Thusness · John Tan

After Anatta · The Logic · Step 3

Designated, Not Found

This moment ceases as it arises. Does it arise, or does it cease?

The question in the koan hands us an "it": a moment that must either arise or cease. This step goes looking for that "it", the way Candrakīrti went looking for a chariot.

Step 1 gave the test; Step 2 said it removes own-nature, and only own-nature. Here the test runs on this moment. What is left is a name: not an empty name, and not a sticker on something underneath, but the way anything at all is there.

The search

The example is old. In the Milindapañha the monk Nāgasena asks King Milinda how he came. By chariot, says the king. Then show me the chariot, says Nāgasena. Is it the pole? The axle? The wheels? The frame? All of them together? Something apart from them? Each time the king says no.

Some centuries later Candrakīrti made the search complete (Madhyamakāvatāra 6.151 ff.). Give up on any one part, and the mind still has places to hide the chariot: as owner, container or arrangement. So he checks seven ways. The chariot is not the parts, for there are many parts and one chariot. It is not other than them, for no chariot is found apart from them. It does not own them, as if it stood beside them. It is not in them, and they are not in it. It is not their mere collection, for a heap of parts on the lawn is not a chariot. And it is not their shape, for the shape is either the shape of each part, already examined, or of their arrangement, which is itself named.

The chariot, sought seven ways the parts other than them their owner in the parts holding the parts their collection their shape not found not found not found not found not found not found not found Designated in dependence on its parts, it still carries passengers.
Candrakīrti's sevenfold search (Madhyamakāvatāra 6.151 ff.). The chariot is found in none of the seven places. Yet, named in dependence on its parts, it is ridden, breaks down and is repaired. The same seven places can be searched for this moment.

Searching for this moment

Listen to whatever sound is here. Where is its moment?

  • Its arising? Then the moment would be all coming and no going. But it ceases as it arises.
  • Its ceasing? Then something passes that never came to be: death without birth (MMK 21.2).
  • Both together? Arising and ceasing are two, and the moment is one. Nor do they fuse: birth and death are not found at one and the same time (MMK 21.3).
  • Other than them? Take away the arising and ceasing, and no moment is left.
  • Their owner? This is the koan's "it": a moment standing beside its arising and ceasing, as a subject stands beside its verb. That is grammar, not something found.
  • Their container? This is the timeless Now in which things come and go. Look for it apart from what comes and goes. It is not there.
  • Their collection, or their shape? An arising and a ceasing gathered up are not a moment, as a heap of parts is not a chariot. Its span is the span of one of them, already searched, or their order in time, itself named.

Coming-into-being and passing-away are not found without a thing. And a thing is not found without coming-into-being and passing-away.

Nāgārjuna, Middle Way, Chapter 21, verse 8

Two ways of seeing the moment

Seen with the logic of substance. The sound is simply there, a slice of time with edges of its own, and arising and ceasing happen to it. So the koan seems to need an answer: it arises, it ceases, both, or an awareness holds it. Each answer keeps the slice, and the search above feels like a trick.

Seen with the logic of dependency. The same sound, just as vivid, with nothing standing behind the sounding. "Arising" is picked out against what came before, "ceasing" against what comes after, and "this moment" with both. As Step 1 put it, the moment is merely designated as arising or ceasing, upon conditions. "Ceases as it arises" is then a plain description, with no "it" in the middle.

Just like the stairs: are they up or down? In themselves, neither. They are "up" for someone climbing and "down" for someone coming down. Nor is the moment arising or ceasing in itself; it is called so from where it is picked out, against which before and after. This does not make the stairs nothing, or only in the mind. They are really climbed and really descended, and the moment is really heard.

Not found, and still counted

This is where most readers go wrong. They hear "the chariot is not found" and take it to mean "there is no chariot, and we only pretend". That is not what Nāgasena or Candrakīrti says. The king came by chariot. He will leave by chariot. The search removes nothing the road relies on. It removes only the idea that the chariot is there from its own side, waiting to be found.

