名言熏習種子

What This Concept Is About

Begin with an everyday experience: the same sentence "Let's talk" is heard by one person as intimacy, by another as blame, and by yet another as an immediate cause for tension—before the conversation has even begun, a full conflict has already played out in the mind.

The sound itself is only a few syllables. Why does it evoke such different worlds? The Yogācāra answer is not simply "because everyone thinks differently," but goes further to ask: how do countless past moments of hearing, naming, recognizing, interpreting, and discriminating leave latent functions within the continuum of consciousness? And how do these latent functions participate in the formation of the next moment's experience?

This is precisely what "名言熏習種子" refers to: latent functions that are repeatedly perfumed by conceptual discrimination (名言分別), that abide in the ālayavijñāna (阿賴耶識), and that—when causes and conditions are assembled—give rise to corresponding experiences and discriminating activities.

This term can be understood in four layers, but the four layers cannot be dismantled into unrelated parts.

First Layer: "名言" (Conceptual Designation)

"名言" here does not mean merely words spoken aloud, nor is it a lexicon in the linguistic sense. Paramārtha's (真諦) translation of the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* (《攝大乘論釋》) distinguishes "言" (speech) from "名" (name): using sound to refer to things is called "言"; after the sound ceases, the mind can still apprehend the previous sound, recognizing and discriminating objects by means of names—this is called "名." "名" has discrimination as its nature.

Therefore, when a person silently thinks "he looks down on me," even without uttering a single word, this remains within the scope of conceptual discrimination. Even before a complete sentence is formed, as long as the mind has already segmented the continuous flow of experience into "I," "he," "success," "failure," "useful," "useless"—and apprehends objects according to these markers—the function of "名言" has already occurred.

This does not mean that all language is erroneous or should be abolished. Language can point the way, teach, establish agreements, and convey the Dharma. The problem lies in this: we often forget that names are merely tools provisionally established dependent on conditions, and instead take the objects demarcated by names as fixed, self-standing entities that exist from their own side. A map can help one travel; but if one mistakes the boundaries on the map for lines that grew out of the earth itself, a convenience becomes attachment.

Second Layer: "熏習" (Perfuming)

Perfuming is not like inserting a physical object into the mind; it is more like cloth coming near incense and absorbing its fragrance. When an activity of conceptual discrimination arises, it arises and ceases together with the ālayavijñāna that is being perfumed, causing the mental continuum to acquire a tendency that can, in the future, give rise to corresponding results.

Paramārtha's translation of the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* explains this necessity through the wisdom of hearing (śrutamayī prajñā) and reflection (cintāmayī prajñā):

若内相续中无熏习者，未学闻时不得闻慧，思已亦不得生思慧……是故当知内种子由熏习成，非无熏习成种子。

*"If there were no perfuming within the internal continuum, one who had not yet studied would not obtain the wisdom of hearing when listening, and after reflecting would not give rise to the wisdom of reflection... Therefore one should know that internal seeds are formed through perfuming; seeds are not formed without perfuming."*

This does not mean a fixed copy of information is stored in memory. Rather: if learning left no functional difference whatsoever in the continuum, then having studied and not having studied would make no difference at all.

The treatise further points out the difficulty of denying perfuming through the statement "what has not been done should nonetheless be obtained; what has been done should be lost" (未作应得、已作应失). If experiences and actions left no causal potency whatsoever, then one who has never acted could obtain results without cause; and the functions of what has already been done would vanish into nothing, with no future fruition possible. Perfuming thus bears the causal explanation within the mental continuum that "what has been done is not entirely equivalent to what has never been done."

Third Layer: "種子" (Seeds)

A seed is not a tiny object hidden inside the brain or deep in the soul, nor is it some kind of eternal psychological chip. Asvabhāva's (無性) *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* (《攝大乘論釋》) explains it as the "functional difference" (功能差別) within the ālayavijñāna capable of giving rise to corresponding resultant dharmas: it can neither be treated as another independent entity, nor be said without qualification to be entirely identical with consciousness.

"Seed" is a name for causal function. It flows in momentary succession, awaiting the assemblage of conditions, and only gives rise to results corresponding to itself. So-called "abiding in the ālayavijñāna" does not mean there is a permanent warehouse with motionless seeds arranged inside; rather, upon the fundamental consciousness that changes in continuous succession, various seeds can be posited according to their different capacities to produce results.

