We use tens of thousands of words every day. Behind every word, we seem to assume there is a "meaning"—a thing, a concept, a feeling—that the word "points to." We think "meaning" is the actor on stage, and words are merely the prompt board backstage. But the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* (無性釋, Asvabhāva's commentary) asks us to see one thing clearly through the pair of concepts 能詮/所詮 (signifier/signified): that thing which language "points to"—the 所詮, the signified—is in fact no more solid than the pointing finger. It appears together with the finger. It cannot stand on its own apart from the finger.
This is an analysis that looks very academic on the surface, but is actually very close to life. Let us first get its content precise, then walk together through several scenes of contemporary life.
What This Concept Is Saying
First, clarify a pair of partners: 能詮 and 所詮
- 能詮 (néng quán, the signifier) : The side that is able to express—language, script, conventional names, symbols—that is, the "speaking" side. The sound-image of 「火」, the Chinese character, the English word "fire"—these are all 能詮. - 所詮 (suǒ quán, the signified) : The side that is referred to, that is expressed—the meaning, object, significance that language refers to—that is, the "being spoken of" side. When we hear the word 「火」, the "fire" that arises in the mind—scorching, dangerous, red—is the 所詮.
能詮 is the active side; 所詮 is the passive, awaiting-reference side. The two are a pair from the very beginning: without 能詮, there is no "signified" to speak of; without the "signified," the "signifier" is just sound and strokes, with no direction of reference.
But what the classical tradition says next goes deeper than this "appearing as a pair." 能詮/所詮 are not merely two things; rather, 能詮/所詮 fundamentally cannot be treated as real, mutually independent entities.
**The Three-Stage Argument in the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya* (無性釋)**
Asvabhāva's commentary takes this principle through three verses, with accompanying explanation, step by step to the conclusion of "all is inexpressible" (一切不可言). These three stages are not three different claims; they are a progressive deepening of the same principle. We must walk through each stage; they cannot be compressed.
Stage One: The establishment of the signified depends solely on the designation of the signifier
頌曰：「相應自性義，所分別非餘，字展轉相應，是謂相應義。」
The commentary makes this explicit: 「諸文字展轉相應宣唱不絕，遍計心等緣此假立成遍計義為所分別，無別實義為所分別，故言『非余』。」
The key is in the two words 「假立」 (provisional establishment). When we speak of 「火」, 「家」, 「愛」, 「正義」, 「自我」, it is not as if there is first a solitary "real meaning of fire" hanging somewhere, and then the character 「火」 points to it like a finger. The actual process is: a sequence of sounds/graphs unfolds in time, one after another, mutually echoing (「字展轉相應宣唱不絕」)—this is the activity of the 能詮; then our mind, which "recognizes characters," "takes hold of appearances," and interprets sound-sequences as "meaning"—called the 遍計心 (parikalpa-citta, the conceptually discriminating mind) —takes this sequence as its cognitive object (所緣), and "provisionally establishes" (施設假立) a signified "meaning of fire" as the object of "what is discriminated" (所分別).
This "what is discriminated" is provisionally established; its formation depends on: (1) the continuity of signifying words, (2) the discriminating mind capable of interpretation, and (3) the "correspondence" (相應) operation between the two. If these three cannot come together, the 所詮 of 「火」 cannot be established. A person who does not understand Chinese, hearing the pronunciation of 「火」, cannot generate that whole sequence of "fire-meaning"; a child who has just learned the word also does not yet have a complete 所詮 emerging. The 所詮 is established following the designation of the 能詮; there is no separate real meaning—this is what 「非余」 (not "other") means.
From this comes the first conclusion: The 所詮 is provisional (假立); apart from the continuous operation of the 能詮, there is no independently referable real meaning.
Stage Two: Signifier and signified are not separate
頌曰：「非離彼能詮，智於所詮轉。」
The commentary uses a reductio: 「若實有義可言說者，離能詮名，於彼應有似言智起。然非未解了能詮名言於所詮義有此智起，故不可言。」
The meaning: cognition (「智」, *jñāna*) always operates within the movement of "能詮 → 所詮"; it never bypasses the signifier to grasp the signified directly. How is this proven? Do a thought experiment: if there really were an independent, real "meaning of fire" hanging out there, then a phenomenon should appear—even if you did not understand the character 「火」 at all, you should still be able to generate a "language-like cognition of the fire-meaning" (「似言智」). But in fact, without first clarifying the character 「火」, you can never even get near the "fire-meaning."
