Transition Two · From the Six Perfections to the Four Embraces

Part Two is walked. Take stock in the corridor.

Part Two gave three things. First, the six perfections are the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery—not six unrelated good deeds, but the two provisions come to hand. Second, prajñā gives these six hands a pair of eyes: apart from prajñā the five are blind, mere goods of this shore; with prajñā guiding, they "have eyes" and cross to the far shore. Third, above the six the set opens to ten—and the added skillful means, vow, power, and knowledge are not four new subjects but the turning-back use of subsequent wisdom, won after the root wisdom of entering the grounds, completing the six and disclosing ground by ground, one leading at a time—all of which is still the causal stage: even of an eighth-ground bodhisattva the Buddhas say, "you have not yet attained."

In this part, one face was only touched, not opened—and it is left for the next.

That face is the six perfections' "hand reaching toward others." Part One said the bodhisattva's mastery faces others from the start; Part Two said this facing comes into the shape of the six—giving benefits beings, morality does not harm them, patience bears their abuse, vigour grows their good. But these still mostly say, "in practicing the six this way, I benefit beings besides"—beings are the direction my practice faces. The canon presses a more pointed question: turn the lens fully around, and look only at "how one being is gathered in and led onto the path"—in what shape, then, does the bodhisattva's mastery appear?

The six do not answer this pointedly enough. Giving, morality, and the rest are the bodhisattva's own practice, with benefit-to-others as the direction they face; but "gathering beings in" is a craft of its own—how do you make a person who would not come near you willing to draw close, willing to hear you, to trust what you do, to walk alongside you? For this craft the canon sets up another set, called the four embraces: giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and shared work. The four are not a matter apart from the six; they are that "hand reaching toward others" gathered into a fist—the mastery told again, purely along the single direction of drawing beings in.

Carry this question in: when the lens turns from "how I practice" to "how I gather others in," what four hands does the bodhisattva's mastery come to?