Vasubandhu’s Teaching on the Three Natures

Introduction: A Door into the Teaching

There is something we all know very well, even though we rarely stop to examine it.

We see. We hear. We feel. We think. We remember. We love. We become angry. We look at the world and feel that we are here, inside ourselves, looking out at something that is somewhere else.

It seems completely obvious: I am here. The world is there. But is it really so?

Vasubandhu asks us to look very carefully at this simple experience.

He is not asking us to believe that the world does not exist. He is not asking us to deny what we see, hear or feel. And he is certainly not asking us to pretend that nothing matters.

He is asking something much simpler:

What is actually happening when we experience something?

Look at a tree. There is the tree. There is seeing. And there is the thought:

“I am looking at that tree."

These seem to be three separate things.

But if we look closely, can we actually find the separate “I" that is standing apart from the tree and looking at it?

This is where Vasubandhu's teaching begins.

He gives us three words:

the Imagined, the Dependent, and the Perfect.

These are called the three natures.

At first they may sound complicated. They are not.

They describe three ways of looking at the very same experience.

The first is what we imagine. The second is what actually arises through causes and conditions. The third is what is true when the imagination is seen through.

We do not need to travel somewhere to find these three. They are here. They are present in every moment of seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling.

And because they are present in every moment, this ancient teaching is not really about philosophy. It is about learning to see.

The Three Natures

1. The Imagined Nature

The first nature is called the Imagined Nature.

Why?

Because the mind adds something to what appears.

Imagine looking at a rope in a dark room.

For a moment, you may think:

“There is a snake!"

Your heart beats faster. You become frightened. You may even step backwards.

But then someone turns on the light. It is only a rope. What happened?

The rope was there. Seeing was there. Fear was there. But the snake was never there.

The snake was imagined.

This is the kind of mistake Vasubandhu wants us to notice.

Our ordinary experience is similar, although much more subtle.

We experience colours, sounds, sensations and thoughts.

But then the mind quietly divides them.

It creates:

“I am the one who experiences."

And:

“That is what I experience."

The division seems completely natural.

Yet Vasubandhu asks us to look again. Can we actually find the separate observer? Can we find the separate thing being observed?

The division appears. But when we search for the two things exactly as they seem to exist, we cannot find them.

This is the Imagined Nature.

It is not nothing. The mistake happens. The appearance happens. The thought happens.

But what does not exist is the separate reality that we imagine behind the appearance.

2. The Dependent Nature

The second nature is the Dependent Nature.

This is easier to understand if we look at a flower.

A flower does not appear by itself. It depends on a seed. The seed depends on another plant.

The plant depends on earth, water, sunlight and countless other conditions. The flower depends upon the whole world. Our experience is exactly like this.

A sound appears because there is a source of sound, functioning ears, a nervous system, attention and many other conditions.

A thought appears because countless previous experiences and conditions have come together.

A feeling appears. Then another thought appears. Then another feeling. Life continues like a river. Nothing stands completely alone.

This is what dependent means.

Everything that appears comes through conditions. But there is something even more important.

When experience arises, we immediately divide it into:

“me"

and

“that."

That division is not something added later by a philosopher.

It happens within ordinary experience itself.

The Dependent Nature is the living stream in which all of this occurs. It is not an eternal substance. It is not a permanent self. It is not an independent world existing exactly as we imagine it.

It is the ceaseless arising of experience through conditions.

3. The Perfect Nature

Now we come to the most beautiful part.

The Perfect Nature is not something hidden behind the world.

It is not another world. It is not something that appears after all thoughts have disappeared. And it is not something we have to manufacture. It is much simpler.

The Perfect Nature is the fact that the imagined division was never truly there. The snake was never in the rope. The mistake was real as a mistake. But the snake was not real as a snake. In the same way, experience appears. But the separate subject and separate object that we imagine within experience cannot actually be found.

When this is seen clearly, nothing has to be added.

The world does not have to disappear. The senses do not have to disappear. Thoughts do not have to disappear. What disappears is the mistake.

This is why the Perfect Nature is called perfect.

Nothing has to be repaired. Nothing has to be created. We simply see what has always been true.

Vasubandhu's Three Questions

The whole teaching can be brought down to three very simple questions:

What appears? How does it appear? What is really there?

