Clinging and The Three Natures Theory: Concepts and a Hypothesis based on the Tattvārtha
Delivered at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting
Yogācāra Studies Group, Panel on Reading the Tattvārtha Chapter of the Yogācāra-bhūmi
Clinging and The Three Natures Theory:
Concepts and a Hypothesis based on the Tattvārtha Chapter
The Yogācārabhūmi presents a rare opportunity. Its distinct textual strata
allow us to track the conceptual connections between the Tattvārtha chapter’s
systematic exposition of reality that pays only scant attention to distinctly Yogācāra-
Vijñānavāda concepts like mind-only and the three natures, to the full articulation of
those concepts in the Viniścaya section on the Bodhisattvabhūmi. This presentation
will take advantage of these diverse strata to trace the conceptual links between the
Tattvārtha-paṭala’s treatment of the concept of clinging (abhiniveśa, zhi 執) and the
exposition of clinging in the Viniścaya section. Clinging is the central concept used in
the Viniścaya section to explain the relationship between the three natures and the
concepts of existence and non-existence. Therefore, understanding it as a mediating
idea between inversion or delusion on the one hand and the three natures theory on
the other provides insight into the structure of the selflessness of dharmas that the
three natures theory elaborates.
The first two passages on the handout establish that there are two types of clinging and that it is by means of these that existence is either falsely attributed to the natures and characteristics of dharmas as they are determined in language, or falsely denied to the ultimate nature of dharmas, which is the sphere of nondiscriminating knowledge or cognition. My translation for these two types of clinging is transference-clinging (samāropa-abhiniveśa or samāropa-samgrāha) and diminishment-clinging (apavāda-abhiniveśa or apavāda- samgrāha).
The first point I’d like to establish is with regard to what it means to attribute
existence to the natures and characteristics of dharmas as they are determined in
language. My claim is that it means to attribute causal efficacy to natures and
characteristics, in particular the causal efficacy to give rise to further samsāric
events. This of course is precisely what occurs in many non-Mahāyāna Abhidharma texts, where it is in virtue of possessing natures and characteristics that dharmas
have the causal power to give rise to other dharmas.
Next I would like to use the resource of the Viniścaya section to establish the
nature of clinging itself. The third passage on the handout provides the definition of
clinging, abhiniveśa, as given in that section. Here, the first four kinds of clinging
(more accurately called subtle clinging) are a repetition of the four kinds of
inversion (viparyāsa or diandao) listed in the Bodhisattva-bhūmi, in a section prior
to the Tattvārtha-paṭala. The fifth kind is an innovation of the Viniścaya section, and
this innovation accomplishes two things that I would like to bring our attention to.
First, it gives what I should like to call the inner structure of clinging. We can see this
through a contrast with the first four kinds of clinging, which are indeed just kinds of
clinging. These four kinds of clinging all pick out a characteristic of the locus of
clinging (which are the three marks of conditioned existence as well as impurity,
here we might call it the fourth mark) and an object of clinging, which is the inverse
of that characteristic. The fifth kind of clinging – which is clinging to the nature that
is clung to by construction within all marks – also picks out a locus and object, but in
this case the locus and object are not characteristics of dharmas, but the structure
Joy Brennan, Kenyon College
Delivered at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting
Yogācāra Studies Group, Panel on Reading the Tattvārtha Chapter of the Yogācāra-bhūmi
within which dharmas appear. So the locus is “all marks” and the object is “the
nature that is clung to by construction.” Now what is this structure? This structure is
precisely the transference-clinging that falsely attributes existence to the natures
and characteristics of dharmas.
The second thing that the addition of this fifth kind of clinging accomplishes
is expressed in my third point, which is that it connects clinging itself, understood
from the Tattvārtha-paṭala as the cause of the two extremes with regard to
existence, to the three natures theory. How does it do this? As should be clear from
the language used to refer to this fifth kind of clinging, this clinging is the activity
that falsely attributes existence to the constructed nature (translated by Xuanzang
as the nature that is clung to by construction). In other words, this form of clinging
attributes causal efficacy to the constructed nature. Thus the constructed nature is
the object of clinging. I’d also like to use Xuanzang’s carefully chosen name for the
constructed nature, which implies that the activity of construction is just the activity
of clinging. If they are the same activity, then both are the false investment of the
natures and characteristics of dharmas with causal efficacy.
The fourth passage on my handout is also from the Viniścaya section on the
Tattvārtha-paṭala. It is the text’s statement of what I call the three natures path
theory, which in the early texts that establish the terms and concept of the Yogācāra-
Vijñānavāda tradition generally reads like this: the constructed nature is the object
of thorough knowledge on the path, the dependent nature is the object of
abandonment, and the perfected nature is the object of direct realization. This brief
passage lists only the number of natures that are the object of each path process, but passage 5 on the handout clarifies that the dependent nature is indeed the object of abandonment. This point is moreover supported by the final point I am about to make.
