I. What This Concept Is Saying
1.1 Taking Apart Each Character of the Definition
"Co-production" (ubhaya-kṛta) appears to be a simple term, yet every stroke carries weight that must not be passed over carelessly.
* Production (kṛta): causing something to be brought forth, causing something to attain the status of "already having been made." It is not merely "action" or "behavior," but rather asks after "that which causes a dharma to arise." In the *Middle Treatise* (*Madhyamakaśāstra*), production is specifically paired with producer: "Because there is the act of production, one is called a producer; when the two things come together, production and producer are accomplished" (T1564, related passage) — that is, "production" cannot be conceived independently of "producer." * Co (ubhaya): taking both together, receiving both ends, without bias or omission. It is not a vague "part," nor is it "co-action" in the Confucian sense; rather, it logically takes both the self and the other, asserting "not entirely you, not entirely me, but simultaneously you and also me." * Position of the third statement: Co-production is not an independent theory of causation, but the third of four possibilities enumerated when Madhyamaka examines "where suffering comes from." Its fate is bound from the start to the first two statements.
Taken together: co-production = self-production + other-production both holding simultaneously; this pair of "simultaneously valid self-production and other-production" jointly causes the arising of suffering.
For this statement to stand, both "self-production can hold" and "other-production can hold" must first be established. Madhyamaka says no to both — let alone to their combination.
1.2 The Origin of the Problem: Why Four Possibilities, Not Five or Three?
In examining the "cause of suffering's arising," first enumerating all possibilities is the "four-cornered" investigative method commonly used by Madhyamaka and Nāgārjuna's lineage. The beauty of this method lies in its not asking you to choose one answer, but rather in pulling out the ground from under every place an answer might stand.
The order of the four statements is:
| Order | Position | In One Sentence | |---|---|---| | First | Self-production | Suffering is caused by yourself | | Second | Other-production | Suffering is caused by an other external to you (fate, heaven, other people) | | Third | Co-production | Suffering is caused jointly by you and another | | Fourth | Causeless production | Suffering arises without cause, for no reason at all |
The order is not arbitrary but retreats step by step: the first statement first acknowledges a substantial "self" as the primary cause; the second retreats outside the "self" to seek another primary cause; the third attempts to have it both ways — since neither self-production alone nor other-production alone works, surely half-and-half will hold? The fourth removes causation entirely, leaving only "it just happened."
Madhyamaka observes these four steps: each step silently copies the previous problem onto itself. The co-production step is especially subtle — it arrives with the dignity of "synthesis," and its holders often believe it is the most harmonious answer; Madhyamaka's verdict is precisely the opposite: precisely because it synthesizes, it inherits all the faults of the first two steps.
The *Twelve Gate Treatise* (*Dvādaśamukhaśāstra*) states this logic very firmly: "If one says suffering is self-made or other-made, then there is the fault of self-production and the fault of other-production; therefore co-produced suffering is also not the case" (T1568). This is the concise statement of "because there are two faults." Later, the full long passage of the *Twelve Gate Treatise* expands these "two faults" — self-production has the fault of self-production, other-production has the fault of other-production, and since co-production requires both to stand, both faults are attributed to it all at once.
1.3 The Key Arguments That Follow: The *Middle Treatise* and the *Twelve Gate Treatise* Deconstruct from Two Directions
Both treatises refute co-production, but the "angle of refutation" differs slightly, and this is worth distinguishing.
**The Path of the *Twelve Gate Treatise* — Inherited Negation**
The *Twelve Gate Treatise* works by: wherever the first two steps have refuted, co-production is automatically drawn in.
* The fault of self-production: The *Twelve Gate Treatise* cites "because the self is impermanent, merit and transgression are annihilated, and there is no liberation" — if the producer is impermanent, then since the agent of karmic action no longer exists, how can karma have an owner? The entire language of liberation and saṃsāra loses its support. * The fault of other-production: The *Twelve Gate Treatise* cites "if it is other-made, it falls into the making of Īśvara," and refutes with "a cow's calf is still a cow" and "Īśvara should not inflict suffering on his own children" — if everything arises from Īśvara, then all things should bear the form of Īśvara; and a father inflicting suffering on his children makes no sense in terms of familial affection or principle. * Since both are refuted, and co-production requires both self-production and other-production to hold, even the "establishment of production" itself is impossible. This is the full weight of the phrase "because there are two faults."
