唯識三十頌 心要連讀

A man with an eye-disease sees a ring of hair drifting in the air; a dreamer sees mountains and rivers, vivid and whole. Each insists: there really is something out there.

Vasubandhu's thirty verses open not with doctrine but by breaking this open-eyed dream — the "I" that leaps from our mouths, the "things" our hands reach for, are only spoken of by a borrowed name; there is no self-standing entity sitting out there. And yet it is not simply nothing: it is an image our own mind-consciousness transforms into, then takes for real.

What matters is the cut that comes next, falling exactly down the middle: do not take the image for something truly outside (this is "adding"), and do not, because it is conventional, erase the very consciousness that transforms it (this is "subtracting").

The transformers are just three. The first great book of Consciousness-Only starts here. Watch how Vasubandhu takes apart, layer by layer, the very thing you have been calling "I" and "the world."

By what does the good and evil you do this life bear fruit only in a life to come — across death, across ten thousand arising-and-ceasing thoughts? Where is that force stored?

Vasubandhu names the three transforming consciousnesses — ripening, deliberating, object-discerning — and at once takes up the deepest, the first: the storehouse consciousness. Its single body bears three names, which are really three posts nothing else can fill: the "store" that holds all, the "ripening" that carries karmic fruit so one life connects to the next, the "all-seeds" that keeps every seed from scattering.

And the seeds are no dead grain in a warehouse: momentary yet continuing, never crossing good with evil, each drawing its own fruit — alive, and flowing.

A consciousness you have never once "seen," yet have never for a moment been without. In the next verse, Vasubandhu will show you how it flows — under the image of a waterfall.

Right now your body is still warm, still feels a pinch, still "yours" — held by what?

Vasubandhu's answer here is quiet: by the eighth consciousness you have never once "caught," appropriating it without pause. Its discerning is too subtle, the body and seeds it grips too subtle, the whole world it cognizes too vast — all three beyond fathoming, and so "unknowable." You have never noticed it; it has never left you.

Five basic operations of mind always travel with it — contact, attention, feeling, perception, volition; and the only feeling it carries is one flat equanimity, neither pain nor pleasure: too subtle even to tell agreeable from disagreeable, it simply flows on, all of one kind.

And it is exactly this "levelness" that lets it bear up everything, beginningless and endless. In the next verse, Vasubandhu shows this "flowing" — under the image of a waterfall.

This root consciousness that bears up birth-and-death — is it permanent, or cut off? Say permanent, and it falls into the non-Buddhist divine self; say cut off, and no one carries the karmic fruit forward. Both are dead ends.

Vasubandhu unties both with a waterfall everyone has seen — from afar, one white strand hanging, unbroken over long time (so, not cut off); up close, not a drop is the same or still (so, not permanent). Wind beats up the waves, the current does not break; it carries fish and grass along, never letting go. It was never a "thing," but a flow — beginningless, endless, neither cut off nor permanent — and this is dependent origination's own true principle.

It is exactly because it is neutral as a blank sheet (unobstructed-neutral) that it can bear up the whole turning of good and evil, pure and defiled.

And when does it end? Reaching arhatship, what is given up is only the name "this is I" — the waterfall still flows, only now no one stands on the bank to call it "me."

You fall asleep; it does not. You are not thinking "I"; it still affirms "I."

The eighth, the ālaya, is far too subtle to "grasp a self" — so who sustains that sense of "I" we carry from beginningless time, needing no reason, born with us? Vasubandhu's answer is the seventh consciousness, manas. Its strangest feature: it arises in dependence on the ālaya, then turns back and fixes the ālaya fast, taking it for the "inner self" — a consciousness that bites back on its own root.

Its operation is "constant examining." Set four kinds of consciousness side by side and its uniqueness leaps out: the eighth is constant but not examining, the sixth examining but not constant, the first five neither; manas alone is both — every instant, silently, deeply weighing one thing: "this is I."

Yet the very same deep, unbroken power of examination, its direction turned, can shift from examining the "mark of self" to examining the "mark of no-self." The "I" it constantly examines — which afflictions clump to form it? In the next verse, Vasubandhu names them.

You understand the teaching, you do good, you sit — so why can you still not get free of birth-and-death?

Vasubandhu points out the binding force: it hides in the "I" manas constantly examines — and that "I" is clenched into one knot by four afflictions, inseparable from beginningless time: self-delusion (confused, not seeing no-self), self-view (forcibly positing an I), self-conceit (relying on the I, lifting up), self-love (clinging to the I). Not-seeing, forcibly-positing, self-elevation, clinging — a chain running down.

They "ever arise, churning within," and the outer six consciousnesses are defiled along with them; by these beings spin in the cycle and cannot escape — hence "afflictions." Why exactly four? Given self-view, other views do not arise; view affirming with finality, doubt has no room; craving only the self, hatred cannot arise — of the ten, only four remain.

The root is not in outer objects but in these four — constant, subtle, latent. And the head of the four is that one stroke of self-delusion, the not-seeing. See clearly, and the four loosen in sequence.

You know the root is manas's self-grasping — so why can you not press it down?

The secret is in its nature: "obstructed-neutral" — genuinely defiled, quietly veiling the path (obstructed), yet neither good nor bad, doing no catchable evil (neutral). It hides in a stratum you cannot detect, quietly defiling. So countering visible evil thoughts does nothing to this invisible neutral defilement; and its self-grasping binds you fast to one realm, life after life.