So what is the chariot? It is designated in dependence on its parts. "Designated" means picked out, taken as this rather than that. "In dependence" means on a basis: these wheels, this axle, this frame, set up so that someone can ride. The name and the parts and the riding come together. None of them is first. The moment is the same: named, counted and timed, a race won by a hundredth of a second, designated in dependence on arising and ceasing.

Nāgārjuna puts the whole Middle Way in one verse. Whatever arises in dependence, that is emptiness; that is designation in dependence; that is the middle way (MMK 24.18). Not found and still counted is not two facts. It is one fact, seen from two sides, as the whirlpool was in Step 1.

The moment is not a thing that arises and ceases. It is named arising and ceasing, upon conditions, and that is all it ever needed to be.

A name is not a sticker

When the mind hears "designation", it pictures a sticker: "sugar" pressed onto a jar that was there before it. This picture keeps, under the label, exactly what Step 2 negated: an object finished before anyone takes it as anything.

For the moment, the sticker is "now", pressed onto a slice of time already cut. But look at a cup. It does not first appear as a patch of colour, later labelled "cup". It appears as a cup, already something to lift. Peel the designation off, and nothing bare is found underneath. Tsongkhapa goes further: even the basis of designation is itself designated. The wheels are named in dependence on rim, spokes and hub, and so on, all the way down. Designation never bottoms out in something given. The arising is no floor under the moment either (see the koan on whether arising itself arises).

We never see ourselves designating, so it is felt as the world itself. That is innate grasping seen from the inside: the name taken for a thing that stands behind the name. In the koan, it is the "it".

Not arbitrary

The opposite mistake: if things are only designated, can I name a shadow a bridge and walk across it, or call the stairs "down" while I climb them? No. A designation holds or fails as it is used.

Tsongkhapa gives three checks. A thing exists conventionally if it is known to ordinary cognition; if that knowing is not overturned by another sound ordinary cognition; and if it is not overturned by analysis of how things ultimately are. In dim light I see a snake in the corner. The lamp comes on: a coiled rope. The snake fails the second check. A rope existing from its own side fails the third: the search finds no such rope. The rope as named, in dependence on its strands, passes all three. It ties and holds. So with time: a slice existing from its own side fails the third check; the moment as named passes all three, and trains leave on time by it.

A name is valid not because it mirrors a thing behind it, but because it works: "medicine" because the medicine heals. None of this needs own-nature, and none of it would work with one, as Step 7 will show.

The chariot everywhere

I first met the chariot as a clever argument about a cart, and for years it stayed that. It did not deepen anatta. By then the self had already gone missing when I looked for it, and walking had already shown itself as just walking, with no walker behind it. What the chariot gave me was something the taste alone could not: a way to understand the world as I had already tasted it.

The taste was free of substance. The view was not. I still thought of the world as separate things that later meet and act on one another. A walker on one side and a road on the other; an eye here, a sunrise there, and something crossing between them. The chariot broke that, because it showed in a case with nothing at stake how something can work completely and be found nowhere.

Then I saw that Nāgasena was never only explaining a vehicle. Walking is the chariot. Hearing is the chariot. The body, a friendship, a nation, a thought: each is named in dependence on what it depends on, and none is found apart from it. Remove the axle, and there is not a lesser chariot. There is no chariot. Remove the ear, and there is not a fainter sound. There is no sound. The conditions are not loosely attached to a thing that would still be there without them. Thing and conditions are named together.

The same holds of relations. Ordinary thought pictures two things that exist first and then get connected. But the sun does not first exist as a rising sun and later take part in sunrise. Sun, turning earth, horizon and the one watching are named together, as one dependent happening seen from different angles. This is why, after this, intimacy no longer meant closeness. It meant there was never any separation to close. In the seven phases, this is phase 6 at work: the test that found no subject in 1997 now turned on everything that appears.

