---
title: "The Diamond Sūtra and Sign-less Sīla"
subtitle: "Corpus-Silence and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Emptiness of Keeping-and-Breaking"
title_zh: 無相戒
subtitle_zh: 《金剛經》的緘默與《大般若經》的「持與犯本性空」
volume: 戒門 SĪLA
paper_id: "SILA-P21"
paper_number: P21
language: en
date: 2026-05-29
author: "釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)"
license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
series: Six Practice Gates
series_zh: 六行門 · 卷四 戒
part: VII
part_title: "Prajñā: Sign-less Precepts"
part_title_zh: 般若無相戒
order_in_part: 1
order_in_volume: 21
order_in_series: 81
---

# The Diamond Sūtra and Sign-less Sīla
**Corpus-Silence and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Emptiness of Keeping-and-Breaking**
*中文主題：無相戒——《金剛經》的緘默與《大般若經》的「持與犯本性空」*

---

**Author:** 釋慧鏡 Shi Huijing
**Date:** May 2026
**License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
**Version:** 1.0

---

## Abstract

The Prajñāpāramitā corpus dissolves all grasping through "non-abiding in marks" and "departure from every mark." When this dissolving edge is turned upon the precept (*śīla*), an old worry surfaces: does emptying the *mark* of the precept amount to emptying the precept itself, collapsing into antinomianism? This paper first notes a textual fact rarely faced head-on: in the entire *Diamond Sūtra* the word "precept" (戒) occurs exactly once, and only within a passive subordinate clause describing latter-age believers — named, never analyzed — while the same sūtra applies the three-phrase formula and the logic of mark-departure in full to giving (non-abiding generosity) and to patience (the Kaliṅga-king episode). The paper argues that this silence is not an oversight but a division of doctrinal labor internal to a single Prajñāpāramitā corpus. The *Diamond Sūtra* is itself the ninth assembly of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*; the sustained treatment of the precept lies in the first division of that same scripture: the "armor" passage of fascicle 48 ("toward pure precepts neither relying nor clinging, toward the evil of breakage neither loathing nor seizing, because keeping and breaking are by nature empty"), the genuine-versus-counterfeit perfection of pure precepts of fascicles 142–159, the application of the "is-not / is" syntax to the pure precepts in fascicle 159, and fascicle 9's "by ultimate emptiness, not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept." Reading these passages canonical-internally, the paper hears in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* itself a native doctrine of the sign-less precept: the precept is kept while its mark is empty, and the genuine (sign-less) keeping binds *more* tightly, not less, than counterfeit (mark-clinging) keeping.

## Keywords

sign-less precept (*animitta-śīla*); the perfection of pure precepts; the emptiness of keeping-and-breaking; genuine versus counterfeit; prajñā; the two truths; the *Diamond Sūtra*; the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*; Xuanzang; antinomianism

## 摘要

般若系經典以「不住相」「離一切相」破盡執取，然而當這套破相的鋒刃指向「戒」時，一個古老的疑慮便浮現：空掉「戒相」，是否就等於空掉了「戒」本身，從而滑向某種「廢戒論」？本文先指出一個少有人正面處理的文本現象——《金剛般若波羅蜜經》全經「戒」字僅一見，且僅出現於描述末法信者的被動子句中，戒被指名而從未被分析；同一部經卻對布施（無住而施）與忍辱（歌利王段）詳運三句格與離相之法。本文主張：此一緘默非疏漏，而是同一部般若大典在編集層面上的「教義分工」。《金剛經》本即《大般若波羅蜜多經》的第九會，而對戒的持續處理，落在同一部大經的初分。本文以「經典內向」的讀法，將般若破相之力施於「戒相」，讀出《大般若》自身原生的無相戒教法：戒持而相空，且「真正（無相）」之持比「相似（執相）」之持更具倫理約束力，而非更少。

## 關鍵詞

無相戒、淨戒波羅蜜多、持與犯本性空、真正與相似、般若、二諦、《金剛經》、《大般若經》、玄奘、廢戒論

---

## I. The Question: Does Emptying the Precept-Sign Abolish the Precept?

In the contemporary study of Buddhist ethics one worry recurs, usually under the name of "antinomianism" or "moral nihilism": if all dharmas are empty and without own-being, are the distinctions between "good" and "evil," between "keeping the precept" and "breaking the precept," emptied along with everything else? Should even the boundary-lines of the precept lose their own-being, may not the practitioner say, "since everything is empty anyway," and do as he pleases? For the Prajñāpāramitā literature this worry is especially sharp, because the corpus's central technique is precisely the breaking of marks: the *Diamond Sūtra* teaches its hearers "not to abide in marks," to "dwell nowhere," to "depart from every mark." If this mark-breaking blade is brought to bear directly upon the precept, what is left of the precept at all?