When, then, is it gone? At arhatship — seeds and active form both severed, permanently; in the cessation attainment and on the supramundane path — only temporarily suppressed. Why? "No contaminated path can suppress it; the noble path of the three vehicles can" — every contaminated effort, worldly absorption included, cannot hold down this constant, subtle defiled mind; only the wisdom that truly realizes no-self can counter it.

Against the deepest self-grasping, what works is not suppression but the arising of the wisdom of no-self. Suppression is only temporary; wisdom alone severs for good. And it too will at last turn into the wisdom that sees all as equal — that is verse 29's work.

The vivid world you see, hear, and think — who sorts it out, moment by moment?

The third transformer splits into six at once: eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousness. Resting on six faculties, cognizing six objects, they share one work — "discerning objects."

The crucial line is the last: the first six "run through the three natures" — they can be good, bad, or neutral. Compare and the weight shows: the eighth is ever neutral, the seventh ever defiled-but-neutral, neither making karma directly; only these six discerning consciousnesses do good and evil alike.

So the actual arena where good and bad karma is made, where future pleasure and pain is drawn — and where good is cultivated and evil severed — is these six consciousnesses that discern in the present and run through good and evil. The leverage to change your destiny lies here. The next verses spell out which mental factors accompany them, and how each arises.

A thought, when it arises, is never bare — several currents move within it at once: contact and reception, aspiration and judgment, wholesome faith-conscience-shame, defiled greed-hatred-delusion.

Here Vasubandhu sorts these "mental factors" that travel with the mind into six classes: omnipresent (in every mind), object-specific (only toward particular objects), wholesome, afflictions, derivative afflictions, indeterminate. Summed: "total fifty-one" — the framework of the later Hundred Dharmas' factors begins here.

He gives each class an identity card: the omnipresent "obtainable in every mind," the object-specific "arise toward particular objects," the wholesome "arise only in a wholesome mind"… crisply. So a chaotic mind is rendered into a countable, discernible, workable list: what to nurture, what to counter, what depends on how you use it.

And these six consciousnesses are "all associated with the three feelings" — clearly pleasured and pained (unlike the seventh and eighth's forever-equanimity); so feeling rises and falls here, and transformation through practice happens here. The mind is not an indivisible blur, but a list one can move.

From here the six classes of factors are named one by one. The first two: omnipresent, object-specific.

The omnipresent (contact·attention·feeling·perception·volition) were covered earlier — running through every mind, present whenever any mind arises; "contact and the rest" suffices.

What matters here are the five object-specific: aspiration, resolve, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. They are the opposite of the omnipresent — "their objects differ," arising only toward a particular object: no aspiration without wanting, no mindfulness without remembering, no concentration with a scattered mind.

And their definitions generate one another: aspiration is the support of effort, mindfulness the support of concentration, concentration the support of wisdom, wisdom severs doubt. Aspiration→effort, mindfulness→concentration, concentration→wisdom — the mental parts engaged by the whole work of discipline-concentration-wisdom and the four foundations of mindfulness sit in this one box.

Precisely because they do not run through every mind and are not already there, they must be "cultivated" — wholesome parts that arise only toward a particular object, called up again and again and formed. This is why practice is cultivation.

We often say "keep a good heart," but what exactly is "the wholesome"? A vague good heart gives no handle for practice.

Vasubandhu breaks "the wholesome" into eleven concrete things, each with its nature, function, and the evil it counters: faith, conscience, shame, non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion, effort, ease, non-negligence, equanimity-of-formations, non-harming. The wholesome is no longer a blurred goodwill but eleven parts to recognize and nurture.

Most crucial are the three wholesome roots — non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion. All good arises from them, the three poisons are countered by them. Note they begin with "non": the root of the wholesome lies not in adding anything, but at the loosening of the three poisons — a measure less greed-hatred, a measure more understanding, and the root appears by that measure.

Of the eleven, seven are real and three nominal: hold the fundamental few — effort and the three roots — and non-negligence, equanimity, non-harming follow. Hold the total and the particular follow. And it begins with faith: like a water-clearing gem in murky water, faith settles the mind clear. The entrance to all good is this one thought of pure faith.

Rage, enmity, envy, stinginess, concealment, vexation… the defiled mind runs past counting. Counter them one by one, and when would it end?

What this verse gives is not a longer list but a structure of roots and branches: six root afflictions (greed·hatred·delusion·conceit·doubt·wrong-view), and the rest, derivatives, derived from them.

Read the definitions and the pattern shows: rage, enmity, vexation, envy are all different faces of "hatred," stinginess a face of "greed," concealment a face of "delusion" — the CWL says again and again "apart from hatred (greed·delusion) there is no separate mark-and-function." The derivatives have no independent substance, only the few roots turning different faces.

Among the six roots, delusion (ignorance) is the total support — greed and hatred each rest on a not-seeing-clearly; and wrong-view's first view, self-view, is that "I." So the point of leverage is clear: do not pull dozens of branches; cut the root and the branches wither — counter hatred and its string loosens, counter greed and stinginess loosens, and the deepest is to break that one stroke of ignorance and the "I." The branches are many, the roots only a few; cutting the root is the one place of economy.

