Appendix C · Glossary of Names and Terms

In the main text, every Sanskrit or Pāli term is glossed in a plain phrase at its first appearance; after that, the ordinary English word is used, without the romanizations and their little dots and bars (diacritics). The full romanizations, with the Pāli (P) and Sanskrit (Skt) forms laid side by side, are gathered here.

The reader who wants to know how a term is written in the original, and what it first meant, can consult this table. The reader who would rather not bother can skip it without losing anything of the book—which is exactly why it sits at the back.

("P" marks Pāli; "Skt" marks Sanskrit; where the two traditions write the same word differently, both forms are given.)

I. Two Backbone Words, and Their Near Neighbors

• Vow—願—paṇidhāna / patthanā (P) / praṇidhāna (Skt)—Setting, and turning around, the direction of the whole person—the protagonist of this book. A wish adds a thing; a vow turns the direction.
• Resolve—決意—adhiṭṭhāna (P) / adhiṣṭhāna (Skt)—The decision fixed and immovable—one of the ten perfections of the Southern tradition; the Pāli root of the vow's "non-retreat" face.
• Pledge / sworn vow—誓—(the vow's reinforced form)—The way of vowing that speaks the vow shut and stakes a price on it—the form of "If, when I attain buddhahood… may I not take the perfect awakening."
• Transference—迴向—pariṇāmanā (Skt)—Turning the facing of one's merit outward—hui means to turn, xiang means to orient; what is turned is a facing, not a thing.
• Arousing the (awakening-)mind—發（菩提）心—bodhicittotpāda (Skt)—Giving rise to the root mind that seeks the Buddha-way above and transforms beings below—the formal name of the "vowing" this book tells.

II. The Force Called Wanting

• Desire (the neutral faculty)—欲—chanda (P/Skt)—The force by which the mind reaches out toward what it likes—in itself neither good nor evil; everything hangs on its facing.
• Wholesome desire—善法欲—kusala-dhamma-chanda (P)—The wanting that faces wholesome dharmas and liberation—the engine of the path, to be fed; arrived, it goes out of itself.
• Craving—渴愛—taṇhā (P) / tṛṣṇā (Skt)—The grasping that, having gotten, wants more, and never runs dry—the root of birth and death, to be severed.
• The undirected (concentration)—無願（三昧）—appaṇihita (P) / apraṇihita (Skt)—One of the three gates of liberation: no longer aspiring toward any dharma in the mode of possession—the ladder's highest rung, and the original vow not cut off.

III. The Vow's Name and Standing on the Bodhisattva Path

• Perfection—波羅蜜—pāramī (P) / pāramitā (Skt)—Crossing to the far shore. The vow holds the eighth of the ten seats—the perfection of the not-yet-across.
• Perfection of vow—願波羅蜜（多）—praṇidhāna-pāramitā (Skt)—Longing for the knowledge that lies further and further ahead—the perfection that forever leans forward, drawing in the superior conditions to come.
• The ten great vows (first ground)—十大願—(the ten vows of the Ground of Joy)—The first thing the first-ground bodhisattva does on arrival—the skeleton of the long road of the ten grounds, sealed with the ten exhaustion-clauses.
• The ten exhaustion-clauses—十盡句—("should the realm of beings be exhausted, my vow would be exhausted…")—The vow's terminus set, deliberately, where it never comes true—the vow holds its office by never closing.
• The Four Great Vows—四弘誓願—(the common bodhisattva vow of the Chinese tradition)—Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to liberate them; afflictions are inexhaustible, I vow to sever them; dharma-gates are measureless, I vow to study them; the Buddha-Way is unsurpassed, I vow to accomplish it—the Four Noble Truths in the active voice.
• The uncontrived four vows—無作四弘—(the Tiantai reading)—The vowing that knows beings to be like space and vows to ferry beings-like-space—uncontrived is not "not doing"; it is doing all of it without grasping completion.

