唯識二十論 義疏通講

First, set up the thesis: the three realms are nothing but consciousness

The whole of the Viṃśatikā exists for a single purpose: to establish "the three realms are nothing but consciousness" (三界唯識) — that the realm of desire, the realm of form, and the formless realm, this entire world, is in the last analysis only the manifestation of consciousness, with no real external object existing apart from consciousness. Vasubandhu makes this plain from the very first line, and immediately declares: this is not his private opinion — it is what the scriptures themselves already say, "the three realms are nothing but mind" (三界唯心). The four names "mind, thought, consciousness, cognition" (心、意、識、了) all name one and the same thing, only from differing angles; and when he says "mind," he folds in both deliberating "thought" (意) and the "mental associates" (心所) that arise alongside mind. Most decisive of all is that word "only" (唯) — it negates only the reality of external objects; it does not dismiss the concord of mind with its associates. This one boundary-line carries the whole treatise that follows: consciousness-only is not a denial of the richness of mental life, but only a denial that "outside the mind there is some further real thing."

A single image of a person with an eye-disease sets the whole position in place

Vasubandhu establishes his thesis not by abstract argument but by an image you and I both understand: a person afflicted with the eye-disease taimira (眩瞖) sees hairs floating and flies darting in the air. Those hairs, those flies, are seen plain as day — yet outside there is nothing there at all. This is exactly how it is when a cognition arises and of itself takes on the look of "as though an object were there" — "in this there is not the slightest bit of real meaning" (此中都無少分實義). This eye-disease image is the eye of the whole treatise: the §Prologue uses it to set up the thesis, and the answers to the objections below will return to it again and again. Hold this picture in mind, and the consciousness-only position has something to stand on.

The opening question: the world is so orderly — how does your consciousness-only account for that?

The moment the position is set down, the most forceful objection arrives. The opponent will not play at abstractions; he points to the very "orderliness" of the experienced world and presses the challenge — and Xuanzang's brushwork cuts this challenge cleanly into four parallel items (this making-explicit of the four objections is a structural strength of Xuanzang's version over those of Paramārtha and Prajñāruci; East Asian Yogācāra likewise took this version as its standard):

• Fixity of place: if cognition does not depend on an external object, why does it arise only at one particular place?
• Fixity of time: why does it arise only at one particular time, rather than at any time?
• Non-determinacy of the mind-stream: at one place and one time, with so many beings each having their own cognition, why do all see one and the same object together, rather than each seeing their own?
• Failure of efficacy: if all of it is an appearance presented by mind, why does real food fill the belly and a real staff wound a body — how could a mere appearance have real efficacy?

Taken together, these four questions are really one challenge from common sense: what entitles a world that is "only mind" to have, all the same, a fixed space and time, public objects, and real effects? This is the most natural and most powerful attack on any "mind-only" position whatsoever. Vasubandhu sets it out exactly as it stands, dodging nothing.

The image has already buried the seed of the answer

But notice this: as he states the fourth objection (the failure of efficacy), Vasubandhu, in passing, sets three images side by side — the hairs a sufferer of the eye-disease sees, the food and drink, knives, staves, poison, and clothes obtained in a dream, and the city of the gandharvas (乾闥婆城). All three are things "seen yet without real use": the eye-disease's hairs cannot be braided, the dream's food cannot fill the belly, the phantom city cannot be lived in. The opponent meant to use "real things have real use" to argue back to the reality of external objects; but Vasubandhu has already laid on the table the ready-made examples of "having an appearance, with no real object, yet still vividly present." The seed of the opening question's answer is already hidden inside the question — and this is precisely the artistry of Verse 1: to set the trap is already to lay the ambush.

Standing on the eight consciousnesses

Take care: the "consciousness" of "the three realms are nothing but consciousness" is not some thin single thought, but a whole system of consciousness — the first six consciousnesses (eye-consciousness through mind-consciousness), the manas, down to the foundational storehouse consciousness (阿賴耶識 ālaya-vijñāna; baifa #8, the holder of seeds and the basis of shared karma). Within the four objections, on what does "fixity of place and time" rest for its judgment? On the mind-consciousness (意識; baifa #6). Why do many beings see one and the same object? That must wait until "the force of karma" and "shared karma" are expounded below, where it will be made fully clear by this storehouse-consciousness layer. So the thesis Verse 1 sets up needs the whole array of the first eight mind-kings of the baifa to be unfolded before it can stand — which is also why this position can be made fully coherent only within the consciousness-system of Yogācāra.

Carried forward (承衍)

Read on from Verse 1: these four objections it sets up are not something Vasubandhu raises and then drops; they are the very table of contents for the answers across the whole of §I — Verse 2 answers the first three objections (fixity of place and time, common seeing) with the dream illustration and the hungry-ghost illustration; Verse 3 gives a unified answer with the hell illustration; Verses 4 through 7 round it off with the force of karma and shared karma. The ancient masters take it up in turn: Dharmapāla's Cheng weishi baosheng lun (成唯識寶生論, T31n1591), fascicle one, expounds this verse in detail, unfolding this "establishing the thesis, answering the objections" opening into a systematic argument for consciousness-without-object. Read this opening set of four objections through, and you have in hand the map for reading the whole first half of the treatise.

Catching the four objections Verse 1 threw

In Verse 1 the opponent pressed his challenge with the "orderliness" of the experienced world: if the world is only consciousness, then what entitles it still to have a fixed place, a fixed time, many beings seeing one and the same object together, and things that can perform a real working? These four objections were laid on the table, and Vasubandhu catches them. His way of answering in Verse 2 is striking — he does not argue abstruse theory; he turns and points to an experience you and I have both had: the dream. You have dreamed; in the dream there plainly was no external object, and yet that world had its own rules and order just the same. That being so, "only consciousness, and yet still orderly" is nothing strange at all.

Three illustrations, each striking one point

Vasubandhu hands the four objections off to three illustrations to answer, cleanly and crisply:

The dream — answers "fixity of place, fixity of time." In a dream there is no real object, and yet you see a village, men and women, only at some particular place, not everywhere; and even within the same dream, you see them only at some particular time, not at every moment. This shows that "place is fixed, the moment is fixed" needs no real thing outside at all — it holds purely on the manifesting of consciousness.

The hungry ghosts seeing one river of pus together — answers "many beings seeing one and the same object together." This is the most marvellous of the illustrations. One river: humans see it as water, but the hungry ghosts see a river brimming with pus (Vasubandhu even drops in a comparison along the way: just as we say a "jar of clarified butter," meaning a jar filled with clarified butter). What matters is this: it is not one ghost that sees it, but a whole crowd of ghosts that see together, at the same time, one and the same river of pus. Why? Because they are of one and the same karma ripening into one and the same fruit (同業異熟) — one and the same kind of karma draws on one and the same kind of fruit, so they jointly sense one and the same object. Common seeing now has its footing, with no need at all for a real river of pus outside the mind. (The word "and the like" in the verse also brings in the ghosts' seeing filth, or seeing beings holding knives and staves to bar them from food — all the same mechanism.)

The dream-emission, the loss of vital essence and blood — answers "how can an unreal appearance perform a real working?" The opponent's last cut is the harshest: if it is all phantom, how can real food and drink fill the belly, how can a knife or staff wound a person? Vasubandhu pays him back with an example he cannot deny: the object in a dream is plainly unreal, and yet on waking one really has lost vital essence and blood. This shows that "no real object, and yet a real working" is something that has been happening all along — a phantom performing a real working is no contradiction.

The mechanism is just one phrase: one and the same karma ripening into one and the same fruit

Here a measure must be kept: the mechanism by which the hungry ghosts see together is written out plainly in Vasubandhu's §Auto-commentary — it is just "one and the same karma ripening into one and the same fruit; in many bodies they gather together and all see the river of pus" (同業異熟，多身共集皆見膿河) — four characters: one kind of karma senses one kind of fruit. Later ancient masters (such as Dharmapāla in the Baosheng lun 《寶生論》) will extend it further, adding accounts like "dominant force" (增上力) to expound it in fine detail; but that is the ancient masters' commentary, not the original wording of this passage of Vasubandhu's own auto-commentary. In reading this verse, first take firm hold of the original mechanism, "one and the same karma ripening into one and the same fruit"; an extension is an extension, the main text is the main text — the two must not be confused.

Setting the trap and springing it are one and the same hand

Looking back, one finds that Verses 1 and 2 are really a single move laid out by Vasubandhu's one hand: when he set out the four objections in Verse 1, he had already placed those examples of "appearing yet with no real object" — the dream, the hungry ghosts, the city of the gandharvas — into the very question; Verse 2 only turns the same set of examples over and puts them to use as the answer. The opponent wished to argue from "real things have real use" to the reality of external objects; Vasubandhu uses these undeniable, ready-to-hand experiences — the dream and the hungry ghosts — to prove that "without an external object, the four matters are present just the same." Trap-setting and answer lock together without the slightest gap.

Carried forward (承衍)

But Vasubandhu does not stop here. The three illustrations are "separate illustrations" — the dream answers place and time, the ghosts answer common seeing, the dream-emission answers working; each strikes one point, and they are not yet one unified ground. So he goes straight on to use the hell illustration of Verse 3 to gather the four matters into a single illustration and answer them together; and further on, Verses 4 through 7 come down to the deeper level of the true mechanism — the force of karma, the perfuming of shared karma (業力·共業熏習). The illustrations of this verse connect to the ground only there, where the storehouse consciousness holds and stores the shared karma. In reading Verse 2, remember that it is the first step of "establishing trust by illustration": first it lets you trust that "without an external object, yet with order" is possible; later it will tell you how it is possible.

Gathering three illustrations into one

Verse 2 used three illustrations (the dream, the hungry ghost, the nocturnal emission), each striking one of the four objections. Vasubandhu then says: there is in fact no need to go to all that trouble — "you should know that here, the one hell illustration shows that 'fixity of place' and all the rest hold" (應知此中一地獄喻，顯處定等一切皆成). A single hell makes all four senses plain at one stroke. Picture the scene of hell: the suffering beings, in one and the same place and at one and the same time, a whole crowd of them at once, see the wardens of hell, vicious dogs, crows, and iron mountains rushing in to press upon and harm them. Fixity of place, fixity of time, common seeing, real efficacy — all four senses are present in this one scene, complete. And in all of this, there is within hell no real warden of hell existing at all.

The mechanism of common seeing: here three more words are added — "dominant force"

How does the common seeing come about? Vasubandhu's §Auto-commentary writes it plainly: the suffering beings, "by the force of the karmic retribution of shared karma, reinforced by [its] dominant force" (同業異熟增上力故), see the wardens of hell with many bodies together. Here one must take careful note of a fine point of wording: Verse 2, in speaking of the hungry ghosts seeing the river of pus together, the original text reads only "the karmic retribution of shared karma" (同業異熟); but by Verse 3, in speaking of hell, the original text adds the three words "dominant force" (增上力), making it "by the force of the karmic retribution of shared karma, reinforced by [its] dominant force" (同業異熟增上力故). These three words are part of the main text of Xuanzang's §Auto-commentary, not something added by later hands. Like karma calls forth like fruit, and then, pushed on by karma's "dominant reinforcing power," a whole crowd of beings, with one accord and not a hair's breadth of difference, see together one and the same scene of hell. From this, common seeing comes down to earth, with no need at all for real wardens to exist outside the mind.

