成唯識寶生論

The Treatise says: How can it be called seeing if it is not connected with objects such as form and so forth?

If this is raised as an objection, there is no need to labor over the reply. Because the substance of this consciousness itself manifests an appearance, although there are no forms and so forth, the object is nevertheless established. This has already been explained above. Dreams, the wardens of hell, and diseased eyes are the examples. The inferential proof will be explained extensively where appropriate.

When it is said that recollection arises from this, it means that, without awaiting an external object, one sees it appear before one, and its own nature then arises. Although there is no real object, both remembrance and recollection occur because the presently manifest consciousness possesses the functional power to establish them. In due sequence, various conditions are provisionally borrowed as inducements, and only then does a cognitive conception arise. At that time, it is called recollection.

How is it known that seeing and recollection are two distinct entities? If both seeing and recollection exist without relying on external objects, each should be capable of producing its own substance. Because the object resembles the former object, there is the nature of erroneous uncertainty. What is called the discriminating consciousness that sees is its function. It does not arise by pondering and measuring the characteristics of a preceding object; rather, a thought arises solely from the appearance of the self-cognizing nature of its own substance. From the statement that the appearance is arranged incorrectly, it is known that discrimination arises because the appearance is unclear. Seeing is produced by prior perfuming; that is, this own-nature arises from something else.

Seeing is not like that. Seeing and recollection are distinct. Therefore, this principle must certainly be accepted. Even if external objects exist and both have objects, so that the conditions and appearances do not differ, the substances of seeing and recollection are not the same. If there is some other explanation, please state it.

They argue that cognition of a present object is called seeing, whereas cognition of a past object is called remembrance. In saying that there is no object, although those objects differ in having or lacking an appearance and their objects of cognition are different, this difference in appearance ultimately does not arise from reflection upon seeing and remembering. It should instead be said that different appearances are established because their own substances are distinct.

If so, then this object is the manifested appearance of that consciousness. Can this be known with certainty?

From the preceding object, it is known with certainty that seeing and the consciousness resembling it that arises are clearly not forgotten. When that event is apprehended, it is called a similar appearance.

Is it likewise only after one has clearly and certainly known the appearance of a man that something may be called similar to a man?

To recognize a similar appearance, it is not the case that one has never seen it. Yet it is also not reasonable to determine it in this manner merely because it has previously been seen.

Because external objects are not admitted, this too is unreasonable. It is accepted because mind and mental factors, through self-cognition, apprehend dissimilar appearances.

This still does not constitute an objection in other cases.

Concerning what you have so skillfully distinguished, let me ask provisionally: By what principle is there simultaneous self-cognition? Since you do not accept that it exists, how can this seeing be ascertained? Is it not possible to recollect a past event?

Since that is neither the nature of self-cognition nor self-cognition itself, what has been said contradicts reason. One must first cite one’s own position and only afterward attack another’s; only then may such strategic arrangements hope to prevail. This means that remembrance arises by depending upon an object, but this is not mutually established.

Moreover, you accept that external objects are experienced in dreams, and only afterward claim on your own that they originally did not exist; this is unreasonable. It is like experiencing pleasure and so forth as something pleasant. If that external object could originally be experienced, only a similar but delusive appearance would manifest before one.

At that time, one would naturally determine that the external object did not exist, just as a person who has dreamed knows only upon awakening that it was unreal.

What is seen in a dream does not exist, and after awakening it is absent. If, likewise, one does not experience objects while awake, they would be nonexistent just as in a dream. People in the world know for themselves that this is not so.

It is therefore certain that, while awake, objects such as form and so forth are actually experienced, unlike in dreams, where consciousness lacks effective power. Yet this analogy also cannot clearly establish the meaning of experiencing form and so forth. A sleeping dreamer, while dreaming, cannot clearly understand that the objects do not exist.

When the period of slumber has been left behind and lucid awareness is attained, the distinct objects previously cognized have perfumed and formed seeds of remembrance. Then, upon remembering the objects experienced in the dream, an active thought arises and only then determines that those things did not exist. As it is with that, so it is again with this.

Although no external form can be experienced, consciousness immediately transforms into a mind that sees external form. False discrimination arises and appears repeatedly; abundant cognitive activity produces this kind of nature, while numerous functional powers are perfumed and become seeds. These cause the active mind, precisely on the basis of this perfuming, once again to seek to clarify those unreal things.

