Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

NIRVANA IN NORTHERN BUDDHIST SCHOOLS
distant past could no longer be sustained, since no dharma can remain for
more than a moment. 110 This extreme ontological position of the Sautrantikas
seems to cause problems, especially in explaining the karmic process, from
defilement to action and to its result. They have to explain how defilement
can be sustained within and be abandoned from a series of aggregates, since
it automatically ceases after coming into existence.
Within the Sarvastivada-Vaibhalika system, this karmic process can largely
be explained through a dharma called acquisition (prApti), which is one of
the fourteen dharmas not associated with mind (cittaviprayuktasaNskAra). 111
When there is an arising of the acquisition of the defilement, the acquisition
(prApti) makes the defilement renew its existence and continue its activity –
arising, duration, decay and ceasing – until this acquisition is eliminated
from the series. 112
The explanatory model applied by the Sautrantikas was called the theory
of seed (bCja). In the fifth chapter of the AbhidharmakoUabhALya, the above
mentioned ‘state of being seed’ (bCjabhAva), or latent defilement (anuUaya),
was defined by Vasubandhu as follows:
What is here called the state of being seed? It is the power (Uakti) of
a body (AtmabhAva) to produce defilement which is born of [previous]
defilement, just like the power to produce memory which is
born of [previous] perception or knowledge and just like the power
of a sprout and so on to yield rice which is born of [previous] rice. 113
Although this name and form (nAmarEpa), which is the support (AUraya) 114
of that power, is momentary, they continue (saNtati) by means of a causal
relationship between a moment and the immediately preceding moment,
and the current of these successive moments of name and form constitutes
what we called the series of aggregates (skandhasaNtAna). This power of the
series of aggregates is conventionally called ‘latent defilements’ and in the
Sautrantika system is technically called ‘the state of being seed’.
As an answer to the first question raised above, how defilement can be
sustained within a series of aggregates, the Sautrantikas might well say that
what has been sustained within a series of aggregates is not a separate
dharma, or a certain defilement, which will cease immediately after existence,
but the power of the series of aggregates to produce the defilement,
which can continue as long as the series continues uninterrupted until it is
manifested (paryavasthAna) when the right conditions are given.
As an answer to the second question, how defilement can be abandoned
from a series of aggregates, the Sautrantikas might well say that what has
been abandoned is not a separate dharma, or a certain defilement, but the
power of the series of aggregates that can produce the defilement. This
process of abandoning defilements was described by Vasubandhu in the
AbhidharmakoUabhALya as follows:
93