What appears is the experience that arises. How does it appear?

It appears divided into subject and object.

But what is really there? The imagined division cannot be found.

This is the heart of the teaching. And perhaps it is easier to understand than the philosophical language first makes it seem.

Why Does the Mind Make This Division?

Vasubandhu now goes deeper.

If the division between “me" and “the world" is imagined, why does it feel so real?

Because the mind has been doing this for an unimaginably long time.

A child learns:

“This is me." “That belongs to me." “I like this." “I don't like that."

Very quickly, experience becomes organised around a centre called “I."

From this centre, the world is divided.

There is what I want. There is what I fear. There is what I love. There is what I reject. There is what belongs to me. There is what belongs to someone else.

And so the simple appearance of experience becomes a world of countless separate things.

This is how suffering begins.

The Problem Is Not Appearance

This point is essential.

Vasubandhu is not teaching us to hate appearances.

A sunrise is not the problem. A child's laughter is not the problem. A flower is not the problem. A thought is not the problem. Even a painful feeling is not, by itself, the fundamental problem.

The problem is the way we grasp.

We see something and immediately make it into:

“This is really there exactly as it appears."

And then:

“I am really here exactly as I feel myself to be."

Vasubandhu asks us to examine this very carefully. Appearance is not denied. What is dissolved is the false way in which we understand appearance.

The Wonderful Example of the Magician

Vasubandhu gives us a beautiful example.

Imagine a magician creating the appearance of an elephant. People see an elephant. They may even point to it. They may become frightened.

The elephant appears. But there is no elephant there.

This gives us a wonderful way to understand the three natures.

The elephant that people believe is there is like the Imagined Nature.

The appearance of the elephant is like the Dependent Nature.

The fact that the elephant is absent is like the Perfect Nature.

Notice something very important. The appearance is not denied. Something really appears. The mistake is that we believe the appearance is an elephant.

This is exactly the distinction Vasubandhu wants us to make in ordinary experience.

Something appears. But it does not necessarily exist in the way it appears.

What Happens When We See Clearly?

Suppose someone tells us:

“There is no actual elephant."

At first we may not believe them. We continue looking. Then suddenly we understand.

But what really happened?

Did someone destroy the elephant? No.

There was never an actual elephant there.

Did someone create the wood that was underneath? No.

The wood was there all along. Only the mistake disappeared.

This is a beautiful image for liberation.

Liberation is not the destruction of experience. It is the ending of mistaken seeing. And then liberation is effortless, Vasubandhu says.

Another Example: The Sunrise

Here is a very ordinary example to see the same three natures at work.

Every morning, the sun appears to rise. The sky brightens. Light spreads across the rooftops. Warmth touches the skin. Birds begin to sing. All of this genuinely happens, moment by moment, through causes and conditions coming together: the turning of the earth, the light of the sun, functioning eyes, an awake mind. This is the Dependent Nature. Something real is occurring.

But notice something curious. We say “the sun is rising." And yet the sun does not actually rise at all. It only appears to rise, seen from where we are standing on a planet that is turning.

Now imagine a tribe that believes something further. They believe that every morning, it is their own ritual — chanting “HAHA HUHU" together at dawn — that causes the sun to rise. If the ritual is skipped, or performed even slightly wrong, they fear the sun may not appear at all. So every morning brings quiet dread. People wake early. They rush to get the chant exactly right. They watch each other nervously for mistakes. If a cloud happens to cover the sky for a moment, panic spreads through the whole village.

This belief — that their chanting holds up the sunrise — is the Imagined Nature. Nothing about the actual sunrise required it. It is something added on top of what is really happening, and this addition brings needless fear and exhausting effort into people's lives.

So what is really there, underneath both the sunrise and the ritual? The sun is not rising at all. The earth is turning. This quiet fact was true long before anyone invented the ritual, and it remains just as true if the tribe stops chanting altogether. Seeing this clearly is like touching the Perfect Nature. Nothing about the morning needs to change. The light still comes. The birds still sing. But the tiring belief that their voices are holding up the sky can simply fall away, and the fear that came with it can fall away too.

