Mastery Begins in the VowThe Six and Ten PerfectionsThe EmbraceThe Forbearance of Non-ArisingThe Ten MasteriesThe Refused Rest
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Part 2 · The Six and Ten Perfections
Bodhisattva’s Mastery · 2 papers
Part One set up the ground and the ruler of the bodhisattva's mastery: signed in the vow, not the fruit; measured by amassing, not by severing. But "amassing the two provisions" wa[ from the book's part intro ]
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03The Six Perfections as the Shape of FreedomThe previous two papers established the ground and the measure of the bodhisattva's mastery: BODHI-P01, that freedom begins from the vow and does not succeed the arhat-fruit; BODHI-P02, that it is mastery measured by accumulation (the two boundless provisions). But "the two provisions" is the abstract measure of what is accumulated, not its operational shape — in what shape does the bodhisattva's mastery actually appear in practice? This paper argues: the six pāramitās (giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, prajñā) are the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery — what the prior papers established as "mastery measured by the two boundless provisions" appears, operationally, as the shape of the six, not as six virtues set up apart from the provisions. Three layers. First, the six are the shape of the two provisions — the Yogācārabhūmi sorts the six into a merit-portion and a wisdom-portion (giving, morality, patience as merit; wisdom as the wisdom-portion; vigour and meditation common to both), the operational unfolding of P02's "provision of merit + provision of wisdom": the two provisions are what is accumulated, the six in what shape. Second, prajñā as guide makes the five "cross over" — the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's simile of the blind and the guide: the five, apart from prajñā, are "like the blind without a guide, unable to reach the path," but with prajñā guiding they are "endowed with eyes" and win the name "pāramitā (crossing to the other shore)"; what turns giving and the rest from bounded worldly goods into the freedom of crossing-over is prajñā's guidance (the wisdom of unobtainable emptiness on which P01's "not-taking" rests). Third, the six are the shape of benefiting self-and-other — the Yogācārabhūmi shows by many gates that all the bodhisattva's practices embrace self-benefit and other-benefit, and the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha assigns each pāramitā a benefiting of beings (giving = benefiting; morality = not harming; patience = bearing abuse; vigour = growing good and ending evil), taming beings and entering the consciousness-only fruit; so the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery is from the first both self-perfecting and other-benefiting, freedom legible as benefit-to-others (opening P05, the four embraces). To be marked honestly: a single connected passage assigning each of the six to self-and-other benefit is not independently found in the Yogācārabhūmi's Bodhisattva-ground; this paper compensates with the general self-and-other gate + the guide-simile + the Saṃgraha's benefiting of beings, fabricating no per-pāramitā line. Conclusion: the six are the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery — of the two provisions, made into crossing-over by prajñā, the shape of benefiting self-and-other; freedom is not apart from the six perfections, freedom appears as them.04The Four Added Perfections and the GroundsThe preceding paper, BODHI-P03, established the six pāramitās as the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery. But above the six, the treatises open out a tenfold set — adding, after the six, the four perfections of skill, vow, power, and knowledge. This paper takes up two matters: what the four added perfections are, and the correspondence of the ten with the ten grounds. The thesis: the four added perfections are not four new practices distinct from the six, but are embraced by "post-realization (non-discriminating) wisdom" and serve as auxiliaries to the six, sustaining them to continuity and completion; and the ten, following the sequence of the ten grounds, have one perfection foremost at each ground — so the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery not only unfolds into ten but discloses itself ground by ground. Three layers. First, the four are each defined — the Yogācārabhūmi glosses them as skill-in-means (the twelve aspects), vow (the five great vows), power (the purity of the application of the ten powers), knowledge (the pure wondrous knowledge that establishes all things as they really are); the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha lists them by Sanskrit name (upāya-kauśalya, praṇidhāna, bala, jñāna), each with its mark: dedicating to beings, drawing in vows, subduing the counter-tendencies so the six continue, establishing the wisdom of the prior six. Second, the four are all embraced by "post-realization non-discriminating wisdom" and serve as auxiliaries to the six — the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha judges plainly that "the latter four are to be known as post-realization non-discriminating wisdom, embracing all pāramitās," and the Yogācārabhūmi shows the four as auxiliaries to the six (skill aiding the first three, vow aiding vigour); so the four are not newly added separate practices but the post-attainment wisdom arising from the non-discriminating wisdom won on entering the grounds — dedicating, drawing in vows, subduing, establishing knowledge — to keep the six continuous and unbroken. Third, the ten follow the grounds, one perfection foremost per ground — the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha assigns the six to the first six grounds and the four to the latter four, and the Avataṃsaka's Ten Grounds sets at each ground the formula "such-and-such pāramitā foremost, the rest not unpractised, according to one's power and portion"; the grounds the texts expressly mark "foremost" are: giving (1st), patience (3rd), meditation (5th), prajñā (6th), skill (7th), vow (8th), power (9th), knowledge (10th). To be marked honestly: the second ground (Stainless) is emphasized as "pure morality" but without the "foremost" formula, and the fourth ground (Radiant)'s "vigour-pāramitā foremost" is not found expressly in this paper's three texts; "2nd = morality, 4th = vigour" is the standard common reading, marked here as lacking the express "foremost" text and not supplied. And: the four and the grounds' masteries are all bound to the causal stage (path-bound), their strict distinction from the tathāgata's ten masteries (the fruit-stage) belonging to this axis's P08; this paper assigns but does not adjudicate the fruit-stage. Conclusion: the four added perfections are post-realization wisdom embracing and auxiliary to the six, the ten foremost one per ground — the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery unfolds into ten and discloses ground by ground, yet the masteries of the ten grounds are all bound to the causal stage.Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.