中觀論疏 3.16

3.16

From "Although some, having heard the sixfold refutation of all phenomena" below, [the commentary] explains the fourth pair. Here he merely indicates their establishment without setting forth a refutation because, first, by analogy with the above it can be known; second, the "Chapter on Going and Coming" is close at hand and its text is easy to see, so there is no need to trouble to refute it. Question: In [discussing] coming and going out, why does he not cite immediate things and instead clarify the root? Answer: This has a profound purport. The preceding six negations did not fail to address manifest things, yet the deluded did not accept them. Now, wishing to exhaust their root as having no place whatsoever of coming and no place whatsoever of going out, one should therefore know that there is no arising or ceasing, nor identity or difference. Question: In refuting coming and going out, why does he merely clarify the positions established by non-Buddhists? Answer: This treatise primarily refutes the internal [Buddhists] and secondarily refutes external [non-Buddhists]. Because it primarily refutes the internal, the first three pairs refute them extensively; because it secondarily refutes the external, the last pair refutes them briefly. Moreover, this is a refutation by pointing out their equivalence. The Tattvasiddhi masters have the doctrine of flowing out and returning; the Dilun masters have [the doctrines of] the coming that deviates from the true to give rise to delusion, and the going that quells delusion to return to the true. Coming and going such as these are entirely the same as non-Buddhists; now enumerating the non-Buddhists is just refuting the internal. Question: How does one refute their doctrine? Answer: If you had sentient beings who had formerly attained Buddhahood, one could speak of arriving at the original place. Now, since there has not yet been one who attained Buddhahood, how can one speak of returning to the original place? They explain: Sentient beings originally possess Buddha-nature and originally possess the tathāgatagarbha, which serves as the support and foundation for saṃsāra; now, because they sever afflictions they attain Buddhahood, and therefore it is returning to the original place. Now I ask: Does Buddha-nature itself become Buddha, or do sentient beings become Buddha? If you say that sentient beings become Buddha, as the sūtra says, "The deer king of the past was myself"—did the deer arrive at Buddhahood, or did it not arrive? If it arrived, the Buddha is still the deer; if it did not arrive at Buddhahood, the deer ceased previously, so who becomes Buddha? If Buddha-nature itself becomes Buddha, sentient beings should not attain Buddhahood. Question: The sūtras also say, "From the root of non-abiding all phenomena are established"; if, through fully awakening, one returns to non-abiding, or even if inversion arises from emptiness, and through fully awakening one returns to the original purity—how is this different from non-Buddhists? Answer: If one definitively forms this interpretation, it is indeed no different from non-Buddhists. But now we clarify that coming has no place from which it comes, and going has no place to which it arrives; it is merely coming without coming and going without going, never having had two marks.