The question this paper takes up is exactly the Prajñā-corpus form of that worry: when the method of the *sign-less* is applied to the precept-sign, is the result a *sign-less precept*, or simply *no precept*?

To answer it, one must first face a textual fact that few confront directly. The *Diamond Sūtra* expounds the six perfections throughout, and it dwells upon *giving* with particular care — it teaches, again and again, that one should "give while abiding nowhere," applying the full logic of non-abiding and mark-departure to the act of giving; and it applies the same mark-breaking mechanism to *patience*, using the episode of King Kali's dismembering of the body to display a mark-departed patience in which there is "no mark of self, no mark of person, no mark of being, no mark of life-span." Yet upon the *precept* alone, the *Diamond Sūtra* is all but silent. On verification, the graph "precept" (戒) appears in the whole sūtra exactly once, and only within a clause describing the believers of the latter age: "there are those who keep the precepts and cultivate merit" — the precept is named, but never opened up, deconstructed, or subjected by the text to the three-phrase formula. A sūtra that applies the mark-breaking method so finely to giving and to patience — why is it, upon the precept alone, silent?

This "riddle of the silence" is the entry point of the present paper.

It is also the structural turn by which this part of the series (Part VII, *The Sign-less Precept of Prajñā*) takes up the thread of the foregoing stage. The preceding part (Part VI, the Bhaiṣajyaguru teaching) asked after the *preconditions* of precept-keeping — how body and mind are to be settled, how the outward conditions are to be guarded, so that precept-keeping becomes possible at all; that was a guarding of the precept from the side of its outward conditions. The present part turns instead to ask after *the emptiness of the precept-sign itself*: it no longer asks "how the conditions of precept-keeping are to be guarded," but "what the *sign* of precept-keeping is, in the ultimate sense." From guarding the outward conditions of the precept to the ultimate truth of the precept-sign — this is the very axis along which Part VI passes over into Part VII.

The thesis of this paper can be stated in a breath: the *Diamond Sūtra*'s silence on the precept is not an oversight but a division of doctrinal labor internal to a single Prajñāpāramitā corpus, at the level of its compilation. The sustained and complete treatment of the precept lies not in the *Diamond Sūtra* but elsewhere in the very same scripture — in the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*. Following this thread, the paper reads out the doctrine of the sign-less precept native to the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* itself.

---

## II. The Canonical Basis: From the Diamond Sūtra's Silence to the Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Main Anchor

### II.1 The Diamond Sūtra's Silence: A Selective Silence

Take first that single occurrence. Speaking of the time after the Tathāgata's passing, when the true Dharma is about to grow hidden, the *Diamond Sūtra* says:

> 如來滅後後五百歲，有持戒修福者，於此章句能生信心，以此為實……
> *"In the latter five hundred years after the Tathāgata's passing, there will be those who keep the precepts and cultivate merit, who toward these passages can give rise to a believing mind and take them for the real …"*
> — *Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, trans. Kumārajīva, T0235, p. 749a27–a28[^1]

This is the whole sūtra's single occurrence of the graph "precept." What deserves notice is its grammatical position: the precept appears within the clause "those who keep the precepts and cultivate merit," a clause that identifies the *status* of the believer — the precept is *named*, pointed to as a praiseworthy virtue, but never further opened, analyzed, or deconstructed by the text. There is no unfolding of any "perfection of the precept," no breaking-open of a "precept-sign," and above all no application to the precept of the sūtra's signature three-phrase formula ("X, is-not X, is named X").

Set beside this, how finely the *Diamond Sūtra* handles patience:

> 須菩提！如來說第一波羅蜜，非第一波羅蜜，是名第一波羅蜜……如我昔為歌利王割截身體，我於爾時，無我相、無人相、無眾生相、無壽者相……是故，須菩提！菩薩應離一切相，發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心……應生無所住心。若心有住，則為非住。
> *"Subhūti, the Tathāgata speaks of the foremost perfection as not the foremost perfection — this is named the foremost perfection … When of old King Kali dismembered my body, I had at that time no mark of self, no mark of person, no mark of being, no mark of life-span … Therefore, Subhūti, the bodhisattva should depart from every mark and raise the mind of unsurpassed perfect awakening … He should give rise to a mind that abides nowhere; if the mind abides, that is precisely a non-abiding."*
> — ibid., p. 750b12–b22[^2]

This passage runs the three-phrase formula and the mark-breaking mechanism of "departing from every mark" and "giving rise to a mind that abides nowhere" in full upon the perfection and upon patience. Add to it the sūtra's repeated insistence on "non-abiding giving," and it is clear that the *Diamond Sūtra* is not unable, or unwilling, to apply mark-breaking to a given perfection — it does so for giving and for patience alike. It declines to do so for the precept alone.

This shows that the *Diamond Sūtra*'s silence is **selective**. A text that applies the mark-breaking method finely to giving and to patience yet passes over the precept alone makes of that very omission a signal — it is not "unable to treat the precept" but "not treating the precept *here*."

