Mastery Begins in the VowThe Six and Ten PerfectionsThe EmbraceThe Forbearance of Non-ArisingThe Ten MasteriesThe Refused Rest
21
Part 1 · Mastery Begins in the Vow
Bodhisattva’s Mastery · 2 papers
This part has two chapters, but before them it must do something larger than either: set up how the whole book sees.[ from the book's part intro ]
論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
01The Bodhisattva's Mastery Does Not Succeed the Arhat-FruitThis paper opens The Bodhisattva's Mastery and is the seam paper between the Attainment axis and the Realization axis: it reads, two-facedly, the same body of canon on the independence of bodhicitta that the Realization axis's BODHI-P01, "Not a Continuation of Arhatship," reads. The Realization axis asks how the bodhisattva path forks from arhatship at the first arising of the mind (the independence of the road); this paper asks how the bodhisattva's mastery stands without succeeding the arhat's (the independence of the fruit). The thesis: the bodhisattva's mastery is not an upgrade of the arhat's, nor a higher rung of one ladder, but a distinct vehicle's freedom — of another lineage, by another measure, forked from the first arising of bodhicitta. Three layers establish it. First, freedom begins from the vow: the bodhisattva's first arising of the mind has the "first right vow" for its nature, and once it arises he is "counted among the bodhisattvas of the Great Vehicle," so the standing on which his mastery rests is conferred at the arising of the mind, not at any prior fruition. Second, its signature is not-taking-realization: "fully contemplating yet not realizing," "practising the real-limit yet not realizing it," "long due for nirvāṇa yet not taking its realization." Where the arhat's mastery is signed by taking the realization (the exhaustion of taints, no-more-becoming), the bodhisattva's is signed by being free to not take the realization that was his to take — not higher, but other in kind (the hidden vein of non-abiding nirvāṇa, fully treated in P09; here only opened). Third, two distinct lineages and measures, not one ladder: the bodhisattva-lineage "surpasses all śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas" and realizes the purity of the cognitive obstruction as well; the merit of the first arising of the mind surpasses that of "teaching beings to win all four fruits and the pratyekabuddha-way." Conclusion: the Attainment axis does not take the arhat's mastery as a prior stage of the bodhisattva's; the bodhisattva's mastery rises from the vow, is measured by accumulation (→ P02), and is signed by not-taking — a distinct vehicle's freedom that does not succeed the arhat-fruit. This paper sets out from the vow and frames the whole division.02The Two Boundless AccumulationsThe preceding paper, BODHI-P01, established that the bodhisattva's mastery does not succeed the arhat-fruit, and marked its measure as differing from the arhat's from the start — the arhat measures his mastery by severance (the exhaustion of taints, the ten fetters all cut), a subtraction; the bodhisattva measures his by accumulation (the two provisions, the six perfections), an addition. This paper takes up that "difference of measure" directly: by what is the bodhisattva's mastery measured? The thesis: the bodhisattva's mastery is mastery by accumulation, not by severance. What is accumulated is the two provisions — "the provision of merit (puṇya-sambhāra) and the provision of wisdom (jñāna-sambhāra)"; the amount accumulated is "boundless" (across three asaṃkhyeya kalpas, "to the boundless limit"); and the signature of the mastery lies in just this "uncircumscribed" boundless accumulation, set against the two vehicles' "measured and limited." Three layers. First, the two provisions are what the bodhisattva's mastery accumulates — merit and wisdom, gathered by one "long abiding in birth-and-death … as provisions" toward the Great Vehicle, the very essence the series plan marks for this division. Second, the amount that is "boundless" — an "asaṃkhyeya" is a number the reckoning of gods and humans cannot exhaust; the bodhisattva completes three asaṃkhyeya kalpas in turn, the treatise mapping five kinds of person onto them to complete the right practice of the ten grounds; the amount cannot in principle be bounded by a number. Third, mastery measured by accumulation — the bodhisattva's giving and wisdom are "uncircumscribed" (set to no fixed number), whereas the two vehicles are "measured and limited, for the deliverance of self alone"; so the bodhisattva's mastery is signed by the boundlessness of accumulation, the arhat's by the consummation of severance, the two measures reversed. To be marked honestly: a paired contrastive term "mastery-by-accumulation vs. fruit-by-severance" has no direct locus in the two designated sources; this paper reads them as the two measures of two masteries, the paired contrast being the author's adjudication. Conclusion: the bodhisattva measures by accumulation, the arhat by severance — the two reversed, yet both masteries real; this takes up P01's "difference of measure," the ultimate side-by-side adjudication reserved for P10.Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.