---
title: "Three-Circle Emptiness Applied to Sīla"
subtitle: "When Keeper, Precept, and Protected Being Are All Unfindable"
title_zh: 三輪體空於戒
subtitle_zh: 能持、所持、所護皆不可得，何以「如是持戒則是起罪因緣」
volume: 戒門 SĪLA
paper_id: "SILA-P23"
paper_number: P23
language: en
date: 2026-05-30
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: 3
order_in_volume: 23
order_in_series: 83
---

# Three-Circle Emptiness Applied to Sīla
**When Keeper, Precept, and Protected Being Are All Unfindable**
*中文主題：三輪體空於戒——能持、所持、所護皆不可得，何以「如是持戒則是起罪因緣」*

---

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

---

## Abstract

The preceding paper, treating Vimalakīrti's dismantling of the formal precept, halted at a single axis—"the nature of the offence is unobtainable"—and left a question hanging: if the nature of the offence is unobtainable, what then of the one who transgresses, the precept transgressed, and the being affected? The present paper takes up that question and, following the prajñā path of "three-circle emptiness" (三輪體空, Skt. *trimaṇḍala-pariśuddhi*), argues that the three wheels of the precept—the agent who keeps it (or breaks it), the precept that is kept (or the offence committed), and the being who is protected (or wronged)—are all three unobtainable, and that this "unobtainable" is in no way an abolition of the precept. The paper's central finding is that the three-wheel purity of the precept is *not* an analytic structure carried over from the gate of giving but is stated outright in two translation strata of the prajñā corpus: Xuanzang enumerates "when one keeps the precept, the three wheels are pure" in three clauses, Kumārajīva renders it as the dual axis "one does not obtain the precept, the precept-keeper, or the precept-breaker," and Nāgārjuna goes further still—setting his own objection and answering it, and himself transposing the giving-formula "no giver, no recipient, no gift" onto the precept. What is emptied is only the grasping at these three marks; Nāgārjuna states plainly that "such precept-keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence," so that sign-grasping keeping is itself an act that *produces* offence—whence sign-less keeping is not looser than sign-grasping keeping but more exacting, more binding. As the closing paper of the prajñā sign-less-precept triad (the one that "completes the three"), it ends by turning the precept toward its sense as "the basis for concentration," handing off to the next part.

## Keywords

three-circle / three-wheel emptiness; three-wheel purity; sign-less precept; *śīla-pāramitā*; perfection of pure morality; the three things unobtainable; the offence unobtainable; sign-grasping precept-keeping; cause that gives rise to offence; keeper–precept–protected being; prajñā; *Dà zhìdù lùn*; Xuanzang; Kumārajīva; Nāgārjuna

## 摘要

前篇處理維摩詰對形式戒的解構時，止步於「罪性不可得」這一單軸，並留下一問：罪性既不可得，則能犯之人、所犯之戒、所對之眾生又如何？本篇承此問而起，循般若「三輪體空」的進路，論證戒之三輪——能持（能犯）之人、所持之戒（所犯之罪）、所護（所對）之眾生——三事皆不可得，而此「不可得」絕非廢戒。本篇的關鍵發現是：戒之三輪清淨並非從施門挪借而來的分析結構，而是般若經與《大智度論》兩個譯語層皆有明文——玄奘列舉「受持戒時三輪清淨」三句，羅什作「不得戒、不得持戒人、不得破戒人」雙軸，龍樹更自設詰難自答，並親手把施門「無施者、受者、財物」的公式移於戒。所空者唯是對三相的取著；龍樹明言「如是持戒，則是起罪因緣」，取相之持本身即是起罪之因——故無相之持不是比取相之持寬鬆，而是更為嚴苛、更具約束力。本篇於般若無相戒三部曲中為收束之作（成其三），結尾將戒導向「為定之基」一義，交棒下一部。

## 關鍵詞

三輪體空、三輪清淨、無相戒、尸羅波羅蜜、淨戒波羅蜜多、三事不可得、罪不可得、取相持戒、起罪因緣、能持所持所護、般若、大智度論、玄奘、羅什、龍樹

---

## I. The Question: The Two Poles After the Single Axis

The strand of this series given to the sign-less precept of prajñā has now turned three times. The first paper of the three laid out the broad surface, drawing on the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra* in its dense, sustained way to show how the unobtainability prajñā teaches runs through the whole perfection of morality. The second paper fixed on one case, taking the Upāli episode of the *Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa* and concentrating wholly on the single axis "the nature of the offence is unobtainable." The present paper completes the three: it gathers the single opening the preceding paper made into the full structure in which agent, object, and field are all empty together. The three movements differ in their hand—the first is a long doctrinal unfolding, the second the close dissection of one clinical case, the third the synthetic gathering of three wheels. The reader does well to hold this line of motion in mind, for it explains why this paper does not, this time, parse a single scripture line by line, but instead binds three already-established threads into one.

