清淨道論 義疏通講 · 冊19Visuddhimagga · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 19

The Second Question after Seeing Name-and-Form: “Where Does This Name-and-Form Come From?”—The Answer Is Neither a Creator nor an Absence of Causes, but “Conditions”; at the Moment Conditions Are Seen, Sixteen Doubts about “I” Fall Away Together

The Big Picture — Purification by Overcoming Doubt: Clearing Doubts about a “First Cause” and about Creation by Self or Other in a Single Stroke

Purification of view dismantled the “person,” leaving the two heaps of name and form. Purification by overcoming doubt asks: who produced these two heaps? The Commentator’s answer has one general principle and many doors. The general principle (§1): name-and-form is not causeless (otherwise all beings would be the same everywhere and at every time), nor is it created by a sovereign god or the like (no sovereign god can be found apart from name-and-form)—therefore it must have causes and conditions. The doors differ according to the person: one first apprehends the form-body’s four causes and one condition (ignorance, craving, and clinging as mother; kamma as father; nutriment as wet nurse), and then the conditions of the name-body (§2); another proceeds by common and uncommon conditions or by dependent origination in reverse and forward order (§4); another proceeds by the round of kamma and the round of ripening and the three pentads in the twofold cause-and-effect pattern across three times (§5), thereby opening the three tables of twelve kinds of kamma (§6). At the end, the Commentator uses ten stanzas of the Ancients to say, “Kamma has no agent, and ripening has no experiencer” (§7); uses four similes to say, “Nothing transfers, yet the fruit is not void”; gives this knowledge three alternative names—knowledge of the stability of phenomena, knowledge as it really is, and right view—and says that one who gains this knowledge is called a minor stream-enterer (§8). Whichever door one takes, the landing point is the same sentence: the sixteen doubts concerning the three times are abandoned (§3). 〔Observation〕 The measure of subtraction here cuts away a “first cause”: there is neither a someone who created me nor an “I” that sprang from nothing—there are conditions. After this stroke, the whole family of questions “Who was I in the past? Where will I go in the future?” is not answered but seen through. The “I” presupposed by the questions was already dismantled in the preceding chapter; this chapter dismantles its “provenance” as well.

§01 Establishing Purification by Overcoming Doubt—Refuting Causelessness and Causation by a Sovereign Deity and the Rest → Vernacular §1

The knowledge that stands after apprehending the conditions of this same name-and-form and overcoming doubt concerning the three times is called purification by overcoming doubt. One who wishes to accomplish it searches for the causes and conditions of name-and-form like a skilled physician who sees a disease and seeks its origin, or like a compassionate person who sees a small child lying on its back in the street and thinks of the child’s parents. He first considers: name-and-form is not causeless (otherwise all beings would become identical everywhere and at every time), nor is it caused by a sovereign deity and the rest (no such sovereign deity exists apart from name-and-form; if the sovereign deity and the rest are themselves name-and-form, then their name-and-form would in turn be causeless)—therefore it must have causes and conditions; what are they? (vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 The two similes are gentle: a physician seeks the cause of a disease, and a passerby seeks the parents of an abandoned infant—overcoming doubt is not doubting; it is caring. Asking “where did this come from?” serves treatment, not debate. The two refutations are also crisp: causelessness collides with the question “Why is everything not the same?” and the creator collides with “What is the creator itself?” If it is not name-and-form it cannot be found; if it is name-and-form it too must have a cause. 〔Observation〕 Notice that the Commentator defines this knowledge at the outset as “standing after overcoming doubt concerning the three times.” To stand is to find one’s footing. Overcoming doubt does not mean eliminating every question; it means standing where a question no longer shakes you.

§02 The Form-Body’s Four Causes and One Condition, and the Conditions of the Name-Body—Three Similes of Mother, Father, and Wet Nurse → Vernacular §2

First the causes and conditions of the form-body are apprehended. This body is not born among lotuses, gems, pearls, and necklaces, but between the receptacles for undigested and digested food, behind the stomach membrane and before the spine, surrounded by intestines and mesentery, in a foul-smelling, repulsive, extremely confined place, like a worm born in rotten fish, rotten curds, a cesspit, or sewage. For this body, the four phenomena ignorance, craving, clinging, and kamma are causes because they produce it, and nutriment is a condition because it sustains it—the five are its causes and condition. The three beginning with ignorance are a decisive support like a mother for an infant, kamma produces like a father producing a son, and nutriment sustains like a wet nurse. Next the conditions of the name-body are apprehended by the method “Dependent on the eye and visible forms, eye-consciousness arises.” Seeing name-and-form occurring through conditions, one observes: it is so now, it was so in the past, and it will be so in the future (vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 The text first writes “where is the body born?” and then “by whom is the body born?” The description of rotten fish and a cesspit is not there to disgust; it first removes the assumption “I am precious and unique,” making it possible to say calmly: the body has four causes and one condition—mother, father, and wet nurse. Ignorance, craving, and clinging are the mother (decisive support—without them one would not come here); kamma is the father (producer—it determines what one is produced as); nutriment is the wet nurse (sustainer—it keeps one alive). 〔Observation〕 “It is so now, it was so in the past, and it will be so in the future” is the engine of the entire unit. From the conditions of this single body before one’s eyes, it extends to the three times; the sixteen doubts are abandoned in that extension.

