Compassion Is the Root
5.2 Compassion Is the Root
The last chapter said the marks and signs are a form-body seal "shown for delivering beings." Then this "for delivering beings" itself—the root that makes a Buddha unable not to show His body and deliver beings, and the fullness that makes this deliverance answer the capacities of all without error—what is it? The former is the great loving-kindness and compassion; the latter, the all-kinds wisdom. This chapter reads these two. And at the reading, the old thought arrives again in two faces: to take the great compassion for a pity a Buddha cultivates besides, beyond the virtue of wisdom; to take the all-kinds wisdom for an "omniscience" a Buddha acquires besides, beyond the four wisdoms and ten powers. This chapter says: neither. The great compassion is the root by which a Buddha is a Buddha; the all-kinds wisdom is prajñā's fruit-level fullness, arrived at the far shore. The great compassion is substance; the all-kinds wisdom is guide.
The Line That Raises the Buddha from Where He Lies
First, a scene. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, the Buddha shows the mark of illness, lying down; the great assembly, ringed about Him, pleads in verse:
The world-honored ones of the three times have great compassion for their root… were there no great compassion, He would not be called a Buddha; were the Buddha to enter final nirvāṇa, He would not be called permanent.
The assembly says: all the buddhas of the three times have great compassion for their root; You, without great compassion, could not be called a Buddha—we beg You, in great compassion, to receive our request. The sūtra continues: "Then the World-Honored One, His great compassion stirred… rose from where He lay," and adorned His body with the thirty-two marks and eighty signs, radiating a great light that filled the ten directions.
What raises the Buddha from where He lies is precisely this line, "great compassion is the root; were there no great compassion, He would not be called a Buddha." See the weight of it: it does not say "besides the virtue of wisdom, a Buddha has a further measure of pity," but rather—the great compassion is the root by which a Buddha is a Buddha; without great compassion, He is simply not called a Buddha. Were the great compassion only an added sentiment, then a Buddha "lacking that addition" should still count as a Buddha (only with a little less compassion); yet the sūtra judges "without great compassion, no Buddha"—plainly the great compassion is what constitutes a Buddha as a Buddha, not an ornament to be added or subtracted.
Why the Great Compassion Is the Root, Not an Addition
Why is the great compassion constitutive and not additional? The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's discrimination gives the ground. First it defines: great loving-kindness is "giving joy to all beings," great compassion is "drawing out the suffering of all beings"—loving-kindness gives beings joy, compassion draws out beings' suffering. The treatise gives an image too: like a man whose several sons are shut in prison and about to suffer a great penalty—the father, heart aching, by every means gets them free of the suffering: this is great compassion; and once they are free of suffering, he gives them every fine thing to enjoy: this is great loving-kindness. But such giving-joy and drawing-out-suffering the worldling's four immeasurable minds have too; how are great and small told apart? The treatise discriminates:
Among the four immeasurable minds, the loving-kindness and compassion are called small; here, the great loving-kindness and compassion spoken of in the sequence of the eighteen distinctive dharmas are called great. Again: the loving-kindness and compassion in the mind of the buddhas is called great; in the minds of others it is called small.
Here is the key: the "greatness" of loving-kindness and compassion is not an enlarging of the quantity of feeling (not "the same pity, enlarged to the infinite, becomes the great"), but its being "in the mind of the buddhas"—and plainly tied to the "sequence of the eighteen distinctive dharmas" (that whole array of the buddha-ground's distinctive virtues the last part read). In other words: not "first there is a compassion grown infinitely large, and so He becomes a Buddha," but "being a Buddha (a mind complete in every virtue), the loving-kindness and compassion this mind sends forth is of itself called great." The treatise puts it movingly—this great loving-kindness "pervades the beings of the ten directions and three times, down to crawling insects; the compassion reaches to the marrow, and the heart does not let them go": not even the least insect is left out, it pierces to the marrow, and not for a thought does it abandon them. Such compassion is no worldling's pity enlarged; it is what an already-perfected buddha-mind cannot but send forth.
So the great compassion is "substance": it is the root force by which this function cannot but turn toward beings. Once a buddha-mind is perfected (the two hindrances severed to exhaustion, the eighteen distinctive dharmas complete), toward beings it cannot bear to sit idle; it must turn to give joy and draw out suffering—this "must turn toward beings" is the great compassion, what the perfection of the buddha-mind cannot but send forth, not a compassion cultivated outside that mind. Everywhere the earlier chapters spoke of "for beings"—the equality wisdom's great loving-kindness and compassion, the fearlessnesses' declaring what obstructs and declaring the end of suffering, the analytical knowledges' glad speaking for beings, the marks and signs shown for delivering beings—the force of that "for beings" has its root in this great compassion.
And the root of this great compassion the Avataṃsaka's "Manifestation of the Tathāgata" chapter, in the voice of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, traces one layer higher:
The great loving-kindness and compassion rests on great skillful means; great skillful means rests on the Tathāgata's arising; the Tathāgata's arising rests on the light of unobstructed wisdom.
The great loving-kindness and compassion rests on great skillful means; great skillful means on the Tathāgata's arising; the Tathāgata's arising on the "light of unobstructed wisdom." Tracing layer by layer upward, the arising of the great compassion rests, at last, upon the light of "unobstructed wisdom." This bears straight on this book's keynote: the great compassion is no solitary surge of feeling; its final root is the "unobstructed" wisdom. The function turned wholly toward beings has, at bottom, "unobstructedness" for its ground.
