Chapter 18. Investigation of the Self

If the self were the skandhas, it would share in arising and passing away; and if it were other than the skandhas, it would have a characteristic that does not belong to the skandhas.

If there is no self, where could “mine” come from? Through the stilling of “I” and “mine” there is neither “mine” nor “I-making”.

And the one who is without “mine” and without “I-making” does not exist either; whoever sees someone as without “mine” and without “I-making” does not see.

When “mine” and “I” are exhausted, both outwardly and inwardly, appropriation ceases; and from its exhaustion comes the exhaustion of birth.

Liberation comes from the exhaustion of karma and the kleśas; karma and the kleśas come from conceptual discrimination; these come from conceptual proliferation; and conceptual proliferation ceases in emptiness.

“Self” has been conventionally proclaimed, and “non-self” has been taught; and the buddhas have also taught that there is neither a self nor any non-self.

What is to be said has ceased, and the range of the mind has ceased as well; for the nature of dharmas, unarisen and unceasing, is like nirvāṇa.

Everything is true, or is not true; it is both true and not true; it is neither not true nor true — this is the instruction of the Buddha.

Not dependent on anything else, stilled, not spread out by conceptual proliferation, free of conceptual discrimination, without multiplicity of meaning — such is the mark of truth.

Whatever arises in dependence on something is not the same as that thing; but neither is it other than it; therefore it is neither cut off nor eternal.

Not one, not many; neither cut off nor eternal — such is the nectar of the teaching of the buddhas, the lords of the world.

When the fully awakened ones do not arise, and when the śrāvakas are exhausted, the knowledge of the pratyekabuddhas unfolds through the absence of association.