隨轉

What This Concept Is About

The term 隨轉, Sanskrit *anupravartana*, literally means "turning along with" or "following-and-turning." If you encounter this term for the first time, you might intuitively take it to mean something like "learning from a good teacher" or "expounding the Dharma in accordance with the faculties of sentient beings"—those are meanings it acquired later in Mahāyāna contexts. But in the precise world of Abhidharma, 隨轉 (anupravartana, "following-and-turning") is an extremely technical dharma-character term. Its core meaning is: one dharma arises, operates, and reaches completion by following along with another dharma.

The *Abhidharmakośa* (*俱舍論*, T1559) uses this term to do at least three different things. Let us look at each of these three separately, because they correspond to three different levels of 隨轉.

First level: 隨轉 as the characteristic of "abiding" (住, sthiti)—continuity in time.

When the treatise-master Vasubandhu explains the four characteristics of conditioned dharmas (arising, abiding, decaying, perishing), he says:

相續初名生，滅謂終盡位，中隨轉名住，住異前後別。

A dharma's transition from non-existence to existence—its first moment—is called "arising" (生, jāti); its final position of extinction is called "perishing" (滅, nirodha); and the middle stretch of continuation between "after arising" and "before perishing" is called "following-and-turning" (隨轉), which is to say "abiding" (住, sthiti). *The initial moment of a continuum is called arising; perishing refers to the final position of extinction; the middle, following-and-turning, is called abiding; abiding and decaying differ as before and after.* Why use "following-and-turning" to define "abiding"? Because "abiding" is not a state of being statically fixed in place; rather, it is each later moment turning forth in continuation along the momentum of each earlier moment. It is like a river: you think it is "abiding" in its channel, but the water at every moment is not the water of the previous moment—it is only ceaselessly "turning along with the forward flow," and it is this that constitutes what we perceive as "stable abiding."

So from the very beginning, the term 隨轉 carries an important implication: existence is not static but a dynamic continuum. What is called "abiding" is not "stopping" but "turning"—turning onward without a moment's pause, following inertia, following prior causes.

Second level: 隨轉 as in "mind-following dharmas" (心隨轉法)—arising together with mind, mutually causing one another.

This is the most central use of 隨轉 in the *Abhidharmakośa*. There is a verse in the treatise:

心所二律儀，彼及心諸相，是心隨轉法。

"Mind-following dharmas" include three classes: all dharmas corresponding to mind (i.e., the mental factors (心所法, caitta-dharma), such as feeling, perception, volition, contact, attention, etc.), the dhyāna restraints and the uncontaminated restraints (the two kinds of restraints (律儀, saṃvara) that correspond to meditative concentration), and the four characteristics—arising, abiding, decaying, perishing—of mind itself and of these dharmas. *The mental factors, the two restraints, and these plus the characteristics of mind—these are the dharmas that follow mind.*

Why are these dharmas called "mind-following dharmas"? Because they turn along with mind—when mind arises, they arise with it; when mind ceases, they cease with it; when mind is wholesome, they are wholesome with it; when mind is defiled, they are defiled with it. They arise and cease together with mind, never separated from it. And at the level of the coexistent cause (俱有因, sahabhū-hetu), they mutually serve as each other's causes with mind—mind is their cause, and they are mind's cause, just as three reeds leaning against one another can stand upright only together.

Special attention should be paid here to the fact that the scope of mind-following dharmas has a clearly defined boundary: not all dharmas related to mind count. For example, material dharmas (rūpa-dharma, the body, physical matter) are not mind-following dharmas, because although they may be instigated by mind, they do not arise and cease simultaneously with mind. Nor does the prātimokṣa restraint (別解脫律儀) among the restraints—the restraint obtained when one ordinarily receives precepts—count, because it continues to exist even during periods without mind (such as deep sleep or unconsciousness); it does not "follow" mind. Only the dhyāna restraint and the uncontaminated restraint—the two kinds of restraints that arise together with concentrated mind—count, because they exist only in meditative concentration.

Third level: 隨轉 as "momentaneous co-arisal" (剎那等起, kṣaṇa-samutthāna)—the driving force inseparable from the action at the very moment of performing it.

This is the most technical and most brilliant use in the *Abhidharmakośa*. When the treatise discusses how action (業, karman) arises, it divides the "co-arisal" of action (等起, samutthāna, i.e., the causes and conditions that set action in motion) into two kinds:

等起有二種，因及彼剎那，如次第應知，名轉名隨轉。

*There are two kinds of co-arisal: the cause and the moment of that [action]. In that order, they should be known respectively as "turning" (轉, pravartana) and "following-and-turning" (隨轉, anupravartana).*

"Turning" (轉, pravartana) is the "co-arisal by cause" (因等起)—the antecedent motive and thought-moment that, before you are about to perform a given action, precedes and triggers you to do it. It is like a pusher, propelling you from behind toward a certain action.

