Reading Map · Eight Stages, One Direction

This book is a road.

On a long walk, it steadies you to have a map in 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 eight parts, like eight stages of a road; twenty chapters in all, plus seven short "transitions" between the eight stages. The eight stages set out from the vow before Dīpaṃkara that the Buddha told in His own voice, and walk all the way to the Heart Sūtra's closing "attain anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi." Whichever stage you are on, what walks this road is always the same one thing—a person's direction: how it is turned around, how it catches fire, how it stands firm, and how at the last it reaches the Buddha's seat.

Below, the eight stages are pointed out to you, one by one. No need to memorize them; a sense of direction in the heart is enough.

The Shape of the Road

First, the shape of the whole road.

The first two parts (Parts One and Two) are the vow's root—in the stories of the Buddha's past lives, and in the human world of the Āgamas. The vow before Dīpaṃkara sets the ceiling; the wholesome desire of the Āgamas and the ladder of wishes lay the floor. These two parts sit closest to an ordinary heart.

The middle four parts (Parts Three through Six) watch the vow grow to its full stature in the Mahāyāna—first a seat of its own on the curriculum of the bodhisattva path (the perfection of vow), then condensed into four sentences everyone can chant (the Four Great Vows), then burned into a real and standing land (the original vows of Amitābha), and at last welded to "conduct" in a single word (Samantabhadra's conduct-vows). Each stage larger than the last, and each nearer: large to the whole Dharma-realm, near to the evening recitation book.

Part Seven is the road's deepest stretch—the vow and emptiness meet face to face. On what ground does a mind with nothing to attain make a vow; on what ground does a vow without own-being not retreat; why does an unretreating vow not stop at the gate of nirvāṇa—three questions, three answers, and layer by layer emptiness shows itself the vow's ally.

Part Eight lays down the brush—catching the word "attain" at the Heart Sūtra's end, and then turning over the bottom of the whole Six Practice Gates series.

Eight stages, one through-line: the vow is the turning of a direction—and that direction, in the end, is aimed at the last sentence of the Heart Sūtra.

The Eight Stages, One by One

Part One · Pāli Roots · The Arousing of the Vow (three chapters)

The road begins with the Buddha's own telling of His own past.

Chapter one, "The Vow: Turning the Direction Around," first parts "wishing" from "vowing"—the foundation-stone of the whole book. Chapter two, "Before Dīpaṃkara, That Spread of Hair," watches every element of a vow aroused complete: five flowers, a spread of hair laid over the mud, one sentence that cannot be taken back, and the prediction received on the spot. Chapter three, "Non-Retreat Is the Vow's Own Affair," watches why such a vow cannot be retreated from—non-retreat is not gritted out; it is the vow's own nature.

After Part One, a transition leads into the Āgamas.

Part Two · The Vow in the Āgamas · The Force Called Wanting (two chapters)

The vow is invited back from the far mountains into the human world, to look at the soil under its feet.

Chapter one, "Wanting Comes in Two Kinds," unties the knot many practitioners carry for years: the "wanting" that wants to practice—is it greed? Craving has no bound; wholesome desire has a bound—one is to be severed, the other to be fed. Chapter two, "Aspiring to Where No Aspiring Remains," climbs the ladder of "may I…" in the Discourse on Wishes, rung by rung—the Buddha kicks away not one; and at the top, sees the unexpected turn called "the undirected."

After Part Two, a transition leads into the Mahāyāna treatises.

Part Three · The Vow as Perfection · A Seat on the Curriculum (three chapters)

The vow's name and standing on the bodhisattva path.

Chapter one, "The Vow Has a Seat of Its Own," enters by a strange scene: a bodhisattva at the heights, and the buddhas of the ten directions hasten to remind him of his vow—among the ten perfections, the vow sits eighth. Chapter two, "The Road Is Held Open by the Vow," watches the first thing the first-ground bodhisattva does on arrival: raise ten great vows, sealed at the end with ten clauses of "exhaustion" that never come true. Chapter three, "Merit Is the Ox, the Vow the Driver," hears Nāgārjuna's simile, unbettered in fifteen hundred years—the vow adds nothing to merit's measