No Ceiling

1.2 No Ceiling

The last chapter closed on a question: the bodhisattva does not measure his arrival by "how many fetters severed"—that is the ledger of one going out; he measures by something else, and measures it in a way exactly opposite to severance. This chapter looks at that ruler.

Severance is subtraction: cut one fetter, then another, until "not one remains"—the arrival is the zero. The bodhisattva's ruler does not run toward zero; it runs toward the boundless. It does not ask "how cleanly cut," but "how much amassed, and for whom—and amassed with, or without, a limit of 'enough.'"

A ledger with no "enough"

In the chapter on the Great Beings in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra there is a ready exchange. "Great being"—mahāsattva—is the name for a great bodhisattva, and at that assembly the Buddha had Pūrṇa expound where the "great" lies. Pūrṇa was foremost in expounding the Dharma, Śāriputra foremost in wisdom, both chief disciples; so Śāriputra asks Pūrṇa: śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas also walk the path, also give and keep precepts, also deliver others—why are they not called "greatly adorned," and the bodhisattva alone is? Pūrṇa answers:

Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, though they practice the six—giving and the rest—do so with measure and with limit, for the deliverance of their own person, and of such other beings as can be delivered; and so are not called greatly adorned. The bodhisattva, in what he delivers, does not discriminate, does not set the limit of "so many beings," in his giving and on to his wisdom.

Two phrases part two rulers. The two vehicles also practice the six; but they do so "with measure and with limit, for the deliverance of their own person"—the heart has set a quota for its own release, and once that is enough, it is enough; what strength is left over delivers whom it can, but that is not the ruler he lives by. The bodhisattva's giving and on to his wisdom is "without discrimination, without the set limit of so many beings"—he does not first draw a line: "for this many beings, amassing this much, will do." What matters is not whether the "enough" is a large number or a small one, but that he sets no "enough" at all.

This is how the bodhisattva's ruler is graduated. It measures not "how cleanly severed" but "how widely amassed, and amassed with no limit set"—and what is amassed is two things.

What is amassed: merit and wisdom

What is amassed is not "more severance," but two provisions: merit and wisdom. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha names them together, saying that a bodhisattva fit to enter deeply has, through long service to the Buddhas and the ripening of his roots of goodness, come to "well obtain the two provisions of merit and wisdom":

Because he has well matured and increased his roots of goodness through cultivation, he thereby well obtains the two provisions of merit and wisdom.

Why these two, and why neither will do alone? Because what the bodhisattva is bound for is not "the defilements exhausted, birth-and-death crossed"—that, the last chapter said, is the arhat's category; he is bound for the Buddha's all-knowledge, and buddhahood takes two feet, merit and wisdom both. The provision of wisdom is the insight born of prajñā, clearing that obstruction to the knowable; the provision of merit is the merit born of giving, discipline, patience, and the rest—maturing the Buddha's form and marks, the power to draw and ripen beings, the adorned land. Without wisdom, no Buddha's knowing comes to be; without merit, no Buddha's body and power to deliver come to be. The two amassed together, neither dispensable—this is what "two feet of merit and wisdom" means. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says the bodhisattva's very willingness to "long abide in birth-and-death," not to go out early, is for the sake of amassing just these two:

This person, through measureless eons, has long abided in birth-and-death, gathering merit and wisdom as provisions; and among the three vehicles, for the sake of proceeding to the Great Vehicle, he arouses the mind and practices the six perfections.

See this, and "accumulation" will not be misheard as "severing yet more cleanly than the arhat." The arhat measures "how much obstruction is gone," the bodhisattva "how much provision is laid in." One is like clearing a plot of every dangerous wall and clutter down to bare, unencumbered ground; the other like raising, on that ground, a hall that takes measureless materials and measureless time, gauged by how much material is laid in and how high the floors have risen. Demolition and construction run opposite ways; to read the bodhisattva's amassing of the two provisions as "severing more thoroughly" is to call raising a hall "demolishing more cleanly." (Demolition-and-construction is a comparison, not scripture; it serves only to set the direction of the two rulers straight.)

