解脫道論 色法差別、令起與聚

How do the four great elements differ from their derived forms? The treatise separates them through one word: dependence. The elements arise together in mutual dependence; derived form arises dependent on them. Derived form supports neither the elements nor other derived form.

Then one simile works at two levels. Three sticks stand only by supporting one another: the four great elements. Their shadows also appear to lean together, but shadows do not support shadows; all their structure comes from the sticks. One image holds two levels—sticks and shadows.

That image determines the work of the passage. To understand a shadow, trace where it comes from and what remains bound with it. Tracing its source is “what brings it forth”; seeing what stays bound is “cluster.”

The first way has six boxes: nine forms come from kamma, two from mind, one from mind at a time, four from time, mind, and food, twelve from four conditions, and two from nothing that brings them forth. Nine plus two plus one plus four plus twelve plus two is thirty—the same thirty forms inventoried in the preceding unit.

The second way has twenty-seven boxes: nine clusters from kamma, nine from mind, six from time, and three from food.

One rule is indispensable: the number after a name is its content, not its position. Eye-ten is not the tenth item; it contains ten inseparable qualities. Life-faculty-nine contains nine; pure-eight contains eight. Read them as ordinals and the whole passage dissolves.

Only one of the nine kamma-born clusters is explained in detail: eye-ten. When one eye-ten ages it gives rise to a second, and when the second ages it gives rise to a third. The treatise then says that the first is breaking, the second aging, and the third arising, and all three together make one moment. They are not three successive moments but three levels within one.

The seam cannot be seen because a moment is too light and swift for worldly knowledge. In place of a microscope, the treatise gives two images: river flow and lamp flame. Continuity is visible; its joints are not.

One reading must remain unsettled. The base names “pure-verbal-intimation-seven,” while all four witnesses read “ten,” matching the neighboring nine, ten, and eleven. Correcting it would erase the fact that two readings exist. The body therefore keeps seven and the apparatus keeps ten beside it.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Differences among Forms, Their Arising, and Clusters · Doorway · Summer 2026

The Difference between the Four Great Elements and Derived Form

Question: How do the four great elements differ from form derived from them?

Answer: the four great elements arise together in mutual dependence. Derived form arises dependent on the four great elements. Derived form is neither a support for the great elements nor a support for other derived form.

Just as three sticks can stand by leaning upon one another, so the four great elements should be understood. Just as the shadows of three sticks lean together, so derived form should be understood. This is called the difference.

Thirty Forms Understood in Five Ways

With regard to these thirty forms, the meditator can know what distinguishes them in five ways: through what brings them forth, through their clusters, through birth, through their varieties, and through their unity.

The following discussion first answers “what brings them forth” and then “clusters.” The other three follow later.

What Brings Them Forth: Six Groups

Question: How are they understood through what brings them forth?

Answer:

Nine forms are brought forth by kamma as condition: the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body bases; the female faculty, male faculty, life faculty, and domain form.

Two forms are brought forth by mind as condition: bodily and verbal intimation.

One form is brought forth by mind at a time: the sound base.

Four forms are brought forth by time, mind, and food as conditions: lightness, softness, adaptability, and sleep form.

Twelve forms are brought forth by four conditions: visible form, odor, taste, space-element form, cluster form, continuity, and the compressed string “arising-form-morsel-food-four-elements.”

Two forms have nothing that brings them forth: aging and impermanence of form.

Further, arising conditions aging, and aging conditions impermanence. In this way, what distinguishes form through its arising can be known.

The six announced numbers add to thirty, agreeing with the preceding passage. The fifth group announces twelve, but punctuation yields only seven expressions. Its final string must contain arising of form, morsel food, and four elements—six items—to reach twelve. The received string is retained without editorial repunctuation.

Clusters: Four Classes and Twenty-Seven Clusters

Question: How are forms understood through clusters?

Answer: nine clusters are brought forth by kamma, nine by mind, six by time, and three by food.

Nine Clusters Brought Forth by Kamma

Question: What are the nine clusters brought forth by kamma?

Answer: the eye-ten, ear-ten, nose-ten, tongue-ten, body-ten, female-faculty-ten, male-faculty-ten, domain-ten, and life-faculty-nine.

Detailed Explanation of the Eye-Ten

Question: What is the eye-ten?

Answer: eye-purity has the four elements as its domain. Again, dependent on the four elements, visible form, odor, taste, touch, the life faculty, and eye-purity: these ten qualities arise together and are inseparable. This is called a cluster—the eye-ten.