Defilement, too, has a "reach." This verse's ten derivative afflictions are sorted, by the range over which they co-arise, into three rings —

Minor (deceit·flattery·harming·arrogance): arising each on its own, one thought one matter, the narrowest ring. Middling (shamelessness·non-shame): pervading the unwholesome — whenever evil arises, once these two gatekeepers withdraw, evil deeds grow. Major (agitation·torpor·non-faith·indolence): pervading the defiled, the widest and hardest to notice.

Meditators know the two best: the mind is either "agitated" (restless, won't settle — blocking calm) or "sunk" (dull, won't rouse — blocking insight), the two great opponents of calm-and-insight. Their antidotes are the wholesome equanimity-of-formations and ease: to raise one wholesome factor is to dismantle one derivative.

Though sorted into three rings, the root is still one: agitation a portion of greed, torpor a portion of delusion; non-faith "itself muddy, and able to muddy the others, like a filthy thing that fouls itself and fouls others" — the very reverse of faith as a water-clearing gem. Cut the root and branches wither; cultivate the wholesome and defilement recedes. The rings show how far defilement can spread, so you may raise the antidote a step ahead, at agitation and torpor.

Defilement dismantles exactly the faculties practice has to build. This verse finishes the last four derivative afflictions (the major-last four) — they are the reverse of the "object-specific" mindfulness·concentration·discernment: forgetfulness undoes mindfulness (cannot retain or sustain it), distraction undoes concentration (the mind drifts like a monkey, halting only when tethered by mindfulness), non-discernment undoes discernment (misconstrues, hence "many transgressions"); while negligence is the head — indolence plus greed-hatred-delusion, unwilling to sever what should be severed or cultivate what should be cultivated (reversing "non-negligence," not a separate substance). Continuing the last verse's agitation·torpor that block calm·insight, this verse names the dismantlers of mindfulness·concentration·discernment one by one — and the twenty derivatives are now all named.

The verse also adds the last class of mental factors, the four "indeterminate": regret·sleep·investigation·analysis. Their distinctiveness is "wholesome-or-defiled, depending" — not definitely wholesome or defiled, not pervading the mind or the ground, hence indeterminate. Regret (惡作) churns and blocks calm; sleep is dull-cursory and blocks insight; investigation is coarse, analysis fine, both hurrying over the object of inner-speech. "Two, each twofold": regret·sleep one pair, investigation·analysis one pair, each running both defiled and pure.

With this verse, the six classes of mental factors — five universal · five object-specific · eleven wholesome · six root afflictions · twenty derivatives · four indeterminate — all fifty-one are set out, a mental-factor table closing. The reading stays one thing: recognize which mindfulness-concentration-discernment a defiled factor dismantles, and raise the antidote in the present moment.

The one that sees and hears is not "I" — it is a wave upon water.

Having stated the six consciousnesses' nature and mental factors, this verse begins on "when they arise and when they do not." It takes up the first five (eye·ear·nose·tongue·body): they "depend on the root consciousness" — taking the ālaya (ādāna) as their common intimate basis, unable to stand alone — and "arise by conditions," needing attention·faculty·object to gather before they appear, so "together or not together," from one to five, by how many conditions are present.

The CWL closes with a simile: "as water's waves rise by more or fewer conditions." Water is the root consciousness, waves the five consciousnesses — the wave is never apart from the water, rises and subsides with the wind, and how many rise is not fixed. See these three clearly and "a constant seer-and-hearer" cannot stand: you suppose "I" am seeing and hearing, but it is only a wave risen by conditions upon the water — present when the wind comes, gone when it goes.

Verse 4 already said the ālaya is "ever-turning like a torrent" — the torrent beneath (the root consciousness) flows on unbroken, while the waves above (the five consciousnesses) arise and cease by turns. Which is why the next verse says: even the most continuous sixth consciousness has five times when it is wholly cut off.

Even the mind-consciousness is cut off — in five mindless moments, who rejoins the thread?

The first five consciousnesses are like waves, arising seldom; the sixth, mind-consciousness, "arises constantly" — it "can think of itself · turns by inner and outer gates · does not depend on many conditions," present almost without break, and so the easiest to mistake for "the self that is always there." Yet this verse points out: even this most continuous thread has five places where it is wholly cut off — the "five mindless states": birth in the no-thought heaven · the two mindless absorptions (no-thought and cessation) · extreme sleep · extreme swoon. In these five, the first six consciousnesses are all severed. If even the mind-consciousness is cut off, it is not the constant self.

The crux is at the cut: with the six wholly severed, how is the thread rejoined on waking or on emerging from absorption? The CWL answers: "this shows that, the six consciousnesses having been cut off, they later re-arise from their own seeds in the root consciousness" — revived from the seeds within the ālaya. So the five mindless states, far from denying consciousness, are exactly the conclusive proof that the ālaya is indispensable: only that ever-unbroken root consciousness can span the mindless gap and rejoin the severed thread. Verse 4 called it "ever-turning like a torrent" — waves subside, the thread breaks; only the torrent is unbroken.

With this, the third transformer (nature-and-mark · mental factors · arising-condition) is complete, all three transformers set out; and the line "re-arising from the root consciousness's own seeds" has pinned the heel back to the first transformer.

The grasper and the grasped are both transformed by one and the same consciousness.

