The Root Stanzas of the Middle Way
Page 4
It could be made by both of them.
It is not self-produced, nor made by something else.
And how could suffering be uncaused?
10
That which is but pain
Occurs in none of these four ways.
And what is more, no outer entities exist
In any one of these four ways.
13
An Examination of Compounded Things
“All deceptive things are false,”
The Lord has said.
All compounded things deceive
And therefore they are false.
2
If all deceptive things are false,
What is it in them that deceives?
The utterance of the Lord
Has perfectly revealed their emptiness.
3
[Some say that] it’s because phenomena appear to change
That they are lacking in intrinsic being.
But nothing lacks intrinsic being
[Precisely] on account of emptiness.
4
“If things are lacking in intrinsic being,
What [they ask] could be transformed?”
But how could there be transformation,
If things possessed intrinsic being?
5
The thing itself does not transform;
And that which has been changed likewise does not transform.
There is no aging in a youthful man,
No aging, either, in a man grown old.
6
If the thing itself could be transformed,
The milk itself would be the curd.
And something different from the milk
Could be the actual curd.
7
If there were but a tiny thing not empty,
That much of the empty there would be,
But since there’s not the slightest thing not empty,
How could “emptiness” exist?
8
The Conquerors have all declared that emptiness
Will extricate us from all views.
They said there is no cure for those
Who make of emptiness a view.
14
An Examination of Contact
The thing that’s seen,
The seeing, and the one who sees,
In pairs or all together,
Do not meet.
2
And for desire, the one desiring,
And the thing desired, the same is true.
And in this threefold mode the same applies
To all defilements that remain and all the other spheres of sense.
3
Contact must take place between a thing and something other.
Therefore, since there is no “other”
In seen, the seeing, and the seer,
No contact can there be between them.
4
Not only is no “other” found
In seen, in seeing, and the seer,
But in all coexistent things,
Otherness is likewise inadmissible.
5
The other thing is “other” in dependence on an other.
The other is not “other” in the absence of an other.
But that which is dependent upon something else
Is not admissible as “other than it.”
6
If what is “other” is other than the other,
It would be “other” even in the absence of the other.
But in the absence of the other, there’s no “other”;
Therefore it has no existence.
7
In the other, “otherness” does not inhere,
Nor yet does it inhere in that which is not other.
Since “otherness” has no existence,
Things are neither “other” nor “the same.”
8
One thing cannot meet itself
And other does not meet with other.
Neither meeting nor the met with
Nor the thing that meets exist at all.
15
An Examination of Intrinsic Being
It is wrong to say that the intrinsic being of a thing
Derives from causes and conditions.
Produced from causes and conditions,
Such intrinsic being would be fabricated.10
2
And how can it be right to speak
Of an intrinsic being that’s contrived?
Intrinsic being is not fabricated,
Is not contingent upon something else.
3
And if there’s no intrinsic being,
How can things exist as “other”?
The intrinsic being of the other thing
Is what we call the “other thing.”
4
Apart from an intrinsic being and otherness,
How can there be things?
If intrinsic being and otherness exist,
Then things indeed will be established.
5
If things are not established,
Neither will their nonexistence be.
It’s when a thing turns into something else
That people talk about its nonexistence.
6
Those who think in terms of an intrinsic being and of otherness,
Who hold the view that things exist or don’t exist,
Have failed to understand the suchness
That Buddha has set forth.
7
In his Counsel to Katyayana,
The Lord, through understanding
Both existent things and nonexistent things,
Has rejected both the views: “this is” and “this is not.”
8
If a thing exists by way of its intrinsic being,
It can never cease to be.
Intrinsic being never can admit
A change into another state.
9
If a thing has no intrinsic being,
What [you ask] is changing?
But if it has intrinsic being,
How could it be changed to something else?
10
To say that things exist means grasping at their permanence;
To say they don’t exist implies the notion of annihilation.
Thus the wise should not remain
In “this exists” or “this does not exist.”
11
Something that exists by its intrinsic being,
Since it cannot not exist, is permanent.
To say that what once was is now no more
Entails annihilation.
16
An Examination of Bondage and Release from Bondage
Suppose one says the aggregates are circling in samsara.
But if they’re permanent, they cannot circle;
They cannot circle, either, if they are impermanent.
This mode of argument applies to living beings also.
2
Suppose one says the person circles in samsara.
But when one searches for the person in the fivefold way
Amid the aggregates and sense-spheres and the elements,
It is not found.11 So what is it that circles in samsara?
3
If it transfers from one existence to another,
It passes through a state of nonexistence.
But then, with no state of existence and no [aggregates] appropriated,
What is it that circles in samsara?
4
It is in no way possible
For aggregates to reach nirvana.
It is in no way possible
For beings to pass into nirvana.
5
Subject to both birth and death,
The aggregates are neither bound nor freed.
And sentient beings, as before,
Are neither bound nor are they freed.
6
One might suppose that grasping binds,
It does not bind the one that does not grasp;
In what state therefore can it bind?
7
If bondage comes before the thing that’s bound,
The latter must depend on it. But this is not the case.
The remaining refutation is supplied by the analysis
Of the “going, gone, and the not yet gone.”
8
First, the “bound” is not set free,
And neither is the “not-bound” freed.
If something bound is being released,
Then bondage and release both coincide.
9
“Free from grasping I will pass into nirvana,
And nirvana will be mine”—
One who thinks like this
Truly has great grasping, great attachment.