Fourth Layer: "Continuity within the Ālayavijñāna"

Paramārtha's translation calls it "本識" (fundamental consciousness) or "阿黎耶識"; Xuanzang's (玄奘) translation of Vasubandhu's and Asvabhāva's commentaries calls it "阿賴耶識." This is a difference in transliteration and terminology, and one should not arbitrarily flatten the textual layers by substituting other names.

The six evolving consciousnesses (六轉識)—called "生起識" (arising consciousnesses) in Paramārtha's translation—are on the one hand arisen from the seeds in the fundamental consciousness, and on the other hand perfume the fundamental consciousness through their present conceptual discriminations. This forms a cycle:

Existing seeds participate in giving rise to the present consciousness and experience; the present consciousness, through its modes of apprehending, naming, and discriminating, leaves new perfuming; the new and old perfuming together continue to become conditions for later experience.

Xuanzang's translation of Vasubandhu's *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* summarizes this in verse:

言熏习所生，诸法此从彼，异熟与转识，更互为缘生。

*"The dharmas produced by the perfuming of speech—these arise from that; the maturation-consciousness and the evolving consciousnesses condition each other in mutual arising."*

The point is not a mechanical causal chain flowing unidirectionally from past to present, but rather that the maturation-consciousness (異熟識) and the evolving consciousnesses are mutually conditioning: how we experience the world is related to past perfuming; how we now interpret experience is in turn shaping the world we will experience later.

This also explains why the six evolving consciousnesses are not the locus of perfuming. The six consciousnesses each have different bases, objects, and attentional modes, and cannot be constantly correlated with one another; nor can two successive moments exist simultaneously. Thus one cannot simply say that the previous moment, like carving on a stone tablet, engraves something into the next moment. Within the system of the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya*, it is the ālayavijñāna that can continuously receive perfuming and maintain the seeds.

名言熏習種子 also has a key characteristic: it is "無受盡相" (without the characteristic of being exhausted through enjoyment). Paramārtha's translation renders this as "不受相"; the Xuanzang lineage translates it as "無受盡相." This does not mean any particular fixed seed is eternally unchanging, but rather that this type of latent function of conceptual proliferation (戲論, prapañca) is not like the seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma which, once matured and having attracted their retribution, are enjoyed and thereby exhausted in a single fruition. Old seeds of conceptual designation enable new conceptual discriminations to arise, and the new discriminations in turn perfume subsequent seeds—hence the treatise calls them "seeds of the flowing of manifold conceptual proliferation without beginning" (無始時來種種戲論流轉種子).

Here it must be distinguished from seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma. Both belong to the seeds included in the ālayavijñāna, but they are not the same concept: seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma emphasize that good and bad actions attract maturation-results (異熟果), and the treatise calls them "有受盡相" (having the characteristic of exhaustion through enjoyment); 名言熏習種子 emphasize conceptual discrimination, the manifestation of apparent objects (似義顯現), and the continuity of proliferation, and are called "無受盡相." A sentence spoken with malice may have both an unwholesome-karma aspect and a conceptual-discrimination-perfuming aspect, but one cannot therefore conflate the two kinds of seeds into one.

How 名言熏習 Constructs the World We See

Asvabhāva's *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* enumerates the consciousnesses of body (身), body-possessor (身者), experiencer (受者), the experienced (所受), the experiencer-agent (能受), world/time (世), number (數), place (處), and speech (言說), and states that all these consciousnesses are manifested through the seeds of conceptual-designation perfuming. This includes the discriminating structures of the body, the subject, the one who experiences, the objects experienced, time, quantity, location, and the images of speech. The commentary is not merely saying "people attach labels to an already-completed world"; it points out that the very manifestation of experiential structures such as "this is a body," "this is the 'I' who possesses a body," "this is what I undergo," "this event occurs at such a time and place"—these already involve the participation of 名言熏習.

But this must not be misunderstood as "there is nothing outside at all; I am merely fantasizing." The focus of Asvabhāva's commentary is this: by the power of the seeds of conceptual-designation perfuming, the meaning that manifests—although lacking the kind of independent entity that the discriminating mind grasps—nevertheless "appears clearly and vividly with something like a form" (似有相貌而明了現前), like an illusion. "Like an illusion" does not mean it does not appear at all, nor that cause and effect can be ignored; it says that although the appearance is clear and can produce effects, it is not established as self-existent in the way we grasp it.