The question the preceding paper left at its close is precisely where this paper begins. It ended on just this forward-pointer: this paper halts at the single axis "the nature of the offence is unobtainable"; the later paper will follow three-circle emptiness and extend this unobtainability into its application to "the one who transgresses, the precept transgressed, the being affected," all three empty; if the nature of the offence is unobtainable, then what of the one who transgresses, the thing transgressed, the one affected? That question is left to the next paper.[^1]

What this paper must answer, then, is exactly that suspended question. "The nature of the offence is unobtainable" speaks only of the offence committed—one mark alone; but a single act of transgression is never one mark only. There is an agent who transgresses, a precept transgressed (or kept), and a being affected (or protected). The preceding paper drew out one of the three; this paper must fill in the remaining two poles and show that all three are in fact one matter—the three wheels unobtainable together, so that to leave even one standing is to leave the prajñā contemplation incomplete.

Two sets of three-wheel terms must be marked at once, lest they be confused. On the *transgressing* axis, the three wheels are: the agent who transgresses, the precept (offence) transgressed, the being affected. On the *keeping* axis, they are: the agent who keeps, the precept kept, the being protected. The two axes are not two different doctrines but the same three-wheel structure showing its two faces—in transgressing there is an agent, an offence, an affected being; in keeping there is a keeper, a precept, a protected being. The preceding paper closed on the transgressing axis (the nature of the offence unobtainable); this paper, as the gathering close, must fill in the keeping axis—the pole of the agent who keeps—and join the two axes into the whole of the three wheels.

Here a misreading must be barred immediately, for without the guard the whole paper is in danger. To say the three wheels are unobtainable is in no way to say that the precept may go unkept, that evil may run free. What is broken is the grasping at three marks—"the I that keeps," "the beings I protect," "the precept and its fruit"—not the moral discipline itself. This distinction is the lifeline of the paper, and the later sections (especially §V) will draw it tight again and again. It is marked here at the outset so that the reader enters the scriptures holding the right question: how does prajñā render the precept unobtainable, and the precept, in consequence, bind *more* tightly?

---

## II. The Canonical Basis: Two Translation Strata of the Pure Three Wheels

The first and most decisive support for this paper's thesis is this: the three-wheel purity of the precept is *not* an analytic frame later borrowed from the gate of giving, but the explicit wording of the prajñā scriptures and the *Dà zhìdù lùn* themselves. On this point the present paper is the exact inverse of its predecessor. There, the phrase "the precept that breaks precepts" was the author's own analytic tag, absent from the text of the *Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa*; here, the three-wheel structure of the precept is attested clause by clause in scripture. This paper therefore need not say "the structure of the gate of giving is laid over the precept"; it may state directly that the three-wheel purity of the precept is one member of the prajñā sequence of three-wheel purity across the six perfections.

Consider first Xuanzang's rendering of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*. In the "First Assembly," in the passage on the *perfection of pure morality* (淨戒波羅蜜多), Śāriputra asks what the supramundane perfection of pure morality is, and the World-Honored One answers in three clauses:

> 「若菩薩摩訶薩受持戒時三輪清淨，一者、不執我能持戒，二者、不執所護有情，三者、不著戒及戒果，是為菩薩摩訶薩受持戒時三輪清淨。」
> *"When a bodhisattva-mahāsattva keeps the precepts, the three wheels are pure: first, he does not grasp at an 'I' that keeps the precept; second, he does not grasp at the beings he protects; third, he does not cling to the precept or to its fruit—this is a bodhisattva-mahāsattva's three-wheel purity in the keeping of precepts."*
> — *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, "First Assembly," trans. Xuanzang, T05n0220a, fasc. 75, p0425a11–a14[^2]

This is the enumerative statement of the three wheels of the precept. The three clauses answer to three marks: "does not grasp at an 'I' that keeps the precept" breaks the agent who keeps; "does not grasp at the beings he protects" breaks the being protected; "does not cling to the precept or to its fruit" breaks the precept kept (drawing the precept's karmic fruit into the same breaking). It is worth noting that the same "First Assembly," treating the perfection of giving, sets out the parallel three-wheel clause for *dāna*—"not seeing giver, recipient, or gift; practising giving with the three wheels pure."[^3] Giving and the precept stand side by side, issuing from one and the same Xuanzang stratum, and may be read in a single frame: the giver, recipient, and gift of the gate of giving become, in the gate of the precept, the keeper, the protected being, and the precept-with-its-fruit. The contemplation of three-wheel purity runs as one thread through the six perfections.

But this enumeration of Xuanzang's is set on the keeping axis alone. To fill in the *transgressing* axis one must turn to Kumārajīva's stratum. Kumārajīva's *Larger Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, treating the *śīla-pāramitā*, has a line that presents the matter on both axes at once:

> 「行尸羅波羅蜜，不得戒、不得持戒人、不得破戒人。」
> *"Practising the perfection of morality (śīla-pāramitā), one does not obtain the precept, does not obtain the precept-keeper, does not obtain the precept-breaker."*
> — *Larger Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, trans. Kumārajīva, T08n0223, fasc. 10, p0293a[^4]

Here the three wheels gather both the keeping and the transgressing faces at once: "does not obtain the precept" breaks the precept kept (and transgressed); "does not obtain the precept-keeper" breaks the agent who keeps; "does not obtain the precept-breaker" breaks the agent who transgresses. Xuanzang's enumeration leans to the keeping axis; this line of Kumārajīva's holds keeping and transgressing together. The two are complementary—and this paper, in gathering both axes into its close, synthesizes the two forms.