"Following-and-turning" (隨轉, anupravartana) is the "co-arisal by moment" (剎那等起)—the thought-moment that, at the very instant you are performing the action, is simultaneous with and inseparable from the action. It is like a hand that never releases yours, accompanying you at every moment your brush touches the page, so that your action is not interrupted.

The treatise contains a superb question-and-answer exchange: someone asks, since "turning" (the antecedent motive) is already there to instigate the action, why is "following-and-turning" (the present co-arisal) also needed? The treatise-master replies: "雖有先因為能引發，若無隨轉者如死業應無"—*"Although there is a prior cause capable of instigating, if there is no following-and-turning, the action would be like a 'dead action' and would not arise."* In other words, having an antecedent motive is not enough; you must continuously "stay in the state" at every present moment for the action to be truly completed.

This distinction is extremely precise. It implies: the moral quality of an action is determined not only by its initial motive but also by the state of the thought-moment at the time of its execution. You may begin something with a wholesome mind, but if during the process your thought-moment turns unwholesome—then the action, in terms of its momentary type, has already been defiled by the unwholesome following-and-turning mind. The converse also holds.

The treatise also makes a fourfold distinction regarding the roles of different consciousnesses in these two kinds of co-arisal:

- The consciousness abandoned by vision (見所斷識)—a deep defiled mind associated with wrong views—can only be "turning," not "following-and-turning"—because it can only instigate action as a remote cause, and cannot directly participate in the thought-activity presently occurring toward external objects; - The five consciousnesses (五識, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body consciousnesses) can only be "following-and-turning," not "turning"—because they themselves lack the capacity for discriminative deliberation and cannot serve as antecedent motives, yet at the moment action occurs, they are indispensable as perceptual activities; - The mind-consciousness abandoned by cultivation (修所斷意識)—our ordinary discursive, deliberating consciousness—can be both—it can serve as the antecedent motive that instigates action, and it can also continue operating at the moment of action; - The uncontaminated mind and the maturation-born mind (無漏心和異熟生心)—the uncontaminated mind associated with concentration, and the retributive mind naturally matured from past karma—are neither—because they are not set in motion by deliberate effort (加行, prayoga) but turn spontaneously (任運).

There is another subtle point: the wholesome or unwholesome quality of the turning mind and the following-and-turning mind need not be the same. A wholesome turning mind can be accompanied by an unwholesome or indeterminate following-and-turning mind; and vice versa. The sole exception is the Buddha (called "the Sage," 牟尼, Muni, in the treatise)—if the Buddha's turning mind is wholesome, his following-and-turning mind is necessarily wholesome; if the Buddha's turning mind is indeterminate, his following-and-turning mind is for the most part indeterminate as well. But one direction is certain: "曾無無記為善隨轉時"—*"there is never a case of an indeterminate [turning mind] producing a wholesome following-and-turning."* An indeterminate turning mind never gives rise to a wholesome following-and-turning. This is like a river whose water cannot be purer than its source.

Additional level: "constantly following-and-turning" (恒隨轉) in Yogācāra.

Furthermore, in the Yogācāra school's seed theory (種子, bīja), 隨轉 has another extremely important use—as one of the six characteristics of the seed: "constantly following-and-turning" (恒隨轉). A seed does not disappear after functioning once; rather, it "constantly turns forth following along with its own inherent momentum," existing as a latent potential at every moment of the continuum, until conditions mature and it produces its fruition. This "constantly following-and-turning" emphasizes the continuity between cause and effect—every present thought-moment is "following-and-turning" its momentum toward some future retribution.

Putting all the above levels together, 隨轉 in the Abhidharma context is really saying one thing: the existence, operation, and completion of all dharmas are not isolated, momentary, or one-time events, but rather "turn forth in continuation by following along with some momentum." Dharmas "abide" by following along with the momentum of each preceding moment; mental factors arise and cease together by following along with mind; action is completed by following along with the co-arisal of the present thought-moment; seeds turn forth in the continuum by following along with their own efficacy. All things "follow"—no dharma can exist self-sufficiently and in isolation.

A Walkthrough in Everyday Life

Let us take this concept and walk it through the daily life of a contemporary person. Choose an utterly ordinary scenario: late at night, you lie in bed, pick up your phone, and start scrolling through short videos.