Its arising is birth, its ripening is aging, its breaking is impermanence, and its differentiation is the space element. These four qualities arise together with that cluster.

When this eye-ten reaches aging, a second eye-ten arises. These two tenfold clusters are called a cluster; their following one another is called continuity. These six qualities arise with them.

Again, when the second eye-ten reaches aging, a third eye-ten arises. The second and third eye-tens are called a cluster; only that quality follows, and this is called continuity.

The first ten breaks apart, the second ten ages, and the third ten arises: together they make one moment.

The interval between eye-tens arising in this way cannot be known. Because a moment is light and swift, it does not appear to worldly knowledge.

The meditator sees the continuity of the eye like the flow of a river or the continuity of a lamp flame. This is called the eye-ten.

In the same way, the ear-ten, nose-ten, tongue-ten, body-ten, female-faculty-ten, male-faculty-ten, and life-faculty-nine may be understood extensively.

Nine Clusters Brought Forth by Mind

Question: What are the nine clusters brought forth by mind?

Answer: “pure-eight meaning,” pure-bodily-intimation-nine, pure-verbal-intimation-seven, pure-lightness-nine, light-bodily-intimation-ten, light-verbal-intimation-eleven, pure-eye-nine, eye-bodily-intimation-ten, and eye-verbal-intimation-eleven.

The first item here is literally “pure-eight meaning.” The corresponding first item under time and food below is simply “pure-eight.” The word “meaning” is not further explained and is retained.

Detailed Explanation of the Pure-Eight

Question: What is the pure-eight brought forth by mind?

Answer: the four elements, the dependent element, visible form, odor, taste, and touch—these eight qualities arise together and are inseparable; “those ten” are named the pure-eight.

Its arising is birth, ripening is aging, breaking is impermanence, and differentiation is the space element. These four qualities arise following it.

When that pure-eight breaks, it arises together with a second mind. With the second pure-eight, the first pure form breaks and the second arises within one moment. This is not successively a cluster, because it is clustered with three arisings.

In the same way, the pure-lightness-nine and pure-eye-nine, and the six intimation clusters, are neither the first breaking nor the second arising and do not have one moment.

Why? One mind does not bring forth two intimations. The rest is as stated at first.

Six Clusters Brought Forth by Time

Question: What are the six clusters brought forth by time?

Answer: pure-eight, pure-sound-nine, pure-lightness-nine, light-sound-ten, pure-eye-nine, and eye-sound-ten. There are two external clusters: pure-eight and sound-nine.

Three Clusters Brought Forth by Food

Question: What are the three clusters brought forth by food?

Answer: pure-eight, pure-lightness-nine, and pure-eye-nine.

The continuity and meditation subject of clusters brought forth by time and food are to be known by resemblance; the rest is as first explained.

The “life-nine-heavenly cluster” is formed in the sense realm and at the site of kamma. Eight clusters live by longevity.

The nose, tongue, body, female and male faculties, the three beginning with lightness, and sleep have no “life-nine-heavenly cluster” in the form realm.

In nonperception and the Brahmā realm, everything enters the body, and by this it lives.

Thus forms are understood through clusters.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Differences among Forms, Their Arising, and Clusters · Vernacular · Summer 2026

The preceding unit completed an inventory of thirty forms. This unit asks how the four great elements differ from their derived forms, then introduces five ways of reading that inventory and immediately applies the first two.

The key observation is that nearly every cluster-name carries a number, and that number is not an ordinal. It is the number of qualities contained in the cluster.

Eye-ten, ear-ten, life-faculty-nine, pure-eight, pure-bodily-intimation-nine, pure-verbal-intimation-seven, and light-verbal-intimation-eleven are not tenth, ninth, or eighth items. Eye-ten is so named because “these ten qualities arise together and are inseparable”; life-faculty-nine has nine qualities; pure-eight has eight. The final number is content, not position.

Read this way, the structure becomes clear. The passage is an account book: a name stands on the left and a number on the right. Its work is to pack the same thirty forms into boxes again and again, reporting the contents each time.

Three Sticks and Their Shadows: A Diagram of the Passage

The opening answer says, “the four great elements arise together dependent on the four great elements; derived form arises dependent on the four great elements” 〔T32 446b01–02〕. The elements mutually support one another; derived form depends on them, but the relation does not reverse. The difference lies in the direction of one word: dependence.

