Abstract
“Neither identical nor different” is a Buddhist concept demonstrating a certain “relationship.” In Abhidharma thought, it is used to explain the relationship between “self-nature” and “activity” of dharmas. According to the Sarvastivadins, the self-nature of a dharma exists permanently, but its activity exists only in the present.
Vasubandhu, in the Abhidharmakosabhasya, criticizes this position, saying that it is contradictory to claim that the self-nature of a dharma and its mode of existence (≈activity) are neither identical nor different. Vasubandhu thinks that a conditioned dharma's self-nature and its activity exist only in the present and are identical.
Originally, Vasubandhu, as a Sautrantika, had nihilistically understood the ultimate nirvana as the state of total extinction of body and mind. Later, he changed to the Vijñanavada position which maintains that tathata (asamskrta and anasrava) and dharmas of the phenomenal world (samskrta and sasrava) are neither identical nor different, for the differences between asamskrta and samskrta disappear by the transcendence of samskrta-dharmas from time and space.
Although Vasubandhu still does not allow that a conditioned dharma's self-nature and its activity are neither identical nor different, he admits that the relationship between the supramundane and mundane existences is neither identical nor different. By applying this concept, he discovered the connection between nirvana and samsara.