### II.2 The Diamond Sūtra Is the Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Ninth Assembly: The Silence Is a Compilational Division of Labor

Where, then, is the precept treated, which is "not treated here"?

The clue lies in the Taishō canon's cataloguing note on the *Diamond Sūtra*. The *Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra* is numbered No. 235 in the canon, with the note that it corresponds to the ninth assembly of No. 220[^3] — that is, the *Diamond Sūtra* is itself the **ninth assembly** of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra* (T0220). One and the same great Prajñā scripture is silent on the precept in its ninth assembly (the division to which the *Diamond Sūtra* corresponds), yet in its **first division** gives the perfection of pure precepts a sustained and systematic sign-less treatment.

This fact gives the paper's central claim its firmest textual ground: the silence and the full treatment belong, it turns out, to one and the same scripture. The assembly silent on the precept and the first division voluble on the precept are two portions of a division of labor *within* the structure of one *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*, not an interpretive frame imposed on the text from outside.

A measure of proportion must be marked here, lest the inference overreach. By "one and the same corpus" is meant the lineage of the Prajñāpāramitā (*prajñāpāramitā*) and the cataloguing assignment of the Taishō canon — not "one and the same translation." This version of the *Diamond Sūtra* is Kumārajīva's (Later Qin); the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* is the great work of Xuanzang's late translation bureau (660–663); the two belong to different translation-strata. "One and the same scripture" is said with respect to the Indian lineage and the canonical cataloguing, not to claim a single act of translation.[^4]

### II.3 The Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Main Anchor: Fascicle 48, "Because Keeping and Breaking Are by Nature Empty"

Enter the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*, and the treatment of the precept at once grows abundant. Its single most decisive passage is in fascicle 48:

> 復次，舍利子！諸菩薩摩訶薩修行淨戒波羅蜜多時，以應一切智智心，而修淨戒波羅蜜多，以無所得而為方便，與一切有情同共迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，於淨戒法住如幻、如夢、如像、如響、如光影、如空花、如尋香城、如變化事想，於清淨戒不恃不著，於破戒惡不厭不取，由持與犯本性空故。
> *"Again, Śāriputra: when bodhisattva-mahāsattvas cultivate the perfection of pure precepts, they cultivate it with a mind directed to the all-knowing wisdom, taking non-apprehension as their skillful means, dedicating it together with all beings to unsurpassed perfect awakening; toward the dharma of pure precepts they hold the perception of it as a phantom, a dream, a reflection, an echo, a shadow, a sky-flower, a city of gandharvas, a thing conjured; toward pure precepts they neither rely nor cling, toward the evil of breakage they neither loathe nor seize — because keeping and breaking are by their very nature empty."*
> — *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, first division, trans. Xuanzang, T0220, fasc. 48, p. 269b14–b20[^5]

This is the paper's main anchor. In a single short passage the skeleton of the sign-less precept is already laid out whole: when the bodhisattva cultivates "the perfection of pure precepts," it is "with non-apprehension (Skt. *anupalabdhi*) as skillful means"; he holds the dharma of pure precepts to be "like a phantom, like a dream, like a thing conjured"; and so "toward pure precepts he neither relies nor clings, toward the evil of breakage he neither loathes nor seizes" — neither self-reliant nor adhesive toward his own precept-keeping, neither resentful nor grasping toward another's breakage; and the ground on which he can be so is "because keeping and breaking are by nature empty."

A red line at the level of the translation-stratum must be drawn clearly here. Xuanzang's *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* uses throughout "the perfection of pure precepts" (淨戒波羅蜜多, some hundreds of occurrences) and not "*śīla-pāramitā*"; whereas Kumārajīva's *Dà zhì dù lùn* (T1509) uses "*śīla-pāramitā*" (尸羅波羅蜜, over two hundred occurrences) and not "the perfection of pure precepts."[^6] The two are whole-text-level substitutions of one terminological system for another; in citation each must be kept to its own source, and the two must never be merged into a nonexistent hybrid. "Unobtainable" (*anupalabdhi*) is the term that runs safely across both strata and serves as the bridge.

---

## III. The Core Argument: The Mahāprajñāpāramitā's Own Native Sign-less Precept

### III.1 "Prajñā Arming the Pure Precept": The Sign-less Is Prajñā's Function, Not Something the Pure Precept Reaches on Its Own

In reading the main anchor of fascicle 48, the easiest slip by a hair's breadth is to take "the sign-less" for a property of the pure precept itself. It is not.