The one who drives this teaching to its depth, and who at the same time guards it best against misreading, is Nāgārjuna in the chapter on the *śīla-pāramitā* in the *Dà zhìdù lùn*. The chapter sets up a programmatic line at the outset and recalls it in the same words at its end, binding head to tail:

> 「罪、不罪不可得故，應具足尸羅波羅蜜。」
> *"Because offence and non-offence are unobtainable, one should fulfil the perfection of morality."*
> — *Dà zhìdù lùn*, attrib. Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva, T25n1509, fasc. 13, p0153b08[^5]

"Offence and non-offence are unobtainable" is the eye of the whole chapter. But the three graphs "unobtainable" are most readily misread as nihilism, and so Nāgārjuna at once raises an objection and answers it himself—this self-objection-and-answer is the very source of this paper's anti-antinomian lifeline, and is held over for §IV and §V. Here let us see only how he himself transposes the giving-formula onto the precept. In a passage on the precept against killing in fascicle 14, Nāgārjuna presents the three wheels of the precept by a *sequential dissolution*:

> 「復次，眾生不可得故，殺罪亦不可得；罪不可得故，戒亦不可得。何以故？……如上檀中說無施者、無受者、無財物，此亦如是。」
> *"Furthermore, because the being is unobtainable, the offence of killing too is unobtainable; because the offence is unobtainable, the precept too is unobtainable. … As was said above of giving—that there is no giver, no recipient, no gift—so it is here as well."*
> — *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0163c05–c09[^6]

Two things in this passage are of the first importance. First, its mode of breaking is *sequential dissolution* and not the *parallel enumeration* of three marks: the being is taken as the pivot; from the unobtainability of the being follows the unobtainability of the offence of killing, and from the unobtainability of the offence follows the unobtainability of the precept—being, killing-offence, precept form a single chain of dependence, dissolved link by interlocking link, rather than three marks laid side by side and broken at once as in the gate of giving. This difference §III will draw out; the two must not be run together as one form. Second, and most decisive: Nāgārjuna himself, with the clause "as was said above of giving—no giver, no recipient, no gift—so it is here as well," plainly transposes the three wheels of giving onto the precept. The giving-to-precept transposition is the text's own self-warrant, internal to the *Dà zhìdù lùn*, not an overlay added from outside. What this paper calls "three-circle emptiness applied to sīla" has the source of its structure in exactly this clause.

Fascicle 81 has a further line that lays the giving-formula "the three things unobtainable" upon the precept verbatim:

> 「愛戒、持戒、破戒者，三事不可得。」
> *"Loving the precept, the precept-keeper, and the precept-breaker—these three things are unobtainable."*
> — *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 81, p0631c05[^7]

"The three things are unobtainable" is the standard idiom of the three wheels of giving (no giver, no recipient, no gift—the three things unobtainable); here Nāgārjuna applies it straight to the precept—the loving of the precept, the precept-keeper, the precept-breaker, all three unobtainable. This is the most direct evidence that the three wheels of the precept are expressed in the very formula of the gate of giving.

One last bridging line gathers the side-by-side of giving and the precept into a single sūtra and a single sentence. Xuanzang's *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, in the "Sixth Assembly," "Chapter on the Nature of Dharmas," runs through the six perfections in a parallel construction, and there the giving-clause and the precept-clause stand adjacent:

> 「……都不見我，不見有情，乃至不見知者、見者，雖行布施而無所捨，雖持淨戒而離戒相，雖修安忍而心無盡……」
> *"…seeing neither self nor being, nor even knower or seer; giving yet relinquishing nothing; upholding pure precepts yet parting from the mark of the precept; bearing patiently yet with mind inexhaustible…"*
> — *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, "Sixth Assembly," "Chapter on the Nature of Dharmas," trans. Xuanzang, T07n0220e, fasc. 569, p0938b11[^8]

"Giving yet relinquishing nothing" is the giving-clause; "upholding pure precepts yet parting from the mark of the precept" is the precept-clause; the two issue from one sentence, a few graphs apart. Where the gate-of-giving discussion in this series took the giving-clause, this paper takes the precept-clause—the same sūtra, the same parallel construction, two adjacent clauses; the continuity is native. One small textual correction must be appended: the gate-of-giving papers of this series once mis-cited the fascicle in which "upholding pure precepts yet parting from the mark of the precept" occurs; the correct locus is the "Sixth Assembly," "Chapter on the Nature of Dharmas," fascicle 569, p0938b11.[^9]

In sum, the three-wheel purity of the precept is stated outright in both translation strata: in the Xuanzang stratum as the keeping-axis enumeration "when one keeps the precept, the three wheels are pure," in the Kumārajīva stratum as the keeping-and-transgressing dual axis "one does not obtain the precept, the precept-keeper, or the precept-breaker," and in Nāgārjuna by his own hand transposing the giving-formula onto the precept with "as was said above of giving … so it is here as well." This paper's foundation is therefore a direct statement of scriptural evidence, not a structure borrowed and laid over the precept.

---

## III. The Core Argument: What Is Emptied Is Only Grasping at Marks, So Sign-less Keeping Binds More Tightly

### 3.1 The Three Wheels Broken One by One, and the Distinction This Paper Must Mark

With the scriptural evidence of the last section in order, the breaking of the three wheels of the precept can be set out one mark at a time.