Paramārtha's translation further divides the afflictions arising from discrimination based on names into three aspects:

- Discriminating inner dharmas based on names, augmenting or diminishing one's own experience, destroying correct reasoning and establishing incorrect reasoning—called "肉煩惱" (flesh affliction). - Discriminating external sense-objects based on names, giving rise to desire, aversion, etc. toward objects—called "皮煩惱" (skin affliction). - Discriminating all distinctions among worldly and transcendent dharmas based on names, and apart from the former two specific discriminations, engaging in ever more subtle grasping of dharma-characteristics—called "心煩惱" (heart/mind affliction).

These three cannot be reduced to bodily afflictions, material afflictions, and emotional afflictions. They all have conceptual discrimination as their essence; they differ only in their objects and the level at which they operate. Even classifying Buddhist concepts into categories—if one grasps names and distinctions as real—can obscure the unconditioned state (無分別境) and unconditioned wisdom (無分別智).

Its Place in the Path to Liberation

Only from this can one see its position in the path of liberation. 名言熏習種子 is not an isolated theory about the "subconscious," but an explanation of: why the imagined nature (遍計所執) can repeatedly appear; why the consciousness-stream of dependent nature (依他起) manifests as subject and object (能取/所取); and why the proliferation of birth-and-death does not spontaneously cease merely because of one rational reflection.

An ordinary person does not merely err in a single judgment, but—from old perfuming arises discrimination, and with discrimination perfumes the continuum in return—so that "I and my world" continuously gains a sense of solidity that seems self-evidently justified. Cultivation, therefore, is not just changing a few viewpoints, still less suppressing emotions with the slogan "all dharmas are consciousness-only." It requires observing, within the conditioned flow of consciousness, how discrimination is established, gradually no longer mistaking conceptual constructions for real meaning, and cultivating—through correct hearing, appropriate reflection, and meditative practice—the power that can counteract the flow of saṃsāra.

Asvabhāva's commentary specifically establishes "聞熏習種子" (seeds of the perfuming of hearing) as distinct from 名言熏習種子. The hearing-perfuming that arises from correctly hearing the Dharma can become the cause of the supramundane uncontaminated mind; although it dwells together with the maturation-consciousness and turns with it, it is not the self-nature of the ālayavijñāna—on the contrary, it is the counteracting seed (對治種子) of the ālayavijñāna. This is extremely important: liberation is not about repackaging one's original proliferative seeds into more refined Buddhist vocabulary, but about—through correct hearing, reflection, and practice—developing seeds that tend toward unconditioned wisdom and can counteract the flowing structure of the ālayavijñāna.

A Walkthrough in Daily Life

Imagine a very ordinary evening: after working overtime, you take the subway home, open your phone, and see a message from your partner: "You're late again today?"

Step One: The Presence of Objects and Consciousness

The screen, the text, bodily fatigue, the sounds of the train car, and the present activities of eye-consciousness and mental consciousness—all appear dependent on many conditions. The 名言熏習 described by Yogācāra is not merely a commentary added afterward; your ability to immediately recognize "this is a message from my partner," "it's already very late," "this sentence is asking me a question"—this already contains the structures of the consciousnesses of body, body-possessor, experiencer, the experienced, time, number, place, and speech.

The easiest place to mis-map this is to equate "名言" solely with the text on the screen. The screen text is only one external condition; the naming, identifying, and relational arrangement in your mind of "partner," "I," "again," "this late"—this reveals the deeper operation of conceptual discrimination.

Step Two: Old Seeds Arise with Conditions

If in the past you have often been blamed when fatigued, or have long interpreted "inquiry" as "judgment," this sentence may immediately manifest as reproach. Before the other person has added any explanation, you already feel your chest tightening, and the thought arises: "She never understands me."

This does not mean old seeds alone produce everything, nor that the other person definitely has no intent to blame. Seeds must await conditions: the day's fatigue, the recent state of your relationship, the wording of the message, your attentional state while reading—all participate in the arising. The theory of 名言熏習 is not a master key that exempts you from real-world judgment.