The first sixteen verses set out the three transformers; this verse establishes "Consciousness-Only-without-object" head-on. "These consciousnesses transform" — each consciousness, as it arises, produces two parts of itself: a grasping "seeing-part" (named "discriminating") and a grasped "image-part" (named "the discriminated"). You suppose "I am seeing an external object," but both ends — grasper and grasped — are within consciousness. Since so, the real self and real dharmas long assumed outside the mind (彼) are "all absent," and "hence all is Consciousness-Only."

The word "only" has its measure: the CWL says "'only' is to exclude a real thing apart from consciousness, not the mental factors etc. not apart from consciousness" — the external object grasped is absent (excluding augmentation), yet the seeing-and-image parts consciousness dependently transforms-into are not to be called absent (excluding diminution); falling to neither side, "far from the two extremes … according with the Middle Way," just as Maitreya's two verses ("neither empty nor non-empty … this then accords with the Middle Way," the Madhyāntavibhāga) declare.

At "whether the two parts have substance," the masters open the deepest fork of a thousand years: Dharmapāla — the two parts are also dependently arisen, not absent, only the grasped real self-and-dharmas absent (four parts); Sthiramati — the two parts are without substance, precisely the wholly-imagined, only the single consciousness-substance (self-witnessing part) real (one part), like a towel folded to resemble a hare, the ears without substance arising on the towel. Here the two masters are only set side by side, with no verdict; the CWL Xuanzang transmitted takes Dharmapāla's four parts as correct, the backbone of this book. Whether one-part or four, both share one line: the external object is fundamentally absent; grasper and grasped are both consciousness's own transforming — this is Consciousness-Only-without-object.

Without an external object, where do thoughts come from? Turned out by consciousness itself.

The last verse established "Consciousness-Only-without-object," and at once a difficulty is raised: "if there is only consciousness and no external conditions, from where do the various discriminations arise?" — with no object outside, from where this mind full of thoughts? This verse answers: from two inner forces. "From the all-seed consciousness" — the root consciousness (ālaya) holds the seeds able to give rise to every result; "transforming so and so" — the seeds, helped by conditions, transform from seed-state to matured-state (the doubled "so" showing the transformed seeds are many). "By the mutual force" — the eight present consciousnesses and their seeing-and-image parts reinforce one another; "the various discriminations arise" (the doubled "various" showing the discriminations are many in kind).

The CWL closes cleanly: "though there is no external condition … the various discriminations still arise; what need of an external condition to give rise to discrimination?" The arising of discrimination is purely by conditions within consciousness (the four conditions are all within), not by an external object.

This reverses common sense's causation: not the external object stirring the thought, but the ceaseless internal cycle of "seed → present-activity → re-perfuming the seed" in the store-consciousness turning out the thought, then transforming-into an object that seems outside. Consciousness-Only-without-object is not a blank mind, but: this whole board of discriminations has its origin — within consciousness, not outside. The next verse answers the second difficulty — how birth-and-death continues.

Without an external object, by what does birth-and-death carry on? Two energies, prior exhausted, later arising.

The last verse answered the first difficulty (how discrimination arises); this answers the heavier second: "even with inner consciousness but no external condition, by what does the birth-and-death of beings continue?" — at death this life's body-and-mind wholly perishes; by what does the next join on? The bridge that crosses this break is also within consciousness — the two energies. "From the karmic energies" — the meritorious·non-meritorious·imperturbable volitional karma perfumes the root consciousness into seed, summoning retribution and fixing the destiny-class (the dominant condition); "the two-grasping energies together" — the seeds perfumed by the grasper-grasped division directly produce the retribution-mind (the causal condition). The two are "together": karma the distant condition fixing direction, the two graspings the intimate condition supplying content, mutually assisting. "The prior retribution exhausted, the remaining retribution arises" — this life's fruit used up, the two-grasping seeds produce the next, like fuel spent yet the fire passed on.

The CWL closes decisively: "by this birth-and-death turns endlessly; what need of an external condition to make it continue? … the round of birth-and-death is never apart from consciousness." The whole mechanism of the round (the karma that fixes direction, the two graspings that supply content, the retribution prior-exhausted-and-later-arising) is within consciousness; the commentator further gathers it into three energies (name-and-speech · self-grasping · existence-member).

Read with the last verse: within one life, how discrimination arises (horizontal); across lives, how birth-and-death continues (vertical) — both faces run on the energies within consciousness, not on external objects. Consciousness-Only-without-object is therefore no annihilationism: the object absent, yet cause-and-effect unbroken, the round unsevered — the cord drawn, end to end, within consciousness.

The layer you suppose exists but utterly does not — that is the wholly-imagined.

Consciousness-Only-without-object established, this verse takes up a finer measure, the "three natures," beginning with the first. "Imagining" is "universal calculating-and-measuring" — the mind everywhere calculating and grasping at its object. The verse's "the various" shows the imagining mind (Dharmapāla's sense: chiefly the sixth, mind-consciousness, and the seventh, manas); "various things" shows the wholly-imagined object (aggregates-bases-elements · self-and-dharmas); the nature the mind so falsely grasps is the "wholly-imagined." And it is "utterly non-existent" — the CWL declares it "utterly non-existent, for sought by reason or scripture it cannot be found."

