Even while blooming, the flower is already in the compost,
and the compost is already in the flower.
Flower and compost are not two.
Delusion and enlightenment inter-are.
This is a landmark verse as far as Indian philosophy is concerned. We know that Prince Siddhartha studied from the eminent Sānkhya teacher Ālāra Kālāma. The Sānkhya school of Hinduism have a theory known as satkāryavāda. According to the theory of satkāryavāda, the result is present in the cause in an un-manifested form.
Nagarjuna's Madhyamika school and Chandrakirti of the Prasangikā Madhyamika school refuted the Sānkhya views. According to the Madhyamikas, if the result is in the cause, the potter need not exert himself to turn clay into a pot. The pot and clay should be indistinguishable. Both should serve the same purpose. So why do Sānkhyas need a pot, why don't they just use clay instead!
If you say that the difference is merely in the form, Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti would slaughter you on the debate grounds. If you admit that there is a difference between the two then you admit that there is something in the result that is not in the cause. If you admit that then you are in contradiction with your theory that 'the result is present in the cause'. So the Sānkhyas have two choices, to either use clay to store water or to admit that their view is incorrect. Sānkhyas also believed that the transformation from clay to pot is real. This is known as parināmavāda.
Enter Vasubandhu. Vasubandhu's Fifty Verses were a game changer. Looking deeply we can find his response to both Madhyamika's refutations of satkāryavāda as well as Sankhya's parināmavāda. According to Vasubandhu the flower is already in the compost, the pot is already in the clay. Let's see how this is possible.
Now all that we have studied in the previous verses are beginning to converge. We have studied that if we plant a mango seed, then we will have a mango tree, not a pineapple tree. We have also understood that there is no separate self. We have studied that nothing is created or destroyed.
If the Madhyamikas view the pot and the clay as separate from each other, then the Madhyamikas think that there is a separate self. That means they are contradicting their own theory of no-self. The question of why the potter needs to exert himself to transform clay to pot does not arise as the potter, the clay and the pot are not separate from each other. The transformation and separation are illusory and not real. That the transformation is not real is known as vivartavada and is also upheld by the Advaita Vedantins.
Vasubandhu leaves one more door open for the Madhyamikas. We studied that consciousness has three parts - the subject, the object and the svabhava (the inherent nature, the substance like the metal in the coin). If Nagarjuna chooses to admit that he is nihilist and proclaim that svabhava does not really exist, then there is no cause and no effect. So there is no result in the cause because there is no cause.
So Vasubandhu leaves three options for the Madhyamikas - admit that they are nihilists, admit to the existence of a separate self or uphold the Vijñaptimātra philosophy.
We must, however, understand that the Prasangikas use debate to drop views. No view is right view. So when seen from that perspective we can understand that they are helping us. However, to succeed as a Vijñaptimātrin, one must know not only to leave the raft at the shore but also to build and row one when needed.
Assertion and refutation are two sides of the coin. They are dependent on the svabhava, the coin. Refutation does not mean assertion of an opposing viewpoint but the ground for assertion and refutation are still common. If you refute form, you are refuting emptiness. If we say that no view is right view, so we must refute all views, then that too is wrong view.
Vijñaptimātra was the last school to have emerged in India and contains the teachings of all other schools so we may quite often come across teachings that contradict each other. We have to bring to mind the sutra on the right way to catch a snake. To reach the other shore we need a raft. The raft is not the other shore but is needed to get there. The way to get there is to see the flower in the compost. If we refute that, it doesn't help us.
To be free from delusion, one has to seek enlightenment. One who is enlightened is free from delusion. If there was no delusion there would be no enlightenment. When we refute the view of separate self, we are not refuting the existence of self. We are merely saying that we are not separate from others, we are not saying that we do not exist. The cloud is in the river and the river is in the cloud.
(Based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.)
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