Mooring at Neither Bank
6.1 Mooring at Neither Bank
The corridor asked: a person who will not stop even at nirvāṇa—where, in the end, does his mastery rest? This chapter answers.
To answer, one thing must be known first: nirvāṇa is not of one kind.
There are four nirvāṇas; he wants the fourth
Hearing "nirvāṇa," we usually take it for one thing—the terminus of leaving birth-and-death, suffering spent, quiescence reached. But the Cheng weishi lun divides nirvāṇa into four:
Nirvāṇa is of four kinds: first, the intrinsically pure nirvāṇa by nature …; second, the nirvāṇa with remainder, the suchness freed of the afflictive obstruction …; third, the nirvāṇa without remainder, the suchness freed of the suffering of birth-and-death: the afflictions exhausted, the remaining basis also extinguished, all suffering forever quieted—this is called nirvāṇa. Fourth, the nirvāṇa of no fixed abode, the suchness freed of the cognitive obstruction, ever assisted by great compassion and wisdom, whereby it abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of future time, functioning yet ever quiescent—this is called nirvāṇa.
Of the four, the first three—the intrinsically pure, the with-remainder, the without-remainder—mostly speak of one road: "coming out from the suffering of birth-and-death." The third especially, the "without-remainder"—"the afflictions exhausted, the remaining basis also extinguished, all suffering forever quieted"—all suffering forever stilled, birth-and-death never again entered: this is just the final rest the arhat's mastery takes (it is what the previous volume, The Arhat's Mastery, was about).
But the fourth, the "nirvāṇa of no fixed abode," is another road. It is "freed of the cognitive obstruction" (cutting not the afflictions that summon birth-and-death, but the subtle nescience that veils the buddha's knowing and keeps great compassion and wisdom from arising); its shape is "ever assisted by great compassion and wisdom, whereby it abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of future time, functioning yet ever quiescent"—compassion and wisdom in twofold flow, so that he "abides in neither birth-and-death nor nirvāṇa" (stopping at neither), benefiting beings to the end of future time, "functioning yet ever quiescent" (raising the great function of altruism while the substance stays ever still). This fourth nirvāṇa is the place the bodhisattva's mastery finally rests—a nirvāṇa that "stops at neither."
A comparison makes it plain. The four nirvāṇas are like four kinds of "freedom." The first is "the freedom that was clean to begin with" (the buddha-nature all beings have, as the gold in the ore is pure from the start). The second and third are "the freedom of being delivered out of suffering" (the illness cured, the debt cleared, escaped from suffering—the weight on "out from"). And the fourth is "the freedom of being bound by neither end"—bound neither by birth-and-death nor by the quiescence of nirvāṇa, able to come and go between the two to rescue beings. The first three are all "freedom from something"; the fourth alone is "free even to stay—and not be bound by the staying." What the bodhisattva wants is the fourth.
Mooring at neither bank: the boatman's freedom
So this "stopping at neither"—how does it stop at neither? The Cheng weishi lun points to the mechanism:
[The cognitive obstruction] veils the dharma-emptiness suchness, preventing the arising of great compassion and wisdom … so when it is cut, the principle of dharma-emptiness is disclosed; this principle is just the nirvāṇa of no abode, for it causes non-abiding in both extremes.
Once the cognitive obstruction is cut, the principle of dharma-emptiness is disclosed, and great compassion and wisdom can arise; and once they arise, they naturally "cause non-abiding in both extremes"—stopping at neither birth-and-death nor nirvāṇa. How does the twofold flow work? In the standard gloss: by compassion, he does not abide in nirvāṇa—great compassion being too heavy for him to forsake beings and take that quiescence alone (to take the cessation and enter the without-remainder would be to drop beings), so he does not stop in nirvāṇa; by wisdom, he does not abide in birth-and-death—wisdom seeing that birth-and-death is empty from the first, so he is neither bound nor stained by it (in birth-and-death yet uncaught by it), and so does not stop in the stain of birth-and-death either. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha calls this "the turning of the basis," its mark being "forsaking defilement and not-forsaking birth-and-death"—on one hand forsaking the stain of affliction (so unbound by birth-and-death), on the other not forsaking birth-and-death (so not entering nirvāṇa's cessation, still in birth-and-death delivering beings); it names this the bodhisattva's own "vast turning," which is "for forsaking-and-not-forsaking" (both forsaking the stain and not forsaking birth-and-death).
The first chapter left the shadow of a ferryman who would not come ashore; here it can be told whole. A person who only seeks his own crossing reaches the far shore and leaves the boat to land (this is like taking nirvāṇa, entering the without-remainder—crossed, and back in the water no more). A person trapped by the flood, unable to cross at all, goes under at the near shore (this is like the ordinary being, bound by birth-and-death). The bodhisattva is like a boatman who, already able to cross (good in the water, unbound by it), willingly stays in the boat, plying back and forth between the near shore and the far to carry others over. He does not land on the far shore and leave the boat (he does not abide in nirvāṇa), because compassion will not let him drop those still waiting at the bank; he is long on the water and does not drown (he does not abide in birth-and-death), because he is good in the water and it cannot take him under (wisdom). Ask him where he "rests": not on this shore (birth-and-death), not on that shore (nirvāṇa)—he "rests" in the very act of plying back and forth between the banks to carry others. This "mooring at neither bank" runs on just that twofold flow—"good in the water (wisdom) and unwilling to forsake the waiting (compassion)." The bodhisattva's mastery, in its last resting-place, is this boatman's "no abode."
