being joined to the actual, the Nirvana is destructible (which is absurd, the Nirvana being not an actual thing). If the actual and the unreal are, as thus argued, identical, all kinds of 'teaching' (or 'action,' fa) are indestructible, like the Nirvana, which is permanent, and is, therefore, not produced from any cause. If 'actions' (hing) are not produced from causes, they do not differ from the empty Nirvana. In this case, the method or state of 'actuality' (yeu-wei) need not be called constant. But if the things done, being not produced from causes, are still non-permanent, then the empty Nirvana is not called permanent, If this be true, the methods of actuality and of non-reality are neither of them good. If the non-permanent is parted from actuality and is still called non-permanent, then actuality apart from constancy ought to be called constant. But this is not correct reasoning. In which of the Sutras are there such words as these?

"What ideas are to be discoursed upon? What meaning is there in that which you now say? There is much in it that is unreasonable, such as your crooked mind cannot fathom. Therefore what you say, is not correct doctrine. If men, who have gained some knowledge, maintain that the (action or) 'law' of the past, present, and future is in each case completed from and in itself, this is to be regarded as a false view. Why so? Because it is a view which omits the notion of cause. If we speak of the future as not being produced from causes, but as formed from and in itself, then the present is also not produced from causes, but is formed from its own nature. For the future and the present are, in their own nature, even and equal, without any difference. If so, and the law of the present comes from causes, why, in this case, should not the law of the future come from causes also? You ground this view either on the Sutras, or upon your own judgment. But the statement is incorrect and unreasonable. Being unreasonable, it is not to be believed. If the law that regards the future is not produced from causes, but

comes from its own nature, it must be an empty thing. Being cut off from any connection with causes, it cannot be produced from any cause. It is, therefore, not truly future in itself. But if the future is non-existent, then the present and past are also non-existent. The present and the past being non-existent, then time in its threefold aspect is really nothing in itself. If it be said that it has a real existence, this is to say that it is permanent, and is produced without a cause.