§03 Sixteen Doubts Concerning the Three Times → Vernacular §3

As one observes in this way, the five doubts about the past end (whether I existed in the past, what and how I was, and from what I became what), the five about the future end (whether I will exist in the future, what and how I will be, and from what I will become what), and the six about the present (whether I exist, what and how I am, and from where this being came and where it will go) are all abandoned (vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 Copy out the sixteen doubts and look at them: each starts with “I.” Abandoning doubt does not supply sixteen answers; it sees the single mistaken subject shared by all sixteen questions. The preceding chapter dismantled the subject, and this one dismantles the subject’s provenance, so the question can no longer even be asked. 〔Observation〕 The six present doubts contain one more item than each set concerning the past and future—“Where did this being come from, and where will it go?” This is precisely the question that sounds most philosophical. The Commentator puts it in the same cell as “What was I?” and gives it no special treatment.

§04 Three Doors to Conditions—Common and Uncommon Conditions, Dependent Origination in Reverse Order, and Dependent Origination in Forward Order → Vernacular §4

Another sees two kinds of condition for name (common: the six doors and six objects, through which every kind of name occurs; uncommon: proper attention and hearing the true Dhamma for the wholesome, their opposites for the unwholesome, kamma and the rest for the resultant, and the life-continuum and the rest for the functional) and four conditions for form (past kamma conditions kamma-originated form, presently arising mind conditions mind-originated form, and temperature and nutriment at the moment of presence condition the form originated by each), and abandons doubt by observing that the three times alike occur through conditions. Another sees the aging and dissolution of formations and traces backward: aging-and-death is present when birth is present; birth when becoming is present; becoming when clinging is present; clinging when craving is present; craving when feeling is present; feeling when contact is present; contact when the six bases are present; the six bases when name-and-form is present; name-and-form when consciousness is present; consciousness when formations are present; and formations when ignorance is present—he apprehends conditions through dependent origination in reverse order and abandons doubt. Another apprehends conditions through dependent origination in forward order, “With ignorance as condition, formations,” and abandons doubt (vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 The three doors have different degrees of fineness. The common-and-uncommon door dissects “where did this present mind come from?” Reverse order feels backward from the aging-and-death before one’s eyes; forward order walks once through the chain taught in Chapter Seventeen. Passing through any one door abandons doubt—the Commentator does not require passage through all three. 〔Observation〕 Reverse order begins by “seeing the aging and dissolution of formations.” It does not begin with ignorance in a book; it begins with what is visibly aging at hand. This is the difference between contemplation and doctrine: doctrine explains from the beginning, while contemplation feels backward from what is at hand.

§05 The Door of the Round of Kamma and the Round of Ripening—Three Pentads in a Twofold Cause-and-Effect Pattern Across Three Times → Vernacular §5

Another proceeds by the three pentads: the five phenomena in past kamma-becoming—delusion (ignorance), accumulation (formations), longing (craving), approach (clinging), and volition (becoming)—condition rebirth-linking here; the five in present rebirth-becoming—rebirth-linking (consciousness), descent into the womb (name-and-form), sensitive materiality (bases), what is touched (contact), and what is felt (feeling)—have past kamma as their condition; and the five here from delusion through volition after the bases have matured condition future rebirth-linking. Thus he apprehends the conditions of name-and-form through the round of kamma and the round of ripening (vernacular §5). 〔Reading〕 The twelve links are folded into three groups of “five, five, five”: five past causes, five present fruits, and five present causes pointing toward future fruits. The round of kamma is the two groups of “five causes,” and the round of ripening is the group of “five fruits.” The two wheels mesh and turn: this is the mechanical diagram of saṃsāra. 〔Observation〕 “Longing is craving; approach is clinging.” With the two words “longing” and “approach,” the Commentator gives craving and clinging the feel of actions: first one wants, then one reaches out to take. Here the twelve links are not a list of nouns but a sequence of actions.