Therefore, numerous conditions subsequently arise, and the true meaning is clearly seen because there is a dharma resembling sleep. Even the waking state is called sleep because this perfuming continually follows one. Worldly sleep is like the many other forms of sleep.

Merely because deluded feeling, apart from consciousness, separately perceives objects such as forms and sounds, beings are bound, undergo manifold suffering, drift along the shores of birth and death, and revolve in the ocean of desire. Since the perfuming has not yet been properly eliminated, just as one cannot know in a dream that objects such as forms are empty, one has not yet encountered the non-arising of things and therefore does not know their nonexistence.

One is deceived by objects. Although wisdom born of hearing and reflection may arise, because of the perfuming of discrimination one has not yet directly realized the truth and cannot properly arouse it; this too is called deceit and delusion. At that time, it is called non-awakening.

Then, because an antidote to those perfumed seeds has arisen and possesses the power to uproot them completely, its arising in this manner is called supramundane wisdom. Since it properly severs every nature of discrimination, non-discriminating wisdom becomes manifest and can dispel the sleep of perfumed ignorance and realize true awakening. At that time, relying upon this and taking non-discriminating wisdom as the cause, skillful means arise through its power and can certainly sever the perfuming of fixed attachment to meanings such as form and so forth; this is called purity.

Because the appearances of objects are conceived and grasped, this is called the worldly. Once that wisdom has manifested, there is only consciousness. When cognition of form arises in accordance with that category of form, the image portion manifests solely from one’s own consciousness.

Falsely grasped objects are taken as causes of arising, yet they possess no own-nature apart from consciousness. Thus arises comprehension of objects such as forms, sounds, and so forth. As for the established inference, if it is based on the general characteristic—namely, not knowing that the object does not exist—then it must be admitted that the probans is unestablished.

If a distinction is asserted, saying that one does not know this while awake, then, as before, the similarity is again not established. That while awake one clearly knows the object originally to be nonexistent is accepted by the thesis itself, and thus it entails this fault. Properly speaking, this probans cannot establish that the preceding object can be experienced, or else it incurs the fault of being unestablished.

To state the explanation clearly: as has always been the case, one does not take an object to understand a cognition that is absent here.

This reasoning is likewise not established. One must first know the object before this thought concerning the matter can arise. If it is said to be nonexistent, then it is known definitively that the preceding object exists. How, then, can one again say that the absence of an observed appearance is existence? Moreover, to say that non-manifestation exists is contradictory. If this is interpreted comprehensively, those schools reject nonexistence because the reason is contradictory. For example, what non-Buddhist treatises call permanent and so forth arises earlier and ceases later; none of these is altogether nonexistent. Or, with regard to various locations, something may be in this place but not elsewhere; one object may be present while another is absent. What fault is there in this?

If, when the self is empty, one rejects it as nonexistent not because one has failed to understand it, yet gives rise to knowledge regarding that emptiness, this cannot be accepted. This is not like letters and literary compositions, which, with regard to form and so forth, declare the self to be empty; rather, within form and so forth there is no truly existent self constructed, and this is not established on the basis of a self.

If so, how could there be no fault with regard to the aggregate of form and so forth? If it is said that consciousness has no self, how can this escape doubt and difficulty?

Because a second consciousness is not admitted. At the loci of the various consciousnesses, one understands that the self is empty; nor is it the case that something was experienced before and can subsequently be remembered. Even supposing that a memory of a vanished object arises, one must therefore admit that there is only consciousness manifesting an appearance.

This is precisely what has already been admitted. Yet at the locus of consciousness, one knows that the self is empty and rejects the existence of a self. When consciousness arises, this cognition then knows that no entity of self exists; but because it knows apart from the object that there is only consciousness, it accords with this appearance.

When arising dependently upon conditions, if it knows that the object is empty, would these not occur together? Yet when form and so forth are known to be without self, what pertains to the loci of form and so forth is a universal characteristic, not an intrinsic characteristic. Therefore, all these take their basis of dependence as their determinate nature, since their own entities differ.

