大般涅槃經集解 67.20

67.20

Sengliang comments: Causes are proximate and remote; the proximate is called the direct cause (pradhānāhetu), and the remote is called the auxiliary cause (pratyaya). Auxiliary causes may be shared, but direct causes differ; hence he says distinct causes have distinct effects. Sengzong says: The production of dharmas varies; it is not that there is an inherent nature of production. Milk produces curd because it is the cause of curd; others do not produce it because they are not its causes. Just as curd is exclusively the effect of milk and not the effect of other things. Zhixiu says: This is the fifth causal scenario. It adduces the absence of the effect in other causal factors to prove that milk contains the nature of curd. It is refuted through three subsequent arguments. First, he adduces distinct causes and distinct effects, clarifying that because of the direct cause curd arises from milk and does not arise from water; he also adduces the production of consciousness and the method for obtaining butter to establish that curd arises from milk and cannot rely on water. Second, he cites a sūtra as proof. Third, he adduces the salty nature of salt, directly revealing that the effect-nature of curd fundamentally does not exist within the cause.