The crucial thing is its place among the three: the wholly-imagined alone is the pure falsity of "existent-to-feeling, non-existent-to-reason" — vivid to grasping, not a hair of it to reason. It is exactly the "those" verse 17 left (the real self-and-dharmas grasped apart from consciousness). The "thoroughly real self and dharmas" that press hardest in daily life are a layer of false grasping the mind imagines upon things — a thousand pounds to feeling, no place to stand an awl to reason.

Which consciousness is the imagining, the masters once sorted (side by side, no verdict): Sthiramati, all eight consciousnesses and factors; Dharmapāla, "only the sixth and seventh mind-classes." Seeing this layer "utterly non-existent" is not wiping out the world, but recognizing the layer of falsity. The next verse: once falsity is erased, the other-dependent (consciousness-transformation) is not nothing, the perfectly-accomplished (suchness) is reality revealed.

The rope is not a snake, yet neither is it nothing; and the real is right upon this rope.

The last verse judged the wholly-imagined "utterly non-existent," lest one fear emptiness. This verse establishes the latter two natures to catch what should hold. The other-dependent: "born of discrimination-conditions." The CWL says "arising upon conditions, this nature not absent" — the seeing-and-image parts consciousness transforms-into arise by false-discrimination conditions, condition-born and existent, not to be called absent. So the measure of the three natures is clear: the wholly-imagined only absent, the other-dependent not absent. As in seeing a rope falsely as a snake — the snake wholly absent (wholly-imagined), the rope a condition-born real fact (other-dependent); break the snake, do not dismiss the rope.

The perfectly-accomplished: "upon it, ever-apart from the prior nature." It is nowhere else — "upon that very other-dependent, ever-apart from the prior wholly-imagined, the suchness revealed by the two emptinesses as its nature" — right upon this rope of the other-dependent, apart from the grasped snake, the suchness revealed by self- and dharma-emptiness is the perfectly-accomplished. The commentator pins "upon it" and "ever-apart": upon it shows the perfectly-accomplished and the other-dependent "not-identical-not-apart," ever-apart shows the wholly-imagined "eternally non-existent to reason." One not-apart, one ever-apart, and the structure stands: the other-dependent as basis · the wholly-imagined as what-is-departed · the perfectly-accomplished as what-is-revealed.

The masters leave a fork of the same source as verse 17 (side by side, no verdict): do the seeing-and-image parts count as other-dependent or wholly-imagined? Sthiramati judges the two parts "existent-to-feeling, non-existent-to-reason," wholly-imagined; Dharmapāla judges them "born of conditions, hence also other-dependent" — the "one-part／four-part" dispute recurring, the CWL Xuanzang transmitted taking Dharmapāla as correct. The shared line: Consciousness-Only breaks the snake, not the rope, still less the reality always on it. The next verse: the perfectly-accomplished and the other-dependent — one or different?

Suchness and consciousness-transformation, one or different? — the relation of dharma and dharma-nature.

The last verse established the perfectly-accomplished "upon the other-dependent"; this verse closes the set by fixing their relation. "So this and the other-dependent are neither different nor non-different": the perfectly-accomplished (suchness) and the other-dependent (consciousness-transformation), not different, not non-different. The CWL points out the fault on each side: "were they different, suchness would not be its real nature" (if different, suchness is not the other-dependent's real nature) · "were they non-different, this nature would be impermanent" (if one, the perfectly-accomplished would be impermanent like the other-dependent) — neither side will hold.

A ready measure: "like the nature of impermanence and the rest." Impermanence and no-self are the common-marks of conditioned things — not different from conditioned things (not apart), yet not any one particular thing (not non-different). The commentator names it: "neither one nor different, dharma and dharma-nature" — the other-dependent is dharma, the perfectly-accomplished dharma-nature; the dharma-nature not apart from the dharma (not different), not any one dharma (not non-different), the ultimate and conventional in mutual dependence. This "dharma and dharma-nature" is the lodestar of the three-nature relation, source of the "dharma ↔ dharma-nature" pair.

The final line "not without seeing this, that" states the order: first realize the perfectly-accomplished (suchness) by the non-discriminating cognition, and only then can the subsequently-attained cognition discern the other-dependent as "illusory" — suchness unrealized, the other-dependent's illusoriness is not clearly seen. The other-dependent's illusoriness the commentator gives in eight similes: "illusion · mirage · dream · mirror-image · light-shadow · valley-echo · water-moon · conjuration, non-existent-yet-seeming-existent" — arising by conditions (seeming-existent), without own-nature (non-existent).

The three natures complete: the wholly-imagined (pure absence) · the other-dependent (illusory) · the perfectly-accomplished (dharma-nature · suchness). They are neither three independent entities nor three layers of one entity: the wholly-imagined is falsely imposed upon the other-dependent, while the perfectly-accomplished is disclosed when the other-dependent is free of the wholly-imagined. The verses to follow turn to the “three non-natures,” stating why the Buddha further said all dharmas are without own-nature.

Does the Buddha's "all dharmas without own-nature" conflict with the three natures? — the hidden-intent teaching of no-nature.