He plainly can go ashore, and chooses not to
So this boatman—can he really go ashore, or is it rather that he cannot, and only stays in the water by default? This question matters most of all. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra records a deeply moving scene. A bodhisattva cultivates as far as the seventh abode, sees all dharmas empty without and no-self within, and is now able to take the realization—"contemplating emptiness, about to extinguish himself"—when, at the very moment he would take his own cessation, the buddhas of the ten directions together stretch out their hands and stroke his head:
…because his original vow is firm, because great compassion has entered deep, because he clearly knows the true character of dharmas … "Do not give rise to regret! Recall your original vow! … beings have not yet awakened; you must teach beings with this dharma of emptiness."
The buddhas say: do not give rise to regret! Think of the vow you first made! Though you have realized this emptiness, beings have not yet awakened—you must take this dharma of emptiness and teach beings with it. And what lets the bodhisattva not take the cessation that was his to take is three things: "his original vow is firm," "great compassion has entered deep," "he clearly knows the true character of dharmas."
See the weight of this scene. The bodhisattva is "contemplating emptiness, about to extinguish himself"—he truly can take the realization (it is not that he cannot reach the shore; he is already at the bank, a step away from stepping up). His "not taking" is "able to go up, and not going up," not "unable to go up." This is the very root of all those earlier "nots": Part One's "long due for nirvāṇa, yet not taking the realization," Part Three's "not abiding in his own realization, returning to deliver," Part Four's eighth-ground "roused by the buddhas, not resting in the quiescence." Their ultimate ground is all here: the bodhisattva can take that final rest, and by his vow, his compassion, and his wisdom of the real, does not—plying instead, to the end of future time, between the banks, carrying those not yet across.
And just because this "not taking" is "able to take, and not taking," there is a most plain word one must say to oneself here: this freedom is only spoken of where one can first take. The seventh-abode bodhisattva truly contemplates emptiness, truly can extinguish himself; only then is his not-taking a freedom. A person who has not yet realized, who cannot even reach the shore, saying "I do not take nirvāṇa, I will stay and deliver beings"—that is not freedom but empty words, even a dressing-up of "cannot reach the shore" as "I choose not to go ashore." Able to take, and not taking—that is freedom; unable to take, and saying one does not take—that is mere talk. This measure, one walking the bodhisattva road must keep plainly with oneself.
A measure of plainness: the causal-stage orientation, not yet the buddha's fullness
One last measure of plainness. Of this "nirvāṇa of no fixed abode" the Cheng weishi lun says something it weights heavily:
All beings have the first; the two-vehicle adepts may have the first three; only our World-Honored One may be said to have all four.
Of the four nirvāṇas, all beings already have the first; the two-vehicle adepts may have the first three; but all four, full and complete, "only our World-Honored One"—only the buddha. That is: the perfected, fruit-stage nirvāṇa of no fixed abode belongs only to the buddha. Then has the book, calling the nirvāṇa of no abode the core of the bodhisattva's mastery all along, set the buddha's fruit on the bodhisattva's head?
It has not. The book takes the nirvāṇa of no abode for the core of the bodhisattva's mastery in its causal-stage orientation and turning-of-the-basis, not in its fruit-stage fullness. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha says outright, "the bodhisattvas' extinction of defilement just is the nirvāṇa of no fixed abode"—the bodhisattva's turning-of-the-basis (from the grounds up) is already the mark of the nirvāṇa of no abode (the vast turning); and the Yogācāra also says the bodhisattva, in the causal stage, amasses with the six perfections the "provisions" of this nirvāṇa. So this core of the bodhisattva's mastery is the no-abode mark toward which, and as which, he turns from the causal stage on; while its fullness at buddhahood (only-the-buddha-has-four) belongs to the tathāgata part to come, and to the seam the author must weigh in person. This part establishes only "the nirvāṇa of no abode as the causal-stage orientation of the bodhisattva's mastery"; it does not judge the causal-stage no-abode "lesser than" the fruit-stage, nor join up how the bodhisattva's causal no-abode and the tathāgata's fruit-stage no-abode meet—that line is left for the place that should touch it.
Onward
A sentence: the place the bodhisattva's mastery finally rests is the "mooring at neither bank" of the nirvāṇa of no fixed abode—disclosed by cutting the cognitive obstruction, the twofold flow of compassion and wisdom, stopping at neither birth-and-death nor nirvāṇa, ferrying beings to the end of future time. It is the ultimate core of the earlier "nots" (not taking the realization, not abiding in one's own realization, not resting in the eighth ground's quiescence): the bodhisattva can take that final rest, and by vow and compassion refuses it.
And this "refusing the final rest" is just the deepest line between the bodhisattva's mastery and the arhat's. The arhat's mastery is signed in "taking that final rest" (the without-remainder · all suffering forever quieted · no-more-becoming—what the previous volume was about); the bodhisattva's, in "refusing that final rest" (no abode · benefiting beings to the end of future time). One takes, one refuses—opposite in direction. So what, in the end, is the relation of these two masteries? One higher and one lower, or something else? The last chapter brings round the sentence the book set down on its first page.