A stroke in passing: the wardens are not real sentient beings at all

Having set up the illustration, Vasubandhu does not stop there; rather, riding the momentum, he presses the question further: then why can one not say that the wardens of hell are real "sentient beings" to begin with? He brings down three strokes in a row to break this clinging —

One, it does not hold up as a matter of status. If the wardens too counted as "beings of hell," they ought, like the sufferers, to undergo the suffering of hell; but the wardens do not undergo that suffering. And if one says the wardens too suffer and press in upon one another, then "who is the one punished and who is the one inflicting punishment" can no longer be told apart, and the very designation "hell" cannot stand.

Two, it does not hold up as a matter of bodily strength. If the wardens and the sufferers were about equal in body and in strength, the sufferers would not be reduced to such utter terror; what is more, the wardens themselves could not bear the suffering of that iron ground's fierce flames burning on without end — when they cannot even keep their own footing, what strength would be left over to go and press in upon others?

Three, it does not hold up as a matter of origin. Nor can one say that the wardens are beings "not belonging to the hell-kind" to begin with who have been born into hell to serve there.

With these three strokes brought down, the claim that "the wardens really exist" cannot stand. The opponent steps back and reaches for a rescue: "Then, just as there are animals living mixed in even in the heavens, so too in hell there can be beings of the animal or hungry-ghost kind born to serve as the wardens." Vasubandhu answers with just four words — "this rescue does not hold" (此救不然) — and hands the thread over to the next verse to break.

Why this stroke must come here

Perhaps someone asks: to answer the four objections, just answer the four objections — why drag in "whether the wardens are real"? Because this is precisely the touchstone of the consciousness-only position. The hell illustration is the closest of all to a counter-example for "real external objects" — the wardens are plainly pressing in to harm you, so how can one say there is no external object? Vasubandhu deliberately picks this hardest of scenes and proves: even the wardens who press in to harm you are not real apart from consciousness, but are seen together through the dominant force of shared karma. If even the place that looks most like real existence can be broken, only then does consciousness-without-object stand firm. This is no idle branching-off; it is pushing the answering of the objections to the depth it ought to reach.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 3 sets up the illustration and also breaks the clinging — but the breaking is not yet finished: the rescue-claim "let animal- and ghost-beings be the wardens" is left for Verse 4 to break head-on; and the final resting-place of the warden-debate must wait until Verse 5, "the force of karma and the great elements" (業力大種), where it is gathered into the positive establishing of karmic causation. That is to say, the hell illustration of Verse 3 is a bridge: it connects backward to the separate illustrations of Verse 2, and opens forward to the positive account of "karma" in Verses 4–5. In reading Verse 3, remember that it does two things at once — one illustration establishing the four senses, one stroke breaking the real warden; and the point that stroke aims at is precisely the later conclusion that "all objects seen in common are called forth by karma and are nothing but the manifestation of consciousness."

The opponent steps back: not sentient beings, but animals and ghosts

Verse 3 demolished "the wardens are real sentient beings." The opponent, unwilling to give up, steps back and reaches for a rescue: are there not animals mixed in even among the gods? Then in the hells too there could be beings of the animal and hungry-ghost kind, born there to serve as wardens — and so the wardens would have a footing after all. Verse 4 comes precisely to block off this line of retreat.

A key of "asymmetry"

Vasubandhu refutes it cleanly, and he does so by a contrast: the animal born among the gods, and the bliss it enjoys, come as a matched set; but the hell-warden, and the suffering of the hells, do not match.

For an animal to be born up among the gods and enjoy bliss, it must first have made for itself the karma that "can call forth the peaceful, blissful environment of the heavens" — having made that karma, once born there, it must inevitably undergo that bliss of the container-world (the environing world). In a word: the animal born among the gods is in concord with the heavenly bliss.

But what of the wardens the opponent speaks of? They reside in the hells, yet they do not undergo that suffering of the hell container-world. Since they do not undergo the hells' suffering, they are not beings drawn to be born there by hell-karma — so on what grounds can one call such a one an animal or ghost "born into the hells"? The making of karma and the undergoing of its fruit do not match up, and this rescue-route is cut off.

The opponent retreats again: it is "a special material substance conjured by the force of karma"

Refuted to this point, the opponent gives way a second time, and gives way very far — he simply stops saying the wardens are "sentient beings" at all, and says instead: it is the force of the hell-beings' own karma (the force of karma's dominance, adhipati-bala) that produces a kind of specially-conditioned material substance (the special elements — a peculiar compounding of earth, water, fire, and wind), and these substances put forth strange shapes, colours, sizes, and strengths, are called "wardens," serve to frighten those who suffer, and can further move hand and foot and brandish knives and staves. Just as, in the hells, that Ram Mountain now closes and now splits open (crushing people); and that stretch of iron-hard forest, whose knife-thorns now droop down and now jut up — all of it the work of these "strange objects born of karma."

Vasubandhu's answer: the phenomenon is real, the explanation is wrong

Mark especially this verdict of Vasubandhu's — "these matters are not entirely absent, yet [the explanation] does not hold up to reason" (非事全無，然不應理).

He does not deny the phenomena: Ram Mountain really does open and close, the knife-forest really does droop and rise, the wardens really do bare their fangs and brandish their claws — these matters are not absent. What he denies is only the opponent's "explanation": the claim that these are conjured by "specially-conditioned material substances that really exist apart from consciousness" — this explanation does not hold.

What is worth savouring is this: with this second rescue the opponent has in fact already been driven to the very threshold of consciousness-only — he concedes that the wardens are not real sentient beings, that they are manifested by the force of karma. Vasubandhu need only push one step further, shifting the landing-point of "manifested by the force of karma" from "special elements outside the mind" back to "consciousness itself," and consciousness-only is established. So here he holds back his answer, marking only the single phrase "does not hold up to reason," and leaves that affirmative step for Verse 5.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 4 is the climax of a stretch of "pressing the question": twice it forces the opponent back, driving "the reality of external objects" from "sentient-being wardens" to "the special elements born of karma," and right up to the brink of "manifested by consciousness-only." But Vasubandhu deliberately does not close the matter here — those eight characters, "these matters are not entirely absent, yet it does not hold up to reason," are a bow drawn taut; the arrow is not loosed until Verse 5's "the force of karma and the elements": rather than say that the force of karma produces a further kind of element outside the mind, better to say that the force of karma is all along perfumed within consciousness and is manifested by consciousness. In reading Verse 4, hold on to its tension — refuted to the last inch, the affirmative establishing of consciousness-only is on the very tip of the tongue, and yet, of all things, it is left blank.

The step the first four verses forced open is taken here

Verse 4 had pressed the opponent back to "the dominant force of karma produces a special set of great elements" (業增上力生異大種) — the force of karma produces a special kind of matter that manifests as the wardens of hell. At that point Vasubandhu only held the line with the single phrase "it is not that the matter is wholly nonexistent, yet it does not stand to reason" (非事全無，然不應理), without breaking it open. In Verse 5 he takes that step he had left blank — and takes it ever so lightly: he no longer adds another stroke to refute; he simply turns it back as a question —

"If you grant that, by the force of karma, a special set of great elements is produced, giving rise to a transformation of just this kind — then what is there against [letting it happen] upon consciousness (於識何不許)?"

Since you already grant that "the force of karma can make matter (the great elements, 大種) undergo a transformation of just this kind," then I ask you: this same force of karma — letting it give rise to a transformation of just this kind within "consciousness" (識) — what is there against that?

A single lever shifts the whole weight across

The brilliance of this one question is that it does not argue with you over "whether there is a transformation" — the transformation is something you and I both grant. It argues only over "where the transformation lands." The opponent wants to hang the transformation on "the great elements outside consciousness"; Vasubandhu says: that posits one extra layer of something real outside the mind. The very same karmic transformation, landing directly upon consciousness — the form of the wardens, their tormenting — is all consciousness's own manifesting. This both makes sense and saves a layer.

And so the whole weight of the debate is, by this one lever of "karmic transformation," prised in a single move from "external objects are real" over to "what consciousness manifests." The first four verses were the "refuting"; Verse 5 is the "establishing": those wardens, the ram-mountains, the forest of blades turn out not to be things outside the mind, but consciousness's own transformation under the perfuming impulse of karma.

Why the auto-commentary is short enough to be a single line

Notice a detail of form: the auto-commentary to Verse 5 is unusually short — it merely restates the verse's counter-question once over: "Why not grant that consciousness, by the force of karma, undergoes a transformation of just this kind, and instead hold to the great elements?" (何緣不許識由業力如是轉變，而執大種？) No unfolding, no marshalling of proofs. This is not Vasubandhu being lazy; it is the meaning being complete in the verse: the entire weight of this verse lies in that one counter-question, and to say more would only dilute it. Where you meet this kind of "weight on the verse, light on the commentary," put your eyes back on the verse itself.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 5 has only established that "the transformation can be upon consciousness"; it has not yet said "why it must be upon consciousness and not outside it." The opponent can still hold out and ask: by what right must the fruit of perfuming land within consciousness? That question Verse 6 answers head-on with "the karmic perfuming is in the continuum of consciousness" (業熏在識相續) — since the perfuming is within consciousness, the fruit too ought to be within consciousness, and to hang the fruit outside consciousness is self-contradictory. And the counter-question that wheels in scriptural authority to press — "but the Buddha plainly does speak of the bases such as form-and-the-rest (色等處)!" — Vasubandhu holds back to break open in Verse 6 and to explain its "hidden intent" (密意) head-on in Verse 7. Verse 5 is the pivot of §I where refuting turns into establishing; the two verses that follow, taking their cue from it, tamp down "what consciousness manifests" and account for the purpose behind the Buddha's speaking of the bases such as form-and-the-rest.

Verse 5 established one half; Verse 6 supplies the other

Verse 5 pressed back the question "why should the transformation of the force of karma not be within consciousness?", and so established that "the transformation can be within consciousness." But the opponent can still hold out: on what grounds must it be in consciousness rather than outside it? Verse 6 comes to deliver that very stroke, using a most plain piece of common sense — wherever the seed is sown, there the fruit grows.

Perfuming in one place, fruit in another — self-contradiction

Vasubandhu exposes the opponent's flaw: you say the hell-wardens are a transformation of "the special great elements produced by the force of karma," yet you cannot but admit that "the perfuming of karma" (the karmic perfuming, vāsanā, the seeds karma leaves behind) is perfumed within the continuum of consciousness — perfuming cannot be lodged in those great elements outside consciousness. Since the seed (the perfuming) is within consciousness, the fruit (the transformation into the wardens' shapes) ought likewise to come to fruition within consciousness. But you do otherwise: you leave the seed in consciousness, yet hang the fruit outside it — "the perfuming of karma is in one place, yet [you] cling to the fruit being in another place" (業熏習餘處，執餘處有果); sowing in one place, reaping in another — where in the world is there such a principle? So, "the perfumed consciousness has the fruit — to not allow this, on what ground?" (所熏識有果，不許有何因) — perfuming is in consciousness, so the fruit is in consciousness; on what grounds do you refuse it?

This one question is plain yet lethal: it relies on no abstruse principle but on the line "cause and fruit are in the same place," which everyone must concede, and so nails the wardens' fruit firmly back inside consciousness.

The opponent's last card: hauling in the scriptures

Beaten on principle, the opponent plays his last card — hauling in the scriptures to bear down: "the Buddha plainly said there are 'the bases of colour and the rest' (the eye-base, the colour-base… the twelve bases)! If it really were as you say, only consciousness transforming as though there were colour, with no separate colour, why would the Buddha say there are the bases of colour and the rest?" This move borrows the authority of the Buddha.