Therefore the *Twelve Gate Treatise*'s verse is uniformly concise: "Self-production and other-production, co-production and causeless production — none of these is obtainable; therefore there is no suffering" (T1568) — all four statements refuted together, arriving at emptiness in one step.
**The Path of the *Middle Treatise* — Relativity, Combination, Lack of Self-Nature**
The task of the *Middle Treatise* is not merely to refute the four statements, but to dismantle the very act of "production" from its roots. It employs several specialized lines of argument:
* Relativity: The characterized and the characterizer "because they are mutually dependent" (T1564, related passage) are established — neither has independent self-nature. The relationship between producer and act of production is precisely this kind of relativity — neither side comes first; "the one who can produce" and "the product" are two names mutually dependent on each other. * Combination lacks self-nature: The *Middle Treatise* further translates possible "co-production" into "the combination of various conditions," then says: "If it arises from combination, then it has no self-nature; because it lacks self-nature, it is empty; because it is empty, nothing is produced" (T1564, related passage). That is, the combination of various conditions is not another mode of arising at all — it merely further points to lack of self-nature. * The double refutation of two kinds of producers: The *Middle Treatise* also examines the "determinate" and "indeterminate" producers, with the same conclusion — the determinate falls into causelessness (the *Middle Treatise*: "If there is a determinate producer, and a determinate act of production, then producer and production fall into causelessness"), and the indeterminate does not constitute a production relation at all. In either case, producer and production cannot be established. * Further examination of the combination of three things: The *Middle Treatise* not only rejects "the producer standing independently," but even "the combination of the three things: production, producer, and the object of production" is examined — the fruit does not arise from the combination of conditions, nor from the non-combination of conditions (T1564, related passage).
In brief: the *Twelve Gate Treatise* refutes co-production by "inheriting the previous faults"; the *Middle Treatise* refutes the production-relation itself on which production stands by "relativity without self-nature, combination as emptiness." The former is a swift blade for lifting heavy weights; the latter is a butcher's fine carving.
1.4 After Co-Production Is Refuted, What Does Madhyamaka Leave Behind? This Must Be Made Clear
Many readers encountering the concept of co-production for the first time get stuck at one point: if self-production, other-production, and co-production are all refuted, does suffering arise without a cause? Is causality abolished? Isn't causeless production even more absurd?
Here the two levels of Madhyamaka discourse (the "conventional" and the "ultimate") must be explained clearly, otherwise one arrives at vulgarized conclusions.
The *Middle Treatise* itself distinguishes these two levels:
"It is only following the deluded conceptualization of ordinary beings that one speaks of an act of production and a producer; in the ultimate truth, there is no act of production, no producer." (T1564, related passage)
This statement is the golden key to understanding the entire co-production debate.
* The conventional level (following ordinary beings' deluded conceptualization): In the language of everyday discriminating mind, we are entirely justified in saying "Xiao Ming did this" or "he made a mistake." This is not what is to be refuted. If this level were also refuted into emptiness and non-attainment, then even speaking, pointing, attributing responsibility, and medical diagnosis would lose their footing — Madhyamaka absolutely does not advocate this kind of emptiness. * The ultimate (final reality): When we ask "which entity exactly is the producer" and "which independent event exactly is the act of production," stripping away relativity, stripping away combination, stripping away the two analyzable ends — what remains is the original face of "no producer, no production." This is emptiness.
These two levels do not mean there are two worlds, but rather one thing seen from two angles: the everyday "he did it" is instrumental discourse, not ultimate fact.
The *Middle Treatise* also offers an analogy through "the felt and the feeler are likewise": feeling (the sensation itself) and the feeler (the one who can feel) are also established relative to each other, not each possessing self-nature. The structural relation of producer/production is completely isomorphic to the relation of feeler/feeling — this is extremely important for the co-production debate, because it shows that the pair "producer and production" is not an isolated case but the universal form of all dependent origination.
1.5 A Famous Silence: The Ascetic Nirgrantha's Four Questions
The *Twelve Gate Treatise* cites a very powerful scriptural proof: the story of the ascetic Nirgrantha asking the Buddha four questions.
The ascetic Nirgrantha asks in sequence:
1. "Is suffering self-made?" 2. "Is it other-made?" 3. "Is suffering both self-made and other-made?" (This is precisely the co-production question) 4. "Is suffering made without cause and without conditions?"