**Breaking the agent who keeps.** Under the contemplation of prajñā there is no independent, abiding "I" that keeps the precept; the act of keeping arises and ceases moment by moment, assembled from conditions, and no precept-keeper can be found in it. Xuanzang's "does not grasp at an 'I' that keeps the precept" and Kumārajīva's "does not obtain the precept-keeper" both break this mark. If one grasps at an "I that keeps the precept," then precept-keeping becomes a feat the "I" may preen over—and self-congratulation is precisely a door to affliction.

**Breaking the precept kept (the offence committed).** The precept-article likewise has no own-being. A precept comes to stand by institution, by the field of conditions, by the relation of one who undertakes it; apart from these conditions there is no independent, self-subsisting "precept" to be grasped. Xuanzang's "does not cling to the precept or to its fruit" breaks the precept together with the karmic fruit its keeping draws; Kumārajīva's "does not obtain the precept" does the same. So too with the offence committed—the preceding paper treated "the nature of the offence is unobtainable" at length, and this is not re-proved here.

**Breaking the being protected (affected).** The being protected is equally without own-being to be found. Xuanzang has "does not grasp at the beings he protects"; Nāgārjuna's fascicle 14 makes "the being is unobtainable" the pivot that dissolves the whole chain. If one grasps at a real "being to be delivered" set over against a real "I who delivers," then the very deed of great compassion falls back into the duality of subject and object and becomes its own bondage.

The three marks broken, this is named the three-wheel purity. But here one distinction must be strictly held, and it is the one place in this paper that must be marked as "what the author reads out," everything else being a direct statement of scriptural evidence. What belongs to this paper is two judgments only. First, the four-graph term "three-circle emptiness" (三輪體空) is in origin a crystallized phrase of the *gate of giving*—coined by the old masters in commenting on the perfection of giving—and neither the Vinaya nor the prajñā scriptures use these four graphs for the precept; the precept's own wording is "the three wheels are pure" (Xuanzang) or "the three things are unobtainable" (Kumārajīva, Nāgārjuna). This paper's use of "three-circle emptiness" as its title and analytic term *extends* the crystallized giving-phrase onto the precept, and that extension must be marked. Second, the combining of Xuanzang's keeping-axis enumeration with Kumārajīva's and Nāgārjuna's keeping-and-transgressing dual axis into a single closing paper is this paper's editorial choice. Apart from these two, the structure of the three wheels of the precept is everywhere a direct statement of scriptural evidence and requires no transposition by the author.

### 3.2 Sequential Dissolution vs. Parallel Enumeration: Two Complementary Forms

As noted above, the three wheels of the precept in Nāgārjuna's fascicle 14 proceed by *sequential dissolution*: taking the being as pivot, being → killing-offence → precept, broken link by interlocking link. The three wheels of the precept in Xuanzang's *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra* proceed instead by *parallel enumeration*: keeper, protected being, precept-with-its-fruit, three marks laid side by side and broken at once. The two must not be confused.

❌ Nāgārjuna's sequential dissolution must not be read as "the precept too has a three-mark parallel of the giver/recipient/gift type." His chain is one of *causal dependence*—if the being is unobtainable, then the offence of killing, which takes the being as its object, is unobtainable, and if the killing-offence is unobtainable, then the precept that counters the killing-offence, having lost the object it answers to, is likewise unobtainable. This is a line of dissolution traced back *along the object*, a different procedure from the side-by-side breaking of the three marks in the gate of giving.

The two forms are in fact complementary. Parallel enumeration (Xuanzang) gives the full structural picture of the three wheels, convenient for discerning the marks; sequential dissolution (Nāgārjuna) gives their inner dependence, convenient for seeing that the three marks are in truth one matter—once the object is empty, agent and object are emptied along with it. This paper takes up both forms: with Xuanzang's parallel it establishes their structure; with Nāgārjuna's dependence it shows their oneness.

### 3.3 Sign-Grasping Keeping Is Itself a Cause of Offence — Hence Sign-less Binds More

We may now answer the question that runs through this whole strand of the series: why is sign-less keeping *more* binding than sign-grasping keeping?

The answer is in Nāgārjuna's own words. Fascicle 14 carries a verdict of the gravest weight:

> 「見破戒罪人則輕慢，見持戒善人則愛敬；如是持戒，則是起罪因緣。」
> *"Seeing a precept-breaking, offending person one despises him; seeing a precept-keeping, good person one cherishes him—such precept-keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence."*
> — *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0164a23–a25[^10]

The edge of this line is turned against the very person who keeps the precept by grasping at marks. One who keeps the precept by grasping at marks, on seeing a breaker, gives rise to contempt; on seeing a keeper, gives rise to fondness—and contempt and fondness are both afflictions; and these afflictions arise precisely out of the mark "I keep the precept" and the mark "that one breaks it." So Nāgārjuna passes his verdict: such precept-keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence.

