འཕགས་པ་དགངས་པ་ངས་པར་འགྲལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 15

15

different, then just as the lakṣaṇa of the ultimate is without distinction across all lakṣaṇas of saṃskāras, so too all lakṣaṇas of saṃskāras would be without distinction, and yogins would not search for the ultimate beyond how saṃskāras are seen, heard, distinguished, and cognized. If the lakṣaṇa of saṃskāras and the lakṣaṇa of the ultimate were different, then the mere selflessness and mere lack of intrinsic nature of saṃskāras would not be the lakṣaṇa of the ultimate, and the lakṣaṇa of affliction and the lakṣaṇa of purification would be established as different lakṣaṇas at the same time. Viśuddhamati, because the lakṣaṇas of saṃskāras have distinctions and are not without distinction; and yogins search for the ultimate beyond how saṃskāras are seen, heard, distinguished, and cognized; and the ultimate is characterized by the selflessness of saṃskāras; and the lakṣaṇa of affliction and [the lakṣaṇa of] purification are not established as different lakṣaṇas at the same time; therefore it is neither proper to say that the lakṣaṇa of saṃskāras and the lakṣaṇa of the ultimate are not different, nor that they are different. In that regard, those who say that the lakṣaṇa of saṃskāras and the lakṣaṇa of the ultimate are not different, or that they are different, should be known by you, through this reasoning, to have proceeded improperly and not to have proceeded properly. Viśuddhamati, it is like this, for example: the whiteness of a conch shell is not a different lakṣaṇa from the conch shell, nor is it easy to designate it as a different lakṣaṇa. Just as it is with the whiteness of a conch shell, so it is with the yellowness of gold. The melodiousness of the sound of a vīṇā is also not a different lakṣaṇa from the sound of the vīṇā,