Selected Lectures from the Sutra of the Collected Teachings on Fathers and Sons

Your Majesty, when that consciousness arises, it neither comes from anywhere nor goes anywhere when it ceases. When its conditions arise, they neither come from anywhere nor go anywhere when they cease. When that karma arises, it neither comes from anywhere nor goes anywhere when it ceases. Your Majesty, there is not the slightest phenomenon that can pass from this world to another world. Why? Because inherent nature is empty.

However, whether wholesome or unwholesome, the nature of karma is fundamentally empty. It cannot act as a master, being subject to constant arising and ceasing—arising without a source and ceasing without a destination—illusory and unreal. For example, when I take a knife to kill someone, prior to this act, this karma does not exist and has no origin. This action is performed without an actual doer; its apparent manifestation is like an illusion conjured by a magician—there is no creator of karma. The act of killing arises from the combined functioning of the physical body and consciousness, yet the physical body is illusory, consciousness is illusory, neither is truly existent. Thus, the actions of the five aggregates are not real. Moreover, once the act of killing occurs, it vanishes in an instant without a trace. Therefore, the act itself is empty, yet it leaves behind karmic seeds.

The karmic seeds themselves are also empty—they come without an origin and cease without a destination, proceeding from nothingness to nothingness. After the retribution is experienced, the karmic seeds too vanish without a trace. Karmic seeds are empty and illusory. If karmic seeds were not illusory, they should not vanish after retribution is undergone or after repentance. If karmic seeds could not vanish, sentient beings would suffer retribution endlessly, without limit. A murderer would remain in hell forever, eternally subject to slaughter without end. Therefore, it can be said that all karmic retribution, whether sinful or meritorious, is illusory—it comes without an origin and departs without a destination. Nevertheless, all meritorious karma will ultimately lead sentient beings gradually toward Buddhahood, until they finally attain the fruit of Buddhahood. All sinful karma will cause sentient beings to suffer endlessly, lamenting without cease.

Upon thorough analysis, only the alaya-vijnana is truly unchanging—it neither arises nor ceases and exists eternally. All other phenomena are empty, illusory, arising and ceasing moment by moment, faster than lightning.