Chapter 20. Investigation of the Assemblage

If the fruit is born from the assemblage of cause and conditions, and it is already present in the assemblage, how is it born from the assemblage?

If the fruit is born from the assemblage of cause and conditions, and it is not present in the assemblage, how is it born from the assemblage?

If the fruit is present in the assemblage of cause and conditions, it ought to be apprehended within the assemblage; but within the assemblage it is not apprehended.

If the fruit is not present in the assemblage of cause and conditions, then causes and conditions would be the same as non-causes and non-conditions.

If the cause ceases after giving [what is its own] to the fruit, then the cause would have a twofold “self” — what was given and what has ceased.

If the cause ceases without giving [what is its own] to the fruit, then the fruit born once the cause has ceased would be without a cause.

If the fruit arises simultaneously with the assemblage, then that which produces and that which is produced would turn out to be simultaneous.

If the fruit arises even before the assemblage, then the fruit, being free of cause and conditions, would be without a cause.

If the fruit [arises] when the cause has ceased, then the cause would have to transfer itself; and a cause already born earlier would be born again.

How could what has ceased and passed away produce a fruit that has been born? And how could a cause that endures produce a fruit while it is enveloped by it?

And if it is not enveloped by the fruit, just which fruit would it produce? For a cause does not produce a fruit either without seeing it or even having seen it.

For there is never any conjunction of a past fruit with a past cause, nor with an unborn one, nor with a born one.

For there is never any conjunction of a born fruit with an unborn cause, nor with a past one, nor with a born one.

For there is never any conjunction of an unborn fruit with a born cause, nor with an unborn one, nor with a destroyed one.

If there is no conjunction, how does a cause produce a fruit? And if there is conjunction, how does a cause produce a fruit?

If the cause is empty of the fruit, how does it produce the fruit? If the cause is not empty of the fruit, how does it produce the fruit?

A fruit that is not empty will not arise; what is not empty will not cease; what is not empty would be that which neither ceases nor arises.

How will what is empty arise? How will what is empty cease? It would follow that what is empty, too, neither ceases nor arises.

The identity of cause and fruit is never possible; the difference of cause and fruit is never possible.

If fruit and cause were identical, that which produces and that which is produced would be one; if fruit and cause were separate, the cause would be the same as a non-cause.

If the fruit exists by its own nature, what will the cause produce? If the fruit does not exist by its own nature, what will the cause produce?

What does not produce cannot have the status of a cause; and if there is no such status of a cause, whose will the fruit be?

And this assemblage of causes and conditions, which does not produce itself by itself — how will it produce a fruit?

The fruit is not made by the assemblage, nor is the fruit made by a non-assemblage; how could there be an assemblage of conditions at all apart from the fruit?