This line drives the argument for the sign-less precept to its floor. Sign-grasping keeping is not "keeping that is not quite pure enough"; its grasping at marks is itself the manufacture of offence—at the very moment of keeping the precept it gives rise to contempt and fondness, in the very act of guarding one article it breaks the ground of the mind. Conversely, sign-less keeping severs the root of this offence-arising: grasping at no "I that keeps," there is nothing to preen over; grasping at no protected being, there is no conceit of subject over object; clinging to neither precept nor its fruit, there is no scheme of keeping the precept to court reward. The three marks emptied, contempt and fondness have nothing to arise from, and the keeping of the precept is for the first time truly pure.

Sign-less keeping is therefore by no means looser than sign-grasping keeping but more exacting. Sign-grasping keeping minds only the conformity of the act; sign-less keeping demands besides that the ground of the mind not raise a single thought of grasping—this is a higher threshold, not a lower clearance. The first paper of this triad made the mirror-argument for this thesis (the sign-less precept being harder and more binding than the sign-grasping precept); it is not restated here, save to give it, in Nāgārjuna's "a cause that gives rise to offence," its most direct source-warrant.

---

## IV. Cross-Disciplinary Engagement: The Three Wheels as the Mechanism That Averts Nihilism

Set against contemporary scholarship, this paper's thesis fills a blank that has rarely been touched. The structure of three-circle emptiness (Skt. *trimaṇḍala-pariśuddhi*) is, in both academic and popular literature, tied almost solely to the single perfection of giving; to apply it to the precept, and to use it to explain how Mahāyāna precept-ethics averts the nihilistic inference "since it is empty, the precept may be discarded," is work almost no one has done. Contemporary studies under the heading of "emptiness and ethics" fall roughly into three lines, each with its strength and each with what it does not reach. This paper brings three scholars into dialogue, each in the manner of "concede, then advance," to throw the singularity of the three-wheel structure into relief.

The first is Barbra R. Clayton. In her *Moral Theory in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits of Virtue*, she reads the Mahāyāna precept (*śīla*) as a gradualist *virtue ethics*—the precept is the long cultivation and fostering of wholesome (*kuśala*) disposition, not the ticking-off of articles or the bookkeeping of merit and demerit.[^11] *Conceding:* this and the present paper illuminate one another; if the precept is the cultivation of disposition and not bookkeeping, then "sign-less keeping is more binding" has its footing—what it asks for is exactly the transformation of the ground of the mind's disposition, not the act's meeting a bar. *Advancing:* yet Clayton takes emptiness for a *background metaphysics* and never isolates the concrete *form* of "the three wheels" as the mechanism operating upon the perfection of morality. She says the precept is the cultivation of virtue; she does not say *how* emptiness is set into a concrete act of keeping so as to make it bind the more—and that is exactly what the three-wheel structure answers.

The second is Amber D. Carpenter. In her *Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics*, a chapter on "irresponsible selves and responsible non-selves" argues that no-self, far from abolishing responsible agency, is precisely the condition that makes it possible.[^12] *Conceding:* to push no-self into "since there is no self there is no one responsible, hence anything goes" is itself a misreading of no-self, and Carpenter's correction is forceful. *Advancing:* yet what she resolves is only the pole of the *agent who transgresses*—she shows how the self of no-self can still bear responsibility, but does not reach the precept transgressed or the being affected. The three wheels of this paper empty all three poles at once; to empty only the agent-pole and leave precept and being standing as real is to leave the prajñā contemplation incomplete and the single axis the preceding paper opened unfinished.

The third is Stephen E. Harris. In his *Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being*, he takes a phenomenological line, holding that the realization of emptiness *intensifies* rather than weakens moral experience—the felt sense of the moral grows deeper through the realization of the empty.[^13] *Conceding:* this gives the felt face of "more binding," and may be granted. *Advancing:* yet what he gives is the *effect* emptiness produces (the intensification of moral feeling), not the *structural mechanism* by which emptiness attaches to a concrete act of keeping. He says emptiness makes one more moral in feeling; he does not say through what structure emptiness makes a concrete precept bind the more—and that structure is the three wheels.

Each of the three holds one quarter: Clayton has the perfection of morality but not its form; Carpenter resolves only the agent-pole; Harris gives the effect but not the mechanism. Studies of emptiness and ethics thus leave exactly one blank: no one has transposed the well-studied three wheels of the gate of giving onto the precept and pointed out that "emptying these three marks at once in fact *raises* the threshold of the precept"—which is the precise site at which Mahāyāna precept-ethics averts the nihilistic inference. This paper's contribution lies in filling that blank.

One declaration must be appended, to keep this series' discipline of cross-disciplinary engagement: the three readings above and this paper's sense of the three wheels stand to one another as *heuristic contrasts*, not as theoretical equivalences. Clayton's virtue ethics, Carpenter's theory of agency, Harris's phenomenology each has its own Western philosophical context and problematic; this paper borrows them to set off the singularity of the three-wheel structure, not to reduce the three wheels to virtue ethics or phenomenology, nor those theories to the three wheels. The contrast holds precisely because there is difference within the likeness.

---

## V. Middle-Way Correction: What Is Broken Is Only Grasping at Marks, Not the Precept

This section draws tight, one by one, the places in the paper most apt to mislead. The strand of the sign-less precept walks at every step along the edge of a cliff: one deviation of thought, and "unobtainable" slides into "permitted." Several errors must therefore be marked, as guardrails.