Vasubandhu does not dispute with the Buddha; he judges it "hidden intent"

Vasubandhu's answer has the finest measure — he does not deny that this is what the Buddha said, nor does he set himself against the Buddha; he simply delivers one verdict: "this teaching is not a ground, because it has a separate intent" (此教非因，有別意故). The meaning is: the Buddha's teaching that there are the bases of colour and the rest cannot be taken as proof that "colour and the rest really exist," because the Buddha, in saying it, had a separate purpose (a hidden intent, abhiprāya) — he was not establishing colour and the rest as real outer dharmas.

Here the house-rule of the Yogācāra reading of scripture comes into view: the Buddha's words admit a distinction between "definitive meaning" (了義) and "hidden intent" (密意); when one meets a scriptural passage that on its surface seems to assert the reality of external objects, one neither twists it by force nor refuses to acknowledge it, but discerns that it is spoken in accordance with a hidden intent. As to what this hidden intent actually is, Vasubandhu does not unfold it here — he leaves it to Verse 7, to be resolved with the ready-made Buddhist example of "spontaneously-born beings" (化生有情).

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 6 rams the "establishing" of §I home to the bottom: perfuming is in consciousness, the fruit is in consciousness, the existence of the wardens does not await anything outside the mind. Only one loose end remains — what, after all, is the "hidden intent" of the Buddha's saying that there are the bases of colour and the rest? This loose end Verse 7 unties head-on by analogy: "the Buddha's saying there are spontaneously-born beings is in fact spoken by hidden intent (pointing to the continuum of mind carrying on into the later life), not that there really are spontaneously-born beings." Once it is untied, the answering of objections in §I is complete, and the treatise's centre of gravity at once turns into §II — Verse 8, "by what hidden intent are the ten [bases] of colour and the rest spoken of," which folds the entire twelve bases into the hidden intent of consciousness-only. Read Verse 6, and remember the loose end it leaves: it is precisely the thread-end leading into the next part.

The loose thread left by Verse 6 is untied here

At the end of Verse 6, the opponent brought the scriptures up to clinch the matter: "The Buddha said with his own mouth that 'there are objects such as colour-and-form'!" At the time Vasubandhu answered with just one line — 「此教非因，有別意故」 "this teaching is no proof, for it has a separate intent" — this teaching cannot serve as evidence for the reality of external objects, because the Buddha spoke it with a separate purpose in mind. But just what that "separate purpose" was, he did not unfold. Verse 7 is where that "hidden intent" (密意) is made clear. And the means he uses is an old example anyone in the Buddhist house recognizes — spontaneously-born beings (化生有情).

An example no one will mistake

The scriptures speak of "spontaneously-born beings" (beings who do not depend on womb, egg, or moisture, but, by the force of karma, suddenly come into manifestation). Yet every student of the Dharma knows: when the Buddha speaks this way, he is not saying that there really exists some "spontaneously-born self" standing solidly in existence. So why does the Buddha still speak this way? Vasubandhu points it out: the Buddha speaks with a hidden intent, "on the strength of the mind-stream being unbroken and continuous, able to travel on into a later life" — meaning, he wants to tell you that there is no 'self of a being' transmigrating; there is only the mind-stream of consciousness in continuity, and the chain of "dharmas" — the causes of karma and the fruits of recompense — continuing on into a later life. In a word: 「說無有情我，但有法因」 "to say there is no self of a being, but only the causes of dharmas." When the Buddha says "spontaneously-born beings," he is borrowing that mode of speech to break your nihilistic view and to reveal this continuity — not to set up a real self.

Fit the same key to "objects such as colour-and-form"

Vasubandhu says: the Buddha's speaking of "objects such as colour-and-form" works on exactly the same principle. 「契經亦爾」 "the scripture is likewise so" — the Buddha, in accordance with the beings he was to convert, seeing which kind of teaching each was at that time fit to receive, with a hidden intent speaks of "there being objects such as colour-and-form (the base of the eye, the base of colour-and-form ... the twelve bases)," and it is not that he is really setting up external dharmas such as colour-and-form as real existents.

See how elegant this is: the opponent wanted to use "the Buddha said colour-and-form bases" to force consciousness-only to concede external objects; Vasubandhu turns and points at what the opponent himself also admits — "the Buddha said spontaneously-born beings, yet not as a real self" — and says: since you already know that one line is hidden intent and not to be clung to literally, why must this line be clung to so deadly tight? Both alike are the Buddha speaking with a hidden intent fitted to the listener's capacity — on what ground do you make allowance for the one line and hold the other to the letter? And with that the scriptural objection dissolves: the Buddha's speaking of colour-and-form bases not only does not conflict with consciousness-only, it is precisely the hidden-intent teaching that consciousness-only itself allows.

The house rule of how the Yogācāra masters read scripture

What is most worth carrying away from this verse is a way of reading scripture: the Buddha's words have a distinction between the definitive sense (了義) and hidden intent (密意). Meeting a scriptural passage whose surface looks as though it speaks of external objects as real, the Yogācāra masters neither force a change in the text nor blindly trust the letter, but ask one question — in speaking this way, was the Buddha [giving] the ultimate, definitive sense, or [speaking with] a hidden intent fitted to capacity? Having judged it to be hidden intent, one follows the hidden intent to grasp what it truly means to break and to reveal. This is not arbitrary interpretation, because the standard lies in the Buddha himself (that the Buddha's "spontaneously-born beings" is hidden intent is itself commonly acknowledged); Vasubandhu merely fits the same already-acknowledged key to "objects such as colour-and-form."

Carried forward (承衍)

The moment Verse 7 appears, the answering of objections in §I is complete: the four objections are broken through, the force of karma is referred back to consciousness, and even the final scriptural objection is dissolved by hidden intent. But as Vasubandhu closes, he throws out one more question — 「依何密意說色等十？」 "With what hidden intent does he speak of the ten, colour-and-form and the rest?" With what hidden intent, exactly, does the Buddha speak of the twelve bases such as colour-and-form? This question is no mere courtesy; it is the door to the scene-change: it formally carries the topic from "answering objections" into §II. Verse 8 answers it straightaway — the Buddha speaks of the twelve bases with the hidden intent that "consciousness arises from its own seed and turns as though [there were] an object," each base being the inner-and-outer double face of consciousness's transformation; Verse 9 then leads on from this to the two selflessnesses. In reading Verse 7, remember that it is both the capstone of §I and the starting-line of §II.

What Verse 7 asked, Verse 8 answers

At the close of Verse 7, Vasubandhu himself threw out a question: when the Buddha says "there are the colour-and-the-rest twelve sense-fields," on what hidden intent (密意) does he say it? Verse 8 is the head-on answer to that question. Notice — this is no longer "refuting" but "establishing": across the seven verses of §I, the reality of external objects was refuted to the very end; from this verse onward, Vasubandhu states positively "how consciousness-only houses the Buddha's twelve sense-fields."

One consciousness arises, carrying two faces of its own

Vasubandhu says: take the matter of "seeing colour-and-form." That "consciousness which presents colour-and-form" (似色現識) — how does it arise? It arises from its own seed (自種子 sva-bīja), transforming and arising under the convergence of the many conditions, and as it arises it takes on the look of a colour-appearance being there (似境相而轉).

Here is the crux: the arising of this one consciousness carries two faces of its own —

• one facing inward: its seed as the cause of arising (the ground on which consciousness depends to arise — the side of "grasper" and "faculty");
• one facing outward: the colour-appearance it presents (the object as it is presented — the side of "grasped" and "object").

The Buddha, on the basis of this inward-facing seed, calls it the "eye sense-field" (眼處); on the basis of this outward-facing presented colour-and-form, calls it the "colour sense-field" (色處). The two faces of one consciousness are spoken of as one pair of "sense-fields."

The twelve sense-fields are just the six pairs of faces of the six consciousnesses

Carrying this pattern through: "consciousness which presents touch" (似觸現識) likewise arises from its own seed and presents a touch-appearance — the Buddha, on the basis of its seed, says "body sense-field," and on the basis of its presented touch, says "touch sense-field." Eye–colour, ear–sound, nose–smell, tongue–taste, body–touch… on down to mind–dharmas: each of the six consciousnesses has its two faces of "seed and presentation," exactly six pairs, twelve in all — and this is the twelve sense-fields. "On the basis of this hidden intent, he speaks of the colour-and-the-rest ten" (依斯密意，說色等十).

So the twelve sense-fields the Buddha speaks of are not twelve kinds of independently real dharmas each standing outside the mind; they are the positing of these two faces of each of the six consciousnesses — the "inward-facing seed" and the "outward-facing presentation." The Buddha did not misspeak; it is the proponents of external objects who misheard — taking the "outer face" that consciousness carries of itself to be a real outer thing existing apart from consciousness. The "hidden intent of the colour-and-the-rest sense-fields" left hanging by Verses 6 and 7 is here fully accounted for: the twelve sense-fields are wholly within consciousness-only, with not an inch leaking out beyond consciousness.

Why reduce it this way

Perhaps someone asks: what is gained by construing the twelve sense-fields as the inner and outer faces of consciousness? Vasubandhu himself goes on to ask the very same thing — "what surpassing benefit is there in speaking thus, on the basis of this hidden intent?" (此密意說有何勝利) He does not answer it in Verse 8; he leaves it for Verse 9. But the direction is already laid: once the twelve sense-fields are reduced to "the two faces of consciousness, with not one of them an independent real master," then "there is no seeing, knowing 'self'" (the selflessness of person, 人無我) and "there is no real 'dharma' existing apart from consciousness" (the selflessness of dharmas, 法無我) — the two selflessnesses flow naturally out of this reduction.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 8 is the pivot of §II, and the first positive cornerstone after the whole treatise turns from "refuting" to "establishing": it folds the Buddha's teaching of the twelve sense-fields entirely into the consciousness-only structure of "own-seed and object-likeness." The question it plants — "what surpassing benefit is there in speaking thus, on this hidden intent" — is precisely the starting point of Verse 9: Verse 9 follows this two-faced reduction through, drawing out the two selflessnesses of person and of dharmas, and holding to the measure of "breaking the clinging without denying existence"; with that, §II is brought to its close. Reading Verse 8, hold this picture in mind: one consciousness arises carrying an inner and an outer face of its own; the twelve sense-fields the Buddha speaks of are just the six pairs of faces of the six consciousnesses.

A question that would put consciousness-only to death

Reading this far, the sharpest question rises of itself: the Buddha says "all dharmas are selfless," and consciousness-only, in turn, reduces external objects such as colour-and-form entirely to object-likenesses transformed by consciousness — so then, what the two words "consciousness-only" (唯識) point to, is that not a "dharma" as well? If all dharmas are without self-nature, all of them "nothing," should not consciousness-only itself also, in the end, be nothing? Then what is left to establish consciousness-only on?

Vasubandhu does not dodge this question. The whole of Verse 9 is precisely his taking apart, cut by cut, this blade laid against his own throat. See this dismantling clearly, and you see exactly where consciousness-only and "everything is empty" part ways.

