Cracking the Walnut, page 26
that would be a contradiction:
there would be a goer apart from the going
that the goer undertakes.
12. The starting point is not in what has gone,
nor is it in what will go,
nor is it in the present going.
So when does the starting point happen?
13. When going you do not begin to go,
nor do you begin to go when you have already gone.
If the beginning is not found in these two cases
how can you begin to go before you have gone?
14. When going you do not begin to go,
nor do you begin to go when you have already gone.
If the beginning is not found in these two cases,
how can you begin to go before you have gone?
15. The goer does not abide anywhere.
The non-goer does not abide anywhere either.
Apart from goer and non-goer
how could anything abide?
16. It would be absurd to say
that it is the goer that abides.
If the act of going is not
how can a goer be possible?
17. Someone who has gone or has not yet gone does not abide.
Someone who is going also does not abide.
Similarly, someone who is going, has gone, or has not yet gone
does not arise, decay, or end.
18. It is absurd to say that
the goer is the act of going.
It is also absurd to say that
the goer is not the act of going.
19. You cannot say the act of going
is the goer.
If so, the author of the action and the action
are the same thing.
20. If you say that the act of going
is different from the one who goes,
then apart from the goer there is the act of going
and there is a goer apart from the act of going.
21. Whether you say that the goer
and the act of going
are the same or two different entities
your argument cannot stand.
22. Because of the going you recognize the goer.
How does the goer use the act of going?
Before the act of going, the goer was not going
therefore there is no goer who uses the act of going.
23. You recognize a goer because there is going.
The goer cannot use another kind of going.
For one goer
there cannot be two kinds of going.
24. If you insist there is a real goer
they could not use the three times of going.
If you insist there is no real goer
they also could not use the three times of going.
25. Whether the going is or is not,
the goer does not go.
Therefore there is no goer going,
and no destination.
3 Examination of the Four Noble Truths
Aryasatyaparīkṣā (Chapter 24)
1. If everything is empty,
unborn and undying,
the teaching on the Four Noble Truths
cannot exist.
2. Without the Four Noble Truths,
seeing suffering, cutting off its causes,
attaining extinction, and practicing the path,
could not take place.
3. Since all these things don’t exist,
the four fruits also don’t exist.
And if the four fruits don’t exist
then the four kinds of orientation also don’t exist.
4. If the eight kinds of holy people do not exist,
then the Sangha jewel does not exist.
If there are no Four Noble Truths,
then there is no Dharma jewel either.
5. If the Dharma and the Sangha jewels don’t exist,
then there is no Buddha Jewel.
Therefore the teaching on emptiness
undermines the Three Jewels.
6. The teaching of emptiness undermines the teaching of causality
as well as that of merit and demerit.
It also undermines
worldly conventions.
7. You really do not understand
emptiness and the reasons for teaching emptiness.
You do not understand the meaning of emptiness
and so are troubled by it.
8. The buddhas rely on the two truths
in order to teach the Dharma to beings.
One truth is the worldly truth,
the other is the ultimate truth.
9. If someone is not able
to distinguish one truth from the other,
they will not be able to understand
the deep meaning of the Dharma.
10. Without relying on conventional truth,
you cannot realize ultimate truth.
Without realizing ultimate truth,
you will not attain nirvāṇa.
11. Without a right understanding of emptiness
a dull-witted person does harm to themselves,
like someone who does not know how
and grasps a poisonous snake the wrong way.
12. The World-Honored One knew that this teaching,
so deep and subtle,
would be out of the reach of those of meager intelligence,
so he did not want to teach it to them.
13. You say that I am caught in emptiness,
and so have made many errors.
But the things you call errors
have nothing to do with emptiness.
14. Because emptiness is possible,
everything is possible.
If emptiness were not possible,
nothing would be possible.
15. The mistakes you make,
you attribute to me,
just like someone who rides a horse
forgets the horse he is riding.
16. If you see that all things
must have a self-nature,
then you also maintain
that they have no causes and conditions.
17. You deny cause and effect,
action, the actor, and what is made.
You also deny
the arising and ceasing of all things.
18. I call empty
things that arise from conditions.
They are conventional designations
and they are the Middle Way.
4 Examination of Being and Nonbeing
Svabhāvaparīkṣā (Chapter 15)
1. The existence of something’s self-nature
is not evident in its conditions.
A self-nature that arises from conditions
is something that is made.
2. What sense does it make to say
that the self-nature is something made?
A self-nature is something not made
and does not come about dependent on things other than itself.
3. If things do not have self-nature,
there cannot be an other-nature.
The self-nature of one thing
is the other-nature of another thing.
4. Without self-nature and other-nature
How can anything exist?
When there is self-nature and other-nature
phenomena are established.
5. If being is not established,
then how can nonbeing be established?
Only because something exists
can it cease to be.
6. Someone who sees being, nonbeing,
self-nature and other-nature,
cannot see
the truth in the Buddha’s teaching.
7. The Buddha refutes being and nonbeing
in the teachings given to Kātyāyana.
He gave the teaching which removes
[the concepts of] being and nonbeing.
8. If phenomena had a self-nature
they could not become nothing.
A self-nature that becomes something else
is not reasonable.
9. If things have a self-nature,
how can they change?
If things do not have a self-nature,
how can they change?
10. To assert being is to be caught in eternalism.
To assert nonbeing is to be caught in nihilism.
Therefore a wise person
is not caught in being or nonbeing.
11. If things have a self-nature, and therefore are not nonexistent,
that is eternalism.
If they previously existed and now exist no more,
that is nihilism.
5 Examination of Fire and Fuel
Agnīndhanaparīkṣā (Chapter 10)
1. If fire were fuel
then actor and action would be one.
If fire were other than fuel
then without fuel there could be fire.