The All-Kinds Wisdom: Not an Acquired Omniscience, but Prajñā Arrived at the Far Shore
Now the all-kinds wisdom. It is the fullness by which this function can "deliver all." At the words "a Buddha knows all," one readily takes the all-kinds wisdom for this: that beyond the four wisdoms and ten powers, those virtues of cognition, a Buddha further acquires an "omniscience." The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra plainly refuses this:
This prajñā-pāramitā, in the buddha-mind, changes its name to the all-kinds wisdom. The bodhisattva, practicing wisdom, seeks to cross to the far shore, and so it is named pāramitā; the Buddha has crossed to the far shore, and so it is named the all-kinds wisdom.
See it clearly: the all-kinds wisdom and the prajñā-pāramitā the bodhisattva cultivates are not two wisdoms. It is one and the same prajñā—in the bodhisattva, because still "seeking to cross to the far shore" (still crossing), named "pāramitā" (the far-shore-reaching); in the Buddha, because "having crossed to the far shore" (already arrived), named "all-kinds wisdom." One and the same prajñā-wisdom: cultivated at the bodhisattva level (seeking to cross), it is named pāramitā; accomplished at the buddha level (already crossed), it is named all-kinds wisdom. So the all-kinds wisdom is no omniscience acquired beyond prajñā; it is the "fruit-level fullness" of one and the same prajñā-wisdom at the buddha level—the fullness of "having crossed to the far shore."
The treatise gives an image for this "one thing, at differing depths": like entering the sea—there is one just entering, and one who has reached the very bottom; the depth differs, yet both are called "entering the sea"; and like lighting a lamp in a dark room—first one lamp is lit, and the vessels are clearly seen; then a greater lamp is lit, and they are seen doubly bright—the bodhisattva's prajñā is like the first lamp, which, though still dwelling with the habit-energies, can already see the real mark of dharmas; the Buddha's prajñā is like the latter lamp, the habit-energies exhausted, seeing doubly bright. Former lamp and latter, it is one and the same shining, not two lights.
This comes right back to a line from Part One: the fruit-stage is not the cause-stage "turned up brighter," not another thing, but one and the same thing brought to fruit-level fullness. Prajñā is one and the same prajñā: cultivated at the bodhisattva level, accomplished at the buddha level, the name differing, the substance one. In the Avataṃsaka's "Dedications" chapter, the bodhisattva Vajra-Banner, telling of the bodhisattva's dedications, says the bodhisattva "rouses the mind toward, and enters, the all-kinds wisdom"—that ultimate fruit-wisdom toward which the bodhisattva rouses his mind is precisely what a Buddha has already accomplished. What the one heads toward (the cause-level prajñā) is just what the Buddha has accomplished (the fruit-level wisdom). (One word to mark: the precise sameness and difference of the all-kinds wisdom [fruit] and the bodhisattva's prajñā [cause], how this is reconciled with the bodhisattva volume's "heteromorphic, not hierarchically superior," and whether the saints of the two vehicles have any "all-kinds wisdom"—these larger adjudications this book records as the scriptures' and treatise's words, leaving the adjudication to the author, not pronouncing here in its stead.)
So the all-kinds wisdom is "guide": it is that fullness of cognition by which the great compassion's deliverance of beings can be all-pervading, can answer the various capacities of all beings without error. The great compassion makes a Buddha bound to deliver (the force); the all-kinds wisdom makes that deliverance able to answer all capacities and reach completion (the fullness of cognition). The two are not two affairs pieced together, but two faces of one and the same freedom's function—substance (the force, the great compassion) and guide (the cognition, the all-kinds wisdom).
Onward
Gather Part Five together. Part Four read the function's "completeness" and "opening-out"; this part's first chapter read the body the function shows (the marks and signs), this chapter the function's substance and guide (the great compassion, the all-kinds wisdom). So the full breadth of the heading "function" is complete: the function's completeness-and-opening-out, the body the function shows, the function's substance and guide. And this freedom's main thread now stands fourfold complete—name, body, wisdom, function. Four, all the showing of one and the same buddha-fruit freedom, not four batches of things acquired beyond the freedom; the great compassion is not separately cultivated (it is what the perfection of the buddha-mind cannot but send forth), the all-kinds wisdom not separately acquired (it is prajñā's fruit-level fullness), both aspects "turned, manifested," of one frame with name, body, wisdom, function. And their final root is still that "light of unobstructed wisdom."
For one who walks the road, this rights two further "seekings besides." First, do not suppose one must, beyond cultivating wisdom, cultivate a further infinite pity to become a Buddha's great compassion; what one should do is approach the perfection of the buddha-mind (turn the defiled into the pure, sever the two hindrances, complete the distinctive virtues), and the mind's scope once widened, the loving-kindness and compassion of itself grows great with it, with no need to drill a further compassion outside the mind. Second, do not suppose one must, beyond cultivating wisdom, acquire a further omniscience to become the all-kinds wisdom; what one should do is still to practice prajñā, to seek to cross to the far shore; prajñā once arrived at the far shore (the fruit-level fullness), is named the all-kinds wisdom, not a wisdom acquired beyond prajñā. The "great compassion is the root" above all bears on one who learns the Buddha's way: do not rest content with one's own realization and forget beings—a Buddha is a Buddha precisely in having great compassion for the root, not halting at self-realization but delivering beings unceasingly.
Only—that verse left a last overtone: "were the Buddha to enter final nirvāṇa, He would not be called permanent." Were a Buddha truly to enter that nirvāṇa from which there is no return, He could not be called "permanent." This says: a Buddha does not take up that nirvāṇa of ashes-and-cessation from which there is no return; His great compassion delivers beings unceasingly—and this is what accords with "permanent." But this abiding that "abides not in nirvāṇa yet delivers unceasingly"—what is it? And this freedom's perfection itself—the place where at last it comes to rest—what is it? This is just where the two axes come, at last, to close together.