IV. The Original Vow and Other-Power

• Original vow—本願—pūrva-praṇidhāna (Skt)—The vow rooted in past ages, already accomplished, possessed of its efficacy here and now—"original" means not "the vow he made" but "the vow already made good."
• The Forty-Eight Vows—四十八願—(made by the monk Dharmākara)—Forty-eight clauses, each sealed with "may I not take the perfect awakening"—a bond of surety with everything at stake, not an inventory of amenities.
• Other-power—他力—(Tanluan's distinction)—Going by the power of a vow already accomplished—what is entrusted is the carrying of the direction, not the direction itself; not indolence, not a transaction.
• The gate of making the vow—作願門—(third of the five gates of mindfulness)—The vow the practitioner's own end raises day by day—"to constantly make the vow with the mind, single-mindedly and wholly intent, to be reborn at last in the Land of Peace and Bliss."
• The going-forth and returning aspects—往相・還相—(the two aspects of dedication)—Going forth: dedicating one's virtue and aspiring to be born in that land. Returning: born in that land, returning into the dense forest of birth-and-death to liberate beings—the one who reaches the shore is the one who goes back into the water.

V. Conduct-Vow and Continuity

• Conduct-vow—行願—bhadracarī-praṇidhāna (Skt, Samantabhadra's conduct-vows)—Conduct and vow joined in a single word—the vow is what the conduct is oriented toward, the conduct is what fills the vow full; like a bird's two wings, a cart's two wheels.
• The ten royal vows—十大願王—(Samantabhadra's ten vows)—From paying homage to all buddhas down to universal transference—a different set from the first-ground ten; what the evening liturgy recites is this.
• Moment to moment, without weariness—念念相續・無有疲厭—(the recurring closing of the ten vows)—The vow's way of living in time—what holds the line is the power of contemplative practice, not the I that wearies.
• The power of contemplative practice—觀行力—(Zongmi's term)—The force by which the vow walks of itself—"without the power of Samantabhadra's contemplative practice, how could thought-moment after thought-moment go unbroken?"
• Universal transference—普皆迴向—(the tenth vow)—The first nine accumulate; the tenth turns—what is set down is the accountant, not the merit.

VI. The Vow and Emptiness

• Emptiness—空—suññatā (P) / śūnyatā (Skt)—Not "nothing," but "no iron-cast own-being anywhere to be clutched"—the vow's deepest ally, not its adversary.
• Nothing to attain—無所得—anupalambha (Skt)—Unapprehendable—not a subtraction; the vow made with nothing to attain is made more loosely, not made less.
• The three wheels empty (of the vow)—三輪體空（於願）—(modeled on trimaṇḍala-pariśuddhi)—The vower, the vowed, and the vow, all three unapprehendable—a structural projection modeled on the three wheels of giving; no word-for-word sentence in the scriptures, as the body text states openly.
• The patience of non-arising—無生法忍—anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti (Skt)—Accepting, and resting at peace in, "all dharmas were never arisen"—the true guarantee of non-retreat: no thing has arisen that could be lost.
• Non-retreat / avaivartika—不退轉／阿鞞跋致—avaivartika (Skt)—The station at which the vow can no longer be snatched away or run dry—immovable for having no ground, not for gripping tightest.
• The Immovable Ground—不動地—acalā bhūmi (Skt)—The eighth ground—entered that very instant the patience of non-arising is accomplished; all effortful activity relinquished, the dharma of effortlessness attained.
• Effortlessness—無功用—anābhoga (Skt)—Unforced, spontaneous working—immovability is not the summit of effort but the falling away of effort.
• The nirvāṇa of no-abode—無住處涅槃—apratiṣṭhita-nirvāṇa (Skt)—By prajñā, not abiding in saṃsāra; by great compassion, not abiding in nirvāṇa—only one who can go gives his not-going the name of staying.

VII. The Terminus

• Anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi—阿耨多羅三藐三菩提—anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhiḥ (Skt)—Unsurpassed, perfect awakening—what the Heart Sūtra's closing "attain" attains; brought to completion, with no one completed.
• Ultimate nirvāṇa (the cessation-fruit)—究竟涅槃（斷果）—(Fazang's division)—The stillness of obstructions ended—the accomplishment that says "what is no longer there"; the landing-point of the bodhisattva's sentence.
• Attaining bodhi (the wisdom-fruit)—得菩提（智果）—(Fazang's division)—The fullness of wisdom complete—the accomplishment that says "what has come fully present"; the landing-point of the buddhas' sentence. The latter completes the former; the two must not be run together.
• The ocean of omniscience—一切智海—sarvajñatā (Skt, omniscience)—The buddhas' boundless sea of wisdom—"it arises wholly from the great vows the Tathāgata made in ages past": the Buddha-fruit born of the vow, appearing by the vow.
• The five-part Dharma-body—五分法身—(discipline, concentration, wisdom, liberation, the knowledge-and-vision of liberation)—The new support "born" after repentance is made clean—a pure continuity on the ground of no-self, not a new I exchanged for the old.

