Transition Four · From the Powers to the Marks and Compassion

Part Four read the buddha-fruit's "function" to the end—read out its completeness, and read out its opening-out.

The ten powers' knowing-as-it-is, the eighteen distinctive dharmas' non-lapse and non-diminution, are the function's "completeness" (self-benefit complete, so the deliverance of beings does not err); the four fearlessnesses' lion's roar, the four analytical knowledges' penetration without impediment, are the function's "opening-out" (other-benefit unobstructed, so the deliverance of beings is without impediment). The Avataṃsaka gathers this string together and names it outright "the Tathāgata's masterful function," saying it is "all manifested to deliver beings." Here this book's main thread stands fourfold complete: name, body, wisdom, function.

But of this heading "function," what Part Four read was chiefly its one face of "the virtue of wisdom"—the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, four analytical knowledges, and eighteen distinctive dharmas adorn the "dharma-body"; the dharma-body is markless, adorned by these virtues of wisdom. And so this function turned toward beings still has two faces unopened.

The first face: this function, to turn toward beings, must show some body. What the virtue of wisdom adorns is the markless dharma-body—but a markless thing beings cannot see, cannot lay hold of. A Buddha, in delivering beings, must show a visible body before them; and the adornment of that body is the thirty-two marks and the eighty signs. What are the marks and signs? The essence of buddha-virtue (so that to see the marks is to see what is highest in a Buddha)? Or an inessential ornament (so that, "the dharma-body being markless," the marks and signs may be passed over)?

The second face: this function is, all along, "for beings." But this "for beings" must have a root, and a measure. What force is it that makes a Buddha, who might abide in nirvāṇa, turn instead to deliver beings? And what manner of knowing is it that makes this deliverance answer the capacities of all beings without error? The former is great loving-kindness and compassion; the latter, the all-kinds wisdom. Is the great compassion a sentiment of pity a Buddha cultivates besides, beyond severing the defilements and turning into wisdom? Is the all-kinds wisdom an omniscience a Buddha acquires besides, beyond the four wisdoms and the ten powers?

Part Five reads these two faces. One chapter reads the marks and signs—the seal that can be seen; one chapter reads the great compassion and the all-kinds wisdom—the root by which this function cannot but deliver, and the fullness by which it can deliver all.

This part's eye is a single scene. In 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. "Without great compassion, no Buddha"—that line, in this very scene, is what raises the Buddha from where He lies.

In, then, to the first chapter: the seal that can be seen.