Part Five · The Marks, the Great Compassion, and the All-Kinds Wisdom
The first four parts read the name, the body, the wisdom, the function—this freedom's four headings, now complete. This part reads the heading "function" a layer deeper, in two faces: upon what manner of body it appears, and out of what root and what cognition it turns toward beings.
The first face is the marks and signs. What Part Four read as "function" was chiefly the virtue of wisdom that adorns the dharma-body; but the dharma-body is markless, and beings cannot see it. A Buddha, to deliver beings, must show a visible body—and that body's adornment is the thirty-two marks and the eighty signs. This part's first chapter reads the marks and signs: they are not the essence of buddha-virtue (the essence of buddha-virtue is the markless dharma-body), nor an irrelevant ornament, but a seal this freedom shows upon its form-body, a seal that can be seen—just as Part One's ten epithets are a seal it shows upon its name, a seal that can be read.
The second face is the great compassion and the all-kinds wisdom. A Buddha's function is, all along, "for beings," and this "for beings" must have a root and a measure. What force makes a Buddha, who might abide in nirvāṇa, turn instead to deliver beings? The great compassion. What manner of knowing makes that deliverance answer the capacities of all without error? The all-kinds wisdom. This part's second chapter reads these two: the great compassion is the root by which this function cannot but deliver (without great compassion, there is no Buddha), and the all-kinds wisdom is the fullness by which it can deliver all (prajñā's fruit-level fullness, arrived at the far shore). The great compassion is substance; the all-kinds wisdom is guide.
This part's eye is a scene from the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra. The Buddha shows the mark of illness, lying down; the great assembly, ringed about Him, pleads in verse, saying: the buddhas of the three times all have great compassion for their root, and You, were You without great compassion, could not be called a Buddha—we beg You, in great compassion, to receive our request. The Buddha, hearing, His great compassion stirred, rises from where He lay, and adorns His body with the thirty-two marks and eighty signs, radiating great light. Hold this scene: what raises the Buddha from where He lies is the line "great compassion is the root"; and what He shows in rising is precisely the body of the marks and signs. The marks and signs (the body shown) and the great compassion (the root of the rising), in this scene, are from the first one and the same moment.
This part has two chapters. The first (the marks and signs): the seal that can be seen. The second (the great compassion and the all-kinds wisdom): compassion is the root. The two chapters together gather "the full breadth of the function toward beings"—the body it shows, the root by which it delivers, the fullness by which it delivers all.
In, then, to the first chapter: the seal that can be seen.