翻譯名義集 4.66

4.66

[*Nidāna*:] Translated here as causes and conditions (hetu-pratyaya). Kumārajīva said: "Strong force is cause; weak force is condition." Sengzhao said: "The arising from preceding conditions is the cause; the current assistance to completion is the condition." Daosheng said: "Cause means that the matter originally did not exist, but is produced from that; condition means that its part originally existed, and it is aroused from that. Therefore causes are intimate while conditions are distant." Pratyekabuddhas have sharp faculties; they completely observe that throughout the three times there are causes and there are conditions, hence the name 'causes and conditions'. First, observing the past: ignorance conditions formations. As for 'ignorance', it is the failure to understand the dharma-realm, heterodox views and false attachments, remaining constantly in darkness; hence it is called ignorance. Due to the afflictions of confusion, one arouses the three karmas and fabricates all dharmas; hence they are named formations. Because of this confusion and karma, they bring about the present five fruits: consciousness conditions name-and-form, the six sense bases, contact, and feeling—the so-called arising of the mind from formations. Entering the mother's womb, the flowing of passion serves as the seed, receiving ideation in the womb and discerning all dharmas: this is named consciousness. Consciousness has only a name, while the coagulated fluid belongs to form; over the four weeks [in the womb] it gradually hardens, hence it is called name-and-form. When the six sense faculties open and develop, they are named the six sense bases. From emerging from the mother's womb up to three or four years of age, facing conditions and apprehending sense objects without discerning pleasure and pain: this is named contact. From five or six years old up to twelve or thirteen, feeling and perceiving the three states of pain, pleasure, and indifference, being able to discern them: hence it is named feeling. Further, from the fruit of retribution arise the three factors of craving, grasping, and existence, which are confusion and karma that form the present causes. From fourteen or fifteen up to eighteen or nineteen, craving various sense objects like a thirsty person seeking a drink: hence it is named craving. From nineteen onward, when one's age has matured, greedy desire flourishes all the more; reckless of body and life, one grasps hold of things: hence it is named grasping. Craving and grasping share the same nature, differing only in degree; pursuing all objects, one arouses wholesome and unwholesome karma, dragging oneself into rebirth in the three realms of existence: hence it is named existence. Due to this cause, one brings about the two future fruits of retribution, namely birth, and aging and death. The initial arising of the subsequent skandhas is named birth; abiding in the world and decaying is named aging; the ultimate breaking down is named death. Because these twelve dharmas successively bring about results, they are called causes; because they exist depending upon one another, they are called conditions. When causes and conditions continue uninterrupted, going and returning are boundless; if one understands ignorance, birth and death cease of themselves: this is the essential technique for pratyekabuddhas to transcend the world.