This passage of fascicle 48 stands within the context of the "great-merit-armor" — the matrix in which the six perfections mutually "don" one another as armor: when the bodhisattva cultivates any one perfection, he dons the perfection of wisdom upon himself as his great-merit-armor, so that the perfection in question becomes a sign-less practice. In other words, what makes the pure precept *sign-less* is not the pure precept itself but **prajñā** — it is prajñā's mark-breaking force that dissolves the "precept-sign" laid upon the pure precept. A little further on in the same context, the side of the prajñā assembly states it outright:

> 諸菩薩摩訶薩修行般若波羅蜜多時……不見持戒及破戒等，以無著心而修淨戒。
> *"When bodhisattva-mahāsattvas cultivate the perfection of wisdom … they do not see keeping the precept or breaking it and the like, and with a mind free of clinging they cultivate pure precepts."*
> — ibid., fasc. 48, p. 271b01; and "toward the marks of the six perfections neither seizing nor clinging," at p. 269b25[^7]

Note the subject: "when they cultivate the perfection of **wisdom** … with a mind free of clinging they cultivate pure precepts." It is prajñā that makes one "not see keeping or breaking the precept"; it is prajñā that makes one "neither seize nor cling toward the marks of the six perfections." So the precise structure of the sign-less precept is this: **prajñā breaks the mark, and the breaking is applied to the precept-sign** — it is the prajñā that can break which dissolves away the precept-sign that is broken, leaving a pure precept that is "kept yet unattached to its mark." Lose this precision, and one mistakes the matter for "the pure precept being naturally sign-less of itself," erasing the work prajñā does within it.

### III.2 Genuine versus Counterfeit: Sign-less Keeping Is Stricter, Not Slacker

Next comes the set of material in which the paper can most directly meet the worry of antinomianism — the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s own self-posed contrast between "the genuine perfection of pure precepts" and "the counterfeit perfection of pure precepts." This contrast unfolds in parallel with the six perfections in the chapter on the measuring of merit, spanning several fascicles: the pivot-question on the counterfeit side stands in fascicle 142, the pivot-question on the genuine side in fascicle 159.

> （相似一側）世尊！云何諸善男子、善女人等說有所得淨戒波羅蜜多名說相似淨戒波羅蜜多？
> *"(the counterfeit side) World-Honored One, how is it that when good sons and good daughters speak of a perfection of pure precepts with-apprehension, this is called speaking a counterfeit perfection of pure precepts?"*
> — ibid., fasc. 142, p. 771b01[^8]
>
> （真正一側）世尊！云何諸善男子、善女人等說無所得淨戒波羅蜜多名說真正淨戒波羅蜜多？
> *"(the genuine side) World-Honored One, how is it that when good sons and good daughters speak of a perfection of pure precepts with non-apprehension, this is called speaking a genuine perfection of pure precepts?"*
> — ibid., fasc. 159, p. 855b24[^9]

The criterion is set out plainly: to speak the pure precept with a mind of "with-apprehension" (*sopalambha* — seeking, grasping, viewing form as permanent or impermanent) is the *counterfeit* perfection of pure precepts; to speak it with a mind of "non-apprehension" (*anupalabdhi* — not so to view, own-being empty, unobtainable) is the *genuine* perfection of pure precepts.

This contrast is a direct answer to the worry of antinomianism. What it says is not "the genuine practitioner may dispense with the precept" — exactly the contrary. It demotes "keeping while clinging to the precept-sign" to the *counterfeit* (the plausible-but-false, the counterfeit article), and elevates "keeping without clinging to the precept-sign" to the *genuine*. Sign-less keeping is not slacker than mark-clinging keeping but **stricter, truer**: it demands that the practitioner lay down even the self-satisfaction and adhesion of "I am keeping the precept," "I keep it purely," and keep it in pure non-apprehension. To mistake the *counterfeit* for the whole of the precept is precisely to take the counterfeit article for the genuine; whereas *genuine* keeping carries the additional layer of work of not clinging even to "the mark of keeping the precept."

### III.3 The Three-Phrase Formula Applied to the Precept: The "Is-Not / Is" in Xuanzang's Register

The *Diamond Sūtra*'s signature three-phrase formula — "X, is-not X, is named X" — was not applied by it to the precept. Yet the first division of the same great scripture does apply this logical form to the pure precepts in so many words, only in Xuanzang's register:

> 色色自性空……是色自性即非自性……若非自性即是淨戒波羅蜜多。於此淨戒波羅蜜多，色不可得，彼常無常亦不可得……
> *"Form is empty of the own-being of form … this own-being of form is precisely not an own-being … and what is not an own-being is precisely the perfection of pure precepts. In this perfection of pure precepts, form is unobtainable, and its being permanent or impermanent is likewise unobtainable …"*
> — ibid., fasc. 159, p. 855c01–c05[^10]

"This own-being of form is precisely not an own-being … and what is not an own-being is precisely the perfection of pure precepts" — this is exactly the logical form "X / is-not X / is (named) X": own-being, is-not own-being; non-own-being, is the perfection of pure precepts. The three-phrase formula upon which the *Diamond Sūtra* was silent regarding the precept is, in the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*, applied to the precept in so many words, in Xuanzang's register.