So this brings us to the 5th and final point. If the dependent nature is the object of abandonment, and if as we see in the Tattvārtha chapter clinging or abhiniveśa is the activity that perpetuates samsara, then my hypothesis is that the activity of clinging is itself the definitive activity of the dependent nature. This hypothesis cuts against what I think has come to be the commonly accepted viewpoint about the dependent nature, which is that it is a kind of morally neutral basis of reality. One possibility is that this idea is grounded in a conceptual background that is not really appropriate to interpreting distinctively Yogācāra- Vijñānavāda theories like that of the three natures. If, for example, we take our Mahāyāna understanding of dependent-arising from a figure like Nagārjūna, and his famous equation of dependent arising and emptiness, we are not in a position to
recognize why the three natures path theory may assert that the dependent nature
is that which is to be abandoned on the path. But if we draw our conceptual
grammar from a distinctively Yogācāra framework, like that found in the Tattvārthapaṭala’s
claim about clinging as the activity that distorts existence and non-existence
themselves and that therefore is the source of samsara, then we are in a position to
form a more accurate view of these Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda concepts. That is what I
have done here today.
As I conclude I’d like to draw your attention to the problems with the
hypothesis that I include on the final page of the handout. I include these problems
because this is just a hypothesis. It needs to be tested, and I would be happy if
during our discussion today we can do that.
Passages
1) There are two kinds of people described in the dharma-vinaya as preached by the
Buddha. Both are ruined/destroyed. The first type gives rise to transferenceclinging
with regard to natures and characteristics, which are merely nominally
established among the dharmas of form etc., and among the entities of form, etc.,
and which are in fact without substantial existence. The second type gives rise to
diminishment-clinging with regard to that which does possess substantial existence,
which is the ultimate dharma-nature that occurs among the locus (adhiṣṭhānaṃ)
and basis (saṃniśraya) of/which is nominally (prajñāpti-vāda) established marks
(nimitta) and is separate from language.
T no. 1579, 30: 488 b9-14: 有二種人於佛所説法毘奈耶倶爲失壞一者於色等法於色 等事謂有假説自性自相於實無事起増益執二者於假説相處於假説相依離言自性勝義 法性謂一切種皆無所有於實有事起損減執。
Wogihara, page 45, first full paragraph: dvāv imāv asmād dharma-vinayāt praṇaṣṭau veditavyau. yaś ca rūp’ādīnāṃ dharmāṇāṃ rup’ādikasya vastunaḥ prajñapti-vāda-sva-bhāvaṃ sva-lakṣaṇaṃ a-sadbhūta- samāropato ‘bhiniviśate. yaś cāpi prajñapti-vāda-nimittādhiṣṭhānaṃ pratijñapti-vāda-nimitta-saṃniśrayaṃ nirabhilāpy’ātmakatayā paramārtha-sadbhūtam vastv apavadamāno nāśyati sarveṇa sarvaṃ nāstīti.
2) Thus, all dharmas do not possess self-natures that are in accord with language, nor are they altogether non-existent. They are thus neither existent nor absolutely non-existent. What is existent? It is separate from the deluded transference-clinging to that which is in reality non-existent, and it is separate from the deluded diminishment-clinging to that which in reality is existent. T no. 1579, 30: 488 a15-a20: 如是諸法非有自性如言所説亦非一切都無所有如是非 有亦非一切都無所有云何而有謂離増益實無妄執及離損減實有妄執。
Wogihara, page 44, starting on the second line down:
evaṃ sati na svabhāvo dharmāṇāṃ tathā vidyate. yathā ‘bhilapyate. na ca punaḥ
sarveṇa sarvaṃ na vidyate. sa punar evam avidyamāno na ca sarveṇa sarvam
avidyamānaḥ. kathaṃ vidyate. a-sad-bhūta-samāropa-saṃgrāha-vivarjito bhūtāpavādāsaṃgrāha-vivarjitaś ca vidyate.
3) There are five kinds of subtle clinging. The first is to cling to permanence within impermanence. The second is to cling to joy within suffering. The third is to cling to the pure within the impure. The fourth is to cling to self within not-self. And the fifth is to cling to the nature that is clung to by construction within all marks. T no. 1579, 30: 704 a16-a19: 復次微細執著當知五種一於無常常執二於苦樂執三於 不淨淨執四於無我我執五於諸相中遍計所執自性執。 4) How many of the three natures must be thoroughly known? All of them. How many must be permanently cut off (abandoned)? One. How many must be directly realized? One.
