Past and future do not exist
One of their own dared to say this
At the end of the last episode
I said someone stood up
Frowning and saying
The finer you dismantle things
The further you may be from Buddha
Past and future
Are not real at all
Today
Let's see
Who this person actually is
How he dared to tear down a centuries-old edifice
Hello
Everyone
I am Wang Lijie
Let's recap the core conflict
The Sarvastivada spent centuries
Breaking teachings into 75 elements
Creating a periodic table of Dharmas
Then they reached a shocking conclusion
Existence in the three periods
The essence of Dharma is eternal
Meaning
Dharmas of past, present, and future
All truly exist
Past Dharmas haven't vanished
Future Dharmas are already there
Just waiting for their turn
Why insist on this
Because if the past doesn't exist
Causality is broken
The cause you planted yesterday
If yesterday is completely gone
Where does today's result come from
From nothingness
That wouldn't be dependent origination
That's something from nothing
So they say
Past Dharmas must still exist
Just in a different form
The logic sounds tight
But the problem is
What is Buddha's core teaching
Impermanence
Everything changes
Nothing is eternal
Now you tell me
The essence of Dharma is eternal
The substance of Dharma is permanent
Is this even compatible
with impermanence
This was the Sarvastivada's greatest rift
Once a rift appears
someone will try to mend it
Four major masters in their history
each proposed a solution
to explain the same problem
Dharmas of past, present, and future
If the essence is unchanging
then what exactly changes
The first was Dharmatrata
His theory: Change in State
He said
as dharmas move through time
their state changes
but their essence does not
Like milk turning into yogurt
it is still milk
only the form has changed
The second was Ghosa
His theory: Change in Appearance
He said
the essence is unchanging
but its appearance changes
Like a person
handsome when young
wrinkled when old
the look changes
but the person remains the same
The third was Vasumitra
His theory: Change in Position
He said
the essence is unchanging
the appearance is unchanging
only its position in time changes
Like a chess piece
taken from the box to the board
then put back again
the piece is always the same
only its presence on the board changes
The fourth was Buddhadeva
His theory: Change in Relation
He said
the essence is unchanging
what changes is its relation to others
Like a woman
a mother to her son
a wife to her husband
and a daughter to her father
She hasn't changed
What changes is your perspective
Four explanations
All sound reasonable
Sarvastivada chose Vasumitra's view as orthodox
Why choose it
Because it's the cleanest
Dharma is dharma
No change in category
No change in appearance
No change in relationship
Just a change in position on the timeline
Simple
Elegant
Practical
But think carefully
These four solutions
Do they share a common problem
Yes
They all secretly preserve something unchanging
Dharmatrata: category changes, essence remains
Ghosaka: appearance changes, essence remains
Vasumitra: position changes, essence remains
Buddhadeva: relation changes, essence remains
No matter how you spin it
A bottom line must be kept
The essence of dharma is unchanging
But what did the Buddha say
All conditioned things are impermanent
All phenomena
Nothing is unchanging
Now you tell me
There is this thing called essence
Existing constantly through the three times
Never changing
Isn't this what Buddha spent his life dismantling
You call it essence
Brahmanism calls it Brahman
Calls it Atman
The eternal self
The name changed
The logic didn't
You used Buddha's tools
To build a house Buddha wouldn't live in
This contradiction
Wasn't found by outsiders
But from within Sarvastivada itself
Someone noticed it
This group
Was later called the Sautrantika
In Sanskrit, it is Sautrāntika
Meaning "relying on the Sutras"
The Buddha's words are the only standard
The treatises written by later generations
Those increasingly complex Abhidharmas
Sorry
They don't count
I believe exactly
What the Buddha said
This attitude is a manifesto
It is equivalent to saying
Over the past few centuries
The Abhidharma system you built
Might have gone astray
We must return to the source
The origin of Sautrāntika thought
Is traced to a master named Kumāralāta
Translated in Chinese as Tongshou
He lived around the 2nd to 3rd century
Regarding his life
Historical records are very limited
But his core ideas
Were like a bomb
Blowing a hole in the Sarvastivada edifice
What did he say
He said
The past and the future
Are not real
Only this present moment
Truly exists
The impact of this statement
You might not fully feel yet
Let me translate it for you
Sarvastivada spent centuries
Building a precise system
The foundation is "existence in three times"
Kumāralāta walked over
Knelt down
Pointed at the foundation and said
This part is fake
You will immediately ask
If the past no longer exists
What happens to karma
How can what I did yesterday
Still have results today
If the past cause has vanished
Where does the present effect come from
The Sautrāntika answer
Is a brilliant model
Called the Theory of Seeds
They say
the past Dharma has indeed perished
But when it perished
it did not leave nothing behind
As it was perishing
it took its own power
and like a seed
planted it into the next moment
This seed passed to the next moment
and the next
forming an uninterrupted stream of continuity
This is the core concept of Sautrāntika
called 'continuity, transformation, and differentiation'
Continuity
is the uninterrupted transmission
Transformation
is changing at every moment
Differentiation
is changing until a certain point
when conditions ripen
and the fruit emerges
Note the fundamental difference from Sarvāstivāda
Sarvāstivāda says
the past cause is still there
It is real and existent
so the present fruit can find it
Sautrāntika says
No
the past cause has already perished
but it left a seed when it did
This seed is like a relay baton
passed forward moment by moment
until the moment conditions ripen
and the fruit naturally appears
Let me give you an analogy
The Sarvāstivāda view of causality
is like a giant warehouse
Everything that happened in the past
is neatly arranged on the shelves
never to be cleared away
The karmic fruit you receive today
is someone taking that cause from the shelf for you
What about the Sautrāntika view?