A line of defense against misreading must be set down here (treated at length in Chapter V): this is a **structural homology**, not a **literal identity**. The wording "is named the pure precept" nowhere occurs in the whole *Diamond Sūtra*, nor does the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* render it in a Diamond-Sūtra-style sentence such as "is-not the precept, is named the precept." What the paper says is this: the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*, in Xuanzang's register, carries by its formula "own-being empty → is-not own-being → is the perfection of pure precepts" the same *logical form* as the *Diamond Sūtra*'s three-phrase formula. One must not, in reverse, fabricate a sentence — "is-not the precept, is named the precept" — that does not exist in the *Diamond Sūtra* and paste it onto the precept.

### III.4 Keeping and Breaking Empty by Nature: Two Loci in Mutual Corroboration

Return to the pivotal proposition, "keeping and breaking are by nature empty." It is no isolated witness in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*. The main anchor of fascicle 48 says "because keeping and breaking are by their very nature empty"; fascicle 9 restates the same sense in other words:

> 有菩薩摩訶薩修行般若波羅蜜多時，安住淨戒波羅蜜多，嚴淨一切智、一切相智道，由畢竟空，不起持戒犯戒心故。
> *"There are bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who, when cultivating the perfection of wisdom, abide in the perfection of pure precepts and adorn-and-purify the path of the all-knowing and the all-mark-knowing wisdom — because by ultimate emptiness they do not raise a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept."*
> — ibid., fasc. 9, p. 47a07–a09[^11]

Fascicle 48 has "because keeping and breaking are by nature empty"; fascicle 9 has "by ultimate emptiness, not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept" — the one speaking by "emptiness of nature," the other by "ultimate emptiness"; the one saying the nature of keeping-and-breaking is empty, the other saying one does not raise the discriminating mind of "keeping or breaking the precept." The two corroborate each other, and one sees that "the emptiness of keeping-and-breaking" is no isolated saying of a single fascicle but a consistent stance scattered through the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*.

It must be marked honestly here as well (treated at length in Chapter V): the paper uses "keeping and breaking are by nature empty" as a summary tag for this set of propositions, for ease of exposition; but one must know that these are not a ready-made formula present in the scripture. The text's actual wording is fascicle 48's "because keeping and breaking are by their very nature empty" and fascicle 9's "by ultimate emptiness, not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept," and both are prose, not verse.

### III.5 What This Paper Reads Out: Distinguishing What the Text Says from What This Paper Reads

At this point two levels must be told clearly apart, to keep the discipline of voicing.

**What the text itself says** is a matter of plain textual fact that can be stated directly: that the graph "precept" occurs in the whole *Diamond Sūtra* exactly once (verifiable word by word); that the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* has, for the perfection of pure precepts, the genuine-versus-counterfeit contrast, the application of the three-phrase formula, and the two sayings "keeping and breaking are by nature empty" and "not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept." These are words the scripture sets out as they are, awaiting no interpretation.

**What this paper reads out** is a synthesis across the levels: it brings prajñā's mark-breaking force (non-abiding in marks, departure from marks) to bear upon the *precept-sign*, and so reads out the doctrine of the sign-less precept native to the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* itself. This step of synthesis the paper plainly takes upon itself with phrasings such as "this paper reads" and "on the reading proposed here" — it is the paper's reading, not the scripture's literal self-statement.

One clarification must especially be made: the paper's reading is **canonical-internal**, not a **transposition**. By "canonical-internal" is meant that the ground of the sign-less precept lies within the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* itself — the silence (on the *Diamond Sūtra* side) and the full treatment (on the first-division side) belong to one and the same scripture, and the division of labor is the scripture's own structure. This paper does *not* take some external "prajñā emptiness-view" and *transpose* it onto the precept (that alone would be a "transposition," the approach this paper rejects); rather, it reads out the sign-less precept already complete within the great scripture, and then clarifies prajñā's mark-breaking as the mechanism by which it operates.

---

## IV. Cross-Disciplinary Engagement: Dialogue with Madhyamaka Ethics

Contemporary Anglophone scholarship on "Madhyamaka ethics" has accumulated a substantial discussion. This chapter is in dialogue with three scholars, proceeding by the manner of "conceding the problem they raise, and supplying the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s own answer" — that is, first granting that the problem they pose is real, then pointing out that the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*, at the level of the scripture itself, has already given an answer in advance of the systematization of the treatises.