❌ **"Empty, therefore one may transgress" is a fault the source itself has already named.** This is the misreading most to be guarded against, and the most forceful refutation is not sought outside but stands in Nāgārjuna's own objection. In fascicle 14, Nāgārjuna raises a question and answers it himself:

> 「問曰：若捨惡行善是為持戒，云何言罪、不罪不可得？答曰：非謂邪見、麁心言不可得也；行空三昧，慧眼觀故，罪不可得。」
> *"Question: If abandoning evil and doing good is keeping the precepts, how can it be said that offence and non-offence are unobtainable? Answer: This is not the 'unobtainable' of wrong views or a crude mind; it is by practising the samādhi of emptiness and seeing with the eye of wisdom that the offence is unobtainable."*
> — *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0163c01–c03[^14]

Nāgārjuna draws it perfectly clear: "the offence is unobtainable" is said in two ways. One is the way of "wrong views and a crude mind"—with a coarse, muddied mind and a deviant view one mouths "the offence is empty" to license one's own indulgence; this is not the unobtainable that prajñā speaks of but the wrong view of annihilation. The other is the unobtainable of "practising the samādhi of emptiness and seeing with the eye of wisdom"—within deep samādhi, with the eye of wisdom seeing as it is that all dharmas are without own-being, only then is the offence said to be unobtainable. The former is the failing of the dull (recalling this series' distinction of sharp and dull faculties, the crude mind that mouths emptiness being exactly the dull person's wrong turn in reading prajñā); the latter alone is the right contemplation of prajñā. Anyone who reads "the three wheels are unobtainable" as "therefore one may transgress the precept" has fallen squarely on the side of the "crude mind that mouths emptiness" that the source itself has already named.

And the line cited above—"such precept-keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence" (§III)—closes this road from the front: sign-grasping keeping is itself the manufacture of offence. If even keeping the precept lawfully but with grasping at marks is already a cause that gives rise to offence, how much more so indulgence carried on in the name of "emptiness"? What is broken is always the grasping at the three marks, never the moral discipline.

⚠️ **"Three-circle emptiness," applied to the precept, is an extension and not the scripture's own term.** As §III set out, these four graphs are in origin the crystallized phrase of the gate of giving; the precept's own wording is "the three wheels are pure" and "the three things are unobtainable." This paper may use these four graphs for its title and analytic term, but in citing scripture it uses the scripture's own wording throughout, and never adduces "three-circle emptiness" as a scriptural term for the precept. The reader must know that these four graphs, with respect to the precept, are this paper's naming-extension and not the letter of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra* or the *Dà zhìdù lùn*.

❌ **Sequential dissolution is not parallel enumeration.** As §3.2 set out, the three wheels of the precept in Nāgārjuna's fascicle 14 are a dependence-dissolution with the being as pivot; Xuanzang's are three marks in parallel; the two forms are complementary but must not be confused. To read Nāgārjuna's causal chain as a gate-of-giving-style parallel of three marks is to miss the edge that is Nāgārjuna's alone—"once the object is empty, agent and object are emptied with it."

⚠️ **The Chan formula "the Buddha has neither keeping nor breaking" must carry the guard "not falling into annihilation."** Later Chan has expressions that verge on abolishing the mark, such as the *Blood-Stream Sermon*'s "the Buddha has neither keeping nor breaking; the mind-nature is intrinsically empty" (traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma), and the *Platform Sūtra* type "the mind-ground without wrong is the self-nature precept."[^15] On the face of "the mind-nature is intrinsically empty" such lines are not unrelated to this paper's sense of the three wheels unobtainable; but their rhetorical thrust verges on abolishing the mark and is all too readily seized as a pretext for indulgence. This paper therefore touches them only in passing and must attach a guard: what such lines screen off is likewise the grasping at marks, not the substance of the precept; read as annihilation, they fall into the "crude mind that mouths emptiness" Nāgārjuna condemns. This is a domain with its own questions of interpretive history, not this paper's home ground, and is not pursued.

A last doctrinal guardrail must be added, and it was set up long ago by the old masters. Zhiyi, in his *Commentary on the Meaning of the Bodhisattva Precepts*, cites the *Dà zhìdù lùn*'s "offence and non-offence are unobtainable" as the very body of the perfection of morality, yet holds at the same time that there is besides "a non-expressive mind that is able to keep the precept" as the true precept—that is, emptiness does not destroy the substance of the precept.[^16] What emptiness breaks is the grasping at the mark of the precept, not the root mind that guards the precept-substance. Chengguan's *Commentary on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra* likewise has the three wheels of the precept stated outright—"first, not grasping at the beings who keep the precept; second, not clinging to the practice performed; third, not abiding in the precept-dharma"[^17]—and though he comes to know, by searching through the three times, that the three things are unobtainable, he still names this "the mark of pure conduct" (梵行清淨之相): the two graphs "pure mark" say exactly that the emptiness of the three wheels does not abolish pure conduct but perfects it. Zhiyi's *Textual Commentary on the Lotus Sūtra*, glossing the six perfections together, has a line that sets the emptiness of the giving-wheel and the emptiness of the precept side by side as the pivot: "when giver, recipient, and gift—the three things—are all empty, this is called giving; when one does not see keeping or breaking, this is called the precept."[^18] "Not seeing keeping or breaking" is the emptiness of the three wheels of the precept, and what it accomplishes is precisely the *precept* itself, not no-precept. Not one commentary of the old masters reads the emptiness of the three wheels as the abolition of the precept—and this is the traditional warrant for this paper's anti-antinomian lifeline.

