Transition Three · From the Wisdom to the Powers

Part Three opened up "turning consciousness into wisdom," and left one line, and one baton handed on.

The line: the four wisdoms are not four treasure-vessels carried in beyond severance, but turned out of those very eight consciousnesses—turned, not acquired. And this line is the one line the whole Attainment axis has spoken to the end: the name is a signature (Part One), the body a showing (Part Two), the wisdom turned out of the eight consciousnesses (Part Three)—name, body, wisdom, not one a thing "acquired from outside," all aspects one freedom has "turned, severed, manifested."

The baton handed on: once the four wisdoms set to work, what function do they show forth?

Part Three said the four wisdoms have their substance set and their provenance told, but once these four wisdoms truly move—beholding all, facing every being, meeting every challenge, knowing all and fearing nothing—what are those fruition-virtues? Scripture counts off a string of them: the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen distinctive dharmas, the four analytical knowledges. This part looks at that string.

And the moment one looks, the old temptation, in new dress, stands at the door a sixth time.

What the whole Attainment axis has broken, all along, is one comparing thought: to take the buddha-fruit's virtues for something acquired from outside, beyond the severing of defilements. A spiritual power gained beyond the exhaustion of the outflows; virtues earned beyond severance; three Buddhas set up apart; a wisdom arising apart from consciousness—broken, one by one. Come to "power" and "fearlessness" and "distinctiveness" and "unobstructedness," the same thought arrives in fullest array: to suppose that beyond the four wisdoms a Buddha further acquires "ten magical forces, four valors, eighteen private feats, four eloquences"—as though, after name, body, and wisdom, He carried in, batch upon batch, a fifth and a sixth lot of treasures.

Part Four says: no. This string is not vessels carried in; it is the "function" of the already-established freedom (the four wisdoms) turned toward beings. And this "function" is, from first to last, "for beings"—in the Avataṃsaka, where they are listed together, a name is given outright: the Tathāgata's masterful function, said to be "all manifested to deliver beings."

And one thing more surfaces only at this part. This book has said from the start that the Tathāgata's freedom is the "unobstructed freedom." But the word "unobstructed" only here, at this part, is written one by one into the very names of the buddha-virtues—the divine eye unobstructed, past lives unobstructed, the three-times knowledge unobstructed, the four unobstructed knowings. This part's fruition-names are where this book's keynote, "unobstructed," shows itself most densely.

This part has two chapters. The first looks at the ten powers and four fearlessnesses—what manner of "knowing" the power is, what manner of "roar" the fearlessness. The second looks at the eighteen distinctive dharmas and four analytical knowledges—how that "non-lapse" and "unobstructedness" are the completeness and the opening-out of one and the same freedom's function.

In, then, to the first chapter: knowing as it is, the lion's roar.