Non-Abiding Is Freedom

6.2 Non-Abiding Is Freedom

Name, body, wisdom, function, perfection—all read. One last question remains: where is this freedom's "terminus"? The buddha-fruit's mastery, perfected to the utmost—where is its ultimate return?

This is no idle question. By the two vehicles' teaching, the terminus of practice is the without-remainder nirvāṇa—the cessation of ash-body and extinguished-wisdom, no further becoming, the limit of suffering reached. Were this taken as the measure for a Buddha, then the terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery should be a cessation too: the delivering of beings done, He enters the without-remainder, forever extinguished, never to arise. But this runs counter to the aspect of the buddha-fruit's mastery this book has set all along—the three bodies are permanent (Part Two), the great compassion is the root (Part Five: without great compassion no Buddha, were the Buddha to enter final nirvāṇa He would not be called permanent), and among the four virtues permanence is the Tathāgata's dharma-body and bliss is nirvāṇa (the last chapter). All these say plainly that the buddha-fruit does not take up that ash-and-cessation terminus. So what this question truly asks is: the terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery, being not the two vehicles' cessation, what manner of "terminus" is it?

This chapter says: the terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery is the ultimate non-abiding nirvāṇa; and this "terminus" is no cessation, but "mastery as non-abiding."

Non-Abiding Is the Very Way It Abides

The Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only divides nirvāṇa into four kinds, and the fourth is the one belonging to the buddha-ground's ultimate alone:

Nirvāṇa is of four kinds: first, the intrinsically pure nirvāṇa… fourth, the non-abiding nirvāṇa—suchness emerged from the cognitive hindrance, ever supported by great compassion and prajñā. Thereby not abiding in birth-and-death or nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of the future, functioning yet ever-quiescent—hence named nirvāṇa. … All beings have the first; the two vehicles' arhats may have the prior three; only the World-Honored One may be said to possess all four.

The fourth, "non-abiding nirvāṇa," the treatise glosses most carefully. It has for its substance "suchness emerged from the cognitive hindrance" (not severing the affliction-hindrance only, but the cognitive hindrance too, and so disclosing suchness); it is "ever supported by great compassion and prajñā"—compassion and prajñā ever assisting; and by this support of compassion and wisdom, it "does not abide in birth-and-death or nirvāṇa": not abiding in birth-and-death (prajñā shining, so not bound by the suffering of birth-and-death), nor abiding in nirvāṇa (great compassion present, so not taking up the ash-and-cessation quiescence); and so it "benefits beings to the end of the future" (raising other-benefit unceasingly, to the end of the future without break), yet is "functioning yet ever-quiescent" (raising great function unceasingly, while its substance is ever-quiescent).

See the weight of these lines. The terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery lies not in "stopping," but in "not abiding"—not abiding in birth-and-death, nor in nirvāṇa. Its aspect is not "extinction," but "functioning yet ever-quiescent": raising great function, while the substance is ever-quiescent; ever-quiescent, while raising great function. So this "terminus" is not a stopping, but an unceasing delivering of beings with a mind ever-quiescent—taking "non-abiding" itself for the way it abides. This gathers the last part's great compassion and all-kinds wisdom into one: the great compassion's unceasing deliverance is just "not abiding in nirvāṇa" (not taking ash-and-cessation, not abandoning beings); the all-kinds wisdom's all-knowing is just the wisdom-root of "not abiding in birth-and-death" (seeing through, yet unbound). When the treatise says "ever supported by great compassion and prajñā," it speaks of just these two lines ever sustaining each other, composing this "non-abiding" freedom. And the last part's line, "were the Buddha to enter final nirvāṇa, He would not be called permanent," here finds its ground: a Buddha does not take up that nirvāṇa from which there is no return; His great compassion delivers unceasingly—this is "permanence," this is the non-abiding nirvāṇa.

