Preface　Name and Reality, Met in One Place

One who reads the four words "the Tathāgata's mastery" most likely carries, in the heart, a shadow—the same shadow that hung there over the first two volumes, reading of the arhat, reading of the bodhisattva, only now hung higher still: is a Buddha's mastery the topmost rung of that ladder? The arhat one rung, the bodhisattva a rung higher, the Buddha higher again—is the buddha-fruit's mastery "the bodhisattva's mastery, with one more length added on top"?

This book, again, sets out the place where the scriptures themselves put it, exactly as they put it. And what it points to is, again, precisely not the topmost rung of that ladder.

One Mastery, Come to Where Name and Reality Coincide

The book is titled The Tathāgata's Mastery. The buddha-fruit's mastery, in its deepest mark, is a line plain to the bone: not one place still remains provisional.

The arhat's mastery is a "mastery of going out"—able to go out from birth-and-death, and going, all suffering forever quieted. The bodhisattva's mastery is a "mastery of staying"—able to go out yet not going, refusing the quiescence one might take, staying on in birth-and-death to deliver beings to the end of the future. These two the first two volumes each gave a volume to. With a Buddha, mastery has an aspect deeper still: it is perfected to a degree where name and reality no longer have a hair's breadth of seam between them. A Buddha has ten names—Thus-Come, Worthy-of-Offerings, Rightly-and-Fully-Awakened, on through Buddha and World-Honored One; these ten names are not ten titles affixed from without, but this one mastery perfected to the degree that it "can be read straight off as a string of titles." The names are full precisely because the reality is full; the ten epithets are complete precisely because this one mastery has not one place still halted at the "causal level," still "provisional," still "awaiting one more step." So the buddha-fruit's mastery is not a higher rung—it is name and reality met in one place, no longer to be parted.

The Twin Volume: The Realization Axis's Sublime Awakening

On the "realization" axis this series has a twin volume, titled The Equal and the Sublime Awakening, which writes precisely that step where the bodhisattva path reaches its very last—the equal awakening entering the sublime awakening, becoming a Buddha. Set the two side by side and they form this series' second seam—the first being where The Four Fruits of the Path and The Arhat's Mastery meet at "the exhaustion of the outflows"; this second, where The Sublime Awakening and this book meet at that thought-moment of "the sublime awakening / the buddha-fruit."

That moment is one and the same thought-moment of the vajra-like samādhi, inked from two sides. That volume reads it as "the path's last step"—the last portion of ignorance severed, the path arrived at its end. This volume reads the same moment as "the mastery that need take no step further"—here, with no step left to take, no rung left to climb, that very "need-walk-no-more" is itself the ultimate mastery. One reads "arrival," one reads "after arrival"; one and the same moment, two faces. If you have read that volume, you will recognize this seam in this book's last chapter; if you have not, no matter—this book stands as a volume of its own.

The Arc of Three Volumes: Mastery of Going Out, of Staying, of the Unobstructed

This is also the third, and last, volume on the "attainment" axis. Joined, the three volumes form an arc—

The first volume, The Arhat's Mastery, writes the mastery of going out: able to go out from birth-and-death and going, that unbound freedom the seal that the exhaustion of the outflows reads off. The second, The Bodhisattva's Mastery, writes the mastery of staying: able to go out yet not going, refusing the ultimate quiescence, benefiting beings to the end of the future. This third, The Tathāgata's Mastery, writes the mastery of the unobstructed: that perfection where name and reality coincide and not one place still remains provisional. Going out, staying, unobstructed—not one rung higher than the next, but the one word "mastery," read in three truths off three kinds of practitioner. At this third volume, the arc of the attainment axis's three volumes comes round.

Unobstructed Is Not Unending

This book's keynote, threaded through from first to last, is "unobstructedness." But one thing must be said plainly first: unobstructed is not "unending."

