中觀論疏 3.9

3.9

Regarding "The characteristic of arising is definitively unfindable": this is the third [part], concluding the meaning of "non-". Within the two truths, an arising of real nature is definitively non-existent, hence it says "definitively unfindable". Question: Why is such a characteristic of arising unfindable? Answer: Now, we shall temporarily resort to proximate matters to illuminate the profound purport. Here we briefly refute the nine schools. If cause and effect were one, then cause would self-produce cause and effect would self-produce effect; uncooked rice would self-produce uncooked rice, and cooked rice would self-produce cooked rice. If they were different, uncooked rice and cooked rice do not possess two separate substances, so how could they be different? If cooked rice were different from uncooked rice yet cooked rice arose from uncooked rice, cooked rice is also different from soil, so it ought to arise from soil. If uncooked rice is different from cooked rice and produces cooked rice, soil is also different from cooked rice, so why does it not produce cooked rice? If cooked rice already existed within uncooked rice, then within cooked rice there would already exist impure food and impure things. If within uncooked rice there were no cooked rice, then although one uses uncooked rice, in the end it would not become cooked rice. Furthermore, if uncooked rice lacked cooked rice yet produced cooked rice, it also lacks clothing, so why does it not produce clothing? If cooked rice arose back from its own substance, then it would not arise from uncooked rice. If uncooked rice is other than cooked rice and cooked rice arises from uncooked rice, yet within uncooked rice there is no substance of cooked rice, relative to what is it "other"? If cooked rice arose from the substance of cooked rice and also arose from uncooked rice, then both would have faults. If one says that cooked rice arises from original non-existence, that would be transforming non-existence into existence. If one takes existence as the cause and it arises from existence, then from what does that existent cause arise? Therefore, the nine theories are definitively unestablished. Question: The outsider says there is definitively arising, which is the view of arising. The author of the treatise says there is definitively non-arising, which should be the view of non-arising. Answer: In the bosom of the author of the treatise there has never been arising or non-arising; it is only because the outsider asserts a definitive existence that, seeking that definitive existence and finding nothing, he merely says "definitively non-arising".