T no. 1579, 30: 705a09-a10: 問三種自性幾應遍知答一切問幾應永斷答一問幾應證 得答一.
5) If a practitioner of vision truly awakens to and enters into the nature that is grasped by discrimination [the constructed nature], at that time, which nature should we say she accords with and enters? The answer is the completely realized true nature [perfected nature]. When a practitioner accords with and enters the completely realized true nature, which nature should we say is abandoned? The answer is the nature that arises in dependence on another [[[dependent nature]]]. T no. 1579, 30: 705 b4-7 問若觀行者如實悟入遍計所執自性時當言隨入何等自性答 圓成實自性問若觀行者隨入圓成實自性時當言除遣何等自性答依他起自性.
Points
1) The false attribution of existence to natures (svabhāva) and characteristics (svalakṣaṇa) through transference-clinging (samāropa-abhiniveśa) is the attribution of causal efficacy to them. Causal efficacy means the power to give rise to further moments of conditioned experience.
2) The fifth of the five kinds of clinging in passage three above is an innovation of the Viniścaya section, in that it is an additional item from the four kinds of inversion listed in the Bodhisattva-bhūmi. It is not properly a kind of clinging (like the first
four kinds), but is rather the inner structure of clinging. This inner structure is
precisely the transference-clinging that falsely attributes existence to the natures
and characteristics of dharmas, as discussed in the Tattvārtha-paṭala. This inner
structure is also the condition that makes possible the occurrence of the four kinds
of clinging.
3) The fifth of the five kinds of clinging connects clinging itself, understood from the Tattvārtha-paṭala as the cause of the two extremes with regard to existence, to the three natures theory. It does this by making the constructed nature (translated by Xuanzang as “the nature that is clung to by construction,” 遍計所執自性) the object of clinging.
• Taking points 1 and 3 together we may infer that the constructed nature is defined as the nature and characteristics of dharmas when they are invested with causal efficacy.
• If the constructed nature is the object of clinging and is the object of the activity of construction (parikalpa) then clinging and construction are two different terms for the same activity. Both are the false investment of the natures and characteristics of dharmas with causal efficacy. 4) The dependent nature is the object of abandonment on the path. See passages 4 and 5 above.
5) Hypothesis: the dependent nature as described in the Viniścaya section should be interpreted as both the basis of clinging and the activity of clinging itself. • From the Tattvārtha-paṭala, we learn that clinging is the activity that brings about the extremes of existence and non-existence, which must be avoided. Clinging is therefore that which must be abandoned or cut off on the path.
Delivered at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting Yogācāra Studies Group, Panel on Reading the Tattvārtha Chapter of the Yogācāra-bhūmi
• The dependent nature is that which must be abandoned on the path because it is the condition of the world that is characterized by the four kinds of clinging, or in other words the source of the arising of saṃsāra (the second noble truth). Therefore it is equivalent to clinging.
Problem
1) This passage from the Viniścaya section on the Tattvārtha-paṭala describes the five functions of each of the three natures. The key distinction seems to be between the constructed nature as “that which gives rise to” clinging and the dependent nature as “the basis of clinging.” How does this affect the hypothesis?
How many functions does the nature that is clung to by construction have? It has five: the first is that it is able to give rise to the nature that is dependent upon another; the second is that within that nature (the nature that is dependent upon another) it is able to give rise to language; the third is that it is able to give rise to clinging to persons; the fourth is that it is able to give rise to clinging to dharmas; the fifth is that it is the collection of the gross and heavy perfumations of the two kinds of clinging [[[clinging]] to persons and clinging to
dharmas]. How many functions does the nature that arises in dependence upon another
have? It also has five: the first is that it is able to give rise to all defiled dharma natures; the
second is that it is the basis (saṃniśraya?) of the nature that is clung to by construction and
the perfect and real nature; the third is that it is the basis of clinging to persons; the fourth is
that it is the basis of clinging to dharmas; the fifth is that it is the basis of the gross and heavy
perfumations of the two kinds of clinging. How many functions does the perfect and real
nature have? It has five because based on it the antidote to the previous two sets of five
functions
T no. 1579, 30: 705c04-c12 問遍計所執自性能為幾業答五一能生依他起自性二即於彼性能 起言說三能生補特伽羅執四能生法執五能攝受彼二種執習氣麁重問依他起自性能為幾業答 亦五一能生所有雜染法性二能為遍計所執自性及圓成實自性所依三能為補特伽羅執所依四 能為法執所依五能為二執習氣麁重所依問圓成實自性能為幾業答亦五由是二種五業對治生 起所緣境界性故