10
If nirvana, then, is not produced,
Neither is samsara cleared away.
What indeed is this samsara?
What is labeled as nirvana?
17
An Examination of Action
Restraining oneself perfectly
And doing good to others with a loving mind:
All these are virtue—seeds that bear their fruit
In this and other lives.
2
The Supreme Sage has said that actions
Are intentions and the deeds intended.
Specific cases of these acts have been explained
In all their many aspects.
3
Deeds referred to as intentions
Are the movements of the intellect.
Deeds intended by the mind
Are acts of body and of speech.
4
Speech and motions of the body,
Imperceptible nonvows
And vows, which also cannot be perceived,
And “other acts” asserted in like terms,12
5
Merit and demerit also,
Deriving from enjoyment,
Together with intention—
As action have these seven been defined.
6
If until the moment of its ripening
An action stays, it must be permanent.
But if it ceases, how can what has ceased
Give rise to a result?
7
“The continuum of shoot and plant [some say]
Is manifested from its seed,
And thence the fruit derives.
Without a seed, no shoot or fruit appears.
8
“The continuum arises from the seed,
And from this same continuum the fruit derives.
The seed therefore precedes the fruit
And thus there’s no annihilation, there’s no permanence.
9
“Likewise from intention
A continuum of mind derives—
From which arises a resultant state.
This could not occur without intention.
10
“The continuum of mind arises from intention,
And from this same continuum resultant states derive.
Acts therefore precede resultant states
And thus there’s no annihilation, there’s no permanence.
11
“The tenfold path of virtuous action
Is the method whereby good is done.
In this and other lives the fruits of goodness
Are the five enjoyments of the senses.”
12
“This way of thinking [others say]
Displays a multitude of faults.
It therefore is an explanation
Not to be accepted in the present case.”
13
They will declare instead
A tenable analysis,
The one that all the buddhas and pratyekabuddhas
And the shravakas set forth.
14
“Action is conserved; it’s like a debt [they say]
Recorded on a promissory note.
This conservation, neutral in its nature,
Varies in four ways, according to the realm.
15
“Not eliminated through elimination,13
But through meditation will it be eliminated.
Thus the fruits of action are produced
By that which is conserved.
16
“If it were eliminated through elimination,
If action were destroyed by an opposing action,
Faults would be entailed,
Such as the destruction of [the fruits of] action.
17
“All one’s conserved acts
Belonging to a given realm,
Similar and dissimilar as these acts may be,
Arise within a single type on entering a new existence.
18
“Within this life, the conservation
Of all actions of both kinds
Arises separately for every act
And, even after ripening, subsists.
19
“This conservation ends
At death or with the gaining of the fruit.14
It should be understood
That it’s distinguished as defiled or undefiled.
20
“Emptiness and nonannihilation,
Transmigration and impermanence:
These the Buddha has set forth
As qualities of action’s conservation.”
21
Since action is without arising,
It is lacking in intrinsic being.
It is because it’s not arisen
That it is conserved.
22
If action were possessed of an intrinsic being,
It would be permanent without a doubt.
But action then could never be performed
For there is no activity in what is permanent.
23
If actions, then, are not “performed,”
One risks encountering results of what one has not done.
And those who live in purity
Must have the defect of not doing so.
24
And all conventions also
Would be flouted, there’s no doubt.
And there would be no way to tell
A virtuous from a sinful man.
25
The act that has already ripened
Would, then, ripen time and time again.
For, having an intrinsic being,
Such an action would remain.
26
Action has defilement for its nature
And defilements have no real existence.
If defilement has no real existence,
How could karmic action in itself be real?
27
It has been taught that karma and defilement
Are conditions that produce embodied beings.
If karmic action and defilements are both empty
How can they be called conditions of embodied beings?
28
One who has desire and whom ignorance enshrouds
Is the consumer [of the fruit of action]:
Not different from the doer
Nor yet identical therewith.
29
Since from conditions
Action does not come
And since from nonconditions it does not derive,
It follows that there is no agent either.
30
If there is no action and no agent,
How can there be fruits produced by action?
And if there are no fruits,
How can there be those consuming them?
31
Just as an illusory form, which Our Teacher emanated
Through the perfection of miraculous power,
Gave rise to yet another magical appearance,
And this in turn produced another,
32
Likewise, agent and the deed performed
Resemble magical appearances.
They’re like illusory forms produced
By what is also an illusion bodied forth.
33
Defilements, actions, and embodied beings;
Agents and the fruits of action
Are like cities of gandharvas.
They’re like mirages and dreams.
18
An Examination of the Self and Phenomena
If the aggregates were “I,”
This “I” would be the subject both of birth and of decay.
If it were other than the aggregates,
It would not have the character of the aggregates.
2
If the “I” has no existence,
How can there be such a thing as “mine”?
When “I” and “mine” are laid to rest,
There will be no more clinging to an “I” and “mine.”
3
Those who do not cling to “I” or “mine”
Are also lacking in existence.
No clinging to an “I” and “mine”—
Those who see this do not see.
4
Regarding the internal and external spheres,
When thoughts of “I” and “mine” have ceased,
Grasping too will be arrested.
Since this ceases, birth will also cease.
5
Release occurs when action and defilements cease.
Actions and defilements are derived from thoughts,
And these come from the mind’s construction.
Emptiness is what arrests them.
6
The buddhas said “I am.”
They taught as well that self does not exist.
They also said that self
And no-self are completely nonexistent.
7
All that can be said is halted,
For all that can be thought is halted: