宗鏡錄 47.21

47.21

Answer: They are neither the same nor different. The treatise states: 'The differentiation of capacities directly producing their own fruits within the root consciousness—these, with the root consciousness and the produced fruits, are neither the same nor different; for substance and function, cause and effect, are logically so.' The commentary explains: The root consciousness is the substance, and the seeds are the function; the seeds are the cause, and what is produced is the effect. These two dharmas should logically be thus: neither the same nor different. When looking from the root consciousness toward the seeds, in identifying the substance, characteristics are subsumed into the nature; hence they are all indeterminate (avyākṛta). When looking from the seeds arising from actual manifestation toward the root consciousness, their characteristics and functions are discussed separately; hence they encompass the three natures. If they were strictly the same, one could not speak of them as having dharmas of cause and effect, or as having substance and dharma. If they were completely different, grains and wheat would be able to produce beans and the like, because cause and effect would be accepted as completely different. Were it not so, only when a dharma perishes would there be function, because substance and function would be accepted as completely different. The function and substance resemble each other, and their force must be identical; cause and effect resemble each other, and their capacities and appearances can conform to one another; they are not completely different.