First, watch how Xuanzang sets the words down: why "can enter" is said twice

In the four lines of the verse, the two words "can enter" (能入) appear twice — "relying on this teaching one can enter the selflessness of the pudgala; the selflessness of the dharmas clung to is entered by relying further on another teaching" (依此教能入，數取趣無我；所執法無我，復依餘教入). This is not rhetorical repetition. With his two words "enter," Xuanzang marks the two selflessnesses as a twofold process of entering-through-realization by means of a teaching, not as two technical terms laid out side by side: the first entering is by way of the teaching of the "twelve bases" (十二處), the second by way of the teaching of "consciousness-only"; the former breaks the clinging to a self of the person, the latter breaks the clinging to a self of the dharmas, and the latter is the deeper. In reading this verse, first grasp this tiering of the "two enterings," and the cuts that follow will stand firmly.

The two enterings stand upon the operation of consciousness

When Vasubandhu speaks of the selflessness of the person, he is not baldly asserting out of nowhere that "there is no self"; he asks you to look at the operation of consciousness: the six sense-faculties meet the six sense-objects, and the six consciousnesses arise (eye-consciousness through mind-consciousness); run this whole array through, and you find no independent master who all along sees, who all along knows — and the absence of that master is just the selflessness of the person. So the first entering stands upon the layer of the six consciousnesses (baifa #6 the mind-consciousness 意識 is exactly the discriminating subject of this "no one who sees and on down to no one who knows").

The second is deeper: even colour-and-form, taken to be a real external object, is only consciousness presenting itself "as though" colour-and-form. The root that can transform-and-present and can hold-and-store all of this is the storehouse consciousness (阿賴耶識 ālaya-vijñāna; baifa #8, the home of its own seeds, the root basis of the transformations of consciousness). Both enterings, in truth, stand upon this system of consciousness — which is also why the teaching of the two selflessnesses is expounded through to the bottom only in consciousness-only.

The two decisive cuts — and both cuts have scriptural ground

The opponent's killing move is to substitute, by sleight of hand, "the dharmas in every kind whatsoever simply do not exist" for "the selflessness of dharmas." Vasubandhu turns and makes two cuts to sever it — and these two cuts are not Vasubandhu spinning something out of his own loom; they stand upon the three natures and three non-natures (三性三無性) the Buddha himself taught (the scriptural ground is in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, "Chapter on the Absence of Self-Nature" 解深密經·無自性相品, a sūtra of the same line):

First cut: delimit the scope. What the selflessness of dharmas negates is only "the dharmas as differentiated by the wholly-imagined nature clung to by the childish" (愚夫遍計所執自性差別諸法) — that layer of "self-nature, really existent" that ordinary beings forcibly fasten onto the object-likenesses transformed by consciousness, namely the wholly-imagined nature (遍計所執性 parikalpita-svabhāva) of the three natures. What is negated stops here. As for the ineffable dharma-nature (離言法性) realized by the Buddhas (the ultimate dharma-nature beyond verbal discrimination, that which the perfectly-accomplished nature 圓成實 manifests, corresponding to baifa #100 suchness 真如), this is not among what is negated. So "the selflessness of dharmas" is by no means equivalent to "even the ineffable dharma-nature does not exist."

Second cut: empty out even consciousness-only itself. That "nature of consciousness-only" (唯識性) which is taken hold of by another consciousness, grasped as an object — its substance too is without [reality]. This cut lands on himself: to establish consciousness-only is not to set up some new really-existent thing called "consciousness-only" to take the place of external objects; what consciousness-only empties out is every clinging that grasps things as self-nature really existent — including the very clinging that grasps "consciousness-only" itself as really existent.

Breaking the clinging, without sweeping away the existent

The two cuts together are the heart of this verse: break the clinging, without sweeping away the existent. Break the self-nature of the wholly-imagined (no self-nature), and at the same time preserve the manifesting of the object-likenesses of the other-dependent nature (依他起), preserve the real substance of the ineffable dharma-nature of the perfectly-accomplished nature (圓成實) — this is not annihilation. So the auto-commentary closes on this line: "consciousness-only is established as a teaching, to make all universally enter into the selflessness of all dharmas; it is not that the existent-nature is swept away in every kind whatsoever" (說立唯識教，普令悟入一切法無我，非一切種撥有性故). To establish consciousness-only is to bring everyone to enter into the selflessness of all dharmas; but "selflessness" is not wiping out, at a stroke, the existent-nature of the dharmas. Consciousness-only is neither the realism that holds external objects to be really existent, nor the doctrine of obstinate emptiness that sweeps everything away into nothing; where it stands is precisely that razor-thin line between the two.

This one cut holds up the whole refutation of external objects that follows

Verse 9 is the closing of §II (Hidden Intent · the Two Selflessnesses, vv.8–9), but its weight is not confined to closing. The string of arguments that follow — §III Refuting Atoms, §IV Refuting Direct Perception and Dream-and-Waking — all this negating of external objects rests on the premise of "breaking the clinging without sweeping away" that this verse first sets in place: the breaking must go together with the preservation of the ineffable dharma-nature, or else, breaking all the way down, one falls into the obstinate emptiness of "everything is nothing," and consciousness-only itself is broken along with it. So this verse, which on the surface speaks of the two selflessnesses, in fact drives in, for the arguments of the latter half, that boundary-stake that will not work loose.

Carried forward (承衍)

Read on from the two cuts of this verse: Dharmapāla's Cheng weishi baosheng lun (成唯識寶生論), commenting on this verse, unfolds the line "it is not that the existent-nature is swept away in every kind whatsoever" into a systematic argument by way of the three natures (wholly-imagined / other-dependent / perfectly-accomplished — 遍計所執／依他起／圓成實). On further still to the Triṃśikā, it grows into the complete teaching "upon just these three natures, those three non-natures are established" (即依此三性，立彼三無性) — where the negation that breaks the clinging (no self-nature) and the affirmation that establishes the meaning (the real substance of the perfectly-accomplished nature) are held together at once. This verse's subtle grasp is an earlier node on this doctrinal line; read these two cuts through, and the perfectly-accomplished nature section of the Triṃśikā becomes easy to enter.

Switching battlefields: from "answering objections" to "attacking external objects head-on"

Through §I (answering the four objections) and §II (recovering the twelve sense-fields by hidden intent), Vasubandhu has been on the defensive — "guarding" and "gathering in." From Verse 10 on, he turns from defence to attack, dismantling head-on the position that "the external object exists really, apart from consciousness." His method of attack is hard: he will not let you stay vague but presses you directly — you say there really is, out there, a "colour-and-form" (色) that is being seen; then I ask you, what exactly is its substance like? Count as you may, there are only three possibilities, and Vasubandhu blocks all three roads in one breath.

Three roads, every one a dead end

First road: it is "one block" (one). Like the "whole-possessing form" (有分色) the Vaiśeṣikas speak of — a single integral form, not divided into parts. Vasubandhu refutes it: if that "whole" really existed, it ought to be graspable on its own apart from the several parts; but you cannot grasp any "whole apart from the parts" — "the substance of a whole-possessing form is other than the form of the parts, and so cannot be grasped" (有分色體異諸分色不可取故). This road does not go through.

Second road: it is "a heap of separate atoms" (many). That is, countless atoms (paramāṇu), each on its own serving as the object. Vasubandhu refutes it: a single atom is simply not something the eye can grasp — "the atoms, each on its own, cannot be grasped" (極微各別不可取故). What is before your eyes is plainly a stretch of colour, not isolated atoms one by one. This road too does not go through.

Third road: it is "atoms pieced together" (aggregated, assembled). Neither a pure whole nor pure loose sand, but many atoms aggregated and assembled. Vasubandhu refutes it: for this road to hold, the premise must be that "a single real atom" first stands firm; but this very premise does not hold — "the principle of a single real atom is not established" (一實極微理不成故). The foundation has collapsed, so the building pieced up on it collapses of itself.

The three objections in fact gather into one question

See how tight Vasubandhu's layout is: one, many, aggregate — seemingly three independent roads, yet all of them tied to a single pillar — can the atom be established at all? Once "one" is refuted and "many" is refuted, "aggregate" does not even set up a fresh argument; it simply points straight to "the atom is not established." So although this verse has three objections on its surface, at its core it presses only a single question. The closing line "how can it not be [thus] established?" (云何不成？) is no rhetorical flourish; it hands the whole weight to the three verses below — Verses 11, 12, and 13 come precisely to take "a single real atom" apart inch by inch.

A measure that must be made clear first

Take care: what Vasubandhu refutes is "form as an external object existing really apart from consciousness" — it is not a refutation of the Buddha's teaching of the "colour-and-form sense-field" (色處). The Buddha taught the colour-and-form sense-field, and §II has already made clear that this is by hidden intent, the outward face of what consciousness transforms. So §III does not sing against the Buddha; it contends only with the schools that "read the colour-and-form sense-field as real atoms outside the mind." What is refuted is the philosophical position of "really existing atoms," not a refutation of the phenomenon, nor a refutation of the Buddha's word — this boundary-line the whole of §III must hold.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 10 sets down the master-objection "the external object is neither one, nor many, nor an aggregate," concentrating all the firepower onto the single point "can the atom be established?" Next, Vasubandhu splits his forces into three columns and dismantles it one by one: Verse 11 refutes the "combining" of atoms (however atoms might stick together, it is contradictory), Verse 12 closes off the line of retreat that "assembled form can combine," Verse 13 refutes the "directional parts" (方分) of the atom (whether or not it has directional faces, neither works), and Verse 14 then uses everyday examples — walking, elephants and horses, water-insects, and the like — to drive "one whole stretch of object" back into many parts, sealing it into consciousness-only. Read Verse 10 remembering that it is §III's declaration of war: block all three roads at once, and force you to answer the one and only question.

Forcing the path of "joining" into a dilemma

Verse 10 said that the atom (極微 paramāṇu) cannot be established; from Verse 11 on, the dismantling begins head-on. First to be taken apart is "joining" (合) — how atoms could stick together into a thing. Vasubandhu does not argue in the abstract; he lays out a minimal geometric picture: take one atom, and let it stick, in each of its six directions — up, down, east, west, south, north — to one neighbour-atom apiece. The problem arrives at once.

Either it now has six faces. Since its six neighbours each stick on in a different direction, this one atom then has "the point where it touches the east side," "the point where it touches the west side," … — six mutually distinct contact-points: "it ought to become six parts" (一應成六分). But the very definition of an atom is "smallest, no longer divisible"; and now six directional parts have sprung up — it contradicts itself.

Or the six are crowded into a single point. If you refuse to give it six faces, then the six neighbours can only all crowd into the very same place the one atom occupies. But in that case, the place seven atoms occupy is as big as the place one atom occupies — and pressing this on, a whole heap of atoms stacked up is still only as big as a single atom: "the aggregate ought to be [as small] as an atom" (聚應如極微). Would not the mountains, rivers, and the great earth then have to be so small as to be invisible? Yet they are plainly coarse and visible. Again it contradicts itself.

To stick is wrong, and not to stick is wrong too — the path of "joining" is blocked at both ends.

The opponent's parry: it is not atoms that join, it is the "heap" that joins

Pressed this far, the strongest debate-opponent of the time — the Vaibhāṣika masters of the country of Kaśmīra (加濕彌羅國毘婆沙師, a branch of the Sarvāstivāda) — plays a fine retreating move: he says, you are right, so let us simply grant that "atoms themselves have no directional parts and do not join at all" (this dodges the fault of "six parts"); but the "aggregated form" (聚色, a coarse, large object) that atoms heap up into does have directional parts, and so it is the aggregated form that joins, not the atoms. In a word: he shifts the responsibility for "joining" off the atoms and onto the aggregate.