Note that there are three stages here, corresponding exactly to the three levels of 隨轉.

First stage: the initial motive—"turning" (轉).

You might not admit it, but there is a reason you picked up your phone. Perhaps the day's work was too exhausting and you wanted to "relax"; perhaps a thought was turning in your mind before sleep, "let me see if anyone has messaged me"; perhaps it was just a formless restlessness, a desire to find something to fill the gap. This "reason"—whether a clear intention or a vague drive—is, in the Abhidharma sense, the co-arisal by cause of the act of picking up your phone, i.e., "turning." It is already there before you actually reach out your hand, like a pusher propelling you toward the action.

Second stage: the very moment you actually start scrolling—"following-and-turning" (隨轉).

You swipe the screen open and tap on a video. Notice: at this very instant, your thought-moments and your action are simultaneous and inseparable. Your eye-consciousness is perceiving the images, your mental consciousness is understanding the content, your emotions are being stirred—these thought-activities arise and cease together with the act of "scrolling the phone." They are the "co-arisal by moment," i.e., "following-and-turning." Without these present thought-activities, even if your finger were on the screen, you could not scroll anything—that would be a "dead action."

This is exactly what the treatise-master says: a prior cause ("turning") alone is not enough; there must be the present following-and-turning force of mind supporting it, and only then is the action truly accomplished.

Third stage: what you think is "relaxation" is actually being "followed-and-turned" by mental factors.

Look one level deeper. While scrolling through short videos, you think you are "active"—you are choosing what to watch and what not to watch. But Abhidharma analysis would say: at this moment, your mind is being "followed-and-turned" by a series of mental factors. You see a funny video—the feeling aggregate (受蘊, vedanā-skandha) is apprehending that light, pleasant sensation; the perception aggregate (想蘊, saṃjñā-skandha) is recognizing the people and scenes in the images; the volitional aggregate (行蘊, saṃskāra-skandha) is impelling you to keep swiping—and throughout this entire process, the algorithm is like an external "coexistent cause," mutually causing with your mind-consciousness: your clicks make the algorithm push more similar content, and the algorithm's pushes stimulate more clicks from you. Between you and the algorithm, a "following-and-turning" relationship of "simultaneous convergence, mutual causation" (俱時和合、互為其因) is constituted.

Here we must especially point out the place where the general public most easily misunderstands: "following-and-turning" does not mean "passive." When you scroll your phone, it looks like you are "actively" operating, but Abhidharma analysis precisely reveals: this very "sense of activity" is itself the operation of a mental factor—it is the volition mental factor (思, cetanā) impelling you, the attention mental factor (作意, manaskāra) guiding you. You think you are "using" your phone; in fact, your mind is being "followed-and-turned" by a precisely engineered system of external stimuli. The more you feel you are "actively choosing," the more it shows that your choice itself has already been swept along by some momentum. But this is different from "passive"—you are not coerced; you are "turning along with your own habitual tendencies." This is what 隨轉 means: it is not someone else pushing you, but your own thought-moments sliding downward along some inertia.

Let us walk through a more serious scenario: because of work stress, you lose your temper at your family.

The act of losing your temper, under Abhidharma analysis, likewise has two kinds of co-arisal. "Turning" (轉): the grievance and exhaustion you accumulated at the office during the day—that is the antecedent cause, the latent pusher that triggers your outburst. "Following-and-turning" (隨轉): at the very moment you actually open your mouth and shout those words, your thought-moments are filled with anger (嗔恚, dveṣa)—that angry thought-moment that arises simultaneously with and inseparably from the act of "shouting."

But the precision of Abhidharma lies here: "turning" does not necessarily determine "following-and-turning." Your daytime grievance (the turning mind) is bitter, is exhausted, but at the very moment you open your mouth to shout, your anger (the following-and-turning mind)—in terms of its quality—is an "unwholesome" thought-moment. The qualities of the turning mind and the following-and-turning mind need not be the same. What does this tell us? It tells us: your daytime grievance and exhaustion are the "cause," but they are not an "excuse." In that instant of shouting, your thought-moment was indeed operating in an unwholesome state—at that moment, you had the option to respond with a different thought-moment. Abhidharma's causal analysis does not cancel your responsibility; on the contrary, through the concept of "following-and-turning," it anchors the moral responsibility for your action in every present thought-moment.

One last walkthrough scenario: you try to cultivate a good habit—say, getting up early to run.

