Now, in this case outsiders [=non-Buddhists], having grasped upon the view of a self, say: “If it is accepted that a living being transmigrates to another world, then a self is proven.”
One counters this: There is no self. [III.18a1]
What kind of self? That kind of internally functioning person does not exist, who is imagined to abandon these aggregates and appropriate others. Thus the Lord has said:1 there is action and there is fruit, but no agent is perceived who casts off these aggregates and appropriates other aggregates, because this is counter to the stipulated meaning [saṃketa] of dharma. In this situation, the stipulated meaning of dharma is just what is dependently originated—elaborated as “when this exists, that arises.”
But then what kind of self is not rejected?
But that which is only aggregates. [III.18a2] But if that which is only aggregates is figuratively called “self,” it is not rejected. It is thus that the aggregates-alone transmigrates to another world. But it is not that a complete [prāpta] aggregates-alone transmigrates there. Conditioned by defilements and actions, it proceeds to the womb as the intermediate-state continuum, like a light. (18) [III.18b–d] For the aggregates are momentary; they are not able to transmigrate. But brought into being by defilements and actions, defilements alone approach the mother’s womb as a continuum known as the “intermediate state.” In this way, it is not a fault to say of a light, though momentary, that it moves to another place as a continuum. Therefore it is accepted that although the self does not exist,2 the continuum of aggregates, conditioned by defilements and actions, enters the mother’s womb.