This is exactly what Vasubandhu wants us to notice in our own lives. In quiet ways, we all keep up our own private “HAHA HUHU" — believing that our worry is what keeps things from falling apart, that our grasping is what holds the day together, that our fear is what keeps us safe. Underneath all of that effort, the earth simply keeps turning, whether we chant or stay silent.

Nothing Needs to Be Added

This is perhaps the gentlest message in Vasubandhu's teaching.

We often imagine that enlightenment must mean becoming something completely different.

Perhaps we think:

“One day I will finally become enlightened."

But Vasubandhu points in another direction. The problem is not that reality is missing.

The problem is that we do not see clearly what is already present.

When the mistake disappears, reality does not suddenly come into existence. It was there before.

Just as the earth was already turning before anyone noticed that the sun was never really rising. Just as the wood was already present before the magician's elephant disappeared.

Why the Three Natures Are Not Three Different Things

It may now seem that there are three different realities:

the Imagined, the Dependent, and the Perfect.

But that is not what Vasubandhu means.

Take one experience. For example, hearing a sound. The sound appears. That is the dependent arising.

We immediately experience:

“I am hearing that sound."

That division is imagined.

When we look closely and cannot find a truly separate hearer and a truly separate heard object, the absence of that division is the Perfect Nature.

So the three are not three worlds.

They are three ways of looking at one experience. This is why the teaching is so profound. It does not ask us to escape our experience. It asks us to understand it.

Mind and Its Many Appearances

Vasubandhu then speaks about consciousness in greater detail.

He distinguishes the underlying continuity of consciousness from the many forms in which consciousness becomes active.

This is traditionally expressed through the teaching of the ālaya-vijñāna, the storehouse consciousness.

The word “storehouse" can be misleading if we imagine a little container hidden somewhere inside us. That is not the point.

The teaching is describing continuity. Our experiences leave traces. What we repeatedly think, feel and do influences what comes later.

A kind thought can make another kind thought easier.

An angry habit can make anger arise more quickly next time.

A fearful experience can leave a tendency toward fear.

In this way, consciousness carries its own history.

The past helps shape the present.

And the present helps shape the future.

This is why the mind can appear in so many different forms.

One moment there is seeing. Then hearing. Then remembering. Then thinking. Then wanting. Then fearing. Then the simple feeling: “I am."

All of these belong to the living movement of consciousness.

The Most Important Discovery

But Vasubandhu does not want us to stop at the thought:

“Everything is mind."

That would create another problem.

We might simply replace:

“The world is outside me."

with:

“Everything is inside my mind."

But then there would still be an “I" here and something else there.

The division would remain.

So the teaching goes further.

First we discover that what we call the external world cannot be separated from the way it appears in consciousness. Then we examine consciousness itself.

And finally we discover that the separate mind that we were trying to hold on to cannot itself be found as an independent thing.

The hand that was trying to grasp reality has nothing solid to grasp.

When Both Sides Fall Away

At first there seems to be:

someone who knows

and

something that is known.

Then we investigate. The object cannot be found as an independent object. Then we investigate the knower. The knower cannot be found as an independent knower either.

What happens then?

Does everything become blank? No.

Vasubandhu does not lead us into nothingness. He leads us beyond the division.

What remains is the dharmadhātu: the dimension of reality itself, before it is divided by conceptual grasping into “me" and “other".

This is not something manufactured by thought.

It is what is recognised when thought no longer imposes a false division upon experience.

The Three Natures in One Glance

We can now remember the entire teaching very simply.

The Imagined We believe something is there that cannot actually be found.

The Dependent Experience really arises through causes and conditions.

The Perfect The false division we imagined within that experience is absent.

That is the whole movement.

And we can make it even simpler:

Something appears. We misunderstand it. We see through the misunderstanding.

Why This Matters for Life

This teaching is not merely about philosophical precision. It touches every moment of our life.

Someone says something unkind. Immediately we feel: “He insulted me."

Then anger appears. But look carefully.

Yes, there was a sound. Yes, there was an appearance of meaning. Yes, there was a thought. Yes, there was a feeling. But it is the mind that created a whole story around it:

“He did this to me." “He should not have done this." “I am being disrespected."

The original event may have been very small.

The suffering becomes enormous because the mind builds a world around it.