This reductio is quite powerful. Each of us has experienced this: a new concept, when first introduced to you, you treat it as sound or a foreign language, with no idea what it is saying; after several uses, the "signified" slowly emerges. This emergence process itself tells us that the 所詮 is learned together with the 能詮; it is not first discovered.
So the second conclusion: 能詮 and 所詮 are mutually dependent; they cannot exist separately.
Stage Three: Signifier and meaning are not truly, fixedly different
頌曰：「非詮不同故。」
The commentary: 「能詮名與所詮義別相取故，其相各異，云何得成定實詮表？由此道理，所有一切能詮所詮皆不可言。」
This step pushes the previous two one step further: Although 能詮 and 所詮 superficially appear to be two things—one is sound, the other is meaning—if they were truly "different in character" (相異) and "fixed and real" (定實, stable and substantial), then "expression" itself could be established. Otherwise, everything would just be pointing randomly. However, since we have just proven that they are interdependent and not separate, how could "fixed, real difference" hold? Thus "fixed, real expression" also cannot stand.
The concluding statement: All 能詮/所詮 is ultimately inexpressible—not because there is something profound hidden behind language, but because even the idea that "there is a stable object that language can finally fix and point to" must itself be loosened.
「所詮」equates to 「所分別」
There is another point in the commentary worth grasping: the term 「所詮」, in this treatise, is interchangeable with 「所分別」; both refer to the object-domain of the discriminating mind (遍計所緣之境). 「分別」 is that mental activity which recognizes marks, takes hold of appearances, and establishes concepts; the "object" it discriminates, the "meaning" it faces—that is the 所詮. In other words, the 所詮 is not merely "the meaning to which language points"; it is more fundamentally "the object taken hold of by the discriminating mind" —that "thing which I believe I am really pointing at."
This pins the 所詮 firmly to the side of 遍計所執 (parikalpita-svabhāva, the thoroughly imagined nature) . It constitutes most of the work of our everyday consciousness: whenever we say "this is X" / "I want Y" / "she is Z"—we believe there is a real meaning "X, Y, Z" there, and that real meaning is precisely the 所詮 that is being dismantled here.
Its Position in the Whole Path of Liberation
What function does this serve in the path of liberation? We can summarize in three sentences:
1. Dismantling the attachment to the signifier/signified pair is a key grinding-stone for moving from 遍計所執性 (the thoroughly imagined nature) toward 依他起性 (paratantra-svabhāva, the dependent nature). Among the three natures, 遍計所執性 is that workplace which constantly mistakes the "provisionally established" for the "really existent"—and language is the tool we use most often. We use the word 「自我」 as an anchor, 「成功」 as a map, 「他們」 as a wall—every word pulls up a 所詮, and every pull becomes an object of grasping. The analysis of the 所詮 is precisely the dismantling of the most everyday, most imperceptible 遍計所執.
2. It is the preparatory work leading toward 「離言真如」 (the inexpressible thusness). In Yogācāra there is the term 「離言真如」—meaning that the level of thusness is "free from conventional names, cannot be posited as an object"; at the same time, it cannot be imagined as "an entity called thusness." The approach is: first see through the provisional positing of 能詮/所詮, then from there, through the pure observation of the dependent nature, approach that level which cannot be posited yet is not nothing.
3. But this is not an "anti-language" position. The entire Buddhist teaching itself is laid out in language; the Mahāyāna sūtras in the *Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra* (解深密經) lineage have also stated the famous proposition that "all dharmas are preceded by names" (「一切諸法皆以名為先故」—the exact wording is not cited with a source here to avoid misquoting from memory). Language remains an excellent tool; it is only when we treat it as "a hand that points to something real" that we go too far. The function of 所詮 analysis is not to make us give up speaking, but to make us speak with clarity and use language lightly.
Walking Through Life
We have now set up the skeleton of the concept. Next, let us walk through several scenes familiar to contemporary people, and see what this analysis looks like when it shines into daily life.
Walkthrough 1: The Moment of Naming an Emotion
A typical scene: you feel a vague unease, dull, lacking energy, a tightness in the chest, unclear what it is. Later you walk into a counseling room, or read an article, and learn a word—「焦慮」 ("anxiety"). You suddenly feel: "Yes, this is anxiety." After that you start asking yourself: Am I anxious today? Is my anxiety severe? Which event triggered the anxiety? How do I manage the anxiety?
