Knowing As It Is, the Lion's Roar

4.1 Knowing As It Is, the Lion's Roar

The four wisdoms set to work, and the first cluster of function they show forth is the ten powers and the four fearlessnesses. At the words "a Buddha has ten powers," the readiest thought is still the old one: to take these for ten lofty magical forces a Buddha cultivates after severing the defilements and turning into wisdom—as though the four wisdoms were the inner realization, and the ten powers ten outer instruments carried in besides. This chapter says: no. The ten powers are "the power of knowing," the four fearlessnesses "the roar of wisdom-and-severance complete"—both the already-established freedom turned toward beings, not superpowers acquired beyond severance.

The Ten Powers: Each Power a "Knowing"

First the ten powers. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra lists them one by one. Listen, above all, to how each one ends:

A Buddha has ten powers. Knowing as it is what is and is not the case—the first power. Knowing the deeds and experiences of beings past, future, and present, knowing where the deed is wrought, its conditions, its fruit—the second power. Knowing as it is the meditations, liberations, concentrations, and their defiled and pure marks—the third power. Knowing as it is the marks, high and low, of beings' faculties—the fourth power. Knowing the various inclinations of beings—the fifth power. Knowing the world's various and numberless dispositions—the sixth power. Knowing where all paths lead—the seventh power. Knowing the manifold past lives—their shared marks and shared conditions, through one life, two lives, up to hundreds of thousands of aeons… such a name, food, joy and suffering, length of life; dying there and born here, dying here and born back here again… the eighth power. A Buddha's divine eye, pure, surpassing the eyes of gods and humans, sees beings in their dying and their being born, fair or foul, great or small, falling to evil destinies or rising to good, recompensed by such karmic causes… the ninth power. A Buddha's outflows being exhausted, the mind liberated without outflow, wisdom liberated without outflow, in the present he knows of himself "birth for me is ended, the holy life is established, there is no further becoming," knowing as it is—the tenth power.

Did you catch the refrain that keeps returning—"knowing as it is"? What is and is not the case, known as it is; karma-and-fruit, known as it is; the meditations, known as it is; beings' faculties keen or dull, known as it is; their various longings, known as it is; the world's various dispositions, known as it is; where all paths lead, known as it is; the past lives of measureless ages, known as it is; beings dying here and born there, recompensed by their deeds, known as it is; down to the self-realization that the outflows are ended, "birth for me is ended," known as it is. Ten items, and every one is "knowing as it is."

So the "power" of "ten powers" is not a magical force, but "the power of knowing." Why is a kind of "knowing" called a "power"? The word "power" here means "not to be broken, not to be bent": a Buddha's knowing-as-it-is of these ten classes of object can be overthrown by no one, hidden from by nothing, veiled by no realm—and this "unbreakability of the knowing" is called "power." So the ten powers are no ten sorceries; they are the ten stations in which that all-modes wisdom (the wisdom the four wisdoms make) knows, as it is, ten classes of object (principle and fact, karma-and-fruit, meditation, faculty, inclination, disposition, path, past lives, death-and-birth, the exhaustion of taints). Carrying the last part's image of the mirror: the dust ground off, the bright shining shines on all; the ten powers are that shining "shining on the ten classes of object and not to be veiled by them," not ten further lamps lit outside the mirror.

This same set of ten powers the Avataṃsaka too has listed—in its "Pure Conduct" chapter. There a god named Right-Mindfulness asks a bodhisattva named Dharmamati: how does one who has gone forth to train win pure conduct, and pass from the bodhisattva's station to the path of unsurpassed awakening? Dharmamati answers him: one in training should observe and cultivate these ten knowings, "the Tathāgata's ten powers":

the knowing of what is and is not the case; the knowing of karma-and-fruit past, future, and present; the knowing of the meditations, liberations, and concentrations; the knowing of the faculties superior and inferior; the knowing of the various understandings; the knowing of the various realms; the knowing of where all paths lead; the divine-eye knowing, unobstructed; the past-lives knowing, unobstructed; the knowing that forever severs the habit-energies.