---

## VI. Conclusion: The Completeness of Prajñā's Sign-Breaking, and the Beginning of the Precept as Basis for Concentration

### 6.1 Essentials

The three wheels of the precept—the agent who keeps (transgresses), the precept kept (the offence committed), the being protected (affected)—are three things unobtainable, and this is stated outright in both translation strata of the prajñā corpus and the *Dà zhìdù lùn*, not a structure added from the gate of giving by later hands. What is emptied is only the grasping at these three marks: grasping at the "I" that keeps, at the beings protected, at the precept and its fruit. And sign-grasping keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence (contempt at the sight of a breaker, fondness at the sight of a keeper); so sign-less keeping is not looser but more exacting, more binding—what it demands is a purity of the ground of the mind that does not raise even one thought of grasping. The three wheels emptied, the single axis "the nature of the offence is unobtainable" that the preceding paper opened is here completed into the full circle in which agent, object, and field are all empty together. On the side of "breaking the mark," the sign-less precept of prajñā is, with this paper, brought to completion.

### 6.2 Guidance for Practice

In practice, three-circle emptiness applied to the precept does not hand one a loosening but holds up a stricter mirror. What it counters is the precept-keeper's most hidden and least noticeable thought—taking the precept as a thing to preen over, as a stick to look down on others with, as a way to court reward. Whenever, at the sight of a breaker, contempt arises in the mind, or at the sight of a keeper, fondness arises, one should know that this is exactly Nāgārjuna's "cause that gives rise to offence" come to the fore, and dissolve it then and there with the sign-less contemplation: who is the one who keeps? what is the precept kept? who is the one affected? The three sought and not found, contempt and fondness, having nothing to rest on, subside of themselves. So kept, the act of keeping does not turn back into bondage. This runs along one line, too, with this series' treatment of "principial repentance" (contemplating that the nature of the offence is intrinsically empty)—the three-circle emptiness of the precept is precisely the extension into the gate of the precept of the contemplation that "uses emptiness to dispel the mark"; contemplating the emptiness of the offence-mark to repent, contemplating the emptiness of the precept's three wheels to keep, are one and the same prajñā.[^19]

### 6.3 Open Questions and the Handoff

Prajñā's work of breaking the mark on the precept is now complete; yet the precept does not stop at its own completeness. The precept, as precept, has never been only for the sake of "being kept purely"; it is to be turned over, further, into *the basis for concentration*—sign-less keeping makes the mind no longer moved by grasping at marks, and this "unmoved" is precisely the preliminary to entering concentration. A new question thereby surfaces: how does the sign-less precept turn from "the completeness of breaking the mark" into "the preliminary to entering concentration"? The three wheels of the precept being empty, how is this still-and-empty mind taken up and turned into meditative concentration?

This question already passes beyond the bounds of the sign-less precept of prajñā, and waits for the opening of the next part—the next paper will take up the four pure and clear instructions of the *Śūraṅgama Sūtra* and reopen the matter from the face of "the precept as basis for concentration," carrying from there toward the volume on concentration (SAMĀDHI). This paper marks only the direction—"the precept as basis for concentration, the preliminary to samādhi"—and does not preview the content of the paper to come. The completeness of prajñā's breaking of the mark is brought to its close here; the beginning of the precept-as-basis-for-concentration opens there—the close of one volume is just the opening of the next.

---

## Footnotes

[^1]: The closing forward-pointer of the preceding paper, taken up here verbatim. See the conclusion of the second paper of this series' sign-less precept of prajñā (SILA-P22, *Vimalakīrti's Deconstructive Moves on Conventional Sīla*).

[^2]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, "First Assembly," trans. Xuanzang, T05n0220a, fasc. 75, p0425a11–a14. The question is set just above in the same fascicle (p0425a10), where Śāriputra asks "what is the supramundane perfection of pure morality?" Collated against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka 2024.

[^3]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, "First Assembly," the three-wheel clause of the perfection of giving, T05n0220a, fasc. 48, p0271a. Giving and the precept stand side by side, issuing from the same Xuanzang stratum.

[^4]: *Larger Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, trans. Kumārajīva, T08n0223, fasc. 10, p0293a.

[^5]: *Dà zhìdù lùn*, the programmatic line of the chapter on the *śīla-pāramitā*, attrib. Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva, T25n1509, fasc. 13, p0153b08. The chapter recalls the same line at its close (fasc. 14, p0164a26–a27: "for this reason it is said, 'because offence and non-offence are unobtainable, one should fulfil the perfection of morality'"), binding head to tail.

[^6]: *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0163c05–c09. "As was said above of giving … so it is here as well" is Nāgārjuna's own bridging statement of the giving-to-precept transposition.

[^7]: *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 81, p0631c05. "The three things are unobtainable" is in origin the giving-gate idiom; here the line lays it directly upon the precept.