Translating this process into the language of 能詮/所詮: - Before you knew the word 「焦慮」, that feeling was diffuse, unsegmented—it had not yet become "some thing." - Once the word 「焦慮」 (能詮) enters, the corresponding "meaning of anxiety"—a recognized, bounded, trackable, manageable object (所詮)—is provisionally established. You begin using the name 「焦慮」 to take hold of something; once it can be taken hold of, it can be asked "mine or someone else's," "present today or not," "how strong." - From then on, 「焦慮」 is no longer just a sound; it becomes an entity that can converse with you and organize your experience for you.
There are two common missteps here that should be pointed out:
Misreading A: "So this uneasy feeling is fake, nonexistent, polluted by words." Wrong. The 所詮, though provisional, is not nothing. The word 「焦慮」 performs a successful "provisional establishment" (假立) on that dull feeling, meaning we need not deny the feeling, nor deny the organizing function of the word. Provisional establishment is not falsehood.
Misreading B: "Since there is no real 'anxiety,' I don't need to deal with it." Also wrong. What we are dismantling here is the real self-nature (自性 = independent, unchanging, concretely referable self) of the "meaning of anxiety," not telling you to let go of that dull feeling. The feeling—as an event-layer occurring in body and mind—still needs to be cared for; only when you grasp it (along with its name) as a solid, catchable object does the problem arise.
A deeper discernment: after observing for a while, you may discover that there are two "degrees" of naming a feeling—one is that after using the name, experience becomes more clearly organized (the map becomes more useful); the other is that after prolonged use, the name itself becomes another prison (the map becomes the terrain). 所詮 analysis teaches you to switch between these two degrees, without treating all naming as a trap.
Walkthrough 2: The Self That Slowly Grows Into "INTJ," "Introvert," "Perfectionist" Labels
MBTI, attachment styles, the Enneagram... these widely used contemporary self-labels are another fertile ground for practicing 所詮 analysis.
The process often goes like this: you test as INTJ, or a friend tells you "you're such a perfectionist." Once these words (能詮) land, the two 所詮 in your mind—"the meaning of INTJ," "the meaning of perfectionist"—gradually grow into bounded "objects." Later: "I'm INTJ, so it's normal for me to be this way"; "Since I'm a perfectionist, it's hard to change"; "Me, I'm the anxious attachment type."
At this point, the 所詮 has begun to shape behavior in reverse—it has shifted from descriptor to prescriptor. The 所詮 was originally a convenient map for understanding ourselves; but when we begin to replace "the reality of the terrain" with "the name on the map," and from then on live only with the map, 遍計所執 has quietly completed itself.
The point to expose: tools like MBTI are not useless—they can make us more alert to certain tendencies and give us common language when communicating with others; their functional layer is legitimate. The problem is only when we grasp the label as an independent, substantial "self" —this is precisely the attachment of interdependence between 能詮 and 所詮. 所詮 analysis teaches you to live with labels without being defined by them.
Walkthrough 3: Online Debates Around Big Words Like 「正義」「自由」「家庭」
A scene frequently seen on Facebook, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, X: two people argue heatedly over "what is justice," "the meaning of family," "whether freedom should first consider order." They both use the same Chinese word (能詮), yet each points to a "meaning" (所詮) that differs vastly. The more they argue, the more heated; the more heated, the more each believes: "What I'm saying is the real form of this thing—how can you not see it?"
This scene is exactly a living footnote to Asvabhāva's third-stage argument:
「能詮名與所詮義別相取故，其相各異，云何得成定實詮表？」
*Each side "takes hold of a different character"; the "meanings" each takes hold of differ from each other; this "expression itself" cannot be fixed; so on the surface they debate 「正義」, but in fact it is a debate in which two 所詮 cannot find a common object.*
But this does not lead to "there's no meaning, so don't debate"—do not forget the function of provisional establishment. Words like 「正義」「自由」「家庭」, under different networks of 能詮, create 所詮 that converse with each other and collide with each other—this is how social meaning expands and is reflected upon. The point is only that in this process, repeatedly reducing the debate to: "Is the 所詮 of 『正義』 we are now using posited by this particular set of 能詮? Where are its boundaries? Would a different 能詮 network posit a different 所詮?"—this capacity for questioning is precisely the dividend brought by 所詮 analysis.
Walkthrough 4: Translating 「緣起」「空」「道」 into Other Languages
When we translate Buddhist studies, we will inevitably hit this: 「緣起」 translated as *dependent origination*, 「空」 as *emptiness* or *śūnyatā*, 「道」 as *Way* or *Tao* or *Path*. Each translated 能詮 in English or another language re-posits another 所詮—and this 所詮 cannot be completely identical to the original Sanskrit/Chinese 所詮.
In this situation, what must be held onto is: no translation "captures the original 所詮," because the "original 所詮" itself is already a positing of the Sanskrit/Chinese system of 能詮. Each translation is a new provisional establishment.