The same order as the treatise, the names slightly different (the treatise "various inclinations, various dispositions," the scripture "various understandings, various realms"), the import one. But two places must be marked. First, the scripture names the eighth and ninth powers outright "the divine-eye knowing, unobstructed; the past-lives knowing, unobstructed"—the word "unobstructed" written straight into the names of the powers. The ten powers are "powers of knowing" precisely because their knowing is "unobstructed" (without obstruction); and "unobstructed" is just this book's keynote. The keynote, in the very names of the ten powers, shows itself. Second, the scripture names the last power "the knowing that forever severs the habit-energies"—a Buddha not only exhausts the outflows but forever severs the habit-energies; here is where a Buddha's exhaustion-power runs deeper than the two vehicles' exhaustion (this finer discrimination is left to the author; here it is only marked).

The Four Fearlessnesses: No Mark of Fear to Be Found—Hence the Lion's Roar

Now the four fearlessnesses. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra sets them up in one same form. The first, recorded as the pattern:

The Buddha makes the true declaration: "I am one of all-right-knowing. If any ascetic or brahmin, god, Māra, Brahmā, or any other, should declare as it is, 'This dharma he does not know'—down to this, I see not the slightest mark of fear. Therefore I gain ease, gain fearlessness, abide in the place of the holy lord, and like a bull-king, in the great assembly roar the lion's roar and turn the brahma-wheel…"

The four fearlessnesses, in the treatise's closing "brief statement," are plainest: "first, rightly knowing all dharmas; second, exhausting all taints and habits; third, declaring all that obstructs the path; fourth, declaring the path to the end of suffering." The treatise marks their division of labor too: "the first two fearlessnesses, for the completeness of one's own virtue; the latter two, for the complete benefiting of beings." The first two—rightly knowing all dharmas, exhausting all taints and habits—are the Buddha's own realized completeness (wisdom full, severance exhausted), self-benefit; the latter two—declaring what obstructs the path, declaring the path to the end of suffering—are the Buddha's decisive proclamation for beings, other-benefit.

The ground of fearlessness lies wholly in the first two. Precisely because the Buddha's wisdom is full (rightly knowing all dharmas) and His severance exhausted (exhausting all taints and habits), in all the heavens and among all humans there is not to be found one ascetic or brahmin, god, Māra, or Brahmā who could declare, as it is, "this dharma you do not in fact know," "this taint you have not in fact exhausted." Search the whole assembly, and not one who could challenge the Buddha is to be found—and so not one mark of fear is to be found either. This is that most crucial line: "down to this, I see not the slightest mark of fear." See it clearly: fearlessness is not the valor of "having fear within and forcing it down," but the necessity of "seeking a mark of fear and being unable, however one tries, to find one." Wisdom and severance being complete, there is from the start nothing to be feared, and so there is no fear. No mark of fear to be seen, and so "abiding in the place of the holy lord, like a bull-king, in the great assembly He roars the lion's roar and turns the brahma-wheel," while the assembly of ascetics, brahmins, gods, Māras, Brahmās "in truth cannot turn it."

So the lion's roar is no roar of display; it is the roar of "no one able to challenge." The treatise even parts power from fearlessness in passing, tellingly: "self-benefit is called power, benefiting others is fearlessness"; "unable to be undermined is called power, not to be challenged and not to retreat is fearlessness." Power is the unbreakability the wisdom gathers within; fearlessness is the aspect of that unbreakable wisdom turned outward, before the assembly, able to bear every challenge and not retreat. One is the knowing's unbreakability (power); the other, that knowing before the assembly, with none to challenge it (fearlessness).

Onward

Drawn together: the ten powers are wisdom's knowing-as-it-is (shining on the ten objects and not to be veiled by them), the four fearlessnesses the lion's roar of wisdom-and-severance complete (before the great assembly and not to be overthrown)—both the "function" of one and the same freedom, not superpowers acquired beyond severing the defilements and turning into wisdom. And this book's keynote, "unobstructed," has already shown itself in the names of the ten powers: the divine eye unobstructed, past lives unobstructed. Unobstructed in knowing within, and so unoverthrowable without.

The Avataṃsaka raises the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, together with the eighteen distinctive dharmas, and names them outright "the Tathāgata's masterful function." What, then, are those eighteen distinctive dharmas, those four analytical knowledges? Another batch of vessels carried in? The next chapter.