Step Three: "Apparent Object" Clearly Presents

"She is negating me" at this moment feels extremely real—not even like an interpretation, but like a fact you directly see. This can be understood precisely through Asvabhāva's statement that "the meaning that manifests, although lacking substance, appears clearly and vividly with a form." The fixed meaning grasped by discrimination is not established solely from those few characters themselves, yet it can appear with a clear, lifelike face.

"Like an illusion" does not mean your distress is fake, nor that there is no relational problem. It means: this set of meanings before you is co-established by the text, memory, bodily state, relational history, and present discrimination—it is not that the information contains a sealed, fixed "entity of blame."

Step Four: Conceptual Discrimination Continues Processing

The mental consciousness begins discriminating inner dharmas based on names: "I am a failed partner," "I will never manage to balance work and family." This is not simply accurate description; it may be augmenting "always like this" onto your experience, or diminishing your own capacity for change—approaching what Paramārtha's translation calls the "flesh affliction" of discriminating inner dharmas based on names, augmenting and diminishing while establishing non-reasoning.

Then it discriminates external objects based on names: "She's too harsh; the sight of her irritates me." Desire, aversion, and so forth arise toward external objects—this is the direction of "skin affliction."

If one then takes some Buddhist concept to seal off the experience—"this is all consciousness-only manifestation, so her problem doesn't exist at all"—one may further grasp at the nominal distinctions of worldly and transcendent dharmas. Knowing a few terms and using them to cancel listening and responsibility is not unconditioned wisdom; it may fall instead into the subtler "heart affliction."

Step Five: The Present Arising Perfumes in Return

If you immediately reply: "Is there anything you can do besides blaming me?"—the present aversion, judgment, and speech do not merely produce one argument; they arise and cease together with the ālayavijñāna, making the continuum more prone to regenerate the patterns "inquiry is attack" and "intimacy is judgment." This is the evolving consciousness arising from seeds and perfuming the fundamental consciousness in return.

When the other person receives your message, they too will understand your words according to their own seeds and then respond. Thus each person's 名言熏習, through actual interaction, provides supporting conditions for the other. The "fixed script" in a relationship is often not a permanent entity hidden between two people, but rather both parties repeatedly bringing forth and repeatedly perfuming, making a certain interpretation increasingly easy to trigger.

Step Six: Where Practice Can Intervene

Intervention does not require you to instantly eradicate the seeds, nor to forcibly reinterpret "blame" as "concern." You can first recognize:

"Right now I clearly feel blamed; but 'she is negating me' is a structure of meaning arising in this moment—it is not an unexamined absolute fact."

Then distinguish observable facts from conceptual augmentation: the fact is "she sent this sentence"; the body is tense; the mind is displeased; "she never understands me" contains the generalization and identification of "never," "understands," "me."

On this basis, you might reply: "I felt tense reading this, as if you were blaming me. Are you worried about me, or are you unhappy that I came home late again? I want to hear you clearly."

This response still uses language, so it cannot be simply called "non-discrimination"; but it does not rush to grasp the initially manifested interpretation as the only real meaning, nor does it continue to reinforce the old proliferation. Here, 名言 temporarily shifts from being the material of imprisonment back to being a tool of communication and observation.

At the deeper level of practice, one does not merely adjust wording, but observes how the "I" that can be hurt, the "he/she" that hurts "me," and the "blame" that is undergone—how all of these are co-established within conditions and discrimination. Seeing their dependent arising is not denying ethical responsibility; it is loosening the grasping that pins oneself, others, and conflicts down as fixed entities. Wisdom thus makes room for compassion: because a person is not a label, and a relationship need not forever repeat the route of old seeds.

The same walkthrough applies to scrolling on your phone. Algorithms continuously provide content you have previously lingered on, liked, or angrily commented upon; old preferences make certain types of information more likely to seize your attention, and the present click makes the system continue recommending. This loop can help contemporary people intuitively understand "old habits trigger present arising, and present arising strengthens subsequent conditions." But it is only an analogy: recommendation systems have observable programs, data, and business goals, whereas the ālayavijñāna and seeds belong to the Yogācāra theoretical account of consciousness and the continuity of birth-and-death—the two cannot be equated. Neuroscience research on memory, prediction, and habit may provide points of comparison, but one cannot yet claim that science has thereby proven the ālayavijñāna; the problematics, methods, and scope of verifiability of the two discourses are not the same.