It is like dominoes
The first tile falls
it knocks down the second
the second knocks down the third
The first tile has long been lying still
but its power
Passed through every card
Living within the chain
Until the last card falls
Which fits your experience
Think about it
You were hurt ten years ago
That event
Is long gone
That scene
Those people
Those words
Are all gone now
But in your heart
Does something remain
Not the event itself
But the trace it left
Carried day by day
Within your character
Your reaction patterns
Your unconscious avoidance
Passed down to today
Sarvastivada would say
The event still exists
Real in the past realm
So it still affects you
Sautrantika would say
The event has perished
But as it vanished
It planted a seed in you
Changing slightly every day
Influencing every reaction
Until one day
A condition triggers it
Appearing in a new form
Which feels more real
If you choose the latter
Congratulations
You share the masters' intuition
If you know Yogacara
You'll find something curious
The Sautrantika seed theory
And the Alaya-vijnana system
Are like early and late versions
Yogacara says Alaya
Is a vast storehouse of seeds
Storing all experiences
Waiting for conditions to ripen
This framework
Is rooted in Sautrantika
History of thought is like that
A man planted a seed 2,000 years ago
It stayed underground for centuries
Until the time of Asanga and Vasubandhu
When it finally broke through the soil
And grew into a towering tree
Speaking of Vasubandhu
I need to clarify something here
Because it is easy to get confused
Vasumitra, one of the four masters mentioned earlier
And Vasubandhu, who wrote the Abhidharmakosa
Are not the same person
Vasumitra was a defender of Sarvastivada
He proposed the theory of temporal change
Acting as the gatekeeper of that camp
Vasubandhu lived around the 4th or 5th century
Centuries after Vasumitra
What did Vasubandhu do?
He wrote the masterpiece Abhidharmakosa
This treatise
Seemingly organizes all Sarvastivada doctrines
Like an encyclopedia
Explaining the 75 Dharmas and real existence
Making everything crystal clear
But if you read closely
You will find
That while organizing it
He used Sautrantika views
To quietly undermine Sarvastivada
What is this like?
It is like an architect
Taking a job
To draw a complete blueprint of your house
He draws it with extreme precision
Every pillar
And every wall is clearly marked
But at key points on the blueprint
He writes in red ink
"Insufficient load-bearing here"
The Abhidharmakosa is such a blueprint
It allows every reader
To understand the structure of Sarvastivada
While seeing the building's weakest points
Later critics said
The Abhidharmakosa is dynamite for the wise
Not a shell fired from the outside
But a crack found in the internal structure
Followed by a gentle push
Stepping back
To look at this entire history
You will see a recurring pattern
The Buddha said one thing
All things are impermanent
To explain this statement
Later followers built a vast system
Called the Abhidharma
To make the system consistent
They had to claim
Dharmas exist eternally
Then another group stood up and said
To explain impermanence
You created something eternal
Isn't that a contradiction
This pattern
Recurs throughout human thought
Not just in Buddhism
Any attempt to capture living truth
Eventually faces the same paradox
The more precise the system
The further it is from the living truth
The more detailed the map
The easier to mistake it for the land
The Sautrantika saw this
They said
Stop drawing maps
Go back to what the Buddha said
The Buddha said impermanence
And he meant it
The past is gone when it perishes
Don't claim it still exists
Just to suit your system
But the Sautrantika couldn't escape this
Their theory of seeds
Was refined and systematized by others
Becoming the vast Yogacara system
A tool used to dismantle systems
Became a new system itself
Perhaps this is the fate of cognition
We cannot face reality empty-handed
We always need a model
A language, a map
But every map
Eventually becomes a wall
Then someone must stand up
To tear the wall down
To reveal the view behind it
Then someone else
Turns that view into a new map
So today's episode
Is less about Sautrantika philosophy
And more about a deeper question
In your mind
are there frameworks or theories you trust deeply
that helped you at one stage
but have now become a wall
you haven't even noticed
No need to answer now
but just pay attention
next time you're certain about something
whether that certainty itself
is worth examining
Alright
Sautrantika used the sutras as authority
to dismantle Sarvastivada from within
But Buddhist history didn't change via debate alone
What truly flipped the board
wasn't a philosopher
but an emperor
One who killed a hundred thousand
then wept amidst a sea of blood
His name was Ashoka
He did one thing
that turned Buddhism from a local sect
into a global religion across half of Asia
That is the story
we will enter next time
Do you think
being questioned from within
or attacked from without
is more fatal for a theory
Have you ever
overturned a deep belief from within
What did that feel like
Tell me in the comments
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time