And the treatise's closing line is the most weighty: "the two vehicles' arhats may have the prior three; only the World-Honored One may be said to possess all four." The prior three nirvāṇas (intrinsically pure, with-remainder, without-remainder) the two vehicles' arhats too may have; the fourth alone, the non-abiding nirvāṇa, "only the World-Honored One may be said to possess"—only a Buddha possesses it fully. This is where the terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery differs from the two vehicles': the two vehicles' terminus is the without-remainder (the body-basis extinguished, all suffering quieted—a stopping), a Buddha's terminus is the non-abiding (not abiding in birth-and-death or nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of the future, functioning yet ever-quiescent—no stopping).

The Keynote Reaches Its Name: The Unobstructed Liberation

This book has had one keynote all along: unobstructedness. From Part One's readable buddha-name (the name without impediment), through the three bodies' mastery, the three-times knowledge unobstructed, the four analytical knowledges, to the last part's great compassion resting on the "light of unobstructed wisdom"—the word "unobstructed" has run through name, body, wisdom, function. At this last chapter, "unobstructed" reaches its name. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says a Buddha's ultimate liberation is just this, the "unobstructed liberation":

The buddhas attain the unobstructed liberation, and so are unobstructed in wisdom over all dharmas. … A Buddha is liberated from the afflictions and their traces, pulled out at the root; the liberation truly indestructible, all wisdom accomplished—hence named the unobstructed liberation.

A Buddha's unobstructed liberation: unobstructed in wisdom over all dharmas (unobstructed by the knowable); liberated from the afflictions together with their habit-traces, "pulled out at the root" (the very habit-energies of the afflictions uprooted—precisely where a Buddha runs deeper than the two vehicles, who sever the afflictions but leave the traces unexhausted); "the liberation truly indestructible" (unobstructed by retrogression). So a Buddha's ultimate, in a word, is "without any impediment." And this "unobstructed liberation" and that "non-abiding nirvāṇa" are, in truth, two faces of one thing: non-abiding is the nirvāṇa-face of unobstructedness; unobstructed is the liberation-name of non-abiding. A Buddha is unobstructed by birth-and-death, and so does not abide in birth-and-death; unobstructed by nirvāṇa, and so does not abide in nirvāṇa; unobstructed by the affliction-traces, and so pulls them out at the root. This book's keynote, "unobstructed mastery," here comes to fullness—the buddha-fruit's mastery, taking unobstructedness for its aspect from first to last, has for its terminus the unobstructed liberation, the non-abiding nirvāṇa.

The Sublime-Awakening Seam: One Thought-Moment, Two Axes, Two Readings

The threshold where the terminus of the buddha-fruit's mastery lies is a single thought-moment—the moment of becoming a Buddha, called the vajra-like samādhi. The Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only says a bodhisattva raises the vajra-like samādhi, and "in a single thought-moment the three realms are cut at once," the cognitive-hindrance seeds "in a single thought-moment all cut through"; and "when the vajra-like samādhi is present, they are all cut at once, and one enters the tathāgata-ground." In this one thought-moment the two hindrances are forever ended, the four wisdoms perfected and bright, the tathāgata-ground entered. The fruition-virtues this book has read all along are perfected in this one thought too—the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says a bodhisattva, "entering in sequence the vajra-like samādhi, attains the all-kinds wisdom; thereupon he accomplishes the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, four analytical knowledges, eighteen distinctive dharmas, and great compassion." The vajra samādhi, that last concentration of the bodhisattva path, once passed, the whole string of function-virtues Parts Four and Five read stands complete in this one thought.

And this same thought-moment of the vajra-like samādhi the two axes behind this book each read in one of its faces.

The axis of realization (which speaks of "arrival," of the ladder of stages, ending at the sublime awakening, the buddha-fruit) reads this thought-moment as "the path's last step." A line in the Humane King Prajñā Sūtra: "the aspect of ignorance's ending is the vajra"—the aspect of severing the last portion of ignorance is the vajra (the path arrived at its very last step).

The axis of attainment (which speaks of "the mastery after arrival," of the Tathāgata's mastery—this book) reads this same thought-moment as "the ultimate with no step further." The latter half of the same line: "the aspect of ending being without aspect is the sarvajña"—when even that "ending" aspect does not remain (the aspect of ending itself without aspect), this is the sarvajña (all-knowledge, with not one portion of hindrance left to sever, not one step left to take). In the Humane King, King Moonlight's verse of praise, "in one turning the sublime awakening is ever-clear," says just this: the vajra (the path's last step) and the sublime awakening, the sarvajña (the freedom's ultimate), are two faces of "one turning"—not two affairs, not two times, but one and the same thought-moment, one and the same turning, which the axis of realization reads as "arrival" (the path complete), and the axis of attainment reads as "the mastery after arrival" (the fruit accomplished).

