Turned, Not Acquired

3.1 Turned, Not Acquired

Part Two left four words: turning consciousness into wisdom. The three bodies are disclosed by it—but it itself, what is it?

Scripture's answer is four wisdoms: the great-mirror wisdom, the equality wisdom, the observation wisdom, the accomplishing wisdom. And at the words "a Buddha gains four wisdoms," the readiest thought is still the old one: to take these four for four lofty spiritual cognitions a Buddha acquires after severing the defilements—as though severance were the sweeping-clean of a room, and the four wisdoms four treasure-vessels carried in once it is swept. This chapter says: no. The four wisdoms are turned out of those very eight consciousnesses. Turned, not acquired.

First, one thing plainly: the whole ordering of these four wisdoms is not the talk of some assembly in a scripture, but a learning the Consciousness-Only masters set out and cross-confirmed. What the next passages cite is "treatise," not "sūtra"—I shall mark it as I go.

First, What These Four Wisdoms Are

The Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only defines the four wisdoms of the buddha-ground one by one. This is the treatise's framing:

First, the mental class associated with the great-mirror wisdom… like a great round mirror, manifesting all images. Second, the mental class associated with the equality wisdom: this class regards all dharmas, self and other and all beings, as utterly equal… Third, the mental class associated with the observation wisdom… in the great assembly it can manifest measureless distinctions of function, all in mastery, raining down the great dharma-rain, severing every doubt… Fourth, the mental class associated with the accomplishing wisdom: this class, for the welfare of all beings, manifests throughout the ten directions all manner of transformation in the three modes of action, accomplishing the works its original vow would do.

The four wisdoms, said once in plain words.

The great-mirror wisdom, "like a great round mirror, manifesting all images"—like a vast round mirror in which all images stand clearly present, free of all discrimination, neither forgetting nor confounding. This is the wisdom by which the Buddha beholds all things; and it is the one image to hold fast in this chapter: the mirror.

The equality wisdom, "regarding all dharmas, self and other and all beings, as utterly equal"—beholding self and other and all as equal, ever joined with great loving-kindness and compassion. The Buddhabhūmi-śāstra, glossing this wisdom, adds one weighty line: it "establishes the buddha-ground's non-abiding nirvāṇa"—it sets up that abiding of a Buddha which "abides neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa." Hold this line; at this book's last part, we return to it.

The observation wisdom, "well observing the particular and common marks of all dharmas, turning without hindrance"—seeing the individual mark and the shared mark of every dharma clear, with no obstruction; and so in the great assembly it teaches in mastery, "raining the great dharma-rain, severing every doubt." This is the wisdom by which the Buddha teaches and dissolves doubt.

The accomplishing wisdom, "manifesting throughout the ten directions all manner of transformation in the three modes of action," accomplishing what its original vow would do—this is the wisdom by which the Buddha conjures transformation-bodies throughout the ten directions and brings beings welfare.

The Buddhabhūmi-śāstra too defines these four wisdoms one by one, their names agreeing with the Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only, their definitions confirming each other. Take the four wisdoms together, add the "pure dharma-realm," and you have what the Consciousness-Only school calls the buddha-ground's "five dharmas"—the very five of the last part's "five dharmas comprising the three bodies."

These Four Wisdoms Are "Turned" Out of the Eight Consciousnesses

What the four wisdoms are, we have seen. Now their provenance—this is the chapter's heart. The Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only fixes it in one passage:

These are attained by turning, in order, the classes associated with the defiled eighth, seventh, sixth, and first-five consciousnesses. Though wisdom is not consciousness, it turns in dependence on consciousness; consciousness being the principal, it is said to be attained by turning consciousness. Again, at the defiled stage, wisdom is weak and consciousness strong; at the untainted stage, wisdom is strong and consciousness weak. To urge beings to rely on wisdom and let go of consciousness, it is said that the eight consciousnesses are turned and these four wisdoms attained.

"Attained by turning, in order, the classes associated with the defiled eighth, seventh, sixth, and first-five consciousnesses"—this fixes each wisdom's provenance one by one: the eighth consciousness turns into the great-mirror wisdom, the seventh into the equality wisdom, the sixth into the observation wisdom, the first five into the accomplishing wisdom. The four wisdoms are not carried in from elsewhere; they are turned out of these eight consciousnesses.

The two lines that follow cut off the thought of "carrying in another wisdom."

The first: "though wisdom is not consciousness, it turns in dependence on consciousness." Wisdom, to be sure, is not consciousness (not one and the same thing); yet its attaining is "in dependence on consciousness"—turned out of the eight consciousnesses, not conjured from nowhere in some other place once consciousness has ceased. The second: "at the defiled stage, wisdom is weak and consciousness strong; at the untainted stage, wisdom is strong and consciousness weak." Before buddhahood, consciousness strong, wisdom weak; at buddhahood, wisdom strong, consciousness weak. See it clearly: this is not "consciousness wholly ceased, wisdom wholly newborn," but one and the same mind, turned from "the defiled portion strong" to "the pure portion strong." So the "turning" of "turning consciousness into wisdom" is the turning of one mind's defiled and pure, not the scrapping of consciousness and setting up of a wisdom apart.