On day one you are full of ambition and set an alarm. The alarm rings, you get up, go out, and run a lap. The initial motive ("turning") behind this "getting up and going out to run" is clear: you want to become healthy, you want self-discipline. But have you noticed that what actually keeps you running is not that initial motive, but the feeling "at each step as your foot lands" during the run—the rhythm of your breath, the wind brushing your skin, the slight sweat of your body—these present perceptions and thought-moments are the "following-and-turning." They are present with every step, supporting you without ever leaving.

But if you cast your gaze further, you will also see the operation of "constantly following-and-turning" (恒隨轉): every step you take today is accumulating a momentum for tomorrow's you—muscle memory, cardiovascular adaptation, and the seed of the self-concept "I am a person who can persist in running." These seeds do not disappear just because you finished today's run; they "constantly follow-and-turn"—existing as latent potential in every future day, until conditions mature and on some morning you put on your running shoes without thinking.

Why Contemporary People Need It

Contemporary people live in an age dominated by the "instant." Our attention is chopped into second-sized units, our emotions are trained by algorithms into immediate reactions, and our perception of "cause and effect" grows shorter and shorter—press a button and there is feedback, send a message and there is a reply, place an order and there is delivery. We find it increasingly difficult to understand: some things need time to mature, and some momentum needs continuity to be accomplished.

The concept of 隨轉 is precisely an antidote to this "cult of the instant."

First, it tells us: genuine "accomplishment" requires the support of "following-and-turning."

You have a good intention ("turning")—that is fine. But without "following-and-turning"—without the thought-moment present with what you are doing at every instant—that intention is merely a "dead action"; it cannot get off the ground. Want to learn a language? The determination "I want to learn" is not enough; you must "stay in the state" at every moment you memorize vocabulary. Want to sustain a relationship? The commitment "I love the other person" is not enough; you must remain "present" in every conversation, in every ordinary moment of daily life. "Following-and-turning" reminds us: causation is not a straight line but a continuous river—you must inject new thought-force at every moment, and only then can the action be completed and the aspiration realized.

Second, it dissolves the helplessness of "I am determined by my environment."

Contemporary psychology has a famous concept called "automatic thoughts"—a large portion of our daily behavior is not the result of deliberation but is automatically triggered by habits and situations. This sounds depressing: are we just puppets of an inertial system? But Abhidharma's theory of "following-and-turning" gives a more refined answer: it is indeed "following-and-turning," but "following-and-turning" is not the same as "uncontrollable." Your thought-moments do turn along with some momentum, but that "momentum" itself—that is, your past "turning"—can be changed. Every present "following-and-turning" thought-moment of yours today is shaping the direction of your future "turning." It is like a river: although it now flows along its channel, if today you place a stone at some bend, tomorrow's current will shift slightly. Over time, the direction of the channel can become completely different.

Third, it lets you see the deep meaning of "the power of the present moment."

Contemporary people are sick of hearing "live in the present," but most people's understanding of it is superficial—as if "living in the present" means not thinking about the past or future, focusing only on this moment's feelings. The Abhidharma concept of "following-and-turning" tells us: the present moment is not an isolated point, but the place that receives past momentum and the launching point of future momentum. Every present "following-and-turning" thought-moment does two things at once: it receives the past "turning" (the antecedent motive, the prior cause), and it presets the direction for the future "following-and-turning." The present is not a static "now" but a dynamic "turning point"—every thought-moment of yours is casting a vote for the direction of the entire causal chain.

Fourth, it provides a precise tool for self-observation.

You do not need to become an Abhidharma scholar to use this concept. You only need, at the moment any action occurs, to ask yourself two questions: "What was my initial motive (turning)?" "What is my present thought-moment (following-and-turning)?" Once these two questions are asked separately, the truth of many things surfaces. For example, you may discover: you initially picked up your phone to relax (the turning is wholesome), but at this moment you are scrolling through a news item that makes you anxious (the following-and-turning is unwholesome)—the turning and the following-and-turning are inconsistent; you have in fact deviated from your original direction. This very awareness itself has transformative power: the moment you see the disconnection between "following-and-turning" and "turning," you have the opportunity to recalibrate your direction.

Common Misreadings and Clarifications

Misreading one: understanding 隨轉 as "going with the flow" or "following others."

This is the most common misunderstanding, because the literal meaning of "following-and-turning" too easily evokes "turning along with others" and "having no opinion of one's own." But in the Abhidharma context, 隨轉 has nothing to do with "following other people." The mind-following dharmas (心隨轉法) "follow" the *mind*, not "other people"; the momentaneous co-arisal (剎那等起) "follows" the *action*, not "the trend." It describes the internal relation between dharmas—mental factors turn forth following the mind-king; the present co-arisal operates following the present action—rather than a person's "following the crowd" in the social sense. If someone uses 隨轉 to excuse their conformist behavior, that is a misuse of the term.

