大般涅槃經集解 63.67

63.67

Sengliang comments: This refers to the nature of the direct cause. What is severed is the good roots of conditioning causes, not the direct cause. By the power of the direct cause, after a long time good will arise again. 'Not of the three times' explains the meaning of not being severed. The direct cause is continuous permanence; being permanent, it has no past or future. 'Like a spoiled seed': since unwholesome and indeterminate states are taken as the direct cause, and these two dharmas are weak in power, they definitely do not produce good in the present lifetime; hence the simile of the spoiled seed.