nor as annihilation.

How can the same fact—“the past thing does not reach the present”—look like motion to one person and stillness to another?

Ordinary people see that yesterday’s thing is not here today and say, “It moved; it went away.” Sengzhao begins from the very same fact—that yesterday’s thing did not come into today—but asks in return: since it did not reach today, why not say that it remains only in yesterday and never left its own temporal position?

Ordinary people and Sengzhao therefore do not face two different sets of facts. Their angles of view are opposed. Looking at the present absence of the past thing, ordinary people see going. Looking at the past presence of the past thing, Sengzhao sees abiding. Search in yesterday for yesterday’s thing, and it was never absent. Ask for yesterday’s thing today, and it has never existed here. This does not preserve yesterday as an eternal entity. It refuses to imagine that a thing of yesterday crossed through time and moved as a whole into today.

Reverse the direction and the same holds: today’s thing has not returned into yesterday. The ancient does not reach the present, and the present does not reach the ancient. A past thing is of itself in the past; a present thing is of itself in the present. Yuankang’s teaching that stillness is sought within moving dharmas, that the very moving is the still, comes to rest precisely here. Stillness is not found by escaping from motion. It is found by seeing that, throughout change, no fixed thing travels back and forth between two temporal positions.

Whirlwind, rivers, mirage, sun and moon: The faster the motion, the less one can find who migrates

The treatise’s most brilliant four lines are not ornament. They press the argument to its limit: the whirlwind fells the mountains, and yet is ever still; the rivers race in torrents, and yet do not flow; the mirage drifts and surges, and yet does not move; the sun and moon traverse the heavens, and yet do not complete their circuit.

The whirlwind can fell a high mountain. Could motion be more forceful? Yet the earlier wind is not the later wind, and no fixed wind can be found migrating from one position to another. Rivers race without pause, yet the earlier water is not the later water; one cannot imagine an identical drop as an unchanging entity running through the entire river. The mirage is a vapor that appears to surge in sunlight, yet the earlier haze is not the later haze. The sun and moon traverse the heavens, yet the earlier sun is not the later sun. The four images do not abolish the appearances of wind, water, haze, or the sun and moon. What they force us to relinquish is the “mover” tacitly assumed to remain identical while being transported from here to there.

The faster the motion, then, the sharper the question of immutability becomes. The eye sees only a continuous movement, and the mind supplies it with one identical thing. The author instead asks within that continuity: if the former is already not the latter, who crossed from before into after? This question does not freeze the world. It loosens our fixation on “the identical thing.”

Do impermanence and immutability contradict one another?

The author himself raises the strongest objection. The noble teaching says plainly that human life passes faster than a river’s current. Śrāvakas realize the path by awakening to impermanence; pratyekabuddhas enter the real by awakening to the dispersal of conditions. If none of the myriad movements were transformation and passage, how could anyone realize the path through the principle of impermanence?

The answer is not a choice between two alternatives. From the side of moment-by-moment alteration, the teaching speaks of “going.” From the side of each temporal position, across which no fixed thing passes, the author speaks of “abiding.” Yuankang fastens the two together: taking moment-by-moment alteration, one speaks of going; taking each as abiding in one time, one speaks of abiding. Abiding is just such a going, and going is just such an abiding. Immutability therefore does not overturn impermanence. It refuses only to describe impermanence as one permanent entity changing addresses in time. Impermanence discloses difference between before and after; immutability discloses that no fixed thing passes from the former to the latter.

This also explains why the teaching sometimes speaks of going and sometimes of abiding. When beings cling to permanence, the noble teaching speaks of going so that they no longer suppose one thing to keep the same form forever. When beings cling to annihilation, the noble teaching speaks of abiding so that they do not understand causal efficacy as an utterly broken succession. Yuankang puts it directly: going is taught for the sake of conditions, yet in truth it is not going; abiding is taught for the sake of conditions, yet in truth it too is not abiding. Each teaching treats one extreme. Neither side can be grasped as a final entity.

The white-haired brahmin: I still resemble the person of the past, yet I am not that person

A brahmin leaves home while young and returns only after his hair has turned white. A neighbor asks whether the person from long ago is still here. He replies that he resembles that former person yet is not that former person. The answer sounds contradictory, but it illuminates two sides of ordinary experience. If he were wholly other, how could the neighbor recognize him at once? If he were wholly the same, where did the form of the youth go?

Ordinary people say that the person from youth to maturity has one body. They notice that the years have gone but not that the form too has gone with each span of years. Sengzhao does not cut succession in two and declare before and after entirely unrelated. He points out that succession cannot in turn prove one identical substance unchanged over a hundred years. “Resembling the former person” speaks to recognizable continuity; “not the former person” speaks to difference between before and after. The two stand together, just as motion and stillness, going and abiding, stand together.

If the cause does not come into the present, how can the fruit still arise from it?

At the end another question appears. If a former cause remains only in its former time and does not migrate into the present, how can the present fruit be established? Does saying that the former cause does not come sever cause and fruit?

The author answers with building a mountain and completing a journey. A mountain takes shape as the first basket of earth is followed by further baskets. A long road is completed as the first step is followed by further steps. The first basket is not moved into the last basket, and the first step does not migrate into the final step. Yet the earlier effort does not therefore perish, and the later effort continues precisely through what preceded it. Because fruit is not simultaneous with cause, the cause does not come into the present. Because fruit arises in dependence on cause, the cause does not perish in the past. “Not coming” prevents us from transporting the cause into the fruit; “not perishing” prevents us from severing cause and fruit.

Immutability thus becomes more than a paradox about time. It becomes a way to understand causality: do not treat the earlier cause as a thing moved into the later fruit, and do not reduce the efficacy of the earlier cause to nothing. The effort remains in the past without being transformed into the present, while the fruit in the present comes to be through that cause. Cause and fruit are not simultaneous, yet their succession is not broken.

Continuation / what carries forward

“On the Immutability of Things” was already catalogued as an independent work in the Southern Dynasties Fā lùn mùlù. In the Tang dynasty, Yuankang divided it into the preface’s four passages and the main treatise’s six sections, preserving for later readers a passage-by-passage road through the text. What matters most in this continuation is not a new system laid over the treatise. It is the sharpening of the author’s own question: because the world plainly changes, must we therefore assume that a fixed thing is migrating?

Look again from here at the whirlwind, the rivers, the mirage, and the sun and moon. None of their motion has been diminished. What has been loosened is only the fixed thing imagined to move from an earlier position into a later one. If this can be seen in the very things before us, there is no need to escape the torrent in search of stillness elsewhere, and no need to deny the torrent because stillness is taught. Only then does our confusion about motion and stillness truly return to the things immediately at hand.