VIII. Names

Buddhas and Figures of the Birth-Stories

• Dīpaṃkara (the Buddha of Lamplight)—然燈佛（燈光佛）—Dīpaṃkara—The ancient Buddha who gave Śākyamuni-to-be the prediction—the five flowers and the spread of hair happened before his seat.
• The Tathāgata Treasure-Store—寶藏如來—Ratnagarbha (traditional correspondence)—The Buddha of the life in which the princess Muni offered the oil—the prelude in which vow and practice turned together.
• The Buddha Lokeśvararāja—世自在王佛—Lokeśvararāja—The teacher of the monk Dharmākara—who showed him the two hundred and ten koṭis of buddha-fields.
• Dharmākara (the monk)—法藏（比丘）—Dharmākara—The monk who relinquished country and throne and made the Forty-Eight Vows—the later Buddha Amitābha. A different person from the Tang Huayan master Fazang, distinguished throughout the book.
• Amitābha—阿彌陀佛—Amitābha / Amitāyus—Immeasurable Light, Immeasurable Life—the fruit of Dharmākara's vows; has now already become a Buddha, dwells at present in the West, ten eons in all.
• Subhūti—須菩提—Subhūti—The interlocutor of the Diamond Sūtra and the prajñā assemblies—"how should the mind abide" is his question.

Bodhisattvas

• Samantabhadra—普賢—Samantabhadra—The bodhisattva of Great Conduct—protagonist of the ten royal vows; the non-duality of vow and conduct stands by him.
• Sudhana—善財—Sudhana—The hearer of the Chapter on Conduct-Vows—the ten great vows are spoken to him and the assembly.
• Avalokiteśvara—觀自在（觀世音）—Avalokiteśvara—The protagonist of the Heart Sūtra's opening, "practicing the deep prajñā."
• Maitreya—彌勒—Maitreya—The bodhisattva of the age to come, touched on in Nāgārjuna's exchanges on ultimate emptiness.

Patriarchs and Treatise-Masters

• Nāgārjuna—龍樹—Nāgārjuna—Author of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra and the Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā—the axis treatise-master of this book; the ox and the driver, and "emptiness does not obstruct the vow," are both from his hand.
• Vasubandhu—世親（天親）—Vasubandhu—Author of the Daśabhūmika-sūtra-śāstra and the Treatise on Rebirth—the three excellences and their retinue, the five gates of mindfulness, the original-vow-power verse.
• Maitreya (the treatise-master)—彌勒（論主）—Maitreya(-nātha)—The authority behind the Yogācārabhūmi—the rulings on wholesome desire and the perfection of vow.
• Tanluan—曇鸞—(Northern Wei)—Author of the Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth—the question of "set up in vain," the simile of the feeble man and the wheel-turning king, "hearing that other-power can be ridden, give rise to faith, and do not confine yourself to your own portion."
• Zhiyi (Master Zhiyi)—智顗（智者大師）—(Tiantai school, Sui)—The Mohe Zhiguan—the four vows fitted to the Four Truths, contending with empty space, "within the nothing-whatsoever, I therefore seek it."
• Huineng (the Sixth Patriarch)—惠能（六祖）—(Chan school, Tang)—The Platform Sūtra—the own-mind four vows: when the wrong comes, liberate it with the right; when delusion comes, liberate it with awakening.
• Chengguan—澄觀—(Huayan school, Tang)—The Commentary on the Conduct-Vow Chapter—aspiration as vow, undertaking as conduct; the cart's wheels and bird's wings; first the inexhaustibility, then the unbrokenness.
• Zongmi—宗密—(Huayan / Chan, Tang)—The Sub-commentary—the vow already conduct; the question of the power of contemplative practice; to turn and to orient.
• Fazang (Master Xianshou)—法藏（賢首大師）—(Huayan school, Tang)—The Brief Commentary on the Heart Sūtra—the division of cessation-fruit and wisdom-fruit. A different person from the monk Dharmākara, who shares the Chinese name.
• Dharmapāla and others—護法等—Dharmapāla—The treatise-masters behind the Cheng Weishi Lun—the mental factor of desire, the two vows, the nirvāṇa of no-abode.