二諦義 2.35

2.35

Question: Having challenged others like this, how do you explain it now? We now explain that 'worldly' and 'conventional' are names of the horizontal and the vertical. Why? The name 'conventional' is horizontal, while the name 'worldly' is vertical. The conventional being horizontal means: 'conventional' has the meaning of custom; everywhere there are customs and conventions. Hence it is said: "The exemplary person practices ritual propriety and does not seek to alter customs." All countries have their respective customs; therefore, the name 'conventional' is horizontal. The name 'worldly' being vertical means: 'worldly' is succession and differentiation, the shifting and changing across the three periods of time—how could this not be vertical? Both internal and external [texts] fully clarify this. The sūtras speak of "life after life, age after age (śeṣa)", and secular books say, "thirty years make one generation (se)." Even so, ultimately it is succession and differentiation that constitute the worldly; therefore, 'worldly' is a vertical name. However, both of these two names refer to intrinsic nature. The conventional's intrinsic nature is insubstantial; the worldly's intrinsic nature is succession. Before the world exists, the world already exists—this is succession and differentiation; before the conventional exists, the conventional already exists—this is insubstantiality. Since their intrinsic natures are insubstantiality and succession, how could there be praise and dispraise between them? Therefore, that is unacceptable. Next we explain them in relation to the ultimate. The treatise says: "Regarding conventional truth, all phenomena are empty of nature; worldly inverted delusion claims they exist, whereas the noble ones truly know that their nature is empty." Since conventional truth is an inverted delusion claiming existence, one should know that conventional truth is delusion and inversion. Since the conventional is like this, the worldly is also like that. In this case, in relation to the noble, both the worldly and the conventional are delusion and inversion. Within inversion, there are naturally the conventional and the worldly, the horizontal and the vertical. This contains both differentiation and non-differentiation. Viewed from the perspective of the noble, they are equally inversion, hence there is no differentiation; yet this does not negate the horizontal and vertical of worldly and conventional, hence there is differentiation.