This does not mean that kindness and cruelty do not matter. They matter deeply.

It means that we should learn to see clearly what is happening inside experience. When we see this, there is space. And in that space, freedom becomes possible.

The End of the Journey

Vasubandhu's teaching does not end with a clever philosophical conclusion.

It ends with awakening.

And awakening is not presented as something that benefits only oneself.

The awakened person acts for the welfare of others.

This is essential to the Mahāyāna vision.

When the mind is no longer imprisoned by the imagined division between self and other, compassion can become completely natural.

The heart no longer needs to ask:

“Why should I care about others?"

The separation itself has been seen through.

The welfare of others and one's own deepest welfare are no longer felt as two completely separate things.

Thus the teaching that began with a simple question about perception ends in bodhi, awakening or enlightenment.

The Heart of Vasubandhu's Teaching

Perhaps the whole Trisvabhāvanirdeśa can finally be held in one simple thought:

Look carefully at what appears.

Do not reject it. Do not blindly believe it. Look deeper and deeper. See how the mind divides experience.

See how it creates “me" and "other".

See how this division is believed to be real. Then look again. Can the division actually be found?

If it cannot be found, do not replace it with another concept.

Simply recognise its absence. This is the Perfect Nature.

Nothing has been added. Nothing has been destroyed.

A mistake has simply been recognised as a mistake. And this is why Vasubandhu's teaching is so liberating.

The door to freedom is not somewhere far away. It is hidden in the very experience we are having now.

Look. See clearly. And let what is false fall away.

The Thirty-Eight Verses

The verses of the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa now become much easier to approach. They are variations on one great discovery:

what appears, what the mind imagines, and what is actually the case.

Each verse turns the jewel slightly, allowing another facet of the same truth to shine. The purpose of the short commentary that follows is therefore not to make the teaching more complicated. It is to make each verse transparent.

Where Vasubandhu uses a technical expression, its meaning will be explained in ordinary language. Where he presents a paradox, we will first understand the simple point hidden inside it.

And wherever possible, we will return to something that every human being already knows:

seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, wanting and being aware.

For this is where Vasubandhu asks us to look.

The Teaching on the Three Natures

by Vasubandhu

Namo mañjuśriye kumārabhūtāya
Homage to Mañjuśrī, the ever youthful!

1

kalpitaḥ paratantraśca pariniṣpanna eva ca|
trayaḥ svabhāvā dhīrāṇāṃ gambhīrajñeyam iṣyate||1||

The Imagined, the Dependent, and the Perfect: these are the three natures that the wise are to understand as profound and subtle.

Vasubandhu begins by giving us three names for understanding our experience. The rest of the teaching explains what these three mean and how they are connected.

2

yat khyāti paratantro'sau yathā khyāti sa kalpitaḥ|
pratyayādhīnavṛttitvāt kalpanāmātrabhāvataḥ||2||

What appears is the Dependent. How it appears is the Imagined. The first arises through conditions; the second is created by thought.

Something appears before us. But then the mind gives that appearance a particular meaning and structure. Vasubandhu asks us to learn the difference between the appearance and what the mind adds to it.

3

tasya khyāturyathākhyānaṃ yā sadā'vidyamānatā|
jñeyaḥ sa pariniṣpannasvabhāvo'nanyathātvataḥ||3||

The way that appearance seems to be, but never truly is, is always absent. That absence is the Perfect Nature.

The Perfect is not something newly created. It is the recognition that the false way in which things seem to exist was never actually there.

4

tatra kiṃ khyātyasatkalpaḥ kathaṃ khyāti dvayātmanā|
tasya kā nāstitā tena yā tatrā'dvayadharmatā||4||

What appears? The unreal imagination. How does it appear? As duality. What is absent? That very duality. Its absence is nonduality.

We normally feel that there is an "I" here looking at a "world" over there. Vasubandhu asks us simply to look closely at this division.

5

asatkalpo'tra kaścittaṃ yatastena hi kalpyate|
yathā ca kalpayatyarthaṃ tathā'tyantaṃ na vidyate||5||

What is this unreal imagination? It is mind, because mind imagines. And the object imagined by mind does not exist in the way it is imagined.

This does not mean that nothing appears. It means that things do not exist in the solid, separate way we habitually imagine them to exist.