The treatise then uses one image in two layers: “as three sticks can stand leaning together, so the four great elements should be understood” 〔T32 446b03〕; “as the shadows of three sticks lean together, so derived form should be understood; this is called the difference” 〔T32 446b04–05〕.

Three sticks stand only by supporting one another: the four elements. Their shadows also appear to lean together, but a shadow supports neither another shadow nor the sticks; its entire structure comes from the sticks. One image contains two levels—stick and shadow—and all the shadow’s structure is given by the sticks. “Three sticks” occurs only twice in the treatise, once for each level here.

This image assigns the work that follows. If all the shadows derive from the sticks, one must ask where each comes from and which others remain bound with it. Tracing its source is “what brings it forth”; seeing what stays bound is “cluster.”

Five Ways and the First Two

“With regard to these thirty forms, the meditator can know what distinguishes them in five ways” 〔T32 446b05〕. The thirty carry forward the previous unit’s total. The five ways are “through what brings them forth, through clusters, through birth, through varieties, and through unity” 〔T32 446b06〕. This unit applies only the first two.

What Brings Them Forth: Six Boxes Holding Thirty

The first way distributes form by its conditions. Six groups follow in the same syntax.

Nine forms are brought forth by kamma—the five internal bases, two sex faculties, life faculty, and domain form 〔T32 446b07〕. Two are brought forth by mind: “bodily and verbal intimation” 〔T32 446b08–09〕. One is brought forth by mind at a time: “the sound base” 〔T32 446b09–10〕. Four are brought forth by time, mind, and food: lightness, softness, adaptability, and sleep 〔T32 446b10〕. Twelve are brought forth by four conditions 〔T32 446b11〕. Two have nothing that brings them forth: “aging and impermanence of form” 〔T32 446b13–14〕.

Nine plus two plus one plus four plus twelve plus two is exactly thirty. Six boxes contain the whole inventory, with nothing left over.

One sentence is added: “Further, arising conditions aging, and aging conditions impermanence” 〔T32 446b14〕. Although aging and impermanence were said to have nothing that brings them forth, the text separately connects them through a succession of conditions, outside the sixfold distribution.

The Previous Unit’s Reading Practice Is Needed at Once

The fifth group announces twelve, but punctuation divides it into only seven expressions. Its final string is “arising-form-morsel-food-four-elements” 〔T32 446b12–13〕.

This is the same kind of compression seen one unit earlier. There “impermanence-bolus-food-domain form” concealed three items; here six characters conceal six: arising of form, morsel food, and the four elements. Seven minus one plus six equals twelve.

The preceding unit taught us to count the individual explanations before the heading and to record a discrepancy without silently repunctuating the source. Its first application is already here. The received string remains unchanged, while the fact that all six group totals add to thirty supplies evidence for the twelve-item reading.

Clusters: Twenty-Seven Boxes

The second way asks which forms arise bound together. “Nine clusters are brought forth by kamma, nine by mind, six by time, and three by food” 〔T32 446b15–16〕. Nine plus nine plus six plus three gives twenty-seven.

The nine kamma-born clusters are “eye-ten, ear-ten, nose-ten, tongue-ten, body-ten, female-faculty-ten, male-faculty-ten, domain-ten, and life-faculty-nine” 〔T32 446b17–18〕. This list proves that the suffix is not an ordinal: eight items carry “ten,” while the ninth carries “nine.” The suffix counts qualities.

One Moment inside the Eye-Ten

Only the eye-ten receives a detailed explanation; the rest are to be understood extensively from it.

First come the ten qualities: “these ten qualities arise together and are inseparable; this is called a cluster” 〔T32 446b20–21〕. Their names appear in “dependent on the four elements, visible form, odor, taste, touch, life faculty, and eye-purity” 〔T32 446b19–20〕. Four more qualities—arising, aging, impermanence, and space—arise together with the cluster 〔T32 446b22〕.

The text then counts a moment. When one eye-ten reaches aging it gives rise to a second; when the second reaches aging it gives rise to a third. “The first ten breaks apart, the second ten ages, and the third ten arises; together they make one moment” 〔T32 446b27–28〕.

Three eye-tens—one breaking, one aging, one arising—jointly constitute one moment. They are not three moments arranged in sequence but three levels within one moment.

The treatise then says plainly, “the interval cannot be known; because the moment is light and swift, it does not appear to worldly knowledge” 〔T32 446b28–29〕. The seam cannot be seen. “A moment is light and swift” occurs only here in the treatise.