But what merely resembles something is not an appearance that truly exists. In seeking to distinguish and select among other things, an appearance different from them arises in dependence upon consciousness, as though truly existent; a habituated mental factor within the very entity of consciousness turns forth and becomes manifest. On this basis, conventional discourse gives rise to an understanding of external objects.

These various experiences are only produced by one’s own mind and have never existed externally. This alone is the superior cultivation through which the nature is attained. Because ignorance obscures wisdom, one contemplates universal characteristics as though they were external, just as conventional speech describes what is seen.

Understanding is gained in accordance with conventional speech. In the various systems of reasoning, cognition operates by way of similarities among things, and explanations are given through distinct forms. With respect to other things, exclusions are made.

Among these matters there should be divisions according to form. If the universal characteristic were real, it would indeed be a universal characteristic. Then, although form and so forth each differ in their own entities, they would not correspond to other entities.

Thus form and so forth would become entities that are not different, as though form resembled sound. Furthermore, whether that characteristic is one or different, it cannot acceptably be called a universal characteristic. This is merely concealed conventionality, and clearly there is no dispute concerning it.

Since it is not admitted as truly existent, form, sound, and so forth would become entities that are not different. Moreover, each form and so forth would in turn possess many entities, and hence the modes of being of universal characteristics would be boundless. They would thus be conjoined with many kinds of essential nature, while all things would become a single entity.

Just as, in accordance with its own object, one bears an image-like appearance and separates this essential appearance from the preceding object, so too many appearances are provisionally established. They are distinguished through conventional discourse, and thereby form, sound, and so forth are constituted. The cognition of selflessness is likewise a universal characteristic.

Because it is of the nature of exclusion, it takes the absence of an object as the means of clarifying the doctrine of Consciousness-Only. Yet when selflessness is understood with regard to form and so forth, there is a distinct aspect of appearance. Moreover, since there is fundamentally no division between before and after, one first makes a clear and decisive determination by means of the particular characteristic, and then, in accordance with that determination, apprehends the objective nature of the other.

As with a blue lotus: one excludes its being white, consciousness takes the entity of the lotus as its object, and determines it to be blue. The principle is likewise the same when speaking of selflessness. Whenever a determination arises, it means that, through reflecting upon the appearance of self imputed there, one then produces the determination that no distinct entity of self exists.

Even though cognition arises without an object, since the principle is the same, how could there still be any conflicting dispute?

If sentient beings continue through their intrinsic characteristics, and if it is said that within the entities of those intrinsic characteristics there are immeasurable and diverse capacities, which manifest differently within their own consciousnesses, then when maturation occurs it is through the power of their own seeds that consciousness becomes manifest, and not because it arises from external objects; nor does it arise from an external object apart from one’s own consciousness. Yet benefit or harm comes about through associating with good or bad friends.

This cannot be established. In relation to benefit and harm, whether genuine or false, only verbally uttered sounds are taken as objects. Therefore, once the meaning of the sound has been apprehended, both kinds are nonexistent, and through this exclusion they become nonentities.

Because those are existent, however, reasonable and unreasonable conduct can cause good and evil to follow them and bring about action. Since those actions are nonexistent, how could there be anything that can be apprehended and followed in training? Thus consciousness would have arisen without ever depending upon an external object, entailing the fault of contradicting what has been admitted.

The mind that takes form and so forth as its objects must necessarily depend upon external objects such as form and so forth. Just as there are existent and nonexistent things, auditory consciousness, too, is like the examination of those traces of conduct: its nature is capable of determining an object. Therefore, as with form and so forth, the various consciousnesses also necessarily take external objects as their objects.

As the authoritative testimony of the noble ones states, however, there is only an appearance resembling an internally transformed manifestation; therefore, this certainly has no power to refute the meaning of Consciousness-Only. It is established through the successive mutual predominance of the various consciousnesses, because those successive consciousnesses depend upon one another. Thus two consciousnesses depend upon each other and fundamentally do not require sound, form, or the like.

Since the example adduced does not accord with the thesis, it is also wholly contrary to the teaching. Because that other continuum is a distinct consciousness, that consciousness serves as a cause for one’s own consciousness to arise; hence the functioning of good and bad friends is reasonable. The case of an external object leading to a dream is rejected as nonexistent.