Vasubandhu replies with just four words

Vasubandhu's response is extremely short — "this too will not do" (此亦不然). He does not unfold here, in this verse, why; he only marks this retreat for now. For to refute it, one must first puncture a flaw: since aggregated form is nothing but atoms, and the atoms do not join, what does the aggregate have with which to join? And if the aggregate too has directional parts, it likewise cannot escape the earlier dilemma. This stroke he saves to deliver formally in Verse 12.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 11 forces the path of "atoms joining" into a dilemma and draws out the opponent's most respectable retreat (the aggregate has joining). But Vasubandhu deliberately holds back for now, marking only "this too will not do" — because the refutation of this retreat must be read together with Verse 12 to be complete: Verse 12 will point out that "the aggregate is not other than the atom," pulling out from the root the footing of "the aggregate can join while the atom cannot," and will further explain that "the atom has no joining — and the reason is not at all that it has no directional parts." In reading Verse 11, hold on to the geometric picture of this dilemma — stick and faces are born, crowd and it shrinks — it is the first, and the most intuitive, gate in the whole refutation of atoms.

One sentence that punctures the retreat

At the end of Verse 11 the Vaibhāṣika master fell back to a defensive line: atoms do not stick to one another; it is the "aggregate-form" (聚色 — the coarse stuff heaped up out of atoms) that does the sticking. Verse 12 comes to puncture this, and it does so with a fact about as simple as facts come — the "aggregate" is not some other thing over and above the atoms; it just is the atoms.

Lay that fact down and the retreat collapses at once: you say "atoms don't stick, the aggregate-form sticks"; but since the aggregate-form just is that heap of atoms, and the atoms do not stick, then who exactly is "the sticker"? — 「極微既無合，聚有合者誰？」 ("Since the atoms do not combine, who is the combiner that makes the aggregate combine?") There is simply no "combiner" to be found. You meant to push the responsibility for sticking off the atoms and onto the aggregate-form; but behind the aggregate-form there are still only atoms, and so there is nowhere for the responsibility to be pushed.

Even the retreat behind the retreat is blocked off

The opponent may want to fall back once more: "All right then — let's just say the aggregate-form doesn't stick either." Vasubandhu says: you may, but with this retreat you have dismantled your own earlier reason. Earlier you said "the reason atoms don't stick is that they have no spatial parts (方分)"; now the aggregate-form plainly does have spatial parts, and yet it too does not stick — so it is plain that "sticking or not" and "having or not having spatial parts" are simply two different matters! 「不由無方分」 ("not because of having no spatial parts"). The "no spatial parts" you originally took as the reason atoms don't stick has now invalidated itself.

Both ways are blocked: say the aggregate-form sticks, and no sticker can be found; say the aggregate-form too does not stick, and this proves that "no spatial parts" is not the reason for not sticking. Whichever road you take, "a single real atom" cannot be established — 「一實極微不成」 ("a single real atom is not established").

Not done yet: a fiercer front is opened

By this point the road of "combining" (合) has been cut off. But Vasubandhu does not let up; instead he sets up an even more fundamental lever. He says: what we have just been discussing is the fault in atoms' "sticking or not"; now let us change to a more basic question — does this atom in fact have "spatial parts" (have directional parts) at all? And he lays down a line: 「若許極微有分無分，俱為大失」 ("if you grant the atom has parts or has no parts, both alike are a grave fault") — say it has spatial parts, wrong; say it has no spatial parts, also wrong. Why? 「所以者何？」 ("Why so?") — with this question he hands the whole weight over to Verse 13.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 12 does two things. First, it thoroughly demolishes the retreat that "the aggregate-form can combine" (the aggregate is not other than the atoms; combining has nothing to do with spatial parts), making good the conclusion that "a single real atom is not established." Second, it pushes the front from "combining" forward to "spatial parts," laying down the new dilemma that "having parts or no parts, both alike are a grave fault." In reading Verse 12, grasp the key that takes least effort — "the aggregate is not other than the atoms" (聚不異微): Yogācāra refutes atomism not by setting up some further abstruse principle, but by biting down hard on the one fact even the opponent cannot deny — "the heap just is the atoms themselves" — so that every step of the opponent's retreat leads him right back to where he started. Verse 13 then seals off the "spatial parts" road as well, and with that the refutation of atoms becomes an ironclad case.

The last pillar: directional parts

Verses 11 and 12 took apart the atom's "combining." Verse 13 comes to dismantle the most fundamental pillar of all — directional parts (方分 digbhāga: whether an atom has "parts in a direction," that is, whether it has faces such as up, down, left, right). The dilemma Vasubandhu sets down is: say it does — wrong; say it does not — also wrong.

If it has directional parts, then it is no longer "one." If an atom has faces in six directions, then it is itself made up of six directional parts assembled together — "six directional parts, each distinct, as its substance" (六方分異為體); it is already "many," so how can it still be called "one indivisible atom"? On this horn, it refutes itself.

One shadow puts the partless atom to the question

So let us say it "has no directional parts." Vasubandhu will not wander into theory with you; he points at the sun —

The sun has just risen, and its light shines upon an atom. The question is: how could the side of this atom that is turned away from the sun have a shadow (a shaded face)? For there to be a shadow, there must be a distinction between a "side facing the light" and a "side away from the light." But you say the atom has no directional parts, no distinction of faces — then it ought to be shone through "whole" by the light, and simply cannot give rise to a shaded side away from the light — "there being no remaining part the light does not reach" (以無餘分光所不及). Yet things plainly do have shadows. One small shadow puts "the partless atom" to the question.

The same move, used once more: mutual obstruction. Why do two things block each other (obstruct each other)? Because one has "this face" and the other has "that face," and facing each other, neither can pass through. But if an atom has no directional parts, no faces, then it has no "face that can block another," so how could atoms obstruct one another? And if they do not obstruct one another, the atoms could pile up into one and the same location — and we slide right back into the old ailment of "a whole heap of atoms being no bigger than a single one" (already refuted in Verse 11).

If it has directional parts it is not one; if it has no directional parts there is neither shadow nor obstruction — both horns are sealed off.

Want to push the shadow onto the "aggregate"? The aggregate is still the atom

The opponent makes one last attempt to wriggle out: well then, the shadow and the obstruction — count them against "aggregate-form" (聚色), not against the atom; will that do? Vasubandhu turns it right back in a single stroke: aggregate-form is not something apart from the atom (the aggregate is not other than the atom) — where would you get an "aggregate distinct from the atom" to cast a shadow and to obstruct? — "the aggregate is not other [than the atom], so there is no second thing" (聚不異無二). Pushing it onto the aggregate is no push at all.

And so, whether you arrange this thing as "atom" or as "aggregate," neither is a real single thing — "neither is a real one" (俱非一實). At this point atomism has utterly fallen apart.

In passing, moving the battlefield to "blue"

Having finished refuting the atom, Vasubandhu turns at once and lays the same measuring-rod against a more immediate object — that patch of blue before your eyes (the real form, such as blue and yellow, confronting eye and the rest). He asks: this patch of blue — is it in the end "one" or "many"? He has both roads dead to rights: say it is "many," and it repeats the manifold faults of the atom; say it is "one," and that too does not hold (how could a single whole patch of blue have a here and a there, a reachable and an unreachable distinction?). Just how it does not hold, he leaves to Verse 14, to be made out with a string of everyday examples — walking, elephants and horses, water-creatures.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 13 is the iron hammer of §III: with a single shadow under the sun and one ordinary case of mutual obstruction, it smashes even the last redoubt, "the partless atom," and seals off along with it the line of retreat of "pushing it onto aggregate-form," making good that "atom or aggregate, neither is a real single thing." Then it does not halt: it swings the cannon's mouth from the abstract "atom" round to the living "blue" before your eyes, laying the track for the everyday verification of Verse 14. Read Verse 13, and hold that picture in mind — the sun shines, and the partless atom can give rise to no shadow: consciousness-only refutes real form not by abstruse talk, but by a shadow you can see every single day.

Drawing in the net: from the atom over to the blue before your eyes

Verses 10–13 took the abstract "atom" apart, piece by piece. At the end of Verse 13, Vasubandhu shifts the question to something far closer to home — that patch of blue before your eyes (the blue-and-the-rest, the real colour-and-form the eye faces): is it "one indivisible solid block," or is it "many"? Verse 14 comes to refute "it is one solid block." And the refutation is utterly down-to-earth: it speaks of no abstruse principle, but lays out four small matters you experience every single day.

Four small matters, each one proving "it is not one block"

One — walking. If the ground beneath your feet were "one solid block with no division within it," then the moment you lift a foot and set it down, you should tread on "the whole expanse" all at once — yet plainly you have to walk across it slowly, step by step (「應無漸次行大地理，若下一足至一切故」, "there should be no walking the ground in sequence, for setting down one foot would reach everything"). That you can walk in sequence proves it is not one solid block.

Two — "arrived" and "not yet arrived" at the same time. At one and the same moment, you have reached this end and not yet reached that end. But if it were "one thing," how could one thing, at one and the same moment, be both "already reached" and "not yet reached"? (「一物一時，理不應有得未得故」, "one thing at one time should by rights have no reached-and-not-reached.") That there is a reaching-here while that-there is not-reached proves it is not one.

Three — elephants and horses with gaps between them. On one and the same patch of ground stand many elephants and horses, with spaces between them. If this ground were "one," then "having it in one place is the same as having all of it," so how could the elephants and the horses still be told apart, this one from that one — and how could a gap (「有間隙事」, "the matter of there being gaps") still be visible between them? That a gap is visible proves it is not one.

Four — the hard-to-see little water-insects. And there are besides the tiniest of water-insects and the like — fine things hard to see — in the same place as the coarse, large thing beside them. If that object were "one," and so should be equal in size, then the coarse thing and the little insect ought to be the same size, equally conspicuous — yet the little insect is, on the contrary, small and hard to see. That coarse and fine are unequal proves once more it is not one.

Four small matters, each one pointing to the very same conclusion: that patch of blue before your eyes is by no means one indivisible solid block.

The deciding stroke: consciousness-only is established right here

Since it is not one, then it must be "many" — divisible layer by layer, down at last to the atom. But the atom? Verses 10–13 already proved it "is not a real thing." And so both ends come up empty: say "one," and the four small matters knock it back; say "many," and you divide down to the atom, and the atom is unreal. Only one conclusion is left: the "faculty" (eye and the rest) and the "object" (colour-and-form and the rest) that would exist as real apart from consciousness cannot be established at all. "By this, the principle that there is consciousness only is well established" (由此善成唯有識義) — the meaning of consciousness-only is, only here, positively set on its feet. The five verses of §III come, at this point, to their full completion.

Leaving a loose end: but what of "I plainly did see it"?