What is offered in place of a visible seam? Continuity: “one sees the continuity of the eye like the flow of a river or the continuity of a lamp flame” 〔T32 446b29–446c01〕. What is seen is a flow, not its joints. The treatise offers no microscope for the seam, but two similes for continuity. “River flow” occurs only here; “lamp flame” occurs four times, first here and three times in the final chapter.

Pause: May the “Seven” Be Corrected?

The nine mind-born clusters include pure-eight, pure-bodily-intimation-nine, pure-verbal-intimation-seven, pure-lightness-nine, light-bodily-intimation-ten, light-verbal-intimation-eleven, pure-eye-nine, eye-bodily-intimation-ten, and eye-verbal-intimation-eleven.

Pause at the third: “pure-verbal-intimation-seven” 〔T32 446c04〕.

The neighboring suffixes are nine, ten, and eleven. A critical note records that all four Song, Yuan, Ming, and Palace witnesses read “ten” instead of “seven.”

May the edition therefore change it to ten?

It may not. Two facts are verifiable: the base has seven and all four witnesses have ten. The treatise does not say which came first, and the same name does not recur for comparison. Changing it would turn two coexisting readings into one exclusive decision and erase the evidence of disagreement. The body therefore follows the base “seven,” while the witness reading is recorded without adjudication.

The same restraint governs “those ten are named the pure-eight” 〔T32 446c07〕. The immediately preceding sentence says, “these eight qualities arise together and are inseparable” 〔T32 446c06–07〕, yet no note explains “those ten.” It is preserved. The first mind-born item is “pure-eight meaning” 〔T32 446c03〕, while the time- and food-born lists say simply “pure-eight” 〔T32 446c15·446c17〕. The extra word “meaning” is not explained and is not deleted.

The Moment of the Pure-Eight Is Not the Moment of the Eye-Ten

The pure-eight should be read beside the eye-ten. Four qualities “arise following it” 〔T32 446c09〕; the eye-ten passage says they “arise together with the cluster” 〔T32 446b22〕. The difference in wording is retained.

Its account of a moment also changes. When a pure-eight breaks it arises with a second mind; when the second pure-eight arises, the first has broken. The pure-lightness-nine, pure-eye-nine, and six intimation clusters are “not the first breaking, not the second arising, and have no one moment.” The passage then inserts its only self-posed question: “Why? One mind does not bring forth two intimations” 〔T32 446c13–14〕.

The kamma-born eye-ten has three simultaneous levels; the mind-born pure-eight does not. The text marks the difference and goes no further.

Closing: Time, Food, and the Life-Nine-Heavenly Cluster

The six time-born clusters are “pure-eight, pure-sound-nine, pure-lightness-nine, light-sound-ten, pure-eye-nine, and eye-sound-ten” 〔T32 446c15–16〕, with two external clusters added. The three food-born clusters are pure-eight, pure-lightness-nine, and pure-eye-nine.

The close turns to realms: “the life-nine-heavenly cluster is formed in the sense realm and at the site of kamma” 〔T32 446c19–20〕; eight clusters live by longevity; the nose, tongue, body, sex faculties, the three beginning with lightness, and sleep have no such cluster in the form realm; “in nonperception and the Brahmā realm, everything enters the body, and by this it lives” 〔T32 446c21–22〕.

“Life-nine-heavenly cluster” occurs twice, and the character translated “heavenly” has different critical evidence at the two points: only the Palace witness reads “none” at the first, while all four witnesses omit it at the second. Both base readings and both sets of evidence are retained.

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Carry away three things. One observation: a number suffixed to a cluster-name counts its qualities, not its ordinal position. One reading practice: where an announced total and the punctuated list disagree, count the realized items first; the twelve-form group contains a compressed six-item string, and the six group totals independently add to thirty. One place to pause: the base’s “pure-verbal-intimation-seven” is “ten” in all four witnesses. Replacing it would erase a genuine two-reading state, so both remain visible.

Remember two images as well. Three sticks and their shadows divide elements from derived form: all the shadow’s structure comes from the sticks. In the eye-ten, one moment contains a first ten breaking, a second aging, and a third arising; because the seam cannot appear to worldly knowledge, the treatise speaks instead of river flow and lamp flame.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · Differences among Forms, Their Arising, and Clusters · Exposition · Summer 2026