Upon seeing a friend, why not refute this by saying that the two do not share the same sleep? What difficulty is there that one must forcibly establish a nature of successive occurrence? In a dream, hearing of good and evil does not arise from a distinct consciousness; how, then, could it presently occur in accordance with the activity of another consciousness?

Furthermore, how is it known that arising occurs solely through the discriminations of the various consciousnesses?

What was spoken of there as an event gives rise to conception in accordance with it. When consciousness arises, it again possesses the distinct capacity of various other consciousnesses as the cause of its manifestation. Therefore, when hearing-consciousness combines with its conditions at the proper time, it merely manifests the appearance of sound with its distinct characteristics, and a new consciousness arises.

Without relying upon an external object, it can understand the matter through its own capacity. There are distinctions whereby, relying upon its own internal conditions—the appearance of sound—it understands. That is, when knowledge of the object before it occurs, it is merely the capacity of the matured state of one’s own consciousness being transformed and arising; only the appearance of sound and consciousness arise together.

One should clearly contemplate this principle. Or a noble being of immensely majestic spiritual power may, without written words and apart from apprehending the appearance of sound, establish an expedient means in a brief period. Yet this is possible only because of a superior distinction, which immediately causes other consciousnesses with their particular distinctions to arise in mutual succession.

This is mutually accepted; therefore, it is precisely the power of consciousness-only. Yet no intrinsic characteristic of sound ever reaches the other consciousnesses; this is what they mutually accept as an illustration. Even if this is accepted, it is only in dependence upon another consciousness that knowledge of sound can arise.

This would then become perpetual: one would continually hear the reverberation of sound. Since this knowledge of sound is entirely produced in the mind, even when one is far away or the faculty of hearing is impaired, one ought to hear speech without ever ceasing. If it is accepted that such knowledge arises from an external sound, then hearing-consciousness functions only when sound is heard, and discrimination arises from its cause; but it must correspond to the place, and the faculty of hearing must also be unimpaired, before one can hear and know whether the object is correct or incorrect.

Thus, to say that it is entirely nonexistent also becomes merely a view. In general, the faults concerning hearing are not limited to this. Consciousness must await a distinctive capacity before it can ascertain what is conveyed by a sound.

Just as sounds differ in their intrinsic natures and can produce this particular understanding, this is unlike other mental appearances. Likewise, in regard to sound, one does not hear everything. When taking this appearance of sound as its condition, consciousness conditions only this same appearance and produces only this particular understanding.

When understanding arises, it does so only by taking a distinction such as this as its condition, because this alone has the operative power to serve as its cause, not anything else. It is just as, where sound occurs in a corresponding place, representations arise continuously from its intrinsic characteristic. Again, when the seed of this event becomes present, it can arise only in accordance with the particular operation of its own result; only in this way is the fault of indiscriminate similarity avoided.

Furthermore, written characters consist of constituent parts. When analyzed to the utmost, they are not of a nature apprehensible by the faculties, just like atoms. Nor do they arise simultaneously, because they do not combine into an aggregate.

This principle is incorrect, because the mind that takes such sound as its condition cannot be apprehended. Moreover, they accept that there are subtle parts because their essential natures are similar and because they are not within the domain of the faculties. Yet it is not the function of those distinctions to produce the power by which things are arranged according to a rational order.

Again, just as an external sound-consciousness, in accordance with the distinctions in the reverberation upon which it depends as a condition, has an intrinsic characteristic serving as its causal condition, so too does consciousness. What, then, is objectionable? Is it not said that, through successive enhancement, the apprehension of other consciousnesses is accepted?

Therefore, with respect to external objects, this consciousness becomes as though it did not apprehend an object. The illustration would thus be erroneous. This objection is unreasonable.

The illustration is established because the manifest appearances of the consciousnesses are taken as the objects of cognition, as established by other schools. Just as there it is not a presently existing sound, but the thesis is established by apprehending a single appearance in accordance with it: consciousness arises with only that appearance. That school accepts that this is established; my illustration is likewise.

What fault could there be? Why does the Tathagata eliminate both discriminating consciousness and the distinctions among its objects, yet transform the continuous, undifferentiated continuum into boundless distinctions in order to teach sentient beings, causing what seems like a multiplicity of mental appearances to arise in them? It is like that one sound: its essence is without distinction, yet consciousness arises in accordance with each appearance in which beings take delight.