Why Contemporary People Need It

Contemporary life encourages us to understand ourselves as a set of labels: occupation, education, personality type, intimate-relationship role, consumption preference, platform profile. Labels are convenient for handling complex life, but after prolonged use, people tend to move into the labels, inverting the relationship.

"I am a person without self-discipline." "The child simply doesn't listen." "My partner is avoidant, so communication is impossible." "Anyone who disagrees with me must belong to another type of person." These statements have power not only because they are spoken, but because repeated naming, confirmation, and action form perfuming; thereafter, when we encounter similar situations, the world more readily manifests according to the original categories.

名言熏習種子 offers three reminders.

First: experience is not entirely neutral.

We commonly assume that we first see an objective, completed world, and then express opinions about it. Yogācāra reminds us: past habits of discrimination already participate in organizing present experience. We do not merely "have views about facts"; sometimes even what gets singled out as a fact, who is recognized as the subject, what counts as a threat—all are influenced by existing perfuming.

This does not lead to "all opinions are the same." On the contrary, it demands more rigorous examination of conditions, evidence, and one's own augmentation: is what I am now identifying a co-verifiable situation, or a story quickly filled in by old labels?

Second: habits are not essence.

If seeds are functional differences that arise dependent on conditions, they are not an eternal self. A person prone to anger does not have an unchanging "angry nature"; a child repeatedly called "stupid" does not have "stupidity" as their self-nature. Precisely because present arising depends on seeds, and seeds can in turn be perfumed by present arising, education, practice, environment, and relationship have genuine meaning.

But "can change" is not achieved by a single positive affirmation instantly rewriting everything. 名言熏習 has deep continuity; old seeds, awaiting conditions, can still reappear. The patience in practice is built precisely on this understanding—neither fatalistic nor instant-gratification.

Third: liberation is not merely building a better self-story.

Psychological growth often helps a person rewrite "I am worthless" into "I am worthy of love," which may be very important on a worldly level and may reduce suffering. But the liberation pointed to by Yogācāra goes one layer deeper: not only moving from a negative label to a positive label, but seeing that "I" and "my attributes" are themselves provisionally established dependent on conditions and conceptual discrimination; no longer grasping any story as self-nature.

This is not asking an injured person to prematurely declare "there is no self, so it doesn't matter," nor using emptiness to bypass trauma, responsibility, and repair. In sequence: first, accurately recognize suffering, conditions, and harm; establish right view and right conduct; then, in contemplation, loosen the grasping of subject and object. If one uses the highest doctrine to suppress experiences that have not yet been attended to, even Buddhist terminology itself can become a new "heart affliction."

The value of 名言熏習種子 in the path of liberation lies precisely in this: it brings ignorance down from abstract slogan to every act of apprehension—how a name becomes the felt sense of a real thing, how a judgment becomes an identity, how an identity guides action, and how action makes the world increasingly resemble the original judgment.

Conversely, correctly hearing the Dharma, appropriate reflection, tranquil-abiding and insight meditation, and ethical conduct are not ornaments added to the surface of a fixed mind. They cultivate different causes within dependent origination and continuity, gradually weakening the force of flowing with proliferation, and creating the conditions for unconditioned wisdom. The reason hearing-perfuming needs to be spoken of separately from 名言熏習 is precisely this: although the words of the Dharma still make use of conceptual designation, their purpose is not to add one more graspable intellectual identity, but to become the counteragent that ferries one toward wisdom free of attachment.

Therefore, one who truly understands this concept will not immediately feel superior because someone else used an imprecise word. If "I understand Yogācāra, he doesn't" is grasped as a solid identity, that is still conceptual discrimination continuing to write itself. The more precise the doctrine, the more it should help us recognize attachment—not equip attachment with a more dignified vocabulary.

Common Misreadings and Clarifications

One: "名言" means words spoken aloud.

Inaccurate. The spoken sound belongs to "言"; after the sound ceases, the mind's apprehension of names and its discrimination by means of names is "名." Silent self-evaluation, conceptual categorization, and labeling people all equally belong to conceptual designation. Its scope is far broader than oral language.

Two: 名言熏習種子 is just memory.

They cannot be equated. Memory can serve as an approximate entry point from modern experience, but 名言熏習種子 explains not only the preservation of information, but also the manifestation of the consciousnesses of subject, object, time, place, and speech, and why the apparent objects of the imagined nature repeatedly reappear. Reducing it to "memory traces" omits its position within Yogācāra dependent origination and the flow of birth and death.

