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Cūḷasīlavaṇṇanā

Query: When formations are subject to constant cessation from moment to moment, who kills and who is killed? If it is said that the continuum of consciousness and its concomitants kills and is killed, this answer has to be rejected. For such a continuum is immaterial, and because it is immaterial it is incapable of inflicting any harm by cutting, breaking, etc., nor can it he harmed itself. If it is said that “killing” and “being killed” apply to the material continuum, this alternative too must he rejected. For the material continuum is devoid of consciousness, like a block of wood, and so the destruction of life by cutting, etc., can no more apply to the body than to a lifeless corpse. Again, the means of destroying life, such as striking a blow, etc., must apply to formations either in the past, the future, or the present. But it is impossible that the means could apply to past or future formations, since those do not exist (at the time the blow is struck). In the case of present formations, any application of the means would he useless. For the present formations, due to their momentary nature, are subject to complete cessation anyway, and hence are already heading towards their own destruction by themselves. Since, therefore, their destruction occurs without any extraneous cause (but follows from their nature), death would not be caused by the striking of blows or by other means. Because the formations are devoid of personal initiative (nirīhaka), to whom do the means of killing belong? And who should be bound by the kamma of destroying life if, due to momentariness, the intention of killing breaks up at the very same time it arises, and does not last up to the time of the act's completion?
Reply: The "killer" is the assemblage of formations conventionally called a "being.” containing the aforementioned volition of killing. That which “is killed” by him is the aggregation of material and immaterial dhammas that would have been capable of arising (in continued succession) if the aforementioned means of killing had not been applied, but which now continues as a bare procession (of material dhammas) conventionally termed “dead,” deprived of vital warmth, consciousness, and the life-faculty due to the application of the means of killing by the killer. Or else (that which “is killed” may be defined as) the continuum of consciousness and its concomitants alone.
Although the mental continuum does not itself form the actual object of the means of killing (since the victim’s body is the object), still the notion of life-destruction remains valid (even with this definition). For, in the five-constituent existence,1 the mental continuum occurs in dependence upon the material continuum; so when an enemy applies the means of cutting off the life-faculty to the material continuum in such a way that the successive arising of the vital material slates linked up with and supporting the correlative mental continuum is impaired, then the disruption (of the mental continuum) takes place (and the being is said to be killed). Again, the destruction of life is not without a specific cause, nor is the application of the means of killing useless. Death is not without a specific cause: (1) because if the means of killing are applied to the present formations, (he aggregation of formations due to arise in immediate succession to them will not arise; (2) because in the present context it is not the “momentary death” of the momentary formations that is intended by the designation “death”; and (3) because the death of the life-continuity (which is meant here) does occur through specific causes, as explained above.'9 Therefore, death is not causeless. Nor are the means of destroying life void of agency (katturahita). Though formations lack personal initiative, nevertheless, the conventional designation of agency is applicable to causes that are effective through their contiguity and are fixed in their capacity to give results adequate to themselves, just as in the statements “the lamp illuminates” and “the moon brings in the night” (agency is ascribed to the lamp and to the moon). The act of destroying life must be recognized to pertain not only to the aggregation of consciousness and mental concomitants existing simultaneously with the intention of killing, but must also be admitted to apply to the (entire sequence of states) that endures by way of (the unity and individuality of) the continuum. Just as the accomplishment of activity is seen in the case of lamps, etc., which likewise exist by way of continuity, so too there certainly does exist one who is bound by the kamma of destroying life.
The same method of investigation may, with due alterations, be applied in the ease of taking what is not given, etc., as well.