"Boundless" is not a very large number

Then this amassing—amassed to how much? The canon answers in a word: boundless. But "boundless" is most easily misheard as "a very large number"—and this must be cleared up.

When the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra defines the number "asaṃkhyeya," it says:

Among gods and humans, one skilled in reckoning—counting to the very utmost—can count no further: this is called one asaṃkhyeya.

An asaṃkhyeya is not a large number; it is the kind that "even a god skilled in reckoning, counting to the utmost, cannot count out"—it falls outside all reckoning. To amass the two provisions, the bodhisattva must in turn complete three such incalculable eons.

But hold one crucial thing in mind: boundless does not mean without stages. The same Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra divides these three incalculable eons into three depths, by how deeply the bodhisattva yet knows of "his own becoming a Buddha":

In the first incalculable eon, the mind does not yet know of itself whether it will become a Buddha or not; in the second, the mind can know "I shall surely become a Buddha," yet the mouth does not declare it; in the third, the mind knows clearly of itself that it will become a Buddha, and the mouth speaks out, without fear: "In a future age I shall become a Buddha."

In the first eon he cannot yet even settle whether he will become a Buddha; by the second he knows in his heart, but his mouth dares not say it; by the third the heart is wholly clear, and the mouth says plainly, "In a future age I shall become a Buddha." The treatise sets a story to it: Śākyamuni, in his causal ground at the close of the second incalculable eon, met the Buddha Dīpaṃkara, offered blue lotuses, spread his own hair over the mud for the Buddha to tread—and only then received the prophecy that fixed the name of his future buddhahood. You see: this boundless long road has sections, has progress, has one milestone after another. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, likewise, sorts the three incalculable eons by the kind of practitioner across the stages—"there are five kinds of person who complete the practice in three incalculable eons," from before the first ground on to the tenth, one stretch matched to one.

So "boundless" says not "much, without order," but "its limit cannot be reckoned"—walked in stages, yet never reaching an "enough." The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha puts the measure-word to its floor with a verse: "The bodhisattva grows in merit and wisdom; the two provisions, to a boundless limit"—the growth of merit and wisdom, "to a boundless limit," with no edge to the amount.

Why must this ruler be "boundless," and not "a very large finite number"? Because its root is the "not taking realization" of the last chapter. The moment a limit of "enough" is set, one falls back to the "measure and limit" of "for the deliverance of one's own person"—enough for me to get out, and stop. Only by setting no limit for oneself is the amassing truly boundless. The bodhisattva does not take the realization within reach; he means to deliver endless beings through endless birth-and-death; and so his amassing, too, loses any day of "enough." The "not taking" of the last chapter and the "boundless" of this one are two faces of one thing: because the aim is not "to get out," the measure is not "severance complete," but "amassing without a limit set."

And just so, this "no limit set" is nothing like the worldly "more is better." Hoarding is amassing more for oneself, to have and to hold—and that is the narrower "measure and limit," a heart with a clear "enough, and past that it is mine." The bodhisattva's boundlessness is "no quota set for self": what is measured is the breadth of "no limit set," not the figure of "much amassed." A person saving for his own retirement has a number that, once met, lets him stop; a person who doctors the sick his whole life, never asking "have I healed enough," does not—not because he cannot count, but because "to relieve the world" sets no "enough." The boundlessness of the bodhisattva's two provisions is the latter—and so "no limit set" is not "no measuring of one's strength, no order": he still walks ground by ground, eon by eon; it is only that this road has no floor where the roof goes on.

Onward

With this, the part's frame stands whole. The bodhisattva's mastery arises from the vow—signed in the vow, not the fruit (chapter one); it measures by amassing, not by severing—amassing the two provisions of merit and wisdom, amassed with no limit of "enough," yet walked in stages (this chapter). A "not taking" and a "boundless": two faces of the one mastery.

But "amassing the two provisions" still sounds empty. Merit, wisdom—how, exactly, are they amassed? There must be a shape to take hold of, deeds that can actually be done. The shape the canon gives them is called the six perfections—giving, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom. The next part watches this mastery take the shape of the six.