This is also a gentle reminder regarding faith in "sacred words" (聖言量) and "patriarchs' intent" (祖師意)—what the Buddha spoke was never a naked reality bypassing language, but a truth posited through some language; this truth is real (the dependent nature is real), but it is not "a substantial thing that can be fully transported." What each era and each culture must do is re-posit it, not preserve the original object.
Walkthrough 5 (a brief scene): Trademark logos, emoji
- A piece of cloth, add a hook-shaped logo, and it immediately acquires the 所詮 of "that brand's athleticism/coolness." The same cloth without that logo is nothing—this "that brand's athletic feel" is purely provisionally established by the 能詮 (the logo + a whole system of associated language). Yet the price difference makes you feel the power of the 所詮 tangibly in reality—though seen independently, it grasps nothing. - The emoji 「👌」: a few years ago it meant "OK"; now, across different communities, age groups, and platforms, it can be sincere OK, sarcastic OK, a slightly erotic hint, or a silent threat. The same 能詮 posits different 所詮; the 所詮 changes its face vividly according to the context of the 能詮.
These small scenes vividly illustrate the contemporary face of the first-stage argument—"words in mutual succession, the discriminating mind relying on this to provisionally establish."
Why Contemporary People Need It
After laying the concept flat, now ask a different question: What specific problems does this rather convoluted, very academic concept solve in the daily life of contemporary people?
1. The Age of Naming Saturation
The contemporary era is one of unprecedented label density. Psychology has split emotions, personalities, attachments, and subtypes into hundreds of diagnostic names; social media has spread identity, stance, interest, and regional codes into thousands of hashtags; marketing has cut product attributes into tens of thousands of dimensions; news, commentary, and editorials churn out new concept-words every day. Every day our 遍計心 is steeped in a "new 所詮."
所詮 analysis cannot help us escape naming (nor do we need to escape), but it continuously reminds us in the background: "This new concept makes you feel, by tonight, that there really is a solid 'thing' for you to deal with"—toward this temporarily pulled-up object, you need not hand over your full sense of reality. This is a kind of immunity: a capacity to "still use these conceptual tools without being held hostage by their 所詮."
2. Weariness from Disputes and the Mire of Language
Much of the weariness from disputes comes from "I feel I have pointed to something real—why can't you see it?" Clinging to the sense of reality of that 所詮 is the most common driver of verbal conflict escalating into identity-level opposition. Seeing the interdependent provisionality of 能詮/所詮 does not teach us to stop arguing—it clarifies the structure of the conflict. We are each holding a network of 能詮 and positing different 所詮; insisting on accusing the other of "why don't you see this thing"—this question itself already exceeds what the other can bear. When we can, even in the heat of anger, keep one eye on this structure, we are more able to retain space—not the victory of right over wrong, but seeing the terrain of the whole right/wrong game from outside right and wrong.
3. Intersecting with the Age of Large Language Models (AI)
The contemporary era also has a unique phenomenon: large language models do not need a 遍計心 to produce seemingly "meaningful" output from the probabilistic patterns of 能詮. They have no self, no clinging, yet they can converse fluently, explain, comfort, and tell stories; their output—the so-called "meaning"—comes almost entirely from the co-occurrence patterns of 能詮.
This phenomenon forms an interesting dialogue with 所詮 analysis:
- On one hand, it pushes "the 所詮 is really a provisional establishment of the 能詮" to an extreme version—can you imagine a 能詮 producing "meaning" without a 遍計心? LLMs seem able to do this to some degree. - On the other hand, it also reminds us of the limits of this dialogue: the LLM is not "proving" Buddhism—what it lacks may precisely be that capacity for clinging. Here we do not evaluate whether this is good or bad; we only point out: seeing the 能詮-nature of AI, and reviewing the 能詮/所詮 interdependence in Buddhism, gives both sides a clearer position—AI is neither a thing nor a person; Buddhism is neither AI nor an IT product.
4. The Contemporary Professionalization of Mental Work
Psychological counseling, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and various body-mind therapies make heavy use of naming—「童年創傷」 ("childhood trauma"), 「依附形態」 ("attachment style"), 「內在小孩」 ("inner child"), 「內耗」 ("internal friction"), and so on. It is no accident that these namings help—they precisely hit the function of 假立: when an originally vague experience is posited with a corresponding 所詮 by an effective 能詮, that 所詮 can be seen, touched, and cared for.