It is solely through the majestic spiritual power of the Tathagata, perfected through cultivation, that those beings are enabled to obtain objects possessing many different capacities rather than one; their many dissimilar forms and kinds remain unmixed and undisturbed. Once applied, every distinction becomes perfectly clear, like the image of a lamp appearing in a bright mirror. Moreover, the Tathagata’s activities of teaching and transformation and his majestic power are inconceivable, surpassing all objects that can be conceived.

Since this is a Dharma gate studied in common, this objection has been raised only with difficulty and is not an excellent statement. If it is said that dreaming and waking consciousness are two states without distinction, because both are accepted as lacking real objects, then distinctions within them should lead to results. In a dream, one may see good or evil—this is stated generally—and likewise, when the mind is in the waking state, there are no objects.

Accordingly, their results should be obtained at the same time; or else dreams should also be entirely without results because of their objectless nature. If this statement is instead turned into a question, it is not so, because it lacks reason. Because the mind is obscured by sleep, the results of dreaming and waking consciousness are not alike.

Thus, dreams arise from a mind obscured by sleep and are unclear by nature; consequently, the good and evil done therein can bring forth only feeble results. In the waking state, if one engages with other matters disrespectfully, or if the mind is at times distracted, then even though one practices generosity, the result does not increase. Although waking consciousness has no object, its results are likewise.

Yet according to their distinctions, acts may bring forth desirable or undesirable results. Because the essential natures of dreaming and waking consciousness differ, the results obtained are dissimilar; this does not contradict reason. Furthermore, the strength or weakness of the capacity to bring forth results does not arise because the essences of wholesome and other objects differ.

Rather, distinctions arise because intrinsic nature, the corresponding factors of the entity itself, and so forth increase. Thus, during a dream, for example, such distinctions are already present and are taken as conditions; they have nothing to do with whether an object exists. Or, after consciousness has arisen, one may immediately give rise to a harmful mind toward that object and commit extremely evil deeds.

Such circumstances can also bring forth powerful results, sowing inferior, middling, or superior wholesome and unwholesome karma. From this it may be said that differences in the results planted truly do not depend upon the existence of external objects. Or when one conditions the body of an arhat of the past and performs meritorious deeds and so forth, that object truly no longer exists.

As in a dream, if the results obtained were not the same, there would be the fault of indeterminacy. Afterward, one may become joyful within the dream. Although no real object exists when the Tathagata appears in the world, immense results are nevertheless brought forth.

Only thus is this illustration established.

This does not accord with the tenet. Some masters say that although dreaming impairs one’s faculties and cuts one off from external objects, consciousness is not obscured—just as when one has newly awakened but remains drowsy: because one has not had sufficient sleep, the body feels heavy and one’s vision is unclear. Yet such impairment is truly difficult to attribute to the corresponding consciousness within the dream, for in a dream the mind and mental factors arise, and at that time objects are seen clearly; the mind is scorched by anxiety, sorrow, and fear, to a degree that even while awake it may not experience anything comparable.

For this reason, numerous sentient beings see objects together, because they apprehend the image-part. Yet in dreams, the seven kinds of material karma do not constitute paths of karma, because material forms in dreams are not visible and resistant. They are non-shared objects, unlike ordinary external objects; this is merely a matter of conventional discourse.

Only then can it be established that material karma is not a path of karma. Without examining the reason, however, the treatise states that consciousness in dreams sees unclearly and consequently obtains an inferior result. If so, the same should also apply while awake.

Faced with this fault, they reply that an inferior result is obtained because dreams involve impairment. If there were no impairment, how would dreaming differ from waking? This would be like saying that when consciousness in a dream clearly discriminates its object, it consequently brings about an excellent result.

If this reasoning is accepted, then when the mind in a dream is lucid and decisive, it should be admitted that it can bring about a supremely sublime result. The non-establishment of the seven kinds of material karma as paths of karma was originally only a matter of discussion, but because it obstructs distinctions in the results brought about, one must then discuss the basis from which paths of karma arise. Since results are not brought about directly, it is necessary to rely upon this path of karma in order to reach the preparatory stage.

