俱舍論疏 30.72

30.72

On the Śāstra's: "Therefore, to say that the present 'I' ... previously burned that matter": The author of the Śāstra sets forth the correct view. Just as a person takes a single torch, first burning grass with it and later burning wood with it—although it perishes from moment to moment, it is a single continuum, and one can say that this fire burning the wood had previously burned the grass, not that the substance of the earlier and later fires are not distinct. The meaning of the World-Honoured One's "I at present was the Teacher in the past" is also shown in accordance with this: the past and the present are a single continuum, not that the former did not perish.