"The Buddha did not answer any of them" (T1568, citing the Nirgrantha section).
The *Twelve Gate Treatise*'s explanation is: Nirgrantha was attached to "the person is the cause of suffering," holding that there is a divine self that creates good and bad, pleasure and pain, and also undergoes various bodies. Within this presupposition, the "self" is a pre-existing, self-natured, total commander capable of producing. If the Buddha followed this line of questioning, he would have had to accept "there is a substantial self that can serve as the cause of suffering," which would lead people toward the view of self-existence. So the Buddha's silence is not ignorance of the answer, but a withholding of assent to the wrong view hidden within the manner of questioning.
From this, the *Twelve Gate Treatise* delivers its verdict: "Because the Buddha did not answer any of these four questions, one should know that suffering is empty." (T1568)
This is another layer of Madhyamaka's treatment of co-production: co-production is not merely a problem that cannot be logically established, but a question whose very manner of asking is already trapped in the view of self-existence. Madhyamaka's response is not another answer, but the loosening of the presupposition of the question itself.
Reading to this depth, "co-production" is no longer just one specific link in the fourfold refutation, but a miniature of the entire Madhyamaka argument for emptiness.
II. Walking Through It in Life
The theory is done. Let it land. Below are several scenarios familiar to contemporary people, walking "co-production" through each according to the classical definition, while flagging the places most likely to be mapped incorrectly.
2.1 Scenario One: After Changing Jobs, Still in the Same Pit
Statement: A was tormented into depression by a controlling boss at the previous job and quit outright; after moving to a new company, three years later it feels about the same, often exhausting. Having suffered long enough, the new boss has a different style, but the feeling of "wanting to do something yet never getting results" remains. A friend says: "It's not entirely the boss's fault; your own part carries responsibility too." A agrees — "Yes, everyone has some responsibility."
Walking through the classical definition:
* Self-production: "It's caused by my own lack of growth; as long as I do things well, it'll be fine." — This is usually pushed back first by emotional rebound, because bodily feeling is already telling you "I've been using my strength." * Other-production: "It's caused by this disgusting environment, the supervisor, the company structure." — This provides a clear enemy and is a locally healing explanation, but if one stops here, one ignores the places where one genuinely could have turned around. * Co-production: "It's caused by both together — I contribute a part, the environment/others contribute a part." — This is the most mediatory, most easily accepted line among friends. Its logical structure is precisely the classical "co-production": taking the "establishment" of self-production + the "establishment" of other-production, and standing them side by side. * Causeless production: "It just is this way; I don't know why; it got ruined anyway." — This is causeless production.
Classical position: A has arrived at the third statement, co-production. It looks most mature — having both the clarity of self-responsibility and awareness of structural factors. But Madhyamaka would say: pause and look — do "the part I did" and "the part the environment did" each have a substantial author? Language like "partial responsibility" is, at its core, positing a "self" that can be sliced apart and distributed, independently self-existing, and an "external environment" that is likewise independently self-existing. This is precisely the presupposition of self-production and other-production stacked together.
Most easily mis-mapped places:
* Taking "co-production" directly as modern systems thinking, "multiple factors interweaving," "structure + agent" complex causality. This is a seductive trap — the latter is not necessarily what Madhyamaka refutes; what Madhyamaka refutes is the substantial positing of a self-natured "I" + a self-natured "external environment", not the ordinary observation that "things have multiple causes." * Taking "I am also responsible for maintaining the bad pattern" as co-production. This everyday phrase is actually an ethical-level action guide; its practical value and "co-production as two self-natured ends jointly producing" are two different levels of discourse — do not conflate them.
2.2 Scenario Two: In the Algorithm Age, "I Didn't Ask It to Recommend These"
Statement: You've been drowned in short videos, news feeds, and push notifications for an evening; you look up and it's past eleven, thinking: "How did this happen again?"
You might run through several explanations in sequence:
* Self-production: "It's my own lack of self-control." — Accompanied by self-loathing. * Other-production: "It's all this damn algorithm's fault — it's designed precisely to keep you from stopping." — Accompanied by pointing at an external force. * Co-production: "It's both our responsibility — it's designed to be addictive, and I click too easily; together they produced tonight's indulgence." * Causeless production: "It just was this way; time passed without my noticing."