6

taddhetuphalabhāvena cittaṃ dvividhamiṣyate|
yadālayākhyaṃ vijñānaṃ pravṛttyākhyaṃ ca saptadhā||6||

Mind is spoken of as twofold: the consciousness called ālaya, and the sevenfold active consciousness.

Here Vasubandhu looks more closely at consciousness itself. There is a deep continuity in mind, together with the many forms in which consciousness becomes active.

7

saṃkleśavāsanābījaiś citatvāccittam ucyate|
cittam ādyaṃ dvitīyaṃ tu citrākārapravṛttitaḥ||7||

The first is called "mind" because it contains the seeds of past impressions. The second is called "mind" because it appears in many different forms.

Our present experience does not arise from nowhere. The habits and impressions of the past help shape what appears now.

8

samāsato'bhūtakalpaḥ sa caiṣa trividho mataḥ|
vaipākikas tathā naimittiko'nyaḥ prātibhāsikaḥ||8||

In brief, this unreal imagination is understood in three ways: as what ripens, as what gives rise to experience, and as what appears.

Vasubandhu is showing how the many layers of experience belong to one continuing process.

9

prathamo mūlavijñānaṃ tadvipākātmakaṃ yataḥ|
anyaḥ pravṛttivijñānaṃ dṛśyadṛgvittivṛttitaḥ||9||

The first is the root consciousness, because it is the ripening of past causes. The other is active consciousness, appearing as what is seen and as the seeing of it.

What we call "the world I experience" and "the mind experiencing it" arise together. They are not two completely separate things standing independently from one another.

10

sadasattvād dvayaikatvāt saṃkleśavyavadānayoḥ|
lakṣaṇābhedataśceṣṭā svabhāvānāṃ ga(ṃ)bhīratā||10||

The three natures are profound because they can be understood as existing and not existing, dual and nondual, and related to both confusion and purity.

The following verses explore these apparent contradictions. They are not contradictions in reality; they arise because we are looking at the same thing from different sides.

11

sattvena gṛhyate yasmādatyantābhāva eva ca|
svabhāvaḥ kalpitastena sadasallakṣaṇo mataḥ||11||

The Imagined is taken to be real, yet it is completely absent as a reality. Therefore it is said to be both existent and non-existent.

A mistaken idea can have a powerful presence in our mind without corresponding to anything that actually exists in the way we imagine.

12

vidyate bhrāntibhāvena yathākhyānaṃ na vidyate|
paratantro yatastena sadasallakṣaṇo mataḥ||12||

The Dependent exists as confusion, but it does not exist in the way it appears. Therefore it too is said to be both existent and non-existent.

Experience genuinely happens. But it does not possess the separate, independent existence that confused perception gives it.

13

advayatvena yaccāsti dvayasyābhāva eva ca|
svabhāvastena niṣpannaḥ sadasallakṣaṇo mataḥ||13||

The Perfect exists as nonduality: it is the absence of duality. Therefore it too is spoken of as both existent and non-existent.

The Perfect is not another thing beside experience. It is the truth of experience when the imagined division has been seen through.

14

dvaividhyāt kalpitārthasya tadasattvaikabhāvataḥ|
svabhāvaḥ kalpito bālairdvayaikatvātmako mataḥ||14||

The Imagined seems to be two: a one who knows and something that is known. Yet its unreality is one.

We experience ourselves as a separate person looking at separate things. Vasubandhu asks us to see that this division is something imagined.

15

prakhyānād dvayabhāvena bhrāntimātraikabhāvataḥ|
svabhāvaḥ paratantrākhyo dvayaikatvātmako mataḥ||15||

The Dependent appears as two, yet what is actually occurring is one stream of confused appearance. Therefore it is spoken of as both two and one.

The appearance seems divided, but the experience itself does not need two independently existing realities in order to occur.

16

dvayābhāvasvabhāvatvād advayaikasvabhāvataḥ|
svabhāvaḥ pariniṣpanno dvayaikatvātmako mataḥ||16||

The Perfect is the absence of duality. Its nature is nonduality. Therefore it too is spoken of in terms of duality and unity.

There is not a second world called "nonduality". Nonduality means simply that the imagined division cannot be found.