**First, Bronwyn Finnigan.** In "Madhyamaka Ethics" (in *The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics*, Oxford University Press, 2018)[^12] she asks: once the own-being of the moral categories has been emptied, is this still compatible with "systematic ethical distinctions"? Her resolution is to preserve normative force by way of conventional truth (Skt. *saṃvṛti*) — the moral boundaries remain real and effective at the conventional level, even while their own-being is empty at the ultimate level (*paramārtha*). This paper concedes that emptying the precept-sign does raise a real (not a merely apparent) problem of normativity — a problem that cannot be solved by reifying the precept-sign all over again, but only by relocating ethical force at the conventional, functional level. This mirrors exactly the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s genuine-versus-counterfeit contrast: ultimately "is-not the pure precept," conventionally "is named the pure precept"; keeping and breaking real at the conventional level, empty by nature at the ultimate level. But a descriptive observation must be added here: Finnigan's account proceeds at the level of the Madhyamaka *treatises* (the systematic reconstruction of philosophers such as Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Śāntideva); whereas this paper points out that the operation has already been carried out in the *scripture* itself — fascicles 48, 159, and 9 of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* have already applied the "is-not / is" directly to the precept and already said outright that keeping and breaking are by nature empty, not waiting upon the systematization of the Madhyamaka masters. The sign-less precept is not a patch added by later philosophers but the precept-doctrine native to the Prajñā sūtra itself.

**Second, The Cowherds.** *Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy* (Oxford University Press, 2011)[^13] sets up "conventional truth" as the floor of ethics: only at the level of conventional truth can the normative force of morality stand. This paper concedes that the sign-less precept is precisely an object of the two truths — ultimately "is-not the precept," conventionally "is named the precept"; keeping and breaking real conventionally, empty by nature ultimately. But this paper points out that *Moonshadows* reads the two truths through the lens of the treatises — Candrakīrti and the Geluk hermeneutic — whereas this paper shows that the Prajñā sūtra's "is-not / is" syntax has *itself* already encoded the two-truths handling of the precept, without needing to adjudicate which school's reading is correct. (Note: this work is published under the collective pen-name "The Cowherds"; this paper cites it by that collective name and does not single out any one of its contributors.)

**Third, Jan Westerhoff.** In *Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka* (Oxford University Press, 2009) and "On the Nihilist Interpretation of Madhyamaka" (*Journal of Indian Philosophy* 44.2, 2016)[^14] he argues that to infer "moral nihilism" from "emptiness" is a misreading; "emptiness" is not "non-existence," and emptying own-being does not erase the functional reality of dependently arisen moral phenomena. This paper concedes that this is precisely the pressure-point of the present chapter: emptying the precept-sign is not abolishing the precept. But the paper's relation to Westerhoff is one of *complement*, not of *replacement*: his defense is *philosophical* (it shows the inference to be logically invalid); this paper supplies a *textual* parallel defense — the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* not merely *permits* a non-nihilist reading but *performs* it, in its genuine-versus-counterfeit contrast, answering the worry by act, within its own syntax of "is-not / is" and "keeping and breaking empty by nature," in advance of any treatise-argument.

**One research gap must be disclosed honestly at the last.** The Prajñā corpus's sign-less treatment of "the perfection of pure precepts" is scattered abundantly through the fascicles of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s first division; yet in the secondary Madhyamaka scholarship, treatments that take "the sign-less precept" as a discrete topic are very nearly nil. When Anglophone scholarship speaks of "the sign-less" (*animitta*), it mostly handles it under the general doctrine that "all dharmas are sign-less," and no one has set apart the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s perfection-of-pure-precepts passages to read them as a discrete doctrine of "the sign-less precept." Just here lies the contribution of this paper: to bring prajñā's mark-breaking to bear upon the precept-sign and read out the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s own sign-less precept — not a later philosopher's antinomian patch, but the precept-doctrine native to the Prajñā sūtra itself.

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## V. Middle-Way Correction

Wherever the breaking of marks is argued, two kinds of misunderstanding most readily arise. This chapter corrects each in turn.

**❌ Misunderstanding one: "emptying the precept-sign = emptying the precept = no need to keep the precept (antinomianism)."**

This is the most fundamental and the most dangerous misreading. What this paper empties is the **precept-sign** — the grasping at the precept, the self-reliance and adhesion of "I am keeping the pure precept," the seizing of the precept as a substantial thing with own-being; what this paper empties is **not** the precept itself. The *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s genuine-versus-counterfeit contrast already supplies the most direct counter-evidence: keeping while clinging to the precept-sign is judged *counterfeit* (the counterfeit article); only keeping without clinging to the precept-sign is judged *genuine*. So sign-less keeping, far from abolishing the precept, is **stricter** than mark-clinging keeping — it demands one further layer of work, the laying-down of even "the mark of keeping the precept." "Emptying the precept-sign" and "emptying the precept" are two different things; to conflate them is precisely to take the *counterfeit* for the *genuine*.