When this intention is severely bound and harmed by defilements, it causes an extremely evil result to be brought about. When the defilements are slight, even though the fundamental act has been committed, it still cannot be equivalent to a mind of utmost purity in the preparatory and fundamental stages of cultivating virtue. From this it should be understood that, according to the doctrine of consciousness-only, when harm arises within that continuum, the corresponding path of karma is formed in accordance with the mind.

Some other masters say that the offense is established only because the other person knows of it.

This is not a correct answer. Why must one wait for a shared object before establishing it? Is a path of karma not established through the power of another? Yet one may provisionally speak in this way when discussing worldly affairs. For example, when a bhiksu severs the impure flow of semen and commits these offenses, how could this depend upon another being or upon a shared object, or require that other person to know? Therefore, if in a dream there truly are blue and other colors that can be known, an offense is established only because the Great Teacher laid down a rule concerning it; alternatively, it may derive from something else. It does not depend upon whether that particular thing exists or does not exist. This is reasonable.

If so, if the realm of beings is nothing but consciousness-only, would there consequently be no verbal karma or bodily karma?

Yet because it consists of the great elements and arises from seeds, it is called the body. Verbal karma is material form arising from seeds. These two accomplish killing, false speech, and so forth. If these two did not exist, those acts could not be accomplished. Yet a butcher or hunter incurs the offense of killing merely through transformations appearing within his own consciousness. Is this not contradictory? Is it because the life faculty of the being from a previous existence is itself severed that the butcher incurs the offense of killing? This contradicts the accepted existence of the two kinds of karma, bodily and verbal. If this is not so, then how is it?

Death occurs through another consciousness. For example, the consciousness of a butcher or meat seller employs means to cause the other being to be separated from life; so too is it here. Only one’s own consciousness has causal efficacy: when a distinctive appearance manifests, it becomes a cause for killing in relation to the other being’s life.

Thus, solely through the causal force of one’s own consciousness, one mistakenly perceives the appearance of a body and, relying upon that force, establishes a path of karma. The other paths of karma should be understood by analogy. According to this reasoning, it is further generally admitted that a particular modification of consciousness may become a cause of destruction for another body.

For example, when ghosts, gandharvas, and others become jealous, an evil thought immediately arises; the manifestation produced by the consciousness of those ghosts and others then becomes a cause that makes a being from a previous existence lose mindfulness and so forth. Again, when a noble being recollects something with one-pointed attention, the power of that consciousness serves as a predominant condition. Thus, while dreaming, bewilderment is dispelled; one then observes various unusual forms and deportments, and consciousness apprehends those images.

As for the term “life faculty,” it means that, as appropriate, one follows the force of the karma drawing one toward that realm. When the resultant consciousness is instilled, in conformity with that drawing force it undergoes transformation, enabling that one karma continuously to bring about a result belonging to the same class. Its severance is the contrary of this; this does not mean that everything is severed.

As has been admitted, among those six bases, when continuity within the same class is severed, this is called extinction. When consciousness and life separate, this is provisionally called severance. Only through one’s own consciousness and another’s consciousness serving as conditions can the severance and cessation of the life faculty take effect.

This resembles a hermit who attains a supreme concentration and, through the distinctive efficacy of its force and capacity, causes another being to undergo transformation, for this is merely a distinctive quality of the internal mind. Thus, although there are no two kinds of karma, bodily and verbal, the principles of killing, stealing, and so forth are nevertheless established. As a sutra says, when a hermit abides in that concentration and his mind gives rise to the fire of anger, the power of this condition causes innumerable sentient beings to be killed.

This too occurs because his mind causes their lives to be severed. The principle should be understood by reasoning as above. It must certainly be admitted that the hermit possesses an intention to cause harm, thereby causing innumerable living beings to lose their lives.

If it were otherwise, the intention to take life would not constitute a grave offense. Therefore, it should be understood that this is valid evidence: an offense of intention is a grave offense.

If so, when someone unaware of that intention performs the killing at that time, the same conclusion should follow. Clearly, this would then be the gravest offense among offenses of bodily karma. Sometimes, without reliance upon any other continuum of consciousness, sentient beings are harmed by falling rocks, smoke, fire, rain, and so forth. Whose predominant power then causes their lives to be severed? Surely it cannot be that this consciousness manifests such appearances and is nevertheless itself killed. This therefore incurs the contradictory fault of binding oneself by one’s own argument.