§06 Three Tables of Twelve Kinds of Kamma—By Time of Ripening, Strength, and Function → Vernacular §6

Fourfold kamma by time of ripening: the first impulsion-volition in a seven-mind impulsion process is to be experienced in this very life (it gives fruit only in this individuality; if it cannot, it becomes lapsed kamma), the seventh impulsion-volition that accomplishes its purpose is to be experienced in the next life (it gives fruit in the immediately following individuality), and the middle five impulsion-volitions are to be experienced in a subsequent life (they give fruit when they find an opportunity in the future and do not lapse while saṃsāra continues). Fourfold kamma by strength: weighty (killing one’s mother and the like, or exalted kamma, ripens first), habitual (good or bad conduct ripens first), proximate (recollected at death), and previously done (repeatedly cultivated, it draws forth rebirth-linking when the first three are absent). Fourfold kamma by function: productive (whether wholesome or unwholesome, it produces resultant aggregates at rebirth-linking and during occurrence), supportive (without producing a result, it supports pleasure or pain produced by another kamma and lets it continue), obstructive (it afflicts the pleasure or pain produced and keeps it from continuing long), and destructive (it destroys another weak kamma, obstructs its ripening, and makes an opportunity for its own). The distinctions among the twelve kinds of kamma are fully manifest only to the Buddhas’ knowledge of kamma and its ripening and are not shared with disciples; the insight meditator knows them only in part, so this merely shows the doorway (vernacular §6). 〔Reading〕 The three tables ask three questions: when is the result experienced (this life, the next, or later), which result comes first (weighty, habitual, proximate, or previously done), and how does the result work (producing, supporting, obstructing, or destroying). The line on proximate kamma is the most practical: at death one is reborn according to whatever kamma one can recollect. This is one of the few sentences in the whole work that points directly to dying. 〔Observation〕 At the end the Commentator limits his own claim: only a Buddha can know every distinction among these twelve; an insight meditator “knows in part.” The path of contemplation does not require becoming an expert in kamma; it requires seeing the relation “kamma and ripening” turning in oneself. This is the most candid sentence in the unit.

§07 No Agent and No Experiencer—Ten Stanzas of the Ancients → Vernacular §7

The twelve kinds of kamma are included in the round of kamma. Seeing name-and-form occur through conditions by way of the round of kamma and the round of ripening, in the same way in all three times, one sees kamma and its ripening, their two rounds, two occurrences, two continuities, and action and its fruit: ripenings turn from kamma, ripening has kamma as its source, renewed becoming comes from kamma, and thus the world proceeds. At this point the sixteen doubts concerning the past end and the rest are abandoned. In all kinds of becoming, modes of birth, destinations, stations, and abodes, what appears is only name-and-form occurring through connected cause and fruit—outside the cause there is no agent, and outside the occurrence of ripening there is no experiencer; “agent” when cause is present and “experiencer” when ripening occurs are merely conventional designations used by the wise—and this is well seen with right wisdom. The Ancients’ ten stanzas: kamma has no agent and ripening no experiencer; pure phenomena alone proceed—this is right view. Kamma and ripening proceed with causes, like seed and tree whose first point is unknown, and their non-occurrence is not seen in the future. Sectarians who do not know this seize the perception of a being, become eternalists and annihilationists, grasp the sixty-two views, and contradict one another. Bound by the bond of views and swept by the flood of craving, they cannot escape suffering. A disciple of the Buddha who penetrates this penetrates the profound, subtle, empty condition. Kamma is not in ripening and ripening not in kamma; the two are mutually empty, yet without kamma there is no fruit. Fire is not in the sun, jewel, or cow dung, nor outside them, but arises through conditions. Ripening is not inside or outside kamma, nor is kamma inside ripening. Kamma is empty of fruit and fruit not found in kamma, yet dependent on kamma the fruit arises. Here there is no god or Brahmā as maker of saṃsāra: pure phenomena alone proceed through causes and assembled conditions (vernacular §7). 〔Reading〕 The heart of the ten stanzas is the first: “Kamma has no agent, nor does ripening have an experiencer; pure phenomena alone proceed—this is right view.” “Agent” and “experiencer” are conventional designations, like “chariot.” They are not forbidden words; simply do not take them as entities. The fire simile is the finest among the ten stanzas: fire is not in the sun, jewel, or cow dung, nor outside them. The relation between cause and fruit is like this: neither inside nor outside, yet not unrelated. 〔Observation〕 “Swept by the flood of craving”: craving is water here, while view is a rope. Sectarians are tied by the rope and carried by the water. Purification by overcoming doubt loosens the rope, the bond of views; the flood will be treated in the later chapters.

