Illuminating the Intent

To state this, the text says:

Yet they exist in another way — unanalyzed and through everyday conventions of the world.

Likewise, we should recognize too all similar conventions that people designate on their bases as existing only on the level of unexamined everyday convention.

For this reason it is said [in the sutra] that the Buddha, for one, did not quarrel with the world.

The Presenting the Three Vows Sutra in the Heap of Jewels collection states, “It is the world that disputes with me;

I do not dispute with the world.”

Thus the Buddha states that he too accepts what are posited as existents through unimpaired conventions of the world.

Therefore one must not undermine the agreed-on conventions of the world.

Just as the vase is the whole and its fired clay and so on are its parts, and just as the vase is the quality-bearer and its dark hue and so on caused by flames are the qualities, the basis of attachment for a sentient being or person who is attached to an attractive object is the object of attachment, while excessive craving fixated on an attractive contaminated object is the attachment.

Similarly, the vase is the characterized thing, while “having a bulbous body with an open extended lip and long neck and so on” are its defining characteristics;

fire is that which burns, while fuel is that which is being burned, and so on.

Thus it is in dependence upon constituents that a “whole” is conceived, and it is in dependence upon a whole that “parts” are designated.

The same is true likewise of all the examples up to fire and fuel, all of which are designated by means of mutual dependence.

Although the referents for such terms do not exist when sought through the sevenfold analysis, one can posit their existence through everyday conventions of the world;

they are not amenable to ultimate analysis probing their true suchness.