English
If there is nothing, where are the thoughts and feelings? If only consciousness remains, is it virtuous? Is it afflicted? Or is it unconditioned and neutral? What will it become? If it is virtuous, what kind of virtue is it that is not accompanied by the roots of virtue such as non-attachment? If non-attachment etc. exist, how can there be no contact? If it is produced by the immediately preceding virtuous karma, then it is not virtuous. Because three kinds of consciousness arise after virtuous karma. If the power of the roots of virtue produces a virtuous consciousness, then it cannot be the cause of transformation. In that case, it will also become unwholesome. Cessation attainment is virtuous like cessation. If it is afflicted, what kind of affliction is it that is not accompanied by affliction? If affliction exists, how can there be no contact? As the Blessed One said in the Sutra of Ten Recitations: Whether it is the aggregate of feeling, the aggregate of perception, or the aggregate of formations, all of them arise depending on contact. Since the attainment of non-perception is not considered afflicted, how can cessation attainment be? If it is unconditioned and neutral, is it born from fruition? Or is it deportment? Or is it skill? Or is it transformation? What will it become? If it is born from fruition, then why, after the consciousness of the peak of existence, when one desires the Dharma of the other eight lower realms, does the fruition mind of the desire realm manifest? That attainment also desires the desire realm, so how can it not become the desire realm? After that, how can the immovable etc. consciousness manifest? As it is said in the Great Belly Sutra: When arising from cessation, how many contacts does one touch? Great Belly, one touches three: the immovable, the nothingness, and the signless. Like previous karma.