Reading Map · Nine Stages, One Hand

This book is a road.

On a long walk, it steadies you to have a map in your hand—to know which stage you are on, what lies ahead, and what this stretch is for. This reading map is the map of that road.

The book has nine parts, like nine stages of a road; thirty-one chapters in all, plus eight short "transitions" between the nine stages. The nine stages set out from the plainest letting-go of the Pāli texts and walk all the way to the offering that fills the dharma-realm in the Huayan Sūtra. But whichever stage you are on, what walks this road is always the same one thing—the hand that clenches "mine," loosening inch by inch.

Below, I will point out these nine stages to you, one by one. You need not memorize them; a rough sense of direction in your heart is enough.

The Shape of the Road

First, the shape of the whole road.

The first three parts (Parts One through Three) are this hand's plainest loosening—in the Pāli texts, in the Āgamas, in the Vinaya. This is the root, planted firmest, and closest to a householder's ordinary days.

The middle five parts (Parts Four through Eight) follow the Mahāyāna and loosen this hand ever deeper, ever wider—from the pāramitā of giving, to the prajñā teaching of not abiding in marks, to the Lotus, where even the body is offered, to the Huayan, where offerings fill the dharma-realm. This is the scenery of the heights: the same one hand, loosened to its utmost.

The last part (Part Nine) is the coda—bringing this long road back to the world we live in today, back into your hand.

Nine stages, one through-line: the hand loosens, and loosens again, from a small stirring in one person's heart into the whole dharma-realm. This through-line answers to the word "crossing over" in the Heart Sūtra's "crossing over all suffering and distress"—when the hand has loosened to the very end, the "I" is lost, and that is the crossing. (This correspondence between the Six Practice Gates and the Heart Sūtra is a reading this book offers; the sūtra itself does not state it.)

The Nine Stages, One by One

Part One · Pāli Roots · The First Loosening of the Hand (three chapters)

The start of the road. The Buddha teaches a busy householder the plainest letting-go.

The first chapter, "Giving: Loosening the Hand," sets the matter straight: the real measure of giving lies not in the hand's "giving" but in the heart's loosening. The second chapter, "Letting Go: A Mark of Stream-Entry," shows how much this loosening matters—it stands alongside virtue and wisdom as a mark of one who has stepped into the stream of liberation. The third chapter, "Looking Back on What You Have Given," shows how to take this loosening into practice—turning back to look at what you have given.

At the end of Part One, a transition carries you on toward the Āgamas.

Part Two · Giving in the Āgamas · Putting That Hand Back into the Human World (five chapters)

Part One spoke of the work within one person's heart; Part Two puts this hand back between person and person.

The first chapter, "One Hand, Eight Minds," takes one complete act of giving apart into the eight it should have in place—one same act of giving, loosening in eight places. The second chapter, "Eighty-Four Thousand, and One Finger-Snap," asks why a brahmin's gift of his entire fortune cannot match the work of a single moment of mind—this is the ceiling of giving. The third chapter, "Visible in This Very Life," looks at the fruits of giving that arrive at once, within this very life—this is the floor of giving. The fourth chapter, "A Robe Woven with Her Own Hands," looks at giving to an individual and giving to the Saṅgha, two different reckonings. The fifth chapter, "Giving, Virtue, Cultivation: Begin with the Hand," asks why giving is the first door of practice.

At the end of Part Two, a transition carries you on toward the Vinaya.

Part Three · The Field of Merit in the Vinaya · Crossing to the Receiving End (two chapters)

The first two parts kept their eyes on the one who gives; Part Three crosses to the receiving end.

The first chapter, "The Park Covered with Gold," tells the story of Anāthapiṇḍika, and how the Buddha used the Vinaya to establish the Saṅgha as a field of merit that no one may take as private property and that can endure a thousand autumns. The second chapter, "A Gift That Costs Nothing," shows how keeping the precepts—holding to "not killing" and "not stealing"—is itself a giving that costs no money.

At the end of Part Three, a transition carries you on toward the Mahāyāna.

Part Four · From Giving to Pāramitā · Loosening the "I Who Is Giving" (four chapters)

What loosened before was "mine"; Part Four sets out to loosen the "I who is giving."

The first chapter, "Only Across the River Is the Other Shore," shows how one act of giving, joined with prajñā, rises from merit into a pāramitā able to ferry others across. The second chapter, "An Eye Given Away," borrows the story of Śāriputra to see clearly what "the three wheels—giver, receiver, gift—all empty" means, and what "the other shore" points to. The third chapter, "Empty Does Not Mean Nothing," marks the easiest place to go astray: to say "empty" is not to tell you to stop giving. The fourth chapter, "However Great the Gift, There Is a Bottom Line," looks at the one line that even this greatest of gifts must never cross.

At the end of Part Four, a transition carries you on toward the prajñā sūtras.

Part Five · The Three Wheels Empty · Prajñā, Honed to Its Sharpest (three chapters)

The three prajñā sūtras hone "the three wheels empty" to its sharpest.