[^8]: *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*, "Sixth Assembly," "Chapter on the Nature of Dharmas," trans. Xuanzang, T07n0220e, fasc. 569, p0938b11.

[^9]: Textual correction: the gate-of-giving papers of this series once mis-cited the fascicle in which "upholding pure precepts yet parting from the mark of the precept" occurs; the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra* runs only to fascicle 600, so the mis-cited fascicle cannot stand. The correct locus is the "Sixth Assembly," "Chapter on the Nature of Dharmas," fascicle 569, p0938b11. Further: "the mark of the precept is unobtainable" is not a continuous string in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra*; the sense of sign-lessness is carried by the phrase "parting from the mark of the precept," and must not be adduced as a word-for-word scriptural citation.

[^10]: *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0164a23–a25.

[^11]: Barbra R. Clayton, *Moral Theory in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits of Virtue* (London: Routledge, 2006; paperback 2011).

[^12]: Amber D. Carpenter, *Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics* (Acumen/Routledge, 2014), the chapter "Irresponsible Selves, Responsible Non-Selves."

[^13]: Stephen E. Harris, *Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being* (London: Bloomsbury, 2023).

[^14]: *Dà zhìdù lùn*, T25n1509, fasc. 14, p0163c01–c03.

[^15]: The line "the Buddha has neither keeping nor breaking; the mind-nature is intrinsically empty" is from the *Blood-Stream Sermon* (*Xuemai lun* 血脈論, traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma), collected in the *Shaoshi liumen* 《少室六門》 (T48n2009) — not from Huangbo's *Essentials of the Transmission of Mind* (傳心法要, T48n2012A); the *Platform Sūtra* type "the mind-ground without wrong is the self-nature precept" is at T48n2008. Both, on the face of "the mind-nature is intrinsically empty," are akin to the three wheels, but their thrust verges on abolishing the mark; this paper offers only a glance at the interpretive-history question and attaches the guard "not falling into annihilation."

[^16]: Zhiyi, *Commentary on the Meaning of the Bodhisattva Precepts* (菩薩戒義疏), T40n1811, fasc. 1. He cites the *Dà zhìdù lùn*'s "offence and non-offence are unobtainable" as the very body of the perfection of morality, while setting up besides "a non-expressive mind able to keep the precept" as the true precept—the sense that emptiness does not destroy the precept-substance (continuing this series' treatment of precept-substance).

[^17]: Chengguan, *Commentary on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra* (華嚴經疏), T35n1735, fasc. 19, p0642b08–. Chengguan comes to know, by searching through the three times, that the three things are unobtainable, and still names it "the mark of pure conduct." The *Subcommentary Expounding the Avataṃsaka* (華嚴經演義鈔, T36n1736, fasc. 22) names this "emptiness of the three wheels" as "the wisdom of marklessness," adducing the three wheels of giving for comparison.

[^18]: Zhiyi, *Textual Commentary on the Lotus Sūtra* (法華文句), T34n1718, p0115b20.

[^19]: "Principial repentance" (contemplating that the nature of the offence is intrinsically empty) and this paper's three-circle emptiness of the precept both belong to the extension, into the gate of the precept, of prajñā's contemplation of "using emptiness to dispel the mark," continuing the line of Vimalakīrti's principial repentance from the preceding paper. See the relevant discussion in this series.

---

## Series Cross-References

- **Continuing from (within Part VII) — SĪLA P22 *Vimalakīrti's Deconstructive Moves on Conventional Sīla*** — gathering the single "the nature of the offence is unobtainable" axis P22 opened into the full circle of agent, precept, and being; P23 opens by taking up, verbatim, P22's closing forward-pointer.
- **Foundation within the volume — SĪLA P01 *What Sīla Actually Means*** — the diagnosis of the "checklist of prohibitions" reading of the precept (the three doors); P23 completes the Mahāyāna sign-less close on the prajñā side.
- **Method — SĪLA P18 *Precept-Substance and Manas*** — the own-it voicing discipline; P23 separates "the three-wheel *structure*" (scriptural, stated directly) from "extending the term 三輪體空 onto śīla and combining both axes" (this paper's own move).
- **Mirror-confirmation — SĪLA P21 *The Diamond Sūtra and Sign-less Sīla*** — the thesis that sign-less keeping binds more tightly than sign-grasping keeping; P23 supplies its most direct source-warrant in Nāgārjuna's "such precept-keeping is itself a cause that gives rise to offence," without re-proving it.
- **Structural source (carry-by-reference) — DĀNA *From Three-Wheels-Existent to Three-Wheels-Emptied*** — the doctrinal genealogy of three-wheel emptiness (the prajñā "unobtainable" pattern → Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka systematization → the Yogācāra positive formulation) is given there; P23 only transposes the structure to śīla and does not restate the genealogy.
- **Looking ahead — *The Four Pure Precepts in the Śūraṅgama*** — once the three wheels are empty, how the "unmoved" mind that is no longer stirred by grasping at marks becomes the prerequisite for entering concentration; P23 stops at the direction "the precept as basis for concentration," which the next part opens and carries toward the SAMĀDHI volume.

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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 23 · Part VII #3 · May 2026*