This moment is the chariot too. The koan's question has nothing to land on, and the sound is still heard, as vivid as before (see Time).

The sun does not rise

Every morning we say the sun rises. Look for the rising in the sun itself, and it is not there: the sun is not climbing anywhere. Sunrise is picked out from where we stand, on a turning earth, against a horizon. Seen from space, nothing goes up at all; half the earth is simply turning into the light.

Yet it is not a mistake to say it, and it is not arbitrary. The newspaper prints tomorrow's sunrise to the minute, and it is right. A name that works exactly, with nothing rising behind it: that is designation.

The same logic, beyond the moment

The seven places were not made for time. They work on anything that seems to stand on its own.

The self. Candrakīrti turned the chariot on the self, and the same seven places run on "I". I am not body and mind, for they are many and changing. Nor am I other than them, for no "I" is found apart from them. I do not own them, sit in them or hold them, and I am not their heap or their shape. Yet I speak, act, keep promises and answer to my name: designated in dependence on body and mind, and working.

An object. Picture a car in the driveway, and take it apart in your mind: wheels on the lawn, doors against the wall, engine in the garage. Where is the car now? Not on the lawn, not in the garage. Put everything back, bolt by bolt, and it is there again, ready to drive to the shops. Nothing called "car" was added on the last turn of the spanner.

A cause. A seed seems to be a cause on its own, holding a power to produce. Search for its causing. A seed in a jar is just a seed. It is called a cause only of its sprout, and only because the sprout came up in dependence on it: "'These are conditions, because in dependence on them that arises': so it is said" (MMK 1.5). Cause and effect are named together. Still, rice grows from rice seed, never from barley.

The person. Look for a friend apart from the face, the voice, the history and the years of meeting, and no one is found. A friendship is not in either of us, and not other than what passes between us. A nation is named in dependence on land, laws and people who keep them. None is found from its own side, and each still binds: a promise to a friend is kept, and a border is crossed with a passport.

One appearing. Each search ends in the same place. What is designated is the vivid appearing itself, singled out in dependence, with no bare thing underneath waiting for a name. The I, the car, the seed and the friend are not four puzzles. They are one appearing, picked out four ways, and not found in any of them. (See What the Logic Is Looking At.)

Try it

  • Seven places for this moment. Listen to one sound. Ask slowly: is the moment its arising? Its ceasing? Both? Other than them? Their owner? Their container? Their span? Then notice the sound is still here, heard in full.
  • The stairs. On a staircase, stop halfway. Is it up or down? Turn round and notice what changed, and what did not.
  • A chair. Pick something near you. Go through the seven places: is it the parts, other than them, their owner, in them, holding them, their collection, their shape? Go slowly. Then use it.
  • The name in use. The next time a word stings, "careless", "failure", look for what it names apart from the moment, the voice and the hearing. Notice that the sting is real, and that what it seemed to land on is not found.

In the chain: this page goes with What the Logic Is Looking At (2 of 7); Decoding Anatta and MMK Chapter 3 (3 of 7). The chain starts at Seeing Comes First.

In the books

Talks

Words to know

Designation (prajñapti)
Picking something out as this rather than that, in perception, thought or words. Not a label laid on a thing already there.
Designated in dependence
Named on a basis, such as a chariot on its parts, or a moment on its arising and ceasing. The name, the basis and the use come together.
Basis of designation (gdags gzhi)
What a thing is named in dependence on. Itself designated in turn, so it never ends in something given.
Sevenfold search
Candrakīrti's test of the chariot: not the parts, not other, not owner, not in them, not holding them, not their collection, not their shape. It works the same way on a moment.
Unfindability
The result of the search: no thing is found apart from what it depends on. Not the same as non-existence.
Conventional validity
What makes a name sound: it is known, it is not overturned by a second look, and it claims no own-nature. In short, it works.