**⚠️ Misunderstanding two (the limit of the cross-disciplinary analogy): analogizing "the sign-less precept" to Western ethics' "situation ethics" or "antinomianism."**

Such analogies have heuristic value but a boundary must be set. The sign-less precept is not a situation ethics of "the rule may be set aside as the case warrants," nor an antinomianism of "under grace one is free of the law's bond." Its mechanism is prajñā's dissolving of the grasping at grasper-and-grasped — it is "keeping the precept without clinging to the mark of keeping the precept," not "deciding by the situation whether to keep the precept." To equate it with these Western categories would mislead the reader into supposing that the sign-less precept loosens the norm itself; in fact what it loosens is only the *grasping* at the norm, and the binding force of the norm is, on the *genuine* side, if anything strengthened.

**⚠️ Textual correction: two wordings must be kept to the facts.**

First, "keeping and breaking are by nature empty" is not a ready-made formula present in the scripture; the text's actual wording is fascicle 48's "because keeping and breaking are by their very nature empty" and fascicle 9's "by ultimate emptiness, not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept," and both are prose, not verse; when this paper uses "keeping and breaking are by nature empty" as a summary tag, it is the paper's summary, and in citing the scripture one keeps to the true text. Second, the three-phrase formula's application to the precept is a **structural homology**, not a **literal identity**: the wording "is named the pure precept" nowhere occurs in the whole scripture, and Xuanzang's register has "is-not an own-being … is the perfection of pure precepts"; one must not fabricate a "is-not the precept, is named the precept" that does not exist in the *Diamond Sūtra* and paste it onto the precept.

**A statement of boundary: the emptiness of the three circles is left to a later paper.**

Where this paper argues to "keeping and breaking empty by nature" and "not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept," it stops at the level of "sign-less / unobtainable" and unfolds no further. The later summarizing of this approach by way of the threefold emptiness of "transgressor — precept — being" (the application to the precept of "the emptiness of the three circles") is a further topic, and one that is a later treatises' summary; this paper does not deploy it here but leaves it to a subsequent paper of this part. The paper marks this forward-pointer plainly here so as not to overstep its bounds.

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## VI. Conclusion

**In brief.** The *Diamond Sūtra*'s near-silence on the precept — the graph "precept" occurring in the whole sūtra exactly once, the precept named yet never analyzed — is not an oversight but a division of doctrinal labor internal to a single Prajñā corpus, at the level of its compilation. The *Diamond Sūtra* is itself the ninth assembly of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*; the sustained and complete sign-less treatment of the precept lies in the first division of that same great scripture: fascicle 48's "toward pure precepts neither relying nor clinging, toward the evil of breakage neither loathing nor seizing, because keeping and breaking are by nature empty" (prajñā arming the pure precept with the great-merit-armor), the genuine-versus-counterfeit perfection of pure precepts of fascicles 142–159, the application of "is-not / is" to the precept in fascicle 159, and fascicle 9's "by ultimate emptiness, not raising a mind of keeping-or-breaking the precept." Reading these canonical-internally, the paper brings prajñā's mark-breaking force to bear upon the precept-sign and reads out the sign-less precept native to the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* itself: the precept is kept while its mark is empty, and genuine (sign-less) keeping carries **more** ethical binding force than counterfeit (mark-clinging) keeping.

**The direction of practice.** What the sign-less precept points to is not a slackening of precept-keeping but a laying-down of the grasping at precept-keeping. Toward one's own keeping, neither self-reliant nor adhesive; toward another's lapse, neither resentful nor mark-seizing; even the thought "I keep it purely" dissolved away in a mind of non-apprehension. To keep the precept thus is for the precept to grow ever stricter while the mind grows ever more at ease — strict in the norm, at ease in the grasping. This is the additional layer of work that the *genuine* side carries, and it is the "great-merit-armor" that prajñā fastens upon the precept.

**Open questions and what lies ahead.** This paper is the opening study of the sign-less precept of Prajñā. The *Diamond Sūtra* breaks the mark of giving by "non-abiding" and the mark of patience by "departure from marks," yet upon the precept it is silent; this paper has shown that the answer to its silence lies in the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*. But the Prajñā corpus's approach to breaking the precept-sign has a still more radical branch yet to be treated — the *Vimalakīrti*'s deconstructive method of displaying "keeping the precept" through "breaking the precept" (the so-called "precept of breaking precepts") will be the topic of the next paper; and "keeping and breaking empty by nature," pushed one step further into the saying of "the three circles" that empties transgressor, precept, and being all at once, is left for the paper after that to take up. This paper stops at the emptiness of the precept-sign, opening an entryway onto that thread.

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## Footnotes

[^1]: *Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, trans. Kumārajīva (Later Qin), T0235, vol. 8, p. 749a27–a28. The graph "precept" (戒) occurs in the whole sūtra only here (verified word by word).

[^2]: Ibid., p. 750b12–b22. This passage shows the *Diamond Sūtra* running the three-phrase formula and "departure from every mark," "give rise to a mind that abides nowhere," upon the perfection and upon patience — set in contrast with its silence on the precept. (Note: the Sanskrit name of King Kali, in the non-Chinese cataloguing marginalia, appears to carry an OCR corruption; this paper uses only the Chinese "歌利王" and supplies no reconstructed Sanskrit.)