An image (this is an image, not a line of scripture): like polishing a mirror filmed with dust. Grind the dust off the mirror (this is "severance"), and the mirror's bright shining appears of itself (this is "wisdom"). That shining is not a new mirror carried in once the dust is gone; it is the same mirror, parted from dust, showing of itself its own function. The image "like a great round mirror, manifesting all images" points to just this: the mirror's brightness is not outside the mirror—it is in the dust's removal.

Turned, Not Acquired: One and the Same Line All Down the Attainment Axis

Here this chapter can be joined back to the whole Attainment axis.

"The four wisdoms are turned, not separately acquired"—this line is no new thing sprung up in this chapter; it is the one line this whole axis has spoken from first to last. The arhat volume set it down: the freedom of the exhaustion of the outflows is the aspect of that exhaustion, not a spiritual power gained beyond it. Part One: the ten epithets are a signature, not virtues earned beyond severance. Part Two: the three bodies are one freedom's showing, not three Buddhas set up apart. This chapter: the four wisdoms are turned out of the eight consciousnesses, not spiritual cognitions acquired beyond severance. Five sentences, and they are one: the buddha-fruit's all—name, body, wisdom—is an aspect "turned, severed, manifested," not a thing "acquired from outside." A Buddha does not, after severing the defilements, go off elsewhere to "acquire" three lots of treasure—name, body, wisdom; in the very moment of severing-exhausted and turning-pure, the freedom's name (the readable aspect), body (the visible aspect), and wisdom (the cognitive aspect) all show forth at once.

Here a word of exactness for the reader: "turning consciousness into wisdom" is an expedient way of speaking. The treatise itself says it plainly—"though wisdom is not consciousness, it turns in dependence on consciousness; consciousness being the principal, it is said to be attained by turning consciousness"; "to urge beings to rely on wisdom and let go of consciousness, it is said that the eight consciousnesses are turned." The phrases "turning consciousness into wisdom," "attaining wisdom by turning consciousness," are an expedient framing, set up to urge people to "rely on wisdom and let go of consciousness." So it must not be fixed into the notion that there truly is "a wisdom that variously arises out of consciousness," nor fixed into "consciousness ceases, and then a wisdom arises apart." Wisdom is not consciousness, yet neither is it a wisdom truly existing apart from consciousness; the turning of defiled and pure is not some real thing there arising and ceasing. To fix "turning" into the variation-into-being of a real thing (a wisdom arising out of consciousness) is to fall back into another guise of "acquiring."

And one layer more, drawing back to the last part. These four wisdoms are precisely the three bodies' "cognitive engine": the great-mirror wisdom, turning the store-consciousness, bears the dharma-body; the equality and observation wisdoms bear the enjoyment-body; the accomplishing wisdom bears the transformation-body. So the last part's three bodies (what body is shown forth) and this part's four wisdoms (by what wisdom it is shown) are two faces of one freedom—the three bodies are "what is shown," the four wisdoms "by what wisdom shown." (To be marked: how the four wisdoms fit the three bodies, the Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only states in the voice of "one position holds," with other readings set alongside; this book takes this one to tell it, but it is one position in the treatise, not an iron verdict settled across the treatises.)

Onward

Drawn together: the four wisdoms are the four pure functions disclosed as one and the same mind turns the defiled into the pure—not spiritual cognitions acquired beyond severance. Name, body, wisdom—all down the Attainment axis it is one line: turned, severed, manifested, not acquired from outside.

For one who walks the road, this rights a thought: to suppose one must, beyond severing the defilements, go off to acquire the four wisdoms, acquire spiritual powers. "Turning consciousness into wisdom" is the medicine: the four wisdoms are not vessels carried in beyond severance, but the pure functions one and the same mind shows of itself in turning the defiled into the pure—as a mirror parted from dust shows its shining of itself, not a new mirror carried in once the dust is gone. So what one who walks should do is not "to cultivate the four wisdoms apart from severing the defilements," but "to turn the defiled into the pure" (to sever the two hindrances to exhaustion, to turn those eight consciousnesses)—the transformation of the basis brought to fullness, and the four wisdoms appear of themselves, as the dust gone and the mirror bright, with no brightness to be sought outside the mirror. Above all, keep the measure of that expedient word: do not fix "wisdom" into a thing that can be cultivated out of consciousness and then chased after outside; once one chases after "a wisdom to be acquired," it becomes a fresh bondage. Only do to the full the work of turning the defiled into the pure, and the pure wisdom will show of itself.

Only—the four wisdoms have their substance set and their provenance told, but once these four wisdoms set to work, what function do they show forth? Those fruition-virtues by which the Buddha, facing every object, every being, every challenge, knows all and fears nothing—the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen distinctive dharmas—are precisely the function of these four wisdoms. The next part looks to those functions.