So this thought-moment is the terminus of both axes. The axis of realization speaks of "arrival"—here it arrives at the buddha-ground, with no rung further to climb. The axis of attainment speaks of "the mastery after arrival"—here the freedom is perfected, with no freedom further to add. Both axes end together at the sublime awakening, disclosed together in the buddha-fruit. This is the seam.

Here two things this book, as ever, only marks and does not adjudicate. First, the final ruling of these "two readings"—the precise division of the axes of realization and attainment upon one and the same vajra-like-samādhi thought-moment, the doctrine of this seam—is left to the author. This book marks the aspect of the two readings only, and does not argue, in the author's stead, which reading is right. Second, a Buddha's "ultimate" non-abiding nirvāṇa (fruit-level, possessed by the Buddha alone, already perfected) and a bodhisattva's non-abiding nirvāṇa (cause-level, the joint operation of compassion and wisdom, still forming)—one "complete," one "forming"—how these two are to be reconciled, and how this squares with what the bodhisattva volume called "heteromorphic, not hierarchically superior," along with the two vehicles' ultimacy and the turning-from-the-small-to-the-great, these cross-axis adjudications this book records throughout, leaving the judgment to the author.

The Close

The Mastery of the Tathāgata is herewith complete.

What its six parts and ten chapters set is gathered into one line. Name (the ten epithets), body (the three bodies permanent, the marks and signs), wisdom (the four wisdoms turned out of consciousness), function (the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, eighteen distinctive dharmas, four analytical knowledges, great compassion, all-kinds wisdom), perfection (the Tathāgata's ten masteries, the great nirvāṇa's four virtues)—all are the showing of one and the same freedom, all the fruit-level aspect, not the cause-level brightened. And this one freedom, threaded through from first to last, is "unobstructedness": the name unobstructed, the body unobstructed, the wisdom unobstructed, the function unobstructed—at this last chapter, reaching the unobstructed liberation. Its terminus is the ultimate non-abiding nirvāṇa: not abiding in birth-and-death or nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of the future, functioning yet ever-quiescent. So the buddha-fruit's mastery is the unobstructed freedom; its terminus is the non-abiding nirvāṇa.

And the two axes, here too, close together. Among the four axes—faith, understanding, realization, attainment—"realization" speaks of "arrival," "attainment" of "the mastery after arrival." The two axes meet at the seam of the sublime awakening: the realization axis arriving at the sublime awakening (becoming a Buddha) is the attainment axis's ultimate of the Tathāgata's mastery (the non-abiding nirvāṇa). Realization speaks of arrival—here it has arrived; attainment speaks of the mastery after arrival—here the freedom is perfected. The two axes end together here.

For one who walks the road, this leaves a root insight: the buddha-fruit's terminus is no cessation, but mastery as non-abiding. Do not suppose practice's ultimate lies in entering a quiescence—a Buddha's ultimate lies in "not abiding" (neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa), in raising other-benefit unceasingly with a substance ever-quiescent. So let one's resolve take "not abiding in nirvāṇa yet delivering beings unceasingly" for its return, not resting content in the quiescence of one's own liberation (which comes back, again, to the last part's line: great compassion is the root, without great compassion no Buddha). And do not suppose the fruition-virtues are sought outside practice—the single thought's perfection of the vajra-like samādhi is the fruit of the ten grounds' myriad practices heaped to the utmost; only do to the full the cause-ground's transformation of the basis, severing of hindrances, joint operation of compassion and wisdom, and the fruit-level freedom will of itself be perfected in that single thought of the sublime awakening, with no need to seek a freedom outside practice.

This finger pointing at the moon, at this turning, comes round. The moon it points to—is in that buddha-fruit's unobstructed freedom: not abiding in birth-and-death or nirvāṇa, benefiting beings to the end of the future, functioning yet ever-quiescent.