Having established the three natures (the wholly-imagined absent · the other-dependent and perfectly-accomplished not absent), the CWL at once raises the Buddha's statement, “all dharmas are without own-nature.” This verse answers not by overturning the Buddha's teaching, but by pointing out that his “no-nature” was “established upon the three natures, spoken with hidden intent”; Kuiji's Commentary explicitly connects this three-non-natures framework to the Saṃdhinirmocana's “No-Own-Nature-Mark” chapter 〔T43n1830 0554c03–05〕. “Upon these very three natures the three non-natures are established” — the three non-natures are no fresh start but the negative statement against the three natures: upon the wholly-imagined the mark-less-nature · upon the other-dependent the birth-less-nature · upon the perfectly-accomplished the ultimate-meaning-no-nature. Establishing and negating, one body.

The crux is "hidden intent." The CWL: "saying 'hidden intent' shows non-literal" — a particular aim behind it, not the surface. Its content: the latter two natures (other-dependent, perfectly-accomplished) are "not absent in substance," but the fool superimposes upon them a real self-and-dharma nature (the wholly-imagined), and to remove this grasping the Buddha "speaks of no-nature over both the existent and the non-existent." So the Buddha's no-nature is "not the nature wholly absent" — it empties the wholly-imagined (the layer falsely added) and the grasping at the natural, not dismissing the other-dependent and perfectly-accomplished.

This one word's difference is the watershed against nihilistic emptiness. The commentator admonishes: “those of wisdom should not, relying on it, dismiss all dharmas as wholly without own-nature.” This is the line of the Saṃdhinirmocana's “No-Own-Nature-Mark” chapter: mark-less-nature negates the wholly-imagined; birth-less-nature and ultimate-meaning-no-nature are provisionally established upon the other-dependent and perfectly-accomplished, rather than dismissing those latter two as wholly absent. The next verse states the three non-natures one by one against the three natures.

Three "no's," each different in meaning; only the first is truly absent.

The last verse said the Buddha "with hidden intent" says no-nature, "not the nature wholly absent"; this verse cashes it out, taking the three non-natures apart one by one against the three natures —

• "The first is the mark-less-nature" (upon the wholly-imagined): "its substance-mark utterly non-existent, like a sky-flower" — the wholly-imagined like a flower in the sky, never there. This "no" is truly absent.
• "The next is without a natural nature" (the birth-less-nature · upon the other-dependent): "like an illusion born depending on many conditions, without the falsely-grasped natural nature, provisionally said no-nature, not the nature wholly absent" — the other-dependent like an illusion, condition-born and existent, not "naturally existent"; the "no" is of "the natural nature" alone, provisionally said · not wholly absent.
• "The last, by being apart from the prior grasped self-and-dharma nature" (the ultimate-meaning-no-nature · upon the perfectly-accomplished): "by being apart from the prior wholly-imagined self-and-dharma nature, provisionally said no-nature, not the nature wholly absent" — the perfectly-accomplished suchness's "no" refers to the wholly-imagined departed, not suchness itself absent, provisionally said · not wholly absent.

Three similes on one thread: mark-less-nature → sky-flower (truly absent) · birth-less-nature → illusion (condition-born, provisionally said) · ultimate-meaning-no-nature → empty space (revealed by being departed-from). The CWL closes the last with a figure: "like empty space, though pervading all forms, yet revealed by the no-nature of forms" — suchness like space, revealed at the very place of forms' "no-imagined."

Only the first truly absent, the latter two provisionally said. When the Buddha says "without own-nature," which "no" it is depends on which of the three natures it lands on — the full weight of "hidden intent." The three natures and three non-natures now expounded; the next verse gathers all into "the Consciousness-Only-reality" (the perfectly-accomplished · suchness), the pivot where the treatise turns from mark to nature.

Where does Consciousness-Only finally come to rest? — the perfectly-accomplished, suchness, the Consciousness-Only-reality.

Twenty-four verses state the "characteristic" of Consciousness-Only to the full (the transformers · no-object · the three natures · the three non-natures). This verse closes the set, pointing to the real to abide in — the Consciousness-Only-reality, the pivot where the whole treatise turns from "mark" to "nature."

"This, the ultimate-meaning of dharmas" — "this" is the perfectly-accomplished, the ultimate-meaning of all dharmas; the CWL sets out four ultimate-meanings (worldly · principled · realized · ultimate-of-the-ultimate), the perfectly-accomplished matching the last, the "ultimate-of-the-ultimate · the one-true-dharma-realm," the field of the most excellent path. "Is also suchness" — true ＝ real (not false) · thus ＝ ever-thus (without change) · ever-thus in nature in every state, hence suchness, limpid and not false; the one graph "also" shows the many names: dharma-realm · reality-limit · the perfectly-accomplished, different names of one substance.

Most crucial is the final line "the very Consciousness-Only-reality." The CWL steadies the graph "real" by two pairs of "two kinds": the Consciousness-Only nature has the false (the wholly-imagined) / the real (the perfectly-accomplished) — "real" excludes the false; and the conventional (the other-dependent) / the ultimate-meaning (the perfectly-accomplished) — "real" excludes the conventional. After the double exclusion, only the perfectly-accomplished remains. So the Consciousness-Only-reality is, once the false (wholly-imagined) and conventional (other-dependent) are excluded, that real, ultimate-meaning perfectly-accomplished, suchness. Consciousness-Only comes to rest not on a substantial consciousness, nor in a void, but on the dharma-nature of the other-dependent, revealed by the two emptinesses, ever-thus in nature: suchness.

