Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, Volume 34 (50)

Original text:复有差别。谓了知爱是取因故。复能招集。即以其取为因有故。复能生起有为上首。当来生故。又能引发以生为缘。老病死等诸苦法故。随其所应。当知说名因集起缘。

Explanation: There are further differences among the four formations, with a different sequence: knowing that craving is the cause of grasping, and craving can further gather and accumulate; then with grasping as the cause, becoming arises; becoming can further give rise to future birth, with becoming at the forefront; and it can further initiate the dharmas of suffering such as old age, sickness, and death, with birth as the condition. According to what is appropriate in each case, these should be known as respectively named cause, accumulation, arising, and condition.

The cause of the truth of origination is craving; because there is craving, grasping arises. Whether or not what is grasped has been obtained, there is a mark of suffering. After the becoming of future lives is produced, the mark of birth appears, and the mark of suffering appears. Only by eliminating craving, the root of suffering, can suffering be eliminated. The cause of craving is feeling, and the cause of feeling is contact. Contact and feeling may exist, but if at the time of contact and feeling there is no craving, and the mind is not engaged in what is contacted and felt, then the suffering of future lives will not appear, and the truth of origination ceases. Since present craving is the cause that initiates suffering, and the accumulation of craving can cause suffering to be born, the accumulation of craving is precisely the origination of suffering. After suffering is born and the feeling of suffering manifests, this is called the arising of suffering. Because craving can embrace the future seeds of suffering—all that craving gathers and accumulates are seeds of suffering, capable of generating future suffering—and because craving, grasping, becoming, birth, and old age sequentially draw forth the accumulation of all sufferings, craving is the condition for suffering.

The truth of origination is one link within the twelve links of dependent arising. The path to liberation—the śrāvaka dharma and the pratyekabuddha dharma mutually contain and encompass each other, and they share common ground. There is no independent pratyekabuddha dharma, nor is there an independent śrāvaka dharma; it is merely that the two dharmas differ in the depth of the levels they involve, while liberation itself is no different.