Vasubandhu closes with great craft. He knows the opponent must still have one last word of protest: "I cannot out-argue you on principle — but I do see the external object with my own eyes, right now (我今現證如是境, 'I now realize, by direct perception, an object like this')! Surely this direct perception cannot be faked?" Vasubandhu first points out the rule — 「諸法由量刊定有無，一切量中現量為勝」 ("dharmas are settled as existing or not by means of knowing; among all means of knowing, direct perception carries the most weight") — granting that this challenge is weighty enough; and then he lays down only three words, "this proof does not hold" (此證不成), leaving the head-on refutation to the next section.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 14 is the capstone of §III, and the summation of the whole treatise's refutation of external objects: four everyday small matters knock "blue-and-the-rest is one" back to its true shape, and together with the preceding four verses' refutation of the atom, they pull out, root and all, the foundation of "faculty and object existing as real apart from consciousness," and positively set up "there is consciousness only." But it is at the same time a turning-door of scene-change — its closing line pushes "direct perception" (現量) to the front of the stage. §IV (from Verse 15 on) goes on to answer that line, "but I plainly did see it by direct perception": so-called direct seeing of an external object is in fact like a dream — in a dream too one "directly perceives" things vividly, plain to see, yet on waking knows there was nothing real. Read Verse 14, and remember that with one hand it draws in the net and with the other opens a new round: the abstract atom-theory is refuted with walking and water-insects; the living "I saw it!" is left for the dream to refute.

The argument is lost, but there is still one last trump card

§III took the "substance" of external objects apart, clean and complete; yet the opponent still grips one last trump card — the most intuitive card any ordinary person holds: "Everything you say, I cannot argue against — but right at this instant I am plainly seeing things with my own eyes! Surely this 'direct perception' (現量, seeing-for-oneself in the present moment) cannot be faked?" §IV, beginning from Verse 15, is where Vasubandhu pulls out this card. He delivers two strokes.

First stroke: in a dream too one "sees with one's own eyes"

Vasubandhu says: "the present feeling of seeing is like that in a dream" (現覺如夢等). When you dream, in the dream too you "see" mountains, people, events, vivid and distinct — in that moment your "present feeling of seeing" (現覺, the feeling of "I am right now seeing it") is not the least bit vague, yet in the dream there is no external object whatsoever.

This is enough: since "having a present feeling of seeing" is no guarantee of "having an external object" (the dream is a ready-made counter-example), what entitles your waking "I am now seeing" to turn around and prove that something is really out there? A present feeling of seeing cannot prove an external object — the dream has already demonstrated this for you.

Second stroke: by the time you say "I saw it," the seeing is long past

The second stroke is finer, hinging on a "time-gap." Take apart, in slow motion, the thought "I am right now seeing this colour":

What says "I am now attaining this colour through direct perception" is the discerning judgment of mind-consciousness (意識). But for mind-consciousness to pass this judgment on the experience of the moment just past, it must wait for that moment to go by. And by the "momentary arising-and-ceasing" that you and I both grant: by the very instant mind-consciousness raises the thought "I saw it," the eye-consciousness that was truly seeing one instant before has long since passed away, and the colour-object that was seen has long since ceased too.

So an awkwardness appears: at the moment the judgment "I saw it" holds good, the seeing (the eye-consciousness) and the seen (the object) are in fact both already gone. The "direct perception" you claim requires that "the seeing and the seen are both present in the moment," yet on inspection both ends have already passed. The feeling is still there; the seeing and the object are both gone — "how can one grant that there is direct perception?" (寧許有現量?) What direct perception is there left to speak of?

Even the retreat is sealed off

The opponent will fall back: "Even if it is so in the present moment, surely I must first have undergone this object through direct perception, and only afterward can I recall it; and since I can recall it, plainly there was earlier a real external object that was undergone — so direct perception still holds, and external objects are still real." — "First undergoing, then recalling" as proof of external objects. Vasubandhu here only marks the single line "the reasoning does not hold either" (理亦不成), leaving the head-on breaking of this retreat to Verse 16 (recollection in fact arises from consciousness, not from an external object).

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 15 is the opening stroke of §IV's surgery, breaking specifically the most stubborn commonsense ground — "I saw it plainly with my own eyes." It plants two things that will run through this whole stretch: first, the dream illustration — the present feeling of seeing in a dream, the seeing of things in a dream, is the mirror §IV will use again and again (Verses 16 and 17 dig deeper still: why does waking life not, like waking from a dream, know itself to be false? Because one has not yet "truly awakened"); and second, the retreat of "first undergoing, then recalling," which is exactly what Verse 16 will break head-on. In reading Verse 15, remember Vasubandhu's move — he does not contest "whether or not you saw it"; he only points out that "seeing does not equal something really being out there," and then that "by the time you say you saw it, the seeing is long past."

The opponent's fallback: making "I remember" the proof

Verse 15 broke "I am seeing it right now." The opponent steps back and brings out "memory": the present moment may not count, but I remember it afterwards — and since I remember, there must have been, before, a real external object that I experienced; otherwise, what is there to remember? So "experienced first, recalled later" (先受後憶) ought always to prove the reality of an external object. Verse 16 comes to take this fallback apart.

The source of memory lies entirely within consciousness

Vasubandhu pierces it in one line: "Just as with the cognition that appears as though there were an external object, from this arises memory" (如說似境識，從此生憶念). Recall what was said earlier — eye-consciousness of itself "appears as though an external object were there" (似外境現), even though outside there is no real object. Then the later discriminating mind-consciousness (分別意識), the one that says "I remember just now seeing…," is nothing more than the trace left by that "object-seeming cognition" (似境識) of the previous moment, appearing once again as though it were that object. The whole chain — the earlier cognition seeming to have an object, the later recollection seeming to have that earlier object — is completed from start to finish within consciousness, and needs no external object inserted at all to serve as its source.

So "I remember" can prove only "I previously had an object-seeming cognition"; it cannot prove "I previously had an external object." To prove an external object by appeal to memory is to plug into the wrong source.

The opponent switches tactics: on waking from a dream one knows it for oneself — why, while awake, does one not?

This fallback cut off, the opponent switches to a craftier angle, using the dream to turn the tables: aren't you the one forever using the dream as your illustration? But the dream has a peculiar feature — a person wakes up and knows for themselves that "the dream just now was unreal." Very well: if the waking world too is, like a dream, consciousness transforming with nothing real, why does the waking person not know for themselves that "all of this before me too is unreal"? Since, while awake, you are not aware that what is before you is unreal, on what grounds do you say it is, like the object in a dream, "wholly without real object"?

This question is sharp: it seizes on the asymmetry "the dream can be known-as-unreal by oneself, the waking state cannot," and argues back that the waking object is unlike a dream — that it is real.

Vasubandhu holds it down for now, leaving one line: "this too is no proof"

Vasubandhu does not unfold it on the spot; he first marks just one line — "this too is no proof" (此亦非證) — this too cannot be taken as proof that "the external object is real." For the fact that "while awake one cannot know for oneself that it is unreal" has its own reason precisely: not that the object is real, but that the person has not yet woken up to that point. This reason he leaves for Verse 17 to expound head-on (only when "true awakening" (真覺) is present does one know for oneself that it is unreal; before true awakening, naturally one cannot know it for oneself).

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 16 does two things: first, it severs "proving an external object by memory" — memory arises from the object-seeming cognition, not from an external object; its source is within consciousness. Second, it catches the opponent's tables-turning move "the dream can be known-as-unreal by oneself, the waking state cannot," holds it down with "this too is no proof," and leaves the head-on resolution to Verse 17. In reading Verse 16, keep hold of that key — press the question "where does memory actually come from": you take memory to be a stamp pressed by an external object; in fact it is only an echo that consciousness has left of itself. Here the dream-illustration advances from "present awareness is like a dream" to "the difference between dreaming and waking," and Verse 17 will settle the matter with the hammer-blow "while not yet awake, one cannot know it for oneself."

Catching that blade

At the end of Verse 16 the opponent makes a checkmating move with the dream: on waking from a dream one knows of oneself that what just happened was unreal; if the waking world too is a transformation of consciousness with no real object, why does a waking person never feel that what is before their eyes is unreal? The question looks formidable. In Verse 17 Vasubandhu catches it head-on with just half a verse — "While not yet awake, one cannot know that what is seen in a dream is not there" (未覺不能知，夢所見非有).

The answer is hidden in the very figure of "dream"

Vasubandhu says: think for yourself about the moment of dreaming. While you are in the dream, not yet awake, do you know "this dream is unreal"? You do not. The dreamer believes in the dream without a doubt; only on waking does one look back and know that all of that just now was simply not there.

So the matter is clear: this thing of "not knowing within a dream that it is unreal" is not at all because the dream-objects are real — it is purely because the person has not yet awakened. Carry the same reasoning over to the waking world: the reason you do not feel that what is before your eyes is unreal is not that it is real, but that you are still inside a deeper dream, and have not yet awakened to that point.

A long dream called "false discrimination"

Vasubandhu presses the figure all the way: beings, through the long aeons, "falsely discriminate, and perfume the habit until it is ripe and dulled" (虛妄分別、串習惛熟) — discriminating wrongly again and again, perfuming it into a thick, heavy habit, exactly like being steeped in a long dream from which one does not wake. Within this long dream, "all that is seen is not real," yet one "cannot, not having attained true awakening, know it of oneself" (未得真覺不能自知). So "while awake, not knowing of oneself that it is unreal" is, far from being a counter-proof, exactly in accord with consciousness-only: you were within the dream all along, so of course you do not know it of yourself.

Then what counts as "truly awakening"

This brings out the most precious line of the verse — what is "true awakening" (真覺)? Vasubandhu gives a clear coordinate: it is only when that "non-discriminating cognition" (無分別智) — supramundane and able to counteract false discrimination — arises, that it is called true awakening. That is a fundamental cognition that no longer falls into the discrimination of subject and object, like a dreamer suddenly opening his eyes. And when the "mundane purified cognition" (世間淨智 — the subsequently-attained cognition, 後得智) that arises after it comes to be present, one can then illumine as it truly is that "the objects before one's eyes are not real" — and this knowing is completely equal in meaning to "knowing, after waking from a dream, that the dream was unreal."

In other words: the consciousness-only saying that "objects are not real" is not a verdict pronounced with the lips only, but has a personally-realizable point of awakening — non-discriminating cognition. Until you reach that point of awakening you naturally do not know it of yourself; once you reach it, you naturally do know — as naturally as waking from a dream. With this one answer, the debate over epistemology is quietly led back onto the right road of practice-realization.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 17 is where §IV deepens: it utterly turns "why one does not know of oneself that objects are unreal" away from "the objects are real" and over to "the person has not yet truly awakened," and it marks that point of awakening — supramundane non-discriminating cognition. The dream illustration is here pressed to its limit: from Verse 15's "present perception is like a dream," through Verse 16's "the difference between dream and waking," to this verse's "while not yet awake one does not know of oneself, only on true awakening does one know," the three verses illumine this mirror of the dream to the very bottom. At the verse's close, the opponent shifts the battle-line and sets a scriptural-proof objection — since objects are transformed by one's own consciousness and not by an external object, how can the perfuming of teacher and friend, "drawing near a good or bad friend, hearing true or false teaching," hold (must there not be an external person and teaching)? Vasubandhu replies only "it is not that it cannot hold," and the positive answer is Verse 18's "the two consciousnesses, turning upon each other, mutually enhance." Reading Verse 17, hold onto its plainest and deepest line — you ask why, while awake, it does not feel unreal? Because you have not yet truly awakened.

A very practical challenge

At the close of Verse 17, the opponent raised a very practical question: on your account that everything is the transforming of one's own consciousness, then what becomes of such formative influences as "keeping company with a good spiritual friend and hearing the right teaching," "consorting with bad friends and trusting in wrong views"? The teacher is a person on the outside, the teaching is words on the outside — without these outward persons and words to serve as the object, how can perfuming (薰習) come about at all? This question is not abstruse, but it is very solid: it takes everyday teaching and learning and presses them against consciousness-only.