But the establishment of the 所詮 occurs at the level of the dependent nature (依他), not at the level of the imagined nature (遍計). Once the name becomes "this is the kind of person I am"—"I'm just highly sensitive," "I'm just the internal-friction type"—the skillful provisional establishment quietly slides into grasping. At that point, 所詮 analysis makes a gentle adjustment. It does not oppose those tools; it reminds: "Use them; just don't follow them for too long."
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Having walked through life applications, let us finally clarify together the most commonly mis-stepped places.
Misreading 1: "The 所詮 is fake / meaning is arbitrary"
This is the biggest misreading. Provisional establishment ≠ falsehood. The 所詮 exists through positing; it is one aspect of the dependent nature; it has function, karmic efficacy, and real influence—the "INTJ-meaning" posited by MBTI can affect a person's choices; the "anxiety-meaning" posited by 「焦慮」 can make someone seek medical help; the "justice-meaning" posited by 「正義」 can drive social movements. None of these operations disappear or lose meaning because "it is provisionally established." What Buddhism is saying is something else: the reason 假立 is 假立 is not because it is useless, but because it has no "independent, unchanging, concretely referable self-nature." Agreeing that "there is no self-nature" does not mean agreeing that "there is no use."
Misreading 2: "Language is useless / we should shut up"
A misreading. The analysis of 所詮 is not a vow of silence; Buddhism itself could not possibly prohibit speech—the entire Tripiṭaka was written in language. "Inexpressible" (不可言) or "beyond words" (離言) here does not mean "no speaking allowed," but "do not grasp the object to which language points as an ultimate reality." Language must still be spoken, only spoken with clarity: use without attachment, point without grasping.
Misreading 3: "This is just Western nominalism / everything is just names"
Nominalism roughly holds that universals and concepts have no independent reality, and only particular individuals are real. The Buddhist "provisional existence" (假有) has an affinity with nominalism (both oppose independently real universals), but the content is not entirely the same. Nominalism tends to reduce language to a human labeling system, treating it as a conventional agreement; Buddhism places language and the discriminating mind together within the causal chain of the dependent nature. The emphasis of 假立 is dependent positing (依他施設), not human subjective convention; it is not arbitrary conventionality, but a reality born of causes and conditions. Misclassifying it would cause a profound Buddhist proposition to be misread as a kind of linguistic empiricism.
Misreading 4: "The 所詮 is just a concept/mental image in the brain"
Not entirely. The 所詮 can include external referents (pointing at the moon, pointing at the other person's face); it does not only live in the mind. Its boundary is far wider than "a picture in the mind," including everything that can, or seems to, be pointed to by the 能詮. However, when we "point to" the moon as an object, the "mode of present existence" of that object is also provisional; this further discernment is easily overlooked.
Misreading 5: "The 所詮 is identical to the 能詮"
From the walkthroughs above, we can already see that this misreading can occur in reverse: because 能詮/所詮 are interdependent and not separate, someone simplifies it to "so there's no difference?" This obliterates the structural difference between 能詮/所詮 as "a pair." They are not the same thing, yet not two separable things—this is precisely the subtlety of "neither one nor different" (非一非異). 能詮 is activity; 所詮 is the object posited by that activity. This dialectic of activity/object cannot be flattened into one thing.
Misreading 6: "This is the same as saying 'all dharmas are empty'"
A deeper misreading. The analysis of 所詮 certainly points toward emptiness, but structurally it sits on the side of "provisional establishment," i.e., the accurate observation of the dependent nature. It does not smash everything into vacuity in one stroke; rather, it presents "the fact that what we think we are grasping firmly is merely posited in this way"—this seeing is a transitional act from the imagined nature toward the dependent nature, not a shortcut leaping directly into emptiness. Reading its conclusion as "all dharmas are empty" is not wrong (accurate knowledge of the dependent nature is emptiness), but reading its working content as a direct demonstration of emptiness would be careless.
Having written this far, we have not put the 所詮 back into an exam question waiting to lose points; we have invited this word—which once appeared only as a single character in the footnotes of Dharmalakṣaṇa Yogācāra—onto the contemporary page for a walk. It was never an exam point; it is a reminder for when we point at all the things we think we have pinned down—"who I am," "what I want," "my feelings," "the meaning of this matter"—all these "objects" we grip tightly with our fingers: can we, while gripping, also see how this finger has participated in the formation of the object?
That reminder does not require us to drop all pointing fingers. It only requires that, in using every gesture, we remember it is pointing, not touching. In this way, the information we receive from the finger remains clear, and we need not be disappointed that the finger did not touch the moon—because the moon never came into our hand. What we grasp is a beam of moonlight, the direction of light.