2. [If fire were other than fuel]
the fire would just keep burning.
If fire did not need fuel,
it would not need someone to set it alight,
and lighting the fire would serve no purpose.
3. If the fire did not need fuel
then it would not arise from conditions.
If the fire were permanently burning,
there would be no need for anyone to light it.
4. You say that when something is burning,
you can call it fuel.
If the fuel can only be fuel when it is burning,
what is it, then, that is burning it?
5. If [the fuel] were other [than the fire], it could not reach [the fire].
If it did not reach [the fire], it could not burn.
If it does not burn, it could not cease.
If it does not cease, it is eternal.
6. If the fire is different from the fuel
and can come to the fuel,
it is like this person can come to that person,
and that person can come to this person.
7. If you say that the fire and the fuel
are two different things,
then the fire would be able
to come to the fuel.
8. If thanks to the fuel, the fire exists,
and thanks to fire the fuel exists,
which of them existed first
for there to be fuel and fire?
9. If thanks to the fuel there is fire,
what has already been burned, will be burned again,
and in the fuel
there could be no fire.
10. If this waits for that in order to be,
this is also what that is waiting for.
Therefore there is no cause for waiting,
and there is nothing which comes to be.
11. If something has to wait in order to come about,
how can it wait if it has not yet come about?
If it has already come about and is waiting
then what is it waiting for?
12. The fire is not there because of the fuel,
but without fuel as a cause there is no fire;
the fuel is not there because of the fire,
but without fire as a cause there is no fuel.
13. The fire does not come from somewhere else,
and in the fuel there is no fire
The same is true for the fuel,
as we said in the section on coming and going.
14. In the fuel there is no fire.
Outside the fuel there is no fire.
If the fire has no fuel,
inside the fire there is no fuel.
15. Fire and fuel are used
to explain grasping and the one who grasps,
to explain the examples of a pot or cloth,
and all the other examples.
16. If someone says that there is a self,
and that phenomena differ from one another
you should know that this person
has not tasted the essence of the Buddhadharma.
6 Examination of Nirvāṇa
Nirvāṇaparīkṣā (Chapter 25)
1. If all phenomena are empty,
they are unborn and undying.
So what you call nirvāṇa
is the ending and extinction of what?
2. If all phenomena are not empty,
they are unborn and undying,
So what you call nirvāṇa
is the ending and extinction of what?
3. Not attaining and not coming,
not annihilated and not eternal,
not born and not destroyed,
this is what we call nirvāṇa.
4. You cannot say nirvāṇa exists;
existence is characterized by old age and death.
There is ultimately no existence
that is not characterized by old age and death.
5. If nirvāṇa exists,
it would be conditioned.
There is ultimately no existence
that can be called unconditioned.
6. If nirvāṇa exists,
how could you call it independent?
There is nothing independent
that can be said to exist.
7. If nirvāṇa is not existent,
how could it be nonexistent?
Since existence does not apply to nirvāṇa
how could nonexistence apply to it?
8. If nirvāṇa is nonexistent,
how could you call it independent?
There is nothing independent
that can be said not to exist.
9. That which is dependent on conditions
comes and goes in the cycle of birth and death.
That which is not dependent on conditions
is called nirvāṇa.
10. As the Buddha said in the sutras,
one should end being and nonbeing.
Therefore we know that nirvāṇa
is neither being nor nonbeing.
11. If you say that being and nonbeing
together are nirvāṇa,
then being and nonbeing would be liberation,
and this is truly absurd.
12. If you say that being and nonbeing
together are nirvāṇa,
nirvāṇa would not be independent,
since both being and nonbeing arise in dependence.
13. How could we say that nirvāṇa
both is and is not?
Nirvāṇa is unconditioned,
while being and nonbeing are conditioned.
14. How can being and nonbeing
together be nirvāṇa?
Like light and darkness,
they cannot occur together in the same place.
15. If you call nirvāṇa
neither being nor nonbeing,
how could this neither being nor nonbeing
be conceived of?
16. You conceive neither being nor nonbeing
and call it nirvāṇa.
Neither being nor nonbeing could only be established
if being and nonbeing could be established.
17. After the Tathāgata passes away,
you cannot say he exists, does not exist,
both exists and does not exist,
or neither exists nor does not exist.
18. While the Tathāgata is still alive
you cannot say he exists, does not exist,
both exists and does not exist,
or neither exists nor does not exist.
19. Between nirvāṇa and the world
there is not the slightest difference.
Between the world and nirvāṇa
there is not the slightest difference.
20. Between the true nature of nirvāṇa
and the true nature of saṃsāra
there is not the slightest distinction.
21. Views on existing after death or not,
being finite, eternal, and so on
all rely on nirvāṇa,
the past, and the future.
22. Since all phenomena are empty
how can they be limited or limitless,
both limited and limitless
or neither limited nor limitless?
23. How can there be same and different,
permanence or impermanence,
both permanence and impermanence,
or neither permanence nor impermanence?
24. [Realizing that] phenomena cannot be grasped,
we remove all speculation.
There is no person and no location,
and the Buddha did not teach anything.
中論 Zhong Lun
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
不生亦不滅
不常亦不斷
不一亦不異
不來亦不出
能說是因緣
善滅諸戲論
我稽首禮佛
諸說中第一
1 觀因緣 (Guan Yin Yuan)
Pratyayaparīkṣā (Chapter 1)
1. 諸法不自生
亦不從他生
不共不無因
是故知無生
2. 因緣次第緣
緣緣增上緣
四緣生諸法
更無第五緣
3. 如諸法自性
不在於緣中
以無自性故
他性亦復無
4. 果為從緣生
為從非緣生
是緣為有果
是緣為無果
5. 因是法生果
是法名為緣
若是果未生
何不名非緣