The key is to tell apart "which kind of condition"

Vasubandhu's reply is only half a verse — "through the force of reciprocal predominance, the two consciousnesses come to mutual determination" (展轉增上力，二識成決定) — but the key is hidden in an often-overlooked distinction: conditions are not of one kind only.

The opponent takes it for granted that for a teacher to influence you, the teacher must be the "objective support" (所緣 — the object you take hold of) of your mind — that is, there must be an external real thing pushed into your mind. Vasubandhu says: it need not be so. The teacher influences you by way of another kind of condition — the "predominant condition" (增上緣 adhipati-pratyaya — a contributing condition that lends force and does not block the way).

Person and person are, in truth, two continuous streams of consciousness. Your stream and my stream are already, all along, "predominant" over one another: the moment a consciousness of a wholesome dharma (or an unwholesome one) stirs in my stream, it can, in a predominant and arousing way, cause the corresponding consciousness in your stream to arise in turn. Good friends and good teachings perfume you toward the good; bad friends and wrong teachings perfume you toward the bad — and this rests entirely on this predominant arousal of consciousness upon consciousness, "each coming to be settled as determined, and not through any external object" (各成決定不由外境).

Teaching is not abolished — it is only seen clearly

What matters is this: consciousness-only has not abolished the teaching and influence of teachers and friends; it has only seen it accurately — teaching has never been a block of external real thing carried into your mind, but a mutual stirring between two consciousnesses. The teacher's virtue and words arouse the seeds already present in your mind; your receiving, in turn, responds to the teacher. Back and forth, the "two consciousnesses [come to] determination." So "everything is nothing but consciousness" not only does not hinder the way of the teacher, it explains all the more truly "why a good teacher can transform a person, and a bad friend can lead one astray" — the influence is real, only it travels the road of predominance from consciousness to consciousness, not the road of external objects.

And another question is planted: why, then, do dream and waking have different fruits?

His answer given, Vasubandhu is, as usual, put in check once more. The opponent says: you keep comparing dreaming to waking — but the good and bad deeds done in a dream and the good and bad deeds done while awake plainly do not bring the same fruits of pleasure and pain later on! Both alike are "consciousness arising, with no external object" — how can the fruits be different? This question is held over to be answered in Verse 19 (the difference being that the dreaming mind is impaired by sleep while the waking mind is not, so the force of the karma differs in strength, and the fruits differ of themselves).

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 18 turns §IV from "refuting" toward the side of "establishing": it not only refutes external objects, but positively accounts for "without external objects, the perfuming of teachers and friends comes about all the same" — by means of the "predominant condition" (增上緣) rather than the "objective-support condition" (所緣緣), through the reciprocal arousal of consciousness upon consciousness. This answer is far-reaching in import: it lets consciousness-only, after deconstructing external objects, still firmly catch hold of human ethical teaching and the transmission of practice, without sliding into an isolated "nothing has to do with anything." The objection at the close — "dream and waking have different fruits" — leads the line of battle on to Verse 19: dream and waking are alike consciousness arising, so why do karmic fruits differ? In reading Verse 18, hold on to that key — tell apart the "predominant condition" (增上緣) and the "objective-support condition" (所緣緣): a teacher can reach you not because he is outside your mind, but because your two streams of consciousness have all along been predominant over each other.

Picking up the question left at the end of Verse 18

At the close of Verse 18 the opponent seizes on a gap: you keep saying "dream and waking alike are consciousness arising, alike without any external object" — yet everyone knows that killing someone in a dream does not send you to hell, while killing someone awake costs you your life in return. Same consciousness-transformation, same absence of an external object — how can the fruit differ so greatly? The challenge is a solid one: it presses consciousness-only with the gravity of karmic requital.

The answer is not in the object, but in "mental force"

Vasubandhu's reply is only half a verse — "the mind is impaired by sleep; dream and waking differ in their fruit." The key word is "impaired" (壞).

The mind in a dream is "impaired" by sleep — its force feeble, blurred and torpid, as though seen through a screen; the waking mind, by contrast, has its force intact, clear and strong. One and the same evil deed, committed by a torpid, weakened dream-mind, and committed by a clear, waking mind — the strength or weakness of the very mental force that does the deed is worlds apart from the start. The fruit of the karma, its ripening (異熟, vipāka), is light or heavy; and the difference arises precisely from this "force of the mind that does the deed" — not from whether there is an external object.

So you see: the difference in fruit can in fact be explained entirely by "mind," with no need at all to bring in an external object. The opponent meant to use "the fruit differs" to prove "the object differs"; Vasubandhu turns the move back, tracing the difference in fruit to mental force — and consciousness-only is not merely untroubled but comes out the cleaner for it: the lightness or heaviness of karmic requital was always to be measured by the mind, not by outward things.

Riding the momentum to force out a harder question: taking life

Having answered the difference in fruit, the opponent at once brings up the sharpest blade of all — taking life. He says: very well, if there is only consciousness and no "real things" such as body and speech, then how is the matter of "a sheep being killed by a butcher" to be established? If the sheep does not die by being really, actually harmed by the butcher, then on what grounds does the butcher bear the offence of "taking life"?

This blade is keen, because it drags consciousness-only out of speculation onto the ethical ground: the deed of killing is real, the offence of killing is real — if your consciousness-only cannot so much as establish "killing," does it not collapse? Vasubandhu does not dodge, but neither does he answer within this verse — he leaves "how the deed of killing is established under consciousness-only" to Verse 20 (the life-faculty is cut off by the "transformation of another's consciousness," 他識轉變), and the weightier point that "mental karma surpasses bodily and verbal karma" to the scriptural proof of Verse 21.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 19 does two things: first, it neatly dissolves the difficulty of the differing fruit of dream and waking by "the strength or weakness of mental force" (the difference in fruit lies in mind, not in object — consciousness-only shows the clearer for it); second, it leads out the hardest ethical problem of the latter part of §IV — taking life. From here on the debate turns from "cognition" toward "karma and ethics": Verse 20 answers "how killing is possible with no external object" (the life-faculty is cut off by the transformation of another's consciousness), and Verse 21 goes further, citing the scriptural proof of the Buddha's questioning of Upāli (鄔波離) to establish that "mental punishment is the great offence; mental force surpasses body and speech." In reading Verse 19, remember that turn — the opponent wanted to use the difference in fruit to prove an external object, but Vasubandhu proves the reverse: it is precisely because all is mind-only that the lightness and heaviness of karmic requital can be measured so exactly.

Taking up the hardest ethical objection

At the close of Verse 19, the opponent lays down his sharpest blade: you say there is only consciousness and no real things such as body and speech — then how is "the butcher killing the sheep" established at all? If the sheep is not really and truly harmed to death, on what grounds does the butcher bear the guilt of killing? This blade goes straight for the vitals — the deed of killing and the guilt of killing are a hard bottom-line of the Dharma; if consciousness-only cannot so much as establish this, the whole system collapses. Vasubandhu meets the challenge head-on in Verse 20.

The essence of killing is "making the life-faculty be cut off"

Vasubandhu first sees through "killing": killing, in the last analysis, is just "making another's life-faculty (jīvitendriya) be cut off." The question then becomes — is the power of consciousness strong enough to make another sentient being's life-faculty be cut off? Vasubandhu says: it is.

He first sets out a few things everyone has heard of, to lay the ground: the "force of the will" of a ghost can make a person suddenly lose their senses, have nightmares, or be possessed; a person possessed of supernormal power, with a single movement of the will, can make others dream of all kinds of scenes. This shows that "the power of one consciousness can really and truly alter another sentient being's body-and-mind" — this is no idle metaphysics but a ready-to-hand fact.

Two cases on record: the will can drive a person into dreams

Vasubandhu then adduces two cases recorded in scripture as proof —

Mahākātyāyana (a disciple of the Buddha), through the "force of his wish," made King Sāraṇa and others dream strange things; the ascetic seer of the wilderness (the araṇya hermitage), through the "force of his angered intent," made King Vemacitrin dream strange things.

The weight of these two lies in this: what stirred the kings' minds and spirits was purely the "intent" (意) of the sage / the seer — not a hand, not a knife. If the force of the will can shake another's body-and-mind from afar to this degree, then killing — "through a transformation in another's consciousness, making another's life-faculty be cut off" — is naturally established too: "because there arises a transformation in another's consciousness, there is the deed of killing."

Then what is "death"?

Finally Vasubandhu, in passing, settles "death" too in consciousness-only terms: what is called death is not some external lump of flesh being destroyed, but the "shared lot of beings" (眾同分 nikāya-sabhāga — the station that sustains the continuity of one lifespan's like kind of life) undergoing the cutting-off of its continuum through an alteration of consciousness. Death, too, is a transformation of consciousness.

So the whole ethical chain joins together seamlessly within consciousness-only: killing is this consciousness's transformation making that one's life-faculty be cut off; death is that one's shared-lot, through an alteration of consciousness, being cut off. The butcher's mind raises killing, and the sheep's life-faculty is thereby cut off — the deed of killing is real, the guilt of killing is real, and throughout, no single "real thing outside the mind" is needed as an intermediary. The opponent meant to use "killing the sheep" to topple consciousness-only; instead Vasubandhu, with "killing is in fact consciousness moving consciousness," catches it the more securely.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 20 steadily catches the hardest ethical objection of §IV: the deed of killing, the guilt of killing, and even "death" can all be truly established within consciousness-only — by way of "a transformation in another's consciousness making the life-faculty be cut off," not by external body and speech. The thread it lays down is "the force of intent (mind) is, after all, this great" — and this point Verse 21 will push to the utmost with a weightier scriptural proof (the Buddha asks Upāli: why are those great forests empty and still? The answer: brought about by the seers' angered intent), formally establishing that "the punishment of intent is the gravest offense, heavier than that of body and speech." Reading Verse 20, hold on to that reversal — killing is not a knife touching flesh; it is one consciousness moving another.

Closing with the Buddha's own words

Verse 20 used "the transformation of another's cognition" to establish "killing is accomplished by consciousness"; in Verse 21 Vasubandhu no longer argues the matter himself, but brings out a passage of question-and-answer from the Buddha's own mouth to make it firm. This verse is the falling of the gavel on the whole ethical debate of §IV, and the weightiest of all — because it is not Vasubandhu's inference, but the Buddha's own statement.

Why the Buddha put that question to Upāli

Vasubandhu reminds us: the Buddha once, in order to establish a principle — that "the penalty of mind (the karma made by mind) is the gravest crime, and graver than the penalty of body and the penalty of speech" — deliberately put a question back to the householder Upāli (鄔波離):

"Have you ever heard for what cause the Daṇḍaka forest, the Mātaṅga forest, and the Kaliṅga forest — these three great forests — all became places empty and still, without a soul?"

Upāli answered: "Gautama (the Buddha's family name)! I have heard that it was on account of the seers' wrath (the wrath of their mind)."

It was precisely this case the Buddha cited to establish "the penalty of mind is gravest." Note the crux here: what turned three great forests into empty stillness, and brought countless sentient beings within them to their deaths, was the seers' "mind" (their wrathful heart) — not the seers' hands, not the seers' mouths.

Blocking off a side-road

Vasubandhu foresees that someone will branch off to rescue the case: "Surely not? In truth it was that spirits and demons, revering the seers, perceived that the seers had stirred up a mind of revulsion, and so killed those sentient beings on the seers' behalf — it was not that the seers' mental wrath alone could cause death."