This objection is unreasonable. It occurs because this very continuum of consciousness is incapable of maintaining a condition conducive to the continuation of that life. It is like a severe poison that causes the mind to become terrified, disordered, and unconscious. It is merely that, within the conforming internal continuum, consciousness no longer possesses the causal efficacy to remain continuous; therefore, this is called the severance of the lifespan. Yet to say that appearances such as falling rocks manifest does not entail any contradiction. For it is solely through the predominant power of consciousness that the life faculty is caused to perish; immediately thereafter, the life ends, and at the time of death that being becomes nonexistent.

Since it is not present before one, how can an offense be established, and how can the severance of life possess the nature of a cause?

Although this has been clearly explained, it is still difficult to answer the counter-question. When a person commits an act of killing and thereby incurs the karmic path, if the karmic path is completed at that moment, why does the victim not die immediately then? If it is only when the requisite conditions are later encountered that the victim’s death is completed, how can the perpetrator here be guilty of killing?

If it is said that the combination constitutes the offense of killing, then when these two events are separate, is there or is there not a difference in their substance? How could they be combined? Concerning this matter, the Venerable author of the treatise has definitively determined who the killer is.

Within the continuum, that particular difference arises and the nature of the karma is infused into it. Yet our understanding is as follows: because the dominant consciousness of the killer serves as the cause that severs the victim’s continuum, it is certainly this, and not some other subsequent event, that brings about the end of the victim’s life. At the moment the victim is wounded, the karma of killing is accomplished, because that act possesses the capacity to sever the victim’s life and it is certainly because of this that the victim dies.

The killer possesses only this power as the principal cause of severing the victim’s life, whether the victim dies immediately or only later. Through the dominant consciousness acting together with the other person’s consciousness, the harm proceeds gradually, causing the consciousness of the final moment to be obstructed so that it cannot continue. Nor is it the case that the killer accomplishes the karma of killing merely through intention, for the intention may be reversed if something prevents the person from carrying out the killing.

Reasonably speaking, the victim does not die only through dependence upon other conditions; the severing of life is definitively determined by this act, because it is from this cause that life is severed. Therefore, the karmic path of killing is accomplished immediately. Thus there is no fault.

The same should be understood according to the circumstances in cases such as that of a bandit. Otherwise, what efficacy would the killer’s act possess at that time? If the offense of killing were incurred only when the victim died, this would entail an unreasonable fault. The offense would not depend upon the killer or upon that particular difference within the killer’s own continuum, but would be established only on the basis of a change in the victim’s body after death. Yet it is because of the killer’s exertion that the victim’s life is severed.

This has already been explained. Why, then, does the victim not die at that very moment? When the means constituting the karma of killing are complete, the offense of killing is acquired at that time. The subsequent death results from that act. Yet at that moment there is no other distinguishing characteristic. Since the offense can be acquired then, this reasoning is again presented to dispel all doubts.

If so, in a dream both the killing body and the body being killed are nonexistent, and thus there would be the fault that no karmic path exists. This is because the consciousness in a dream also cannot harm the other person’s continuum; therefore, in that case the karmic path is not accomplished. By contrast, is the karma accomplished while awake?

This has already been established extensively: it is only the immediately succeeding state within the mind that can accomplish the karma of harming. Were other views on this matter to be set forth at length, one would have to accept the reasoning before posing further questions.

If there is consciousness only, does a person’s cognition know or not know another person’s mind? If it does not know, how can it be called the direct knowledge of another’s mind?

It is called such because, through this cognition, another person’s mind is discerned. If it did not discern it, the designation would be false.

This means that the expression itself is faulty. If the cognition does know it, then it apprehends as its object something separate from consciousness, contradicting the principle of consciousness-only. How can these two contradictions be answered?

Why is this so? Because the matter has a profound meaning. How does the cognition of another’s mind know its object? If it does not know it as it truly is, the intended realization is exceedingly profound. It is called another’s mind. If consciousness is admitted to exist, cognition is impaired; if it is not admitted, one’s own teaching is contradicted. If the cognition of another’s mind takes an external object as its condition, just as one observes an object outside the mind as a condition, it is difficult to avoid this fault. Since what is discerned is not a real object, however, there is no fault.