At the words "a Buddha's mastery," one readily drifts toward "measureless, boundless, unending"—as though a Buddha's mastery were the bodhisattva's enlarged to the infinite. The "unobstructedness" this book means is not the infinity of quantity, but not one hindrance remaining: the buddha-fruit's mastery is ultimate not in "how large it is," but in there being "not one place blocked, not one thing left outside." Need take no step further (no rung left to climb), and nothing shut outside the door (no hindrance left standing)—these two faces together are "unobstructed." It is a subtraction, not an addition: not enlarged to the unending, but reduced to the not-one-hindrance. This keynote the book buries from the first part to the last chapter, where at the close it reaches its name—the "unobstructed liberation."

The Two Axes, Closing Together Here

This volume is, too, the place where the two axes close together.

This series has four axes—faith, understanding, realization, attainment. "Realization" speaks of "arrival," "attainment" (this very axis, the seal of mastery) of "the mastery after arrival." The two axes meet at two seams: the first, where the arhat-fruit of the four fruits meets the arhat's mastery (the head of each axis); the second, just here in this volume—where the buddha-becoming moment of the equal-and-sublime awakening meets the ultimate of the Tathāgata's mastery (the tail of each axis). Realization speaks of arrival—here it arrives; attainment speaks of the mastery after arrival—here the freedom is perfected. Eight volumes, two axes, at this last chapter, close together at the sublime awakening.

How Far This Book Goes

One thing, as ever, must be set out plainly at the front—and this volume must set it out with particular gravity.

This book reads what the buddha-fruit's mastery "is." It deliberately does not adjudicate, in your stead, several of the deepest lines. The weightiest is the word "self" among the great nirvāṇa's "permanence-bliss-self-purity"—how this "self" is to be reconciled with the "no-self" ordinarily taught, where lies the line between the "true self" the Nirvāṇa speaks of and the false self the ordinary being grasps: this is the most delicately weighed adjudication of the tathāgatagarbha line. Where the book reaches it, it only records the scripture, and leaves the telling of this "self" to the author to rule, pronouncing not one word in your stead. Besides this, judgments like "only the Buddha possesses all four nirvāṇas," how the buddha-fruit is to be positioned cross-axis against the bodhisattva's causal level and the two vehicles' fruit, how the realization-and-attainment two readings of that single moment of sublime awakening are to be divided—these "vertical" adjudications the book throughout carries as reserved, saying plainly, where it meets them, "this book does not adjudicate." The book honestly does one thing only: to set before your eyes, face by face, that one buddha-fruit mastery the scriptures themselves have placed.

This Book Is Written for You

This book is not written for the scholar. It does not argue, does not compare schools; it only tells you, passage by passage, the teaching of the World-Honored One and the holy disciples and the great bodhisattvas.

It is written above all for you who have, perhaps, taken "becoming a Buddha" for "a rung higher than the bodhisattva, higher than the arhat," and so read practice as a ladder climbed upward. What this book most wants to put in your hands is, again, to take that ladder away—the buddha-fruit's mastery is not "a rung higher," but that perfection where "name and reality have met and not one place still remains provisional." You need not know Sanskrit, need not remember the scriptures' catalogue numbers. The numbers and the romanization are gathered in the appendices at the back; the main text only tells you, cleanly, of this one mastery.

Walk Slowly

The book has six parts, like six stretches of road: name, body, wisdom, function, perfection, and last that "resting-place of non-abiding." It is best to walk from head to tail—this is one continuous argument, and everything set earlier is gathered up later; above all that line, "name and reality coincide, unobstructed is not unending," comes round only at the last part.

In Closing

To read this book is, in the end, to exchange one question for another: from "is a Buddha's mastery the highest rung," to "to what degree is this mastery perfected."

May you, reading on, set down that measuring-rod of "higher and lower." This finger pointing at the moon—three volumes one arc, two axes one seam—at this volume comes round. May you look out along it—the moon it points to is in that buddha-fruit's unobstructed mastery: name and reality coincident, not one place still provisional, not one hindrance still standing.

Homage to the Fundamental Teacher, Śākyamuni Buddha.