Transition One · From Vow and Provision, to the Six Perfections

Part One is walked. Before entering Part Two, stand a moment in the corridor and take stock of what is in hand.

Part One gave two things. One: the bodhisattva's mastery arises from a single thought of aspiration—signed in the vow, not the fruit. It is no sequel to the arhat's fruit, no "go out first, then turn back"; once the vow arises, this mastery has its ground, and is thenceforth a road parallel to the śrāvaka's, not a farther stretch of one road. The other: this mastery measures by amassing, not by severing. It does not ask "how many fetters cut," but "how much amassed, and for whom—and amassed with no limit of 'enough'"; what is amassed is the two provisions of merit and wisdom, and the amount amassed is "boundless"—not a very large number, but a breadth that sets no terminus, though it is still walked ground by ground. A "not taking" and a "boundless" are one face: because the aim is not "to go out," the measure is not "severance," but "amassing without a limit set."

Said this far, a gap shows—visible right here in the corridor.

"Amassing the two provisions": these four words are still empty. Merit, wisdom—two names; but names cannot be amassed. What can be amassed are deeds, things done and done again. Say you would "amass merit and wisdom," and the next voice asks: then what do you do, day by day? With what do you amass? The question is wholly concrete, and it is exactly what Part Two answers.

The shape the canon gives the two provisions to take hold of is called the six perfections—giving, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom. Why just these six? Because they fall along the division of "amassing merit and wisdom both": giving, discipline, patience, energy, and meditation, the first five, amass chiefly on the side of merit—merit made with the hands, in dealings with others, in the settling of the mind; wisdom, the last, amasses on the side of insight—the single eye that sees the true character of things. The first five are like five avenues for amassing merit, wisdom like the one light for amassing insight; the six together are what "two feet of merit and wisdom" looks like once it has hands and an eye. So Part Two is not a fresh topic; it fills that still-empty word "amass" with six concrete deeds. And beyond the six, the canon opens four more—skillful means, vow, power, and knowledge—making "ten perfections," the four that unfold once the six have ripened; Part Two walks to those as well.

But the term "six perfections" is the easiest of all to read shallow. Read shallow, it becomes "six things worth doing"—a list exhorting people to be good; or "an upgraded edition of worldly good conduct"—giving is donating a little more, patience is keeping a slightly better temper. Read so, the six perfections lose their thread to "the bodhisattva's mastery" and become a roster of virtues anyone could draw up. Part Two reconnects the thread: the six perfections are not six isolated good deeds but six hands the one mastery puts out; and in each hand is held the two things Part One established—the non-abiding of "not taking realization," the boundlessness of "no limit set." The same giving: the worldly heart has an "enough, this far, and I stop"; the bodhisattva's giving keeps no "enough" for itself, nor takes the realization within reach—and this "no limit for self, no realization for self" is what makes a good deed into a "perfection," not just a good thing. The six perfections and six good deeds are alike in shape; the ruler in the bone of them is Part One's ruler.

Carry this one question in: how are the six perfections the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery, and not just six good things?