17

kalpitaḥ paratantraśca jñeyaṃ saṃkleśalakṣaṇam|
pariniṣpanna iṣṭastu vyavadānasya lakṣaṇam||17||

The Imagined and the Dependent are the basis of confusion. The Perfect is the basis of purity.

When we believe the imagined division to be real, confusion follows. When that division is seen through, freedom becomes possible.

18

asaddvayasvabhāvatvāt tadabhāvasvabhāvataḥ|
svabhāvāt kalpitājjñeyo niṣpanno'bhinnalakṣaṇaḥ||18||

The Imagined is unreal duality. The Perfect is the absence of that duality. For this reason, they cannot truly be separated.

The Perfect is not somewhere else. It is the truth of the very confusion that is being understood.

19

advayatvasvabhāvatvād dvayābhāvasvabhāvataḥ|
niṣpannāt kalpitaścaiva vijñeyo'bhinnalakṣaṇaḥ||19||

The Perfect is nonduality, the absence of duality. For this reason, the Imagined and the Perfect cannot truly be separated.

The false appearance and its true nature are not two independent realities. When the false is examined, its absence becomes clear.

20

yathākhyānamasadbhāvāt tathā'sattvasvabhāvataḥ|
svabhāvāt paratantrākhyānniṣpanno'bhinnalakṣaṇaḥ||20||

The Dependent does not exist in the way it appears. The Perfect has precisely this character. Therefore they too cannot truly be separated.

Experience arises, but it does not arise in the dualistic way we imagine. Seeing this is already moving towards the Perfect.

21

asaddvayasvabhāvatvād yathākhyānāsvabhāvataḥ|
niṣpannāt paratantro'pi vijñeyo'bhinnalakṣaṇaḥ||21||

Because the Imagined is unreal duality, and because the Dependent does not exist in the way it appears, the Dependent and the Perfect are inseparable.

The three natures are therefore not three separate things. They are three ways of understanding the same experience.

22

kramabhedaḥ svabhāvānāṃ vyavahārādhikārataḥ|
tatpraveśādhikārācca vyutpattyarthaṃ vidhīyate||22||

The three natures are taught in an order so that we may understand them. This order helps us enter into their meaning.

Vasubandhu gives us a path of understanding: first notice what appears, then see how we misunderstand it, and finally recognise what is true.

23

kalpito vyavahārātmā vyavahartrātmako'paraḥ|
vyavahārasamucchedasvabhāvaś cānya iṣyate||23||

The Imagined is what we speak about. The Dependent is what makes this activity possible. The Perfect is the freedom from taking such conventions as ultimate reality.

We need words and concepts to live in the world. The problem begins when we mistake our descriptions for the final nature of things.

24

dvayābhāvātmakaḥ pūrvaṃ paratantraḥ praviśyate|
tataḥ praviśyate tatra kalpamātramasaddvayam||24||

First, one enters the Dependent and sees that duality is absent there. Then one sees that the duality appearing there is only imagination.

We first learn to see experience as a process rather than as two solid things. Then we recognise the false division that the mind has placed upon that process.

25

tato dvayābhāvabhāvo niṣpanno'tra praviśyate|
tathā hyasāveva tadā astināstīti cocyate||25||

Then one enters the Perfect: the absence of duality itself. This is why it can be spoken of as both existent and non-existent.

What is real is present; what was imagined is absent. There is no contradiction when we understand what each word refers to.

26

trayo'pyete svabhāvā hi advayālambalakṣaṇāḥ|
abhāvādatathābhāvāt tadabhāvasvabhāvataḥ||26||

All three natures point towards nonduality: the Imagined is absent, the Dependent is not as it appears, and the Perfect is the absence of that error.

Three doors open onto the same understanding. Each nature helps us see nonduality from a different direction.

27

māyākṛtaṃ mantravaśāt khyāti hastyātmanā yathā|
ākāramātraṃ tatrāsti hastī nāsti tu sarvathā||27||

Just as a magical creation can appear as an elephant, there is only the appearance of an elephant; no elephant is actually there.

Now Vasubandhu gives us his great example. Something can appear vividly without existing in the way it appears.