[^3]: The Taishō canon notes, under No. 235, its correspondence to the ninth assembly of No. 220. The *Diamond Sūtra* is the ninth assembly of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*.

[^4]: "One and the same corpus" is said with respect to the Prajñāpāramitā lineage and the Taishō cataloguing; this version of the *Diamond Sūtra* is Kumārajīva's, the first division of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* is Xuanzang's (660–663), and the two belong to different translation-strata, not to a single act of translation.

[^5]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, first division, trans. Xuanzang, T0220 (T05n0220a), vol. 5, fasc. 48, p. 269b14–b20. This is the paper's main anchor.

[^6]: Translation-stratum contrast: Xuanzang's *Mahāprajñāpāramitā* (T0220) uses "the perfection of pure precepts" (淨戒波羅蜜多) and not "*śīla-pāramitā*"; Kumārajīva's *Dà zhì dù lùn* (T1509, vol. 25) uses "*śīla-pāramitā*" (尸羅波羅蜜, over two hundred occurrences) and not "the perfection of pure precepts." The *Dà zhì dù lùn*'s *śīla-pāramitā* is the precedent of Kumārajīva's stratum; this paper notes it only as a translation-stratum contrast and reserves its detailed treatment for another paper (P13).

[^7]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, first division, fasc. 48, p. 271b01; "toward the marks of the six perfections neither seizing nor clinging" at p. 269b25.

[^8]: Ibid., fasc. 142, p. 771b01 (the pivot-question of the counterfeit perfection of pure precepts). The counterfeit side's exposition continues into fascicle 143, in the chapter on the measuring of merit.

[^9]: Ibid., fasc. 159, p. 855b24 (the pivot-question of the genuine perfection of pure precepts).

[^10]: Ibid., fasc. 159, p. 855c01–c05. The three-phrase formula's application to the pure precept is a structural homology (Xuanzang's register, "is-not an own-being … is the perfection of pure precepts"), not a literal identity; the wording "is named the pure precept" nowhere occurs in the whole sūtra.

[^11]: Ibid., fasc. 9, p. 47a07–a09. In mutual corroboration with fascicle 48's "because keeping and breaking are by nature empty."

[^12]: Bronwyn Finnigan, "Madhyamaka Ethics," in Daniel Cozort and James Mark Shields (eds.), *The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics* (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 162–183.

[^13]: The Cowherds, *Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy* (Oxford University Press, 2011; ISBN 978-0-19-975143-3). This work is published under a collective pen-name and is cited here by that collective name.

[^14]: Jan Westerhoff, *Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction* (Oxford University Press, 2009); and "On the Nihilist Interpretation of Madhyamaka," *Journal of Indian Philosophy* 44.2 (2016): 337–376.

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## Series Cross-References

- **Continuing from (Part VI → VII) — SĪLA P20 *Bhaiṣajyaguru's Developmental Sequence of Body-Mind Discipline*** — from "guarding the preconditions of precept-keeping" (Bhaiṣajyaguru's support conditions) to "the emptiness of the precept-sign" (the sign-less precept of Prajñā); P21 opens by taking up the forward-pointer at P20's close.
- **Method — SĪLA P18 *Precept-Substance and Manas*** — the own-it voicing discipline (distinguishing what the text says from what this paper reads); P21's canonical-internal reading keeps the same discipline.
- **Same axis, another perfection (DĀNA parallel) — DĀNA P15 *The Diamond Sūtra Giving Treatise*** — "non-abiding giving"; P21's "sign-less precept" is the structurally parallel move of prajñā's mark-dissolving force applied to another pāramitā — giving first, precepts following — each avoiding the other's main anchor.
- **Kumārajīva-stratum precedent — SĪLA P13 *Nāgārjuna on Śīla-Pāramitā*** — the *Dà zhì dù lùn*'s "fault and non-fault are unobtainable" *śīla-pāramitā* (Kumārajīva register); P21 is the Xuanzang-register *Mahāprajñāpāramitā*'s sustained sign-less precept, the two forming a translation-stratum contrast.
- **Looking ahead — SĪLA P22 *Vimalakīrti's Deconstructive Moves on Conventional Sīla*** (the deconstructive "precept of breaking precepts," next paper) **/ SĪLA P23 *Three-Circle Emptiness Applied to Sīla*** (transgressor / precept / being all empty — the boundary P21 stops at, taken up by the following paper).

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*正法眼藏，不立文字——The value of the Dharma lies in the Dharma itself, not in the identity of the one who expounds it.*

**Pointing at the Moon** ｜ Six Practice Gates · SĪLA 戒 ｜ CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Scriptural citations collated against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka ｜ github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates

*Pointing at the Moon · The Six Practice Gates · Volume IV SĪLA · Paper 21 · Part VII #1 · May 2026*