§08 Accomplishing Full Understanding of What Is Known—Four Similes Show Non-Transference, Three Alternative Names for the Knowledge, and the Minor Stream-Enterer → Vernacular §8

Once the conditions have been apprehended by way of the round of kamma and the round of ripening and doubt concerning the three times abandoned, all phenomena of the three times are known by way of death and rebirth-linking—this is full understanding of what is known. One knows that the aggregates born from past kamma have ceased there, the aggregates in this becoming are other, and not one phenomenon came from the past becoming into this becoming; the aggregates in this becoming will cease, other aggregates will arise in renewed becoming, and not one phenomenon will go from this becoming there. Yet just as recitation does not pass from the teacher’s mouth into the pupil’s mouth and still the pupil recites, spell-water does not enter the patient’s stomach and still the illness subsides, facial adornment does not pass into the mirror-image and still the adornment appears there, and a lamp flame does not transfer from one wick to another and still the other flame arises—no phenomenon transfers from the past becoming to this one or from this one to the next, yet aggregates, bases, and elements arise here with those of the past becoming as conditions and arise in renewed becoming with those here as conditions. Just as eye-consciousness immediately after the mind element has not come from it yet does not fail to arise immediately afterward, so the mental continuity proceeds at rebirth-linking: the former mind breaks up and the later arises from it, with no interval or gap; nothing goes, yet rebirth-linking arises. For one who knows all phenomena thus by death and rebirth-linking, knowledge of apprehending conditions in every mode gains strength, the sixteen doubts are still more thoroughly abandoned, the eight doubts beginning with doubt in the Teacher are also abandoned, and the sixty-two views are suppressed. Therefore the knowledge that apprehends the conditions of name-and-form in various ways and stands after overcoming doubt concerning the three times is purification by overcoming doubt; knowledge of the stability of phenomena, knowledge as it really is, and right view are its alternative names (scriptural proof: wisdom in apprehending conditions is knowledge of the stability of phenomena; attending to impermanence, suffering, and not-self, one knows and sees the sign and occurrence as they really are and so has right view, and doubt is abandoned there; knowledge as it really is, right view, and overcoming doubt are one in meaning and different in wording). An insight meditator endowed with this knowledge gains comfort, gains a footing, and has a fixed destination in the Buddha’s teaching and is called a minor stream-enterer. The verse says: a bhikkhu seeking to overcome doubt should always be mindful and completely apprehend the conditions of name-and-form. The chapter close follows (vernacular §8). 〔Reading〕 The four similes are the ones most worth remembering in the entire unit: recitation, spell-water, mirror-image, and lamp flame. Nothing runs from the teacher’s mouth into the pupil’s, yet the pupil can recite; nothing runs from this life to the next, yet the next life arises. “No transference, yet no voidness of fruit”—this sentence blocks both eternalism (something transfers) and annihilationism (nothing is transmitted). 〔Observation〕 A “minor stream-enterer” has not attained the fruit; the name is reassurance. One endowed with this knowledge “has gained comfort, gained a footing, and has a fixed destination.” The person has not entered the stream, but the foot is already planted on the right ground and the direction will not be lost. The Commentator uses a warm name to tell the reader: once you reach this point, you will no longer fall back into the two pits of causelessness and a creator.

For the General Reader

Take away three things. Three relatives: ignorance, craving, and clinging are the mother; kamma is the father; nutriment is the wet nurse—this body-and-mind did not arise from nothing and was not made by someone; these five worked together to produce it. One stanza: “Kamma has no agent, nor does ripening have an experiencer; pure phenomena alone proceed—this is right view.” Four similes: recitation does not pass from the teacher’s mouth into the pupil’s, spell-water does not enter the patient’s stomach, facial adornment does not pass into the mirror-image, and a lamp flame does not transfer from one wick to another—nothing moves from this life into the next, yet the next life still arises. Once this is seen, the sixteen questions about “Who was I in the past, and where will I go in the future?” no longer shake you. That is purification by overcoming doubt. The Commentator calls one who reaches this point a minor stream-enterer: the foot is already planted on the right ground.

To read this unit in full: vernacular §§1–8 translate in full, paragraph by paragraph, the establishment of purification by overcoming doubt, the form-body’s four causes and one condition, the sixteen doubts, three doors to conditions, the round of kamma and the round of ripening, three tables of twelve kinds of kamma, ten stanzas of the Ancients, four similes and three alternative names, and the minor stream-enterer.