How can cognition be called the cognition of another’s mind if it knows an object that does not correspond to reality?

The meaning here is that the object appearing before cognition, as realized, is not deceptive; for this reason it is called the cognition of another’s mind.

If so, since the object appearing before cognition is already known not to be as it truly is, how can this be called another’s mind?

The reasoning is not so.

The fundamental meaning has not yet been understood.

Although it pertains to another’s mind, that mind is not taken as the object; rather, does not an appearance resembling its characteristics manifest upon consciousness? Therefore, no object apart from mind can give rise to that resembling appearance. Yet the appearance is not the object itself.

This is the fundamental intent underlying the establishment of the cognition of another’s mind. Here one merely apprehends that resemblance; therefore, it is said not to be true in nature. Although it is not identical with the other mind, it gives rise to an appearance resembling it, for it has already been established that no object exists apart from mind.

One capable of knowing generates cognition in accordance with the object’s appearance, just as in knowing one’s own mind. Since two minds existing simultaneously do not converge into one, the object cannot be a presently existing mind; it must be admitted to be either already ceased or not yet arisen. Yet only one can be obtained as an object, and even its substance does not exist.

One’s own consciousness alone again takes the aggregate of the dharmas of past and present mental states as its object, manifesting an appearance through which one apprehends one’s own mind. Everyone in the world accepts this. The principle concerning the cognition of another’s mind should be understood in the same way.

If one’s own mind itself can be discerned, why is it said not to be known as it truly is?

Because the object is not truly known, it is called untrue. That is, taking what does not exist to exist is regarded as corresponding to true knowledge.

If so, why say that it is unlike all those apprehended objects, which are nonexistent?

Because that cognition cannot understand the real object, this cognition is likewise not as it truly is. It does not know as a Buddha knows an object. When this cognition of another’s mind takes something such as blue as its condition and clearly understands that object, it corresponds to reality.

Why bring up the Buddha’s knowing the pure intrinsic nature of the substance of mind when speaking of ordinary beings’ purported knowledge of another’s mind?

Taking another’s mind as a condition, one understands an appearance within one’s own mind and provisionally calls this knowing another’s mind.

Then what is the sphere of the true intrinsic nature of another’s mind?

This is also not so.

If it is not so, how does the Buddha know another’s mind?

Intrinsic nature means that what is known exists apart from the knowing mind. Suppose form apart from mind existed; the Buddha would also know it. What harm would there be? But mind truly exists. Both sides accept this. Real form apart from mind contradicts reason and therefore is not analogous.

If so, when the Buddha knows another’s mind, he must fail to know the object, because the object is delusive.

What harm is there if the Buddha knows on the basis of the delusive? Just as one who observes an illusion certainly knows it to be deceptive, what fault is there if the Buddha similarly knows the deceptive as deceptive?

If so, what are the characteristics of the sphere of the Buddhas?

The sphere of the Buddhas cannot be known by ordinary people.

If the Buddha does not know the mind, how can he be called omniscient?

Its intrinsic nature is precisely free from error. It is not that one first knows everything while asleep and only afterward awakens. At the very moment one discerns one’s own and others’ minds, one cannot discern their true nature. Therefore, it is said that such cognition does not correspond to the reality of the object known.

Furthermore, how can the cognition of one fully awakened from sleep correctly understand this?

It does so through awareness of the ineffable nature of the object, which transcends the capacity of language and is known only through direct self-realization. Therefore, it cannot be reached through verbal expression. Yet this consciousness possesses an intrinsic nature that cannot be known by other consciousnesses.

Since it is not an object of knowledge, language cannot reach it. Those other consciousnesses take only general characteristics as their objects and therefore possess merely the nature of deceptive construction. This very construction, with respect to the nature of self-realization, is exceedingly remote from and devoid of the real characteristic of consciousness.

Only at the locus of consciousness is the unreal appearance known. Both of these, therefore, fail to correspond to the real object. Why is this so?

Because with respect to what is unreal, an understanding that it is real arises and makes a determination, owing to the deceptive appearance manifested within that consciousness./.

Treatise on the Jewel Born of the Establishment of Consciousness-Only, Fascicle V