Walking through the classical definition: Once again, we arrive at co-production. Its appeal lies in its even distribution — I'm also innocent, it's also deliberate; "hearing both sides makes one enlightened." Madhyamaka looks here and still wants to dismantle the reification of "there is a finger that can click" and "there is an algorithm that induces you to click" as two independently self-existing authors combined.
Most easily mis-mapped places: Treating both "I have no responsibility" and "the algorithm is wholly responsible" directly as other-production/self-production. The difficulty this time lies in Madhyamaka's "basis of production": the finger that clicks does really exist, the algorithm's recommendation service does really exist. The question is — does the reified structure of each of these as "a producer capable of producing" and "an act produced" withstand ultimate observation? Conventionally we can grasp "the hand" and "the algorithm"; ultimately, the agent-patient relation pair "I click / the algorithm guides" is itself established relatively and cannot be dismantled into two independent things.
The "objective function" of modern algorithmic systems (such as engagement-time optimization) is indeed a designed, existing artificial pressure — this is an empirical fact, not something Madhyamaka refutes. What Madhyamaka refutes is: the implicit reification that "I am resisting an other" presupposes two independent agents. What it seeks to loosen is the hard boundary of "subject/object" between you and the algorithm.
2.3 Scenario Three: The Tangle of the Family of Origin
Statement: B's relationship with their mother is tense; B has been in psychotherapy for two or three years. The therapist says: "The pattern is bidirectional. Your way of responding, your unclear boundaries, are part of the pattern; she also has her limitations, and her generation was genuinely wounded too." B nods — "Yes, it's bidirectional."
Walking through the classical definition: B agreeing that "it's bidirectional" is almost a standard marker of contemporary psychological maturity. Structurally, this statement is co-production: self + other jointly shaping.
Madhyamaka's dismantling at this point is extremely fine:
* It is not saying "don't assign blame" or "don't do work on the family of origin" — these are practical matters. * It is not saying "the family of origin had no influence on you" or "you are entirely wrong" — these are the extremes of other-production or self-production. * It is to observe the reified component within the statement "bidirectionally jointly shaped": the part called "me" and the part called "her" — before the "bidirectional interaction" began, where were "each" of them? Are they truly things that can be labeled, exist separately, and then be pieced together?
Psychological tools like the "inner child" and "family-of-origin scripts" are powerfully healing because they establish workable models at the conventional level; what Madhyamaka cares about is how the reification behind these models should be loosened when we push them to ask "who is the ultimate author."
Most easily mis-mapped places: Bringing "everything is empty" directly into this conversation and telling B "you and your mother are both empty, don't overthink it." This is not Madhyamaka; it is vulgarization. Madhyamaka allows you to fully use concepts like family of origin, inner child, boundaries, and responsibility at the conventional level, only quietly seeing at the ultimate level that they too are established relatively. This kind of "using both levels simultaneously" training is more demanding for modern people — and more responsible than a mere "everything is empty."
2.4 Scenario Four: In the AI Age, "Who Is Responsible When This Thing Makes a Mistake?"
Statement: An AI assistant in a certain professional field gave outdated regulatory advice, causing a party to act on it and incur losses. Lawyers, clients, media, and people's congress representatives are all discussing —
* Self-production camp: "The user used it incorrectly; how could he blindly trust AI?" * Other-production camp: "The developers, training team, and company failed in their duty." * Co-production camp: "The user's query method and the generator's system constraints — both sides bear responsibility" — this camp tends to gain the rhetorical advantage of "balance" first in policy and business discussions. * Causeless production: "Times are changing; mistakes will certainly happen; nothing special about it."
Walking through the classical definition: The modern controversy over AI responsibility is almost a contemporary replica of Madhyamaka's "fourfold analysis of production." The co-production camp's proposal sounds more sophisticated than "all developers" or "all users." But Madhyamaka would find: this position still employs a self-natured subject — a "substantial user" + a "substantial developer" — and then combines them into responsibility. In essence, it is once again bringing out two reified authors, and the faults have already been identified above.
