大乘百法明門論開宗義決 1.19

1.19

Regarding "stating that suffering, pleasure, and the rest are caused by past actions," and so forth: they see that in the world, even though one is endowed with right means, one incurs suffering, and even though one is endowed with wrong means, one attains pleasure. Therefore, they give rise to this thought and establish such a doctrine, stating that the causes of suffering and pleasure are all definitively caused by past actions. If one currently experiences suffering, it is due to past evil karma; if one is diligently energetic and thoroughly cultivates ascetic practices, one can expel old karma and present evil causes, because they are destroyed by not creating causes. In this way, afterwards one will no longer have any bias toward what is induced by past causes, and both the suffering brought about by past causes and the suffering incurred by present ascetic practices are completely exhausted, enabling one to realize the nirvāṇa of the exhaustion of suffering in a future body. One should ask them: if you say present suffering all takes past evil karma as its cause, do the ascetic practices you cultivate in the present life take past evil karma as their cause, or do they take present means as their cause? If they take past evil karma as their cause, saying that these newly cultivated present ascetic practices can expel old karma is unreasonable. If they take present means as their cause, what you previously said—that worldly suffering and pleasure are all due to past causes—is unreasonable. Therefore, one knows that the suffering and pleasure experienced in the world are also due to the present life and are not definitively caused by the past; or through the present body hearing the true Dharma, one attains awakening in the present body.