The first chapter, "Giving Without Abiding in Marks," takes up the Diamond Sūtra's line, "practice giving without abiding in anything." The second chapter, "The Sūtra That Never Mentions Giving," looks at the Heart Sūtra—why this most widely read of sūtras never once says the word "giving"; and it is in this chapter that the word this book answers to, "crossing over," rises plainly into view. The third chapter, "Prajñā Is the Eye," looks at how the six hundred fascicles of the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra speak of giving over and over—prajñā is the eye; the five pāramitās are the body.

At the end of Part Five, a transition carries you on toward the Śūraṅgama.

Part Six · The Reverse Side of the Śūraṅgama · Seeing Giving from the Side of Not Taking (three chapters)

A change of direction: giving, seen from the reverse side of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.

The first chapter, "Not Taking Is Also a Kind of Giving," looks at the giving hidden on the reverse side of the precept against stealing. The second chapter, "Every Road Is a Kind of Giving," looks at the twenty-five gateways of perfect penetration—how every road of practice, in the end, flows toward giving. The third chapter, "When the Offering Is Hijacked," is a warning bell: how giving can be hijacked into wrong giving, and how to recognize it and guard against it.

At the end of Part Six, a transition carries you on toward the Lotus.

Part Seven · The Lotus · The Offering of Body and Dharma, Pushed to the Limit (three chapters)

The Lotus Sūtra pushes the offering of body and of Dharma to the limit.

The first chapter, "The Dharma Needs Someone to Carry It," looks at the dharma-offering—the one who carries the Dharma and lives it becomes, in himself, the offering. The second chapter, "The Bodhisattva Who Bowed to Everyone," meets Sadāparibhūta, "Never Disrespectful," who bowed to everyone he met—what he bowed to was the buddha innate in every person. The third chapter, "What Was That Fire Burning?", must be read with great care: the bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja burning his body in offering—what, in the end, was that fire burning?

At the end of Part Seven, a transition carries you on toward the Huayan.

Part Eight · The Huayan Dharma-Realm · Where the Whole Road Arrives (five chapters)

The end the book's title points to—"the offering of the dharma-realm."

The first chapter, "Giving: The Door into the Way," shows that the door into the bodhisattva path is precisely giving. The second chapter, "Offerings, Stretched Until There Is No Edge," looks at Samantabhadra's vast cultivation of offerings, stretched until there is no edge and no end. The third chapter, "The Highest Offering," asks what that most famous line—"Among all offerings, the dharma-offering is supreme"—really means. The fourth chapter, "Sudhana's Long Road," follows the youth Sudhana down the long road of his visits to the fifty-three teachers. The fifth chapter, "The Dharma Itself Is Giving," is the end of this road, and of this book—Samantabhadra himself drawing the equals sign between "Dharma" and "giving."

At the end of Part Eight, the last transition carries you on toward the coda.

Part Nine · The Modern Diagnosis, and a Coda · Placing This Road Back in Your Hand (three chapters)

Bringing this long road back to today, back into your hand.

The first chapter, "After the Gift, Is the Heart at Peace?", holds a mirror to our own age—how to tell whether this gift of yours is a true loosening of the hand or a bargain in disguise. The second chapter, "That One Tap on the Phone," takes up something very new: a five-minute, one-tap gift on the phone—does it count? The third chapter, "The Road You Have Just Walked," is the book's coda—looking back over the road walked, from beginning to end; and then returning to the plainest question: where do I begin?

After Part Nine, the road is fully walked.

How to Walk This Road

Last, a few words on how to read.

Walking it in order is best. This book is a road with a beginning and an end; read from the first page to the last and you will watch the hand loosen, stage by stage, ever deeper and ever wider. The "transitions" between the parts are there to carry your breath—each gathers in what the last part won, then points to what it could not yet handle, and hands you gently into the next. Do not skip them.

You may also pick and choose. Read first whichever stage speaks to your heart right now. The first three parts lie closest to daily life; if you want a steady place to begin, start there.

If you are impatient, read the final chapter first. If all you want to know is "then what do I actually do, and where do I begin?", turn first to the last chapter, "The Road You Have Just Walked." It gathers this whole road into a few of its plainest words. When you have read it and come back, you will see all the more clearly how long and how deep a road stands behind those few words.

The catalog numbers and the textual scholarship are not in the body text. This book quotes many sūtras and treatises, but all the catalog numbers, the original Pāli and Sanskrit words, and the scholarly sources are gathered into the appendices at the back: the scriptural sources behind each chapter in Appendix A, and the full romanizations of names and terms in Appendix C. In the body text there is only an old monk, following the scriptures, telling it to you slowly. As you read, none of it need trip your feet; whatever you wish to look into closely, the appendices hold.

The map ends here. Nine stages, one hand.

We set out from the first stage of the road—to see why it is said that giving is loosening the hand.