Most easily mis-mapped places:
* Treating "AI unpredictability/emergence" as a modern version of "causeless production," then thinking Madhyamaka refutes only the first three and not this one. This is a misreading. Madhyamaka refutes all four statements together, and the statistical learning characteristics of contemporary AI systems (unpredictable but with traceable causes) is not "causeless production" — empirically there are many analyzable causes, only they exist in a distributed + not reducible to a single-point author manner. This distributed structure is precisely the phenomenon Madhyamaka's "combination of various conditions" describes, not the object of its refutation. * Carelessly inferring "no single responsible agent" to mean "therefore no responsibility." Madhyamaka refutes the substantiality of the author, not by abolishing causality and responsibility at the level of outcomes; it loosens, at the level of subject-structure, the assumption of a "solitary author." Contemporary product liability systems and algorithmic accountability systems are in their institutional design precisely means of properly handling at the conventional level situations with no single author — their fine-grained layering has a certain structural resemblance to Madhyamaka's "conventional/ultimate" distinction, but the two should not be conflated as the same discourse.
* * *
Walking through these four scenarios is not to make you silently recite "co-production is refuted" every time you reflect from now on. Madhyamaka training is not that kind of memorization. It is more like:
Every time you instinctively think, "Alas, I have a share in this too, and something external has a share too," pause — look at where the boundary of the so-called "myself" actually lies, and where the boundary of the so-called "external" lies. Do not immediately draw the lofty conclusion of "seeing through" — that would be a new kind of attachment. Simply examine that seemingly solid "I + external" structure, and see whether it has really always been there.
III. Why Contemporary People Need It
Many will ask: what practical "use" does a highly speculative Madhyamaka technical term have for contemporary non-academic readers? Placing it in a section on "why it is needed," rather than in something like the *Heart Sūtra*'s "illuminating the five aggregates as empty" which carries its weight at a glance, is because the specific use of the concept of co-production lies in "diagnosis" — its specific points of pain in the contemporary context are several:
3.1 It Tears Open a Very Respectable Contemporary Confusion: "Both People Are Responsible"
In modern spiritual life, "attribution of responsibility" is one of the most important operations. Over-attribution — blaming everything on the environment, on structural problems, on the family of origin — causes people to lose their sense of agency and fall into helplessness and anger; the opposite extreme of attribution — "it's all my own failure" — causes people to fall into shame and self-flagellation.
The middle path of "co-production" is the most popular: you have your part, he/she/it has their part. This is the most sophisticated, most empathetic, most group-chat-acceptable answer for contemporary people. Psychotherapy, community mediation, organizational management, educational communication — all work roughly along this line.
This is precisely why the concept of co-production deserves to be re-examined by modern people.
Madhyamaka reminds us: this "co-production path" sounds respectable because it depends on a default assumption — that "I" and "external" are two solid lines that can be separately sliced, separately labeled, and independently existing. If you follow this path to solve problems (self-repair + changing structures), it will work; but if you believe this respectable path at the ultimate level (the level of ultimate meaning) truly marks out the cause of suffering, you have been quietly woven into that habitual reification of the dual-subject structure. The therapeutic function of the co-production concept is precisely to place this most respectable, most "mature" attribution path also under ultimate observation, so that our "sense of maturity" does not become a new form of attachment.
3.2 It Trains a Capacity Extremely Hard to Cultivate in Contemporary Times: "Relativization Toward the Ultimate"
Contemporary life operates almost entirely at the conventional level — bills, KPIs, relationship networks, self-narratives, product iterations. If there is a mode of mental training that lets you while doing things, also gently know that none of this is eternally real, that is almost the most lacking mental muscle for modern people — living within the story while not being completely dissolved into it.
The practical application of the co-production concept is right here. "I have responsibility" — a conventional-level instrumental discourse that can be used with ease. "We both have responsibility" — mature conventional-level speech that can be used with ease. "All of this can ultimately be traced to a substantial thing called 'the author'" — this layer, not acknowledged. Madhyamaka's refutation of co-production points precisely to this kind of training: letting you stand in the middle of things and act, without retreating to zero — and this is precisely the concrete technique in contemporary high-load life for "seeing clearly" and "being able to act" to coexist.