Three: A seed is an entity hidden inside the ālayavijñāna.

Inaccurate. A seed is the functional difference within the ālayavijñāna capable of producing corresponding resultant dharmas; it is not an independent small object. Nor is the ālayavijñāna a permanent storehouse-soul. Seeds and consciousness can neither be said to be entirely separate, nor indiscriminately said to be completely identical.

Four: The ālayavijñāna is the Buddhist version of the subconscious.

This can serve as an extremely limited introductory analogy, but cannot be equated. The "subconscious" in modern psychology itself has multiple theoretical definitions, and typically deals with individual psychological activity; the ālayavijñāna, by contrast, bears the Yogācāra functions of maintaining seeds, receiving perfuming, maturation, and the continuity of birth and death. Direct translation narrows both sides.

Five: 名言熏習種子 is the same as karmic seeds.

They are related but not identical. In the classification of these commentaries, seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma belong to "有受盡相"—exhausted through enjoyment after maturation-results ripen; 名言熏習種子 belong to "無受盡相"—continuously serving as conditions for the arising of new conceptual proliferation. The same action may simultaneously have an aspect of karmic perfuming and an aspect of conceptual-discrimination perfuming, but this does not erase their functional difference.

Six: "無受盡相" means a particular seed exists eternally.

It does not. "Not exhausted through enjoyment" emphasizes that this type of proliferative function, within the continuity of birth and death, does not become exhausted after one enjoyment like a single karmic fruition; it still must depend on conditions and flow in momentary succession. It does not affirm a permanent entity. Continuity is not changelessness—just as a flame continues while no entirely identical fire remains from start to finish.

Seven: Since everything is manifested by 名言熏習, the external world and other people do not exist.

This crudely reduces Yogācāra to solipsism. The commentaries emphasize: the meaning that manifests lacks the independent entity that discriminating mind grasps, yet can "appear clearly and vividly with a form" dependent on conditions. Illusion-like does not mean non-existent; dependently-originated manifestation still has order, function, and causality. Nor can another person's suffering be cancelled by a phrase like "consciousness-only manifestation."

Eight: Simply stop speaking and empty the thoughts, and 名言熏習 is cut off.

Insufficient. In silence there may still be extremely subtle apprehension and discrimination; forcefully not-thinking may only suppress present arising without touching the structure of attachment. Practice is not producing a blank slate, but observing—through right view—the difference between conceptual construction and grasping of real essence, and thereby accomplishing wisdom not governed by the proliferation of subject and object.

Nine: Buddhist concepts are all 名言, so studying scriptures has no meaning.

On the contrary. 名言 has the potential to obscure, but also the function of pointing the way. Asvabhāva's commentary separately establishes the hearing-perfuming seed born of correctly hearing the Dharma, and states that it can become the counteragent of the ālayavijñāna. The problem is not whether language exists, but whether one grasps what language points to as real essence. Mistaking the finger for the moon is indeed an error; but refusing to look in the direction indicated because one fears grasping the finger will equally prevent reaching the moon.

Ten: Knowing that "everything is just a label" already constitutes unconditioned wisdom.

Intellectual understanding may still be only subtler discrimination. "This is just a label" can itself become a label—used to deny feelings, evade responsibility, or overpower others. Unconditioned wisdom is not conceptual dullness, nor is it the inability to distinguish good from evil; it is no longer grasping the dependently-established subject and object as self-nature, while still being able to respond clearly to causality and suffering within dependent origination.

Conclusion

Ultimately, 名言熏習種子 reveals a fact that is both sobering and hopeful: we do not see the world for the first time; every seeing carries directions left by the past—but these directions are not unchangeable fate. How we name, apprehend, and respond in this moment may continue to deepen old proliferation, or may prepare new conditions for seeing things as they are.

Liberation is not making the world nameless and wordless; it is, within 名言, no longer being lost in 名言—seeing, when discrimination arises, the dependent origination of discrimination, and finally no longer allowing it to weave a "self" that must be defended and a "world" that must be possessed or rejected. 名言 can still be used for asking directions, apologizing, teaching, and loving—but no longer mistaken for the self-nature of things. This, precisely, is where this seemingly abstruse theory of seeds leads to actual practice.