Vasubandhu drives it back with a single question: if it really were the "bodily act" of spirits and demons that did the killing in their stead, then how could the Buddha still take this case to prove that "the penalty of mind is graver than that of body and speech"? The Buddha raised this example precisely to say that "mind" can, by its own power alone, accomplish a grave crime; if you credit the deaths to the bodily act of spirits and demons, then the example fails to prove the principle the Buddha meant to establish. Yet the Buddha plainly used it to establish "the penalty of mind is gravest" — which shows the Buddha's meaning was just this: it was precisely the seers' wrath (their mind) that made those sentient beings die. This principle is skillfully established.

Since the power of mind can cause death, consciousness-only has no ethical worry

And so the whole of §IV comes fully to ground here: from the "objection of killing a sheep" in Verse 19, to "the transformation of another's cognition severing the life-faculty" in Verse 20, to "the penalty of mind is gravest" stated by the Buddha himself in this verse — layer upon layer it is proven: killing, death, and even the gravest karma are in essence all matters of mind and consciousness, not awaiting any real thing outside the mind. Consciousness-only does not abolish karma and ethics; on the contrary, it explains more deeply "why mind matters more than hand and mouth" — and this is exactly the original intent of the Buddha-dharma's "mind is the root of all dharmas."

An honest turn: and what about "the knowledge of others' minds"?

Vasubandhu's close is utterly forthright — he covers nothing up, but turns back to set a difficulty against his own thesis: if all is consciousness-only, then does "the knowledge of others' minds" (他心智, the sage's wisdom that knows another's mind) actually know another's mind or not? This is a dilemma: say "it does not know," and what sort of "knowing another's mind" is that? Say "it knows," and is there not then "another's mind" serving as the object known, as though there were an object outside the mind — has consciousness-only not been broken? Vasubandhu gives half an answer first — "though it knows another's mind, it does not know it as it really is" (it knows, yes, but not as the thing truly is) — leaving the complete resolution to the next verse.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 21 is the capstone of §IV, and also the treatise's final accounting to ethics after "refuting external objects": with the scriptural proof of the Buddha questioning Upāli and the seers' wrath emptying the forests, it establishes "the penalty of mind is the gravest crime, graver than body and speech," nailing down as an iron case that "consciousness (mind) can cause death," and so the whole knot of the ethics of killing is here skillfully resolved. And that honest question it sets at its end against its own thesis (does the knowledge of others' minds know another's mind?) is the bridge to §V — Verse 22 directly resolves "the knowledge of others' minds knows, yet not as it really is," and Verse 23 then closes the whole treatise with a humble concluding verse. In reading Verse 21, hold on to the weight in that question from the Buddha's own mouth — what emptied the three forests was a single "mind"; mind weighs more than hand and mouth.

〔Note: this verse is the scriptural proof for the Buddha's own establishing of "the penalty of mind is gravest"; it faithfully relays the case of the Buddha questioning Upāli, without making any further judgment upon its ethical import; the establishing of its meaning the Buddha has already settled for himself.〕

The hard problem Vasubandhu sets for himself

At the close of Verse 21, Vasubandhu does not wait for the opponent to make a move; instead he sets a difficulty for consciousness-only with his own hand: Buddhism plainly has "the knowledge of others' minds" (para-citta-jñāna) — a noble one (ārya) can know what is in another's mind. Very well, then: does this "knowing another's mind" count for anything or not?

Both horns look like trouble. Say it does not know — then does it still deserve to be called "the knowledge that knows others' minds"? Say it does know — then has not "another's mind" become an object that this knowledge knows, exactly as though there really were an object outside the mind, and is not consciousness-only thereby broken? Vasubandhu lays this blade against his own throat, and then, unhurried, takes it apart.

The answer: it knows, but it does not know "as it really is"

Vasubandhu's solution turns on a single careful word — "though it knows another's mind, it does so not as it really is." The knowledge of others' minds does indeed know another's mind, but it knows it not as it truly is. So the "knowing" is not false (it does not run against common sense), yet this "knowing" carries a film not yet cleansed away; it is not an illumination of things as they really are. Consciousness-only is therefore unharmed: what the knowledge of others' minds knows is not an "other's mind" that exists really, apart from consciousness, but a mark that bears a false external appearance, presented by one's own consciousness.

A humbling corroboration: you do not even know your own mind as it really is

Most ingenious of all is what Vasubandhu reaches for to prove that "the knowledge of others' minds is not as it really is" — he does not point outward for an example; he turns and points back: "just like the knowledge of one's own mind." You do not know another's mind as it really is — but do you, then, know your own mind as it really is? Just the same: not as it really is.

Why is even self-knowledge not as it really is? Vasubandhu drives it home in a single phrase — "by reason of not-knowing" (ajñāna). A film of root ignorance lies covering it there. The knowledge of others' minds and the knowledge of one's own mind alike are covered over by this same film of not-knowing, and neither can illumine that "ineffable object" (the marklessness of dharmas beyond speech, anabhilāpya) which the "Buddha's pure knowledge" illumines.

Where, exactly, "not as it really is" gets stuck — at two points

Vasubandhu further points out the two concrete components of this film: first, "falsely appearing as though external" — the object known always still carries a false guise of "as though it were out there"; second, "the discrimination into grasped and grasper not yet cut off" — the paired discrimination of "the I that knows" and "the other that is known," the two graspings (grāhya-grāhaka), is not yet cut off. So long as these two are present, knowing cannot reach things as they really are. Only upon becoming a Buddha, the two graspings forever cut off, does knowing truly become knowing as it really is.

So the dilemma is resolved whole: the knowledge of others' minds does know another's mind, and this does not run against consciousness-only (what is known is a semblance bearing the two graspings, not a real object outside the mind); and the very reason it is not as it really is, is that the two graspings are not yet cut off — which is precisely, once more, a confirmation of consciousness-only (the object appears in accord with the discrimination of the two graspings). A difficulty that looked like an attack on consciousness-only is caught by Vasubandhu and turned into yet one more proof of consciousness-only.

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 22 mends the last possible breach in the whole treatise (that the knowledge of others' minds might seem to attest an object outside the mind), and by that very move points out a higher horizon — only the Buddha can have true "knowing as it really is," because only the Buddha has the two graspings forever cut off and a knowledge that illumines the ineffable object. At the treatise's close Vasubandhu thereupon withdraws in self-restraint: "the doctrinal import of consciousness-only is without bound… apart from the Buddha, who could discern it fully and at large?" — this principle is profound and boundless, not something I could exhaust; only the Buddha can fathom it through. This phrase of humble withdrawal is the very lead-in to the concluding verse of Verse 23. As you read Verse 22, remember that backhand stroke — you say a noble one's reading of minds is as though there were an object outside the mind? Yet you do not even read your own mind as it really is; and "not as it really is" is precisely because that pair of "grasper and grasped" in your mind and mine has not yet been set down.

The last line of a treatise

By the time he reaches this point, Vasubandhu has accomplished a great work: he has established the thesis of "the three realms are nothing but consciousness" (三界唯識), answered to the full the four objections (fixity of place and time · common seeing · efficacy), dismantled inch by inch the atomism of external objects, broken the clinging to direct perception — "but I see it with my own eyes" — set in place that it is another's consciousness that the deed of killing destroys and that the mental penalty weighs heaviest, and even closed the last breach by accounting for the "knowledge of others' minds" (他心智). The thesis is fully furnished, the argument complete. And yet what he gives the whole treatise to close on is these four lines —

「我已隨自能，略成唯識義，此中一切種，難思佛所行。」 "I have, within my own power, established the principle of consciousness-only in outline; herein, every kind in its entirety is hard to conceive, the range of a Buddha."

I have only, within the measure of my own power, established the principle of consciousness-only in outline; and as for the perfect discernment of every kind herein, that is the domain that is hard to conceive, hard to discuss — one only a Buddha can range.

This is not mere courtesy; it is an honesty forced out by the verse before it

The reader should see clearly: this humble withdrawal is not a polite phrase at the end of the text, but the necessary outcome of the doctrine of Verse 22.

Verse 22 has just said: whoever has not yet become a Buddha — his "knowing" is not in accord with reality; he does not even know his own mind in accord with reality, because the discrimination of the two graspings, "grasper and grasped," is not yet severed, and he cannot illuminate that ineffable domain which a Buddha's pure cognition illuminates. So turn back and look: on what did Vasubandhu rely to compose this treatise? On precisely the cognition of discursive thought and discrimination (尋思·分別之智). And since discriminative cognition itself stands within the station of "not-in-accord-with-reality," then the principle of consciousness-only it "establishes," however rigorous, can only be the outline of the thesis — never the perfect discernment of "every kind."

So when Vasubandhu says "established in outline" and "referred to the Buddha," it is not a belittling of his own worth, but an honest placing of himself within the station of discriminative cognition: what I can do is to set up, by reasoning, the framework of consciousness-only and to break clean through the false clingings of the outsiders; while that boundless, endless, exhaustive discernment of every kind must rest on the Buddha-cognition that is "without obstruction with respect to every object and to the knowledge of every kind" to be made perfect. To establish, without taking oneself for the final word; to accomplish, while knowing where it all turns home.

The stature befitting one who sets up a thesis

These four lines set a stature for all who would expound doctrine in later ages: to dare to establish a thesis by reasoning, to break clingings without fear, is the courage of the one who argues; to know that what one accomplishes is limited, and to refer the ultimate home to the Buddha, is the clarity of the one who argues. Wanting either, courage turns to recklessness, clarity turns to timidity. Across twenty-two verses Vasubandhu presses on, keen-edged and unrelenting; yet the final verse bows down and refers all home to the Buddha — in the keen edge is seen his shouldering of the True Dharma, in the bowing down his sobriety in not being deluded as to his own station. A treatise that breaks clingings ends with "establishing, yet not clinging" — and that is itself a living demonstration of the very spirit of consciousness-only: "to break clinging without dismissing existence."

Carried forward (承衍)

Verse 23 is the seal that closes the whole treatise. From the §Prologue's "establishing the Mahāyāna [thesis that] the three realms are nothing but consciousness" to this "having established the principle of consciousness-only in outline," the twenty-three verses run through in a single breath: establishing the thesis, answering the objections, refuting atoms, refuting [the appeal to] direct perception, setting in place the karmic ethics [of the deed], resolving the knowledge of others' minds, and at last referring all home to the Buddha-cognition. The end-of-scroll inscription reads 「唯識二十論一卷」 ("Viṃśatikā, one scroll") — the treatise is complete. What it leads on to is the whole unfolding of Yogācāra (法相唯識): the Triṃśikā builds the system head-on in thirty verses, and Dharmapāla's Cheng weishi lun (成唯識論) brings it to its grand completion by gathering the commentaries of the ten great masters; and this treatise, the twenty verses of "breaking the false to disclose the true," forms exactly a pair with the Triṃśikā's "disclosing the true, establishing the body [of the system]." Where Vasubandhu here says humbly "hard to conceive, the range of a Buddha," the scholars of later ages take up just this line and, generation upon generation, draw nearer to that Buddha-domain of "unobstructed knowledge of every kind." Reading Verse 23, hold in mind the bearing of this close — the one who can set up the whole apparatus of consciousness-only says, at the last, "I have only, within my own power, established it in outline."