The Ground Where Naming Is FullThe Three BodiesThe Four WisdomsThe Ten Powers, Four Fearlessnesses, and Eighteen Distinctive DharmasThe Marks, the Great Compassion, and the All-Kinds WisdomThe Perfected Freedom
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Part 4 · The Ten Powers, Four Fearlessnesses, and Eighteen Distinctive Dharmas
Tathāgata’s Mastery · 2 papers
The first three parts read the name, the body, the wisdom. This part reads the function.[ from the book's part intro ]
論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
05The Ten Powers and the Four FearlessnessesThe prior paper (TATHAGATA-P04) established that the Tathāgata's cognitive structure is the four wisdoms (turning consciousness into wisdom), and handed the function of the four wisdoms — the fruition-virtues of the ten powers, four fearlessnesses, eighteen distinctive dharmas, and the rest — to this paper and those following. This paper takes up the baton and the first of these: the Tathāgata's ten powers and four fearlessnesses. It asks: what are a Buddha's ten powers and four fearlessnesses? Are they a batch of superpowers a Buddha acquires beyond severing the defilements and turning consciousness into wisdom (as if, after name, body, and wisdom, a fifth batch of treasures were added), or have they another provenance? The thesis: the ten powers are "knowledge-powers" (ten powers of knowing-as-it-is), and the four fearlessnesses are the fearlessness disclosed by the completeness of wisdom-and-severance; neither is a superpower acquired beyond severing the defilements and turning into wisdom, but the "function" of the already-established mastery (the four wisdoms) turned toward beings — and a verse of the Avataṃsaka names them, plainly, "the Tathāgata's masterful function" (如來自在用). In the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (the Dazhidu lun) and the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka, three points confirm one another. First, the ten powers in full: the Śāstra lists the Buddha's ten powers one by one in the form "knowing as it is, the Nth power" (what is and is not the case · karma-and-fruit · meditations and liberations · the faculties high and low · the various inclinations · the various dispositions · where all paths lead · past lives · the divine eye · the exhaustion of taints); the Avataṃsaka's "Pure Conduct" chapter lists the same ten knowings (its last as "the knowing that forever severs the habit-energies," i.e. the exhaustion-of-taints power), the items confirming each other — of the ten powers, each power is a "knowing" (a power of knowing-as-it-is), not a magical force, and the Avataṃsaka even renders the eighth and ninth as "the unobstructed knowing of the divine eye" and "the unobstructed knowing of past lives," the word "unobstructed" (apratihata, the division's keynote) entering the names of the powers themselves. Second, the four fearlessnesses in full: the Śāstra lists them in the form "the Buddha makes a true declaration / sees not the slightest mark of fear / roars the lion's roar and turns the brahma-wheel," their structure being two self-benefiting (all-right-knowing · the exhaustion of all taints) plus two other-benefiting (declaring what obstructs the path · declaring the path to the end of suffering); the fearless one, wisdom complete and severance exhausted, cannot be truly challenged, and so "sees not the slightest mark of fear" and roars the lion's roar — fearlessness is not a separately trained courage but the necessary aspect of one whose wisdom-and-severance is complete. Third, the import of their joint listing: the Avataṃsaka's verse lists the ten powers, fearlessnesses, and eighteen distinctive dharmas together, comprised as "the Tathāgata's masterful function," whose import is "all manifested to deliver beings." Conclusion: the ten powers and four fearlessnesses are not superpowers acquired beyond severing the defilements and turning into wisdom, but the function of one and the same mastery — wisdom's knowing-as-it-is opened out as the ten powers, the completeness of wisdom-and-severance disclosed as the four fearlessnesses, all turned toward beings as the function of their deliverance. Carrying forward the Attainment axis's constant frame, the buddha-fruit's name (the ten epithets), body (the three bodies), wisdom (the four wisdoms), and function (the ten powers and four fearlessnesses) are all one mastery's "turning / severing / manifesting / functioning," not things acquired from outside — so the keynote's aspects pass from three to four: name (the readable aspect), body (the visible aspect), wisdom (the cognitive aspect), function (the world-facing aspect).06The Eighteen Distinctive Dharmas and the Four Analytical KnowledgesThis paper, with the prior one (TATHAGATA-P05), belongs to Part 4 and continues the treatment of "the function of mastery." The prior paper took the first two of the Avataṃsaka's "Tathāgata's masterful function" cluster — the ten powers and four fearlessnesses; this paper takes the remaining two: the eighteen distinctive dharmas (aṣṭādaśa-āveṇika-buddhadharma) and the four analytical knowledges (catur-pratisaṃvid). It asks: what are a Buddha's eighteen distinctive dharmas and four analytical knowledges? Are they a sixth batch of superpowers acquired beyond the four wisdoms and beyond the ten powers and four fearlessnesses, or are they the remaining aspects of one and the same masterful function? The thesis: the eighteen distinctive dharmas are the "self-benefiting completeness" aspect of the already-established mastery — the three non-lapses of action, the six non-diminutions, the three actions following wisdom, and the three-times knowledge unobstructed, all aspects of "non-(lapse/diminution) · following (wisdom) · unobstructedness," not eighteen acquired capacities; the four analytical knowledges are the "other-benefiting unobstructedness" aspect of the same mastery — the four unobstructed knowings of meaning, dharma, expression, and eloquence, the "unobstructed" knowing opened out toward beings as exposition. Neither is a superpower acquired beyond severing the defilements and turning into wisdom, but the completeness and the opening-out of the already-established mastery's function turned toward beings. In the Dazhidu lun and the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka, three points confirm one another. First, the eighteen distinctive dharmas in full — the Dazhidu lun, fascicle 26, lists them (the three non-lapses of body, speech, and mindfulness; no errant ideation; no unconcentrated mind; no inattentive equanimity; the six non-diminutions of zeal, vigor, mindfulness, wisdom, liberation, and the knowing-and-seeing of liberation; the three actions following wisdom; the three-times knowledge unobstructed), their aspect throughout being "non- · following · unobstructed," the last three named outright by "unobstructed"; the treatise raises a self-set question to discriminate "distinctive" (in the latter eighteen the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha have no share), recorded as the treatise's own statement establishing the buddha-ground's distinctive fruition-virtues, the precise discrimination from the two vehicles and bodhisattvas reserved to the author. Second, the four analytical knowledges in full — the Dazhidu lun, fascicle 25, lists the four unobstructed knowings of meaning, dharma, expression, and eloquence, with "earth" as its example, closing with "penetrating these four matters without impediment is called unobstructed knowing" — the unobstructed being "penetration without impediment," the aspect of the "unobstructed" knowing expounding before the assembly. Third, the import of their joint listing — the Avataṃsaka's verse lists the ten powers, fearlessnesses, and eighteen distinctive dharmas together as "the Tathāgata's masterful function," to deliver beings. Conclusion: the eighteen distinctive dharmas and four analytical knowledges, with the ten powers and four fearlessnesses, are the function of one and the same mastery — the eighteen distinctive dharmas disclosing the "completeness" of that function (self-benefit complete, so the deliverance of beings does not err), the four analytical knowledges disclosing its "opening-out" (other-benefit unobstructed, so the deliverance of beings is without impediment); the buddha-fruit's name, body, wisdom, and function are all one mastery's "turning / severing / manifesting / functioning," not acquired from outside; and this division's keynote of "unobstructed mastery" (apratihata) is most plainly marked in the very names "the three-times knowledge unobstructed" and "the four unobstructed knowings."Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.