Mark closes in nature, nature opens into stages: mark is what is clarified · nature where one comes home · stage the means of entering. The next five verses state the "stages of Consciousness-Only" (provisioning · intensified-effort · penetration · cultivation · ultimate), entering this Consciousness-Only-reality through the five stages. The treatise from mark to nature, from nature to stage — this verse is its pivot.

Knowing the goal, still outside the gate — this is the provisioning stage.

The last verse established the Consciousness-Only-reality (the perfectly-accomplished · suchness), the goal to be realized. But to know the "reality" and to personally "abide" in it are two things. From this verse the topic turns to the "stages of Consciousness-Only" — the five stages realizing the Consciousness-Only nature (provisioning · intensified-effort · penetration · cultivation · ultimate). This is the first: the provisioning stage.

"Up until the [intensified-effort] consciousness has not arisen, seeking to abide in the Consciousness-Only nature" — from the arising of the great bodhi-mind to before the intensified-effort discerning cognition, the bodhisattva already "seeks to abide in the Consciousness-Only true ultimate-meaning nature," deeply believing-and-understanding Consciousness-Only. But "the latent tendencies of the two graspings cannot yet be subdued" — the CWL says this stage "though deeply believing-and-understanding the Consciousness-Only sense, cannot yet realize the emptiness of grasper-and-grasped, mostly dwelling in the outer gate of practice," so toward the latent tendencies drawn by the two graspings, it has not yet the power to subdue them.

What cannot be pressed down? The CWL glosses it vividly: "the energy of the two graspings is called the latent tendency — following beings, sleeping-latent in the store-consciousness, increasing by stealth" — the seeds of the knowable and afflictive obstructions, hidden in the depths of the store-consciousness. The provisioning stage has understood but not penetrated, believed but not realized: not from slack effort, but because the work is still in the "outer gate" and the wisdom has not reached "realizing the emptiness of grasper-and-grasped," unable to reach the hidden seed.

So this stage's task is honest: raise the mind · believe-and-understand · gather merit-and-wisdom provisions (hence "the portion conducing to liberation"). Like stocking provisions before a far journey — the road not yet taken, but without this deep faith and accumulation, the later intensified-effort and path-of-seeing have no footing. The next verse: the bodhisattva truly applies effort to subdue the two graspings by the four investigations and four cognitions-of-the-real — the intensified-effort stage.

Having touched the door, the hand still on the frame — this is the intensified-effort stage.

The provisioning stage believed-and-understood but did not subdue. In this verse's intensified-effort stage, the bodhisattva truly applies effort to subdue the two graspings: cultivating the four wholesome roots "warmth·summit·forbearance·highest-worldly-dharma" (collectively the portion conducing to decisive-discernment), by the "four investigations" (investigating name·meaning·own-nature·distinction as provisionally-existent, really absent) and the "four cognitions-of-the-real" (knowing thoroughly that these four are apart from consciousness, and consciousness too non-existent), grinding the grasped and grasper fine.

But the root verse marks its limit: "setting up a slight thing before it, saying this is the Consciousness-Only nature — because of having-something-attained, it does not really abide in Consciousness-Only." The problem is not shallow contemplation but that — even contemplating emptiness, his mind still "sets up a slight thing," grasping "this is the Consciousness-Only nature." So long as he still "sets up," still "attains" (even the subtlest mark of "the Consciousness-Only nature"), there is the opposition of an attaining mind facing an attained object — which is the very grasper-grasped to be broken. The more he wishes to "abide" in the Consciousness-Only nature, the more that "wishing to attain" is a grasper facing a grasped called "the Consciousness-Only nature."

This is the true reason for "not really abiding": not still grasping an external object, but having quietly set up "the Consciousness-Only nature" itself as an attained object. Like touching the door-frame with the hand still pressed on it — grasping the mark and not letting go, one cannot step through. Even at highest-worldly-dharma's "doubly sealing the two emptinesses," so long as that last thread of "setting up a slight thing" remains, one is a hair's breadth short.

The next verse crosses it with one release of the hand: the path of seeing's "the cognition attains wholly nothing" — nothing set up, nothing attained, the grasper-grasped falling away, "abiding in Consciousness-Only," the first realization of suchness. Intensified-effort and the path of seeing differ not in depth of effort but in that last release between "having-something-attained" and "nothing attained." Real abiding was never "attaining" a Consciousness-Only nature; it is not setting up, not attaining, even "the Consciousness-Only nature."

Release the hand, step through in that instant — the path of seeing's "wholly nothing attained" and the first realization of suchness.

The last verse's intensified-effort stage was a hair's breadth short: "setting up a slight thing · by having-something-attained, not really abiding." How is that breadth crossed? Not by "adding" more, contemplating emptiness deeper, but exactly the reverse — by "releasing" into "wholly nothing attained." The hand released, one steps through in that instant. This verse is that release: the path of seeing, the first realization of suchness.

"When, toward its object, the cognition attains wholly nothing" — the non-discriminating cognition grasps nothing, no proliferation-marks; "then one abides in Consciousness-Only, for one is apart from the two-grasping marks" — in that instant one really abides in the Consciousness-Only true ultimate-meaning nature, the grasper-grasped marks all departed. The CWL fixes it precisely: "realizing suchness, cognition and suchness equal-equal, both apart from grasper-grasped marks" — suchness directly realized, the realizing "cognition" and realized "suchness" equal and not-two, no subject-object gap of "I realizing it."

