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extinct, neither permanent nor annihilated, neither
identical nor differentiated, neither coming nor going.
The history of Buddhism is replete with illustrious
sages who pondered and expounded this doctrine at
great length. To deluded worldlings, however, it
makes no sense to speak of no birth and no death.
They hold birth and death to be essential; all of us
were born and must die in the same way that the
grass sprouts and grows in the spring and summer
and dies in the fall. That is clear to everyone, so how
can anybody teach that there is no birth and no
death? Thus, worldlings come to perceive objects as
permanent (the view called parikalpita in Sanskrit).
In The Madhyamika Sastra, Bodhisattva Nagarjuna
(c.150-250 C.E.) says: For the one who is already
born, there is no birth; nor is there birth for the one
who has not been born. Also, neither the one who
was born nor the one who was not born has birth,
nor does the one being born have birth at the time of
birth. For example, grass that is one foot tall is no
longer sprouting. That is what is meant by no more
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birth for the one already born. Now, suppose that
the grass that is presently one foot tall is allowed to
grow one more foot: It still cannot be said to have
birth, because there is no manifestation of birth. That
is what is meant by What has not been born yet has
no birth. The grass cannot be said to have birth or
be born at any specific time during its sprouting, and
so it is said that The one being born does not have
birth at the time of birth. The mark or the sign of
birth does not obtain at any one moment. Bodhi-
sattva Nagarjuna demonstrated by means of this
example that the doctrine of no-birth makes perfect
sense and that it is relevant to an understanding of
the Teaching.
I have already explained birth and non-birth. Let me
explain now the opposite of non-birth. For the one
already dead there is no death; for the one not yet
dead there is no death either. At the time of dying
there is not one specific instant in which death
manifests itself. The following explanation should
clarify the eight dharmas of form: neither existent
nor extinct, neither permanent nor annihilated,
neither identical nor differentiated, and neither com-
ing nor going. A simple statement of non-birth and
non-death would not be convincing enough, so, to
counter any argument, the Buddha added neither
permanent nor annihilated for those holding on to
doctrine of permanence. To make it succinct in
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terms of the luminous Dharma, it is often said, If
you open your mouth you are already wrong; if you
give rise to a single thought, you are in error. All of
this is, inconceivable. However, The Surangama Sutra
simply asserts, The language we use has no real
meaning.
I would like those who hold things to be permanent
to explain why we cannot see at present all those
who have lived before us? If you consider thusly, the
impermanence of human existence becomes immed-
iately apparent. Similarly, those who subscribe to the
annihilation theory should tell us how it is possible
for us to eat last year s rice. Today s rice is the seed
from last year s plant, which, in turn, grew from the
seed of the previous year. That should be evidence
enough that the annihilation theory does not work, as
asserted by the aforementioned neither birth nor
death, neither permanence nor annihilation.
Regarding neither identical nor differentiated , it
means not being the same or alike and not being
varied either; it also means being neither one nor
many. Consider the human body, for example: It is a
collection of many dissimilar parts i.e., skin,
muscle, tendons, bones, blood, viscera and more.
Though we refer to it as one body or one sentient
being, there are, actually, more than one. However,
the body cannot be called a group or a composite
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because it is perceived as an entity. Thus, the idea
under discussion can reasonably be reformulated as
One is all, and all is one. The Ultimate Dharma is
the silence that follows after the sound of discussion
has ceased and when the role of thought is done.
Neither coming nor going addresses the view of
things as having independent, lasting existence. By
coming and going we imply questions such as
Where do people come from, and where do they
go? Similarly, some may wonder, Where do
mountains come from and where do they go?
Again, the view that holds everything in the world to
be in some way continuing is called in Sanskrit
parikalpita. This view is based on a fundamental
cognitive distortion, bringing further distortions in
its wake: From there on, there is birth and death,
permanence and annihilation, sameness and differ-
entiation, coming and going.
The foregoing discussion of the Superb Doctrine has
dealt with neither birth nor death, neither perma-
nence nor annihilation, neither sameness nor differ-
entiation, and neither coming nor going. Now we
are going to turn our attention to the doctrine of the
Ultimate Reality as not defiled, not pure, not in-
creasing and not decreasing, and dependent only on
the substance of Prajna (or the Voidness of all things).
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Both defiled and pure are without definite form, thus
leaving everyone to his or her own resources, or sub-
jective point of view. Rejecting defiled and clinging
to pure give rise to yet another defilement because
of our natural tendency toward opinions and preju-
dice. It is only when discriminating thought no
longer arises that Liberation can be attained. Let us
imagine that someone slips while walking on a
country road; while getting up he or she puts a hand
in some dung. This person washes the dirty hand,
and having done that, considers it clean. Had a hand-
kerchief been used instead to wipe that hand clean, it
would have been considered somewhat soiled even
after many launderings; it might even be discarded.
However, the hand cannot be discarded since it
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