Mastery Begins in the VowThe Six and Ten PerfectionsThe EmbraceThe Forbearance of Non-ArisingThe Ten MasteriesThe Refused Rest
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Part 3 · The Embrace

Bodhisattva’s Mastery · 1 papers

Part Two said the six perfections are the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery, and that one of their faces is "the hand reaching toward others"—giving benefits beings, morality does[ from the book's part intro ]

論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
05The Four Embraces, Altruism as MasteryThe preceding paper, BODHI-P03, established the six pāramitās as the shape of the bodhisattva's mastery, and marked its third face — the six as the shape of benefiting self-and-other (freedom legible as benefit-to-others, 3.3). But the six embrace both self-benefit and other-benefit; their purely other-benefiting face the treatises articulate in a dedicated set, the four embraces (giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, shared work), set up purely for the embracing of beings. This paper takes up P03's third face and unfolds it in focus, arguing: the four embraces are the purely other-benefiting shape of the bodhisattva's mastery — and altruism is mastery: the bodhisattva's freedom is not held apart from the four embraces; the freedom is legible, directly and in the present, precisely in the relationship of embracing beings. Three layers. First, the four are the shape of embracing beings — the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra and the Yogācārabhūmi list the four, the Yogācārabhūmi judging them the four means of embracing, taming, and ripening beings (drawing-in, embracing, leading-in, accompanying), "beyond which there is nothing further or greater," the Śāstra showing they cause beings to abide in the ten courses of good. Second, shared work = "having the same undertaking as the other," whereby the efficacy of altruism is directly visible in the relationship — the Yogācārabhūmi's chapter on the means of embracing gives the essence of shared work: whatever good the bodhisattva exhorts another to take up, he himself manifestly takes up and trains in, equally or to a greater degree, so that he is "of the same undertaking" and cannot be met with the rebuke "you cannot train in the good yourself, how do you exhort another," and the one matured, seeing this, becomes "firm and settled, without regress, in his own taking-up of the roots of good"; so the bodhisattva's mastery (his having himself first perfected the good he commends) is precisely what is visible and verified within the relationship of shared work — mastery legible as relationship. Third, the four's predominance discloses by ground, and their realm is seen only by the eye of pure knowing — the Avataṃsaka's Ten Grounds judges the four to predominate by ground (beneficial conduct at the third, Radiant ground; shared work at the fourth, Blazing ground), as the four added perfections rise foremost ground by ground (P04), marking the embracing-of-others rising with the realized stage; and the Entry into the Dharma-Realm shows the realm in which the bodhisattva embraces beings by the four to be one "the great śrāvakas cannot see" — precisely what the śrāvaka cannot see (the freedom of exiting-and-taking-the-realization does not reach the freedom of returning-to-deliver-beings) — and this is the adjudication of altruism as mastery. To be marked with care: the "is mastery" of "altruism is mastery" is this book's framing-angle (routing) and the author's adjudicated reading; the canon literally states the marks of altruism, the four's predominance, and "seen only by the eye of pure knowing," but does not itself pronounce "is mastery"; this paper composes that adjudication and marks its scope transparently, not passing the author's adjudication off as the canon's literal word. Conclusion: the four are the purely-other-benefiting shape of the bodhisattva's mastery, the freedom visible and verifiable within the relationship of embracing beings (shared work cannot be rebuked), rising by ground and seen only by the eye of pure knowing — altruism is mastery (this adjudication being the author's framing-angle).
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Bodhisattva’s Mastery · in the bookcontinuous prose · apparatus removedRead from here →
Into the WaterPart 3 · Ch. 1

Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.