Why must it be "wholly nothing attained"? The commentator pierces it: "the grasper-grasped marks are both discrimination, the proliferation of the having-something-attained mind." So long as there is "something attained," one is in proliferation; only "wholly nothing attained," grasper-and-grasped dissolved, is the path of seeing. From "having-something-attained" to "nothing attained," the turn of a single word is the watershed between intensified-effort and the path of seeing.

This is "the entering-mind of the first ground": verse 25's "Consciousness-Only-reality" was there "established" (steadied in reasoning); at this verse's path of seeing it is "realized" (entered in person). The earlier provisioning and intensified-effort were "tending toward"; this verse's path of seeing is "entering into." But entering is only the first entering — the latent seeds of the two obstructions must still be severed portion by portion in the cultivation stage. The next verse states the path of cultivation: after the path of seeing, cultivating again and again, the transformation-of-basis ultimate. The hand released, one has stepped through the gate; the road within has only just begun.

On the one and same other-dependent, transform the defiled into the pure — the transformation-of-basis, the cultivation-and-realization of the three natures.

The path of seeing first realized suchness (v.28), but only one portion of the two-obstruction seeds was severed. This verse, the cultivation stage (the path of cultivation): cultivating the non-discriminating cognition again and again, severing the remaining obstruction, attaining the "transformation-of-basis."

The verse describes the cognition cultivated: "nothing-attained" (apart from grasper-grasped proliferation) · "inconceivable" (subtle function hard to fathom) · "this is the supramundane cognition" (severing the two-grasping latent tendencies · the mundane root, hence alone "supra"); "because it relinquishes the two coarse-heavinesses" (the two-obstruction seeds ＝ coarse-heaviness, caused to perish forever, "relinquishing") · "it attains the transformation-of-basis."

"Transformation-of-basis" is the three natures cashed wholly into practice. The CWL: "'basis' means the other-dependent … the defiled means the wholly-imagined, the pure means the perfectly-accomplished. 'Transform' means the two parts, the relinquishing and the attaining." Right upon this same base of the other-dependent, relinquish the wholly-imagined (the defiled) · attain the perfectly-accomplished (the pure). Against the three natures (vv.20–22): there "the other-dependent as basis · the wholly-imagined as what-is-departed · the perfectly-accomplished as what-is-revealed" was "seeing clearly"; here "the other-dependent as basis · the wholly-imagined relinquished · the perfectly-accomplished attained" is "transforming-into" — the same structure, seen clearly in principle, transformed-into in fact.

The two fruits: "transforming the afflictive obstruction one attains great nirvāṇa, transforming the knowable obstruction one realizes supreme awakening" — nirvāṇa and bodhi, compassion and wisdom both fulfilled. The transformation-of-basis is not extinguishing the other-dependent and attaining a thing elsewhere, but right at the other-dependent, clearing the weeds (the wholly-imagined) and opening the clear spring (the perfectly-accomplished); hence "transformation-of-basis," not "exchange-of-basis." The mark and nature of the prior verses are here all cashed out in the single graph "transform." The next verse pushes the two fruits to ultimate perfection — the Buddha's undefiled realm, the great-sage dharma-body.

From a single thought of false grasping to the great-sage dharma-body — the ultimate close of the Thirty Verses.

This is the last verse, stating the fifth stage · Buddhahood. The two fruits of the transformation-of-basis transformed out in the last verse (nirvāṇa · bodhi), here perfected to the utmost:

"This is the undefiled realm" — the two fruits of the transformation-of-basis are the ultimate undefiled realm (all defilements forever ended · nature pure and perfectly luminous; "realm" ＝ store-sense [containing boundless merits] / cause-sense [generating the five vehicles' benefits]). "Inconceivable, good, eternal" "blissful" — good (white dharmas · apart from arising-perishing) · eternal (without change) · blissful (without affliction · marks all still), the three virtues of the Buddha-fruit.

The final two lines hold the watershed of the Buddha and the two vehicles: "the blissful liberation-body" the two vehicles too attain — the CWL: "the two vehicles' two fruits forever depart only the bondage of the afflictive obstruction … only named liberation-body"; "the great sage named dharma" the Buddha alone — "the great-awakened World-Honored One, accomplishing the unsurpassed dharma of quiescence, named great sage; this sage's two fruits forever depart both obstructions, also named dharma-body." The dharma-body is "five-dharmas as nature" (the pure dharma-realm ＋ the four-cognition mind-classes ＝ suchness ＋ the four cognitions), with three bodies (self-nature · enjoyment · transformation). One "only," one "also," the depth sharply judged: the two vehicles sever only the afflictive obstruction for the liberation-body, the Buddha severs both and, five-dharmas as nature, attains the dharma-body.

The end of Consciousness-Only rests neither on a "consciousness" nor in a dead void, but on transforming consciousness into cognition, the transformation-of-basis into the dharma-body — the great-sage dharma-body where suchness and the four cognitions interfuse. Head and tail mirror each other: verse 1's "provisional designation of self-and-dharmas" (beings' falsely-grasped self-and-dharmas) → verse 30's "great sage named dharma" (the Buddha's dharma-body). The one graph "dharma," the false dharma and the dharma-body, threads the treatise's mark·nature·stages as one. Vasubandhu's thirty verses, from the ordinary being's single thought to the great-sage dharma-body — a walkable road. The Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only are here complete.