3.3 It Offers a Kind of Ancient Mirror for the Philosophy of Responsibility in the AI Age
Section 2.4 already got here. One more sentence of elaboration: the distributed generation principle of contemporary AI systems is, at the level of principle, an engineering case study of "no single author": model weights come from massive data + algorithms + training compute + team decisions + user context + deployment strategy — this long chain is a typical "combination of various conditions" structure. The Madhyamaka fourfold framework provides an unexpected point of contrast here:
* We are uncomfortable saying "self-production" (the user misused it) — because "the user" is a preference-shaped object shaped by prior shaping; * Nor are we comfortable simply saying "other-production" (the model did it on its own) — because the model's output is not an independently self-existing sprite; * The temptation of "co-production" lies in "since both ends can each be held accountable, let each side bear a share" — but the classical co-production concept reminds us here: the positing of "two independent ends" is precisely what Madhyamaka seeks to dismantle. * The temptation of "causeless production": "This is just a new-era phenomenon, with no causal comparability to the past" — this is a deeper loss of ground.
What Madhyamaka suggests is not "don't assign responsibility," but a two-layered operation that can both hold accountable and loosen the substantiality of the author. This two-layered operation will become an increasingly central ethical training in the AI age — it is not the victory of an ancient doctrine over a modern problem, but an ancient framework happening to describe a structural isomorphism with a modern phenomenon: combination of various conditions + no single author + yet able to operate causal language normally at the conventional level.
3.4 It Provides Fine-Grained Resolution for the Retreat of "I'm Just a Tool" and "It's All the Environment"
One final point, addressed separately.
Contemporary people have two typical discourses of retreat:
* "I'm also a cog in the big environment; there's nothing I can do." * "I'm just a user; the designers are the ones making the decisions behind the scenes."
Both of these retreats have clear ethical lineages — corresponding to different deformations of other-production/self-production. The function of the co-production concept at the depth of psychology is to return to the person, in fine detail, the role of "the one who bears" — Madhyamaka is not asking you to inflate the self, but pointing out: "I as a node in an endless network" should not disappear; but "I as an independently existing author" should not be overestimated either.
Holding both of these steady simultaneously is one of the most concrete sites of work for Madhyamaka's argument on self-nature in the spiritual life of contemporary people.
IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications
This section takes apart, one by one, the most common misreadings of "co-production" in contemporary contexts.
4.1 Misreading One: "Co-production" = Systems Theory / Holism / Multiple Factors Interweaving
This sounds most similar but is in substance the farthest.
* Systems theory says: the world is a whole of multi-layered, multi-causal interaction. At the conventional level, Madhyamaka can entirely accept this description — "combination of various conditions" describes precisely this aspect. * Co-production says: suffering is jointly produced by two substantially self-existing authors (me + other). At the ultimate level, this is the reification to be refuted. * The point of difference: whether the participants are conceived as each independently self-existing entities. Systems theory does not necessarily conceive them this way — it often uses relational, emergent, processual terms (this is the insider version of Madhyamaka's approach). Co-production — especially in popular language — almost always treats "I" and "other" as two countable, self-natured existents, then combines them.
When reading Madhyamaka texts, equating one's habitual "multiple factors interacting" with the text's "co-production" is a common misalignment. One must promptly distinguish the two — the former is conventional-level skillfulness, the latter is ultimate-level wrong view.
4.2 Misreading Two: "Co-production" = "Co-creation," "Collaboration," "Dialogue" — Contemporary Positive Discourse
Contemporary management, relationship psychology, and education make heavy use of words like "co-creation," "collaboration," and "dialogue." They land on "multiple subjects jointly constructing an outcome" and are ethically productive.
But what Madhyamaka refutes as "co-production" is precisely the implicit framework within such discourse where the default two independent subjects operate simultaneously as "self-natured authors." Modern positive discourse being effective at the conventional level does not contradict the classical co-production concept being refuted at the ultimate level — the two are not on the same level.
A checklist for discrimination:
* "We jointly maintain this relationship" — conventional-level ethical discourse, workable. * "We both have responsibility" — conventional-level attribution discourse, workable. * "Suffering is jointly produced by you and me as two independently self-existing authors" — an ultimate-level reified positing — Madhyamaka refutes it.
4.3 Misreading Three: "Since Self-Production, Other-Production, and Co-Production All Fail, Then It Must Be Causeless!"
This is the most direct reaction from logic, but it precisely misapprehends the relationship among the four statements.
Madhyamaka's refutation of the four statements does not mean one can arbitrarily pick one among them. "Causeless production" is equally refuted: "When self-production and other-production are not established, how much less causeless production" (T1564) — if the first two cannot even be established, let alone the fourth which removes causation entirely. The four statements are all refuted, not "refute the first three, adopt the fourth."