28

svabhāvaḥ kalpito hastī paratantrastadākṛtiḥ|
yastatra hastyabhāvo'sau pariniṣpanna iṣyate||28||

The imagined elephant is the Imagined Nature. Its appearance is the Dependent Nature. The absence of the elephant is the Perfect Nature.

The whole teaching can now be seen in one simple picture: appearance, mistaken identity, and the truth discovered when the mistake disappears.

29

asatkalpastathā khyāti mūlacittād dvayātmanā|
dvayamatyantato nāsti tatrāstyākṛtimātrakam||29||

In the same way, unreal imagination appears through the root consciousness as duality. But the duality itself does not exist; there is only the appearance.

We normally experience "me" and "the world" as two. Vasubandhu says that this division is like the magician's elephant, or the tribe's ritual for the sunrise: vividly present as appearance, absent as reality.

30

mantravanmūlavijñānaṃ kāṣṭhavattathatā matā|
hastyākāravadeṣṭavyo vikalpo hastivad dvayam||30||

The root consciousness is like the magician's mantra. Suchness is like the wood. Conceptual imagination is like the appearance of the elephant, and duality is like the elephant itself.

The example is now complete. Beneath the mistaken appearance, reality has never been damaged or changed.

31

arthatattvaprativedhe yugapallakṣaṇatrayam|
parijñā ca prahāṇaṃ ca prāptiśceṣṭā yathākramam||31||

When reality is directly understood, three things occur together: understanding, letting go, and realisation.

Awakening is not merely acquiring another idea. Seeing clearly changes our relationship with what appears.

32

parijñā'nupalambho'tra hānir akhyānam iṣyate|
upalambhanimittā tu prāptiḥ sākṣātkriyā'pi sā||32||

Understanding means no longer finding the imagined duality. Abandonment means that its false appearance falls away. Realisation means directly seeing the truth.

The three movements are simple: we see the mistake, we stop believing it, and we directly recognise what is true.

33

dvayasyānupalambhena dvayākāro vigacchati|
vigamāt tasya niṣpanno dvayābhāvo'dhigamyate||33||

When duality is no longer found, the appearance of duality disappears. When it disappears, the absence of duality is realised.

The mistake does not have to be destroyed. It simply loses its power when it is clearly seen.

34

hastino'nupalambhaśca vigamaśca tadākṛteḥ|
upalambhaśca kāṣṭhasya māyāyāṃ yugapad yathā||34||

Just as, in a magical illusion, the elephant is no longer found, its appearance disappears, and the wood is seen, all at once.

This is why the magician's example is so powerful. Nothing real has been destroyed. What disappears is only the mistaken appearance.

35

viruddhadhīvāraṇatvād buddhyā vaiyarthyadarśanāt|
jñānatrayānuvṛtteśca mokṣāpattirayatnataḥ||35||

When this understanding is firm, confusion can no longer deceive us in the same way. Grasping is seen to be pointless, and liberation follows naturally.

Once we have genuinely seen through the mistake, we no longer need to fight with it. Freedom becomes the natural flowering of clear seeing.

36

cittamātropalambhena jñeyārthānupalambhatā|
jñeyārthānupalambhena syāccittānupalambhatā||36||

When only mind is found, the object apart from mind is not found. When that object is not found, mind itself is no longer found as a separate thing.

Even "mind" cannot become a new thing to grasp. If subject and object depend upon one another, when one disappears as an independent reality, the other cannot remain standing alone.

37

dvayoranupalambhena dharmadhātūpalabhbhatā|
dharmadhātūpalambhena syād vibhutvopalambhatā||37||

When neither side of the duality is found, the dharmadhātu is realised. When the dharmadhātu is realised, one discovers boundless freedom and presence.

The end is not nothingness. When the imagined division falls silent, reality is experienced without the limitations created by that division.

38

upalabdhavibhutvaśca svaparārthaprasiddhitaḥ|
prāpnotyanuttarāṃ bodhiṃ dhīmān kāyatrayātmikām||38||

Having realised this boundless freedom, and accomplishing both one's own welfare and the welfare of others, the wise one attains unsurpassed awakening, the awakening of the three kāyas.

The teaching ends where the Mahāyāna path must end: not in private freedom alone, but in awakening that naturally embraces the welfare of all beings.