Misreading two: understanding "mind-following dharmas" as "all dharmas related to mind."

This boundary must be clearly drawn. Mind-following dharmas include only three classes: dharmas corresponding to mind (mental factors), the two restraints of dhyāna and the uncontaminated, and the four characteristics of arising, abiding, decaying, and perishing of mind and these dharmas. It is not a synonym for "mental activity." The prātimokṣa restraint does not count, material dharmas do not count, and the dharmas disjoined from mind (such as time, number, etc.) do not count either. This boundary matters because it precisely delimits which dharmas arise and cease together with mind, never separated from it—only dharmas that are completely synchronous with mind in time and completely correlated in quality can be called "mind-following." Those dharmas that are merely "influenced by mind" but do not arise and cease simultaneously (such as bodily movements, the sounds of speech) are, in Abhidharma's precise analysis, not "following-and-turning" but "produced" (所造) or "instigated" (所引).

Misreading three: conflating "turning" (轉) with "following-and-turning" (隨轉).

This is the most technical misreading, but also the most important. "Turning" (co-arisal by cause) comes first; it instigates. "Following-and-turning" (co-arisal by moment) comes later or simultaneously; it supports. One is the "pusher," the other is the "handle"—the pusher gets you started, the handle keeps you from letting go. Contemporary people often focus only on "turning"—we are enthusiastic about setting goals, making plans, making decisions—yet seriously underestimate the importance of "following-and-turning." However well a goal is set (however good the turning), without the daily, moment-by-moment support of thought (the following-and-turning), that goal is a "dead action." The profundity of the "following-and-turning" concept lies in this: it shifts attention from the "highlight moment" to the "ordinary present"—what truly determines whether an action can be accomplished is not how strong the initial impulse was, but whether, at every ordinary instant so unremarkable as to be almost imperceptible, you are still "in the state."

Misreading four: understanding 隨轉 as "fated" or "mechanical."

If everything is "following-and-turning"—thought-moments turn along with habits, actions turn along with thought-moments, seeds constantly follow-and-turn to produce their fruits—then does that not mean everything is determined, and we have no free will?

This is not the Abhidharma position. On the contrary, the concept of "following-and-turning" itself presupposes openness: the quality of the turning mind and the following-and-turning mind need not be the same ("this is not fixed"), which means that at every moment of every action, there is the possibility of deviating from the original track. A wholesome turning mind can produce an unwholesome following-and-turning, and an unwholesome turning mind can produce a wholesome following-and-turning (with the sole exception of the Buddha). The "momentum" of causation is real, but momentum is not fate—it is more like the speed and direction of a river: the water does flow along the channel, but at every bend, the concrete path of the current has countless minute possibilities. Abhidharma's theory of causation is not mechanical determinism, but a kind of "freedom with momentum"—freedom exists within every present "following-and-turning."

Misreading five: understanding 隨轉 as a meditation practice or moral injunction.

In the Abhidharma context, 隨轉 is a descriptive concept, not a normative one. It is not telling you "you should follow-and-turn"; it is describing "how dharmas actually operate." In the Mahāyāna scriptures, however, this meaning did undergo a transformation—the *Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra* (*大乘莊嚴經論*, T1604) pairs 隨轉 with 正轉 as two skillful means by which bodhisattvas gather sentient beings, and there 隨轉 does carry the normative meaning of "turning the teaching in accordance with the faculties of sentient beings." So the term historically underwent a semantic expansion from "dharma-character description" to "altruistic skillful means." But if we are speaking of 隨轉 as in the *Abhidharmakośa*, we must return to its original face of describing dharma-characteristics and analyzing causation—it is not teaching us to "go with the flow" but telling us "how all dharmas in fact turn forth following along with causes and conditions."

The concept of 隨轉, when all is said and done, teaches us one thing: see the momentum clearly.

It teaches us to see that what you think is "abiding" there motionlessly is in fact turning at every moment along the prior momentum; it teaches us to see that what you think "you" are actively doing in fact involves an entire set of mental factors converging simultaneously with you and mutually causing with you; it teaches us to see that the accomplishment of an action depends not only on the initiation of that first thought-moment, but on the inseparable support of every present moment.

This "seeing" will not make you stronger, but it will make you more awake. And wakefulness—in this contemporary world full of automatic reactions and algorithmic entrainment—may be our scarcest capacity. When you can see, in every present thought-moment, that the momentum of "following-and-turning" is carrying you in some direction, you gain that subtle, precious space to choose anew. That space is what Abhidharma calls "freedom."