After all four are refuted, what remains? It is "all dharmas are empty," it is "in the ultimate truth, there is no act of production, no producer," it is the conventional level where "following ordinary beings' deluded conceptualization" remains available and usable — but the independent reified author is not on this level. Refuting all four is not removing causality; it is removing the "reified author." The law of causality (karma, dependent origination) and responsibility remain as important as ever — only, within these causal chains, there is no permanent, independently existing "author."
4.4 Misreading Four: "Co-Production Refuted → I Can't Do Anything / I Have No Responsibility / It's Fate"
This is the most common taking out of context.
Refuting co-production refutes the substantiality of the author, not action and responsibility themselves. Those who truly understand Madhyamaka act more steadily — because they neither cling to the false illusion of "I am the sole author" nor evade the law of causality.
The classical formulation does not require trust on faith; rather, it asks whether you can simultaneously dwell in both levels in daily life:
* Conventional: action, responsibility, remedy, improvement, results following causes — do them one by one. * Ultimate: I and you are both processes within dependent origination; the reified author is not seen.
This is not schizophrenia within dual discourse, but two angles of observation on the same thing. Whether one can hold both levels steady simultaneously is one of the practical keys of Madhyamaka training.
4.5 Misreading Five: "Co-Production Refuted → Because There Is Self-Nature, Therefore Buddhism Is Materialism / Nominalism"
This misreading appears more among philosophy students.
"Lack of self-nature" does not deny the existence of the empirical world, nor does it say "everything is nonexistent." "Lack of self-nature" says: all dharmas have no independent existence in the sense of self-nature — not that they have no existence in the functional sense. Madhyamaka refuting co-production is refuting "an independently real self-producing self + an independently real other-producing other, mutually cooperating to produce suffering" — it is not saying "the world is an empty, false illusion."
The *Middle Treatise*'s teaching of lack of self-nature and emptiness does not play slippery tricks between two discourses; it points to the two-layered operation of de-reification without fault at the conventional level. In a modern philosophical context, one may understand "lack of self-nature" as: objects do not possess that property of "being stripped of all relations to others, able to exist in isolation." This formulation finds a certain structural homology in Chomskyan internalism, in Whitehead's process philosophy, and in relational realism — but this is analogy, not identity; do not declare any modern philosophy to be "this is Buddhism" — that would be a double offense.
4.6 Misreading Six: "The Ascetic Nirgrantha Asked and the Buddha Did Not Answer — Because the Buddha Didn't Know"
This is the inevitable misreading that follows from treating the Buddha as an idol of knowledge.
The *Twelve Gate Treatise* makes clear: the Buddha did not answer any of the four questions because all four conceal the wrong-view presupposition of "the self as the cause of suffering." Answering any one of them would be a confirmation of that presupposition. Silence (a withholding of the class of vyāja-śūnyatā) is precisely a mode of response that refuses the entire manner of questioning — this is of a piece with traditional Madhyamaka's logic of negating the four statements.
Reading it as "the Buddha didn't understand" misunderstands the overall logic of the three Madhyamaka systems: silence itself can be a highly structured answer.
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A Glance Back
Having written this far, return to the origin in one line:
"Self-production and other-production, co-production and causeless production — these four statements do not hold for the fruit." "None of these is obtainable; therefore there is no suffering." — *Twelve Gate Treatise*
These two verses are the simplest and most final expression of the entire fourfold analysis of production. Co-production — this third statement, as the middle term, appears the most unremarkable, the most stable — yet in fact bears the position of inheriting the difficulties of both the first and second statements. It is not a middle path; it is the second foot stepping into the void on the same cliff.
Genuinely internalize the meaning of co-production, and the next time you say "we both have responsibility," you will at least pause — the so-called "we both," the so-called "have," the so-called "responsibility" — let each of these three words rest a moment, and see whether they are already so full that they can be enclosed within an observation of emptiness.
This does not prevent you from saying in the next sentence "let's work on this relationship together." Madhyamaka never advises you at the conventional level not to say such things. It only asks that, in the very moment of saying them, you clearly know in your heart that these words are instrumental words, instrumental metaphors, words established in dependence — not that reified self speaking, which we cling to as real.
The training that lands here has no shortcuts. It requires, again and again, at the heaviest moment of "responsibility," also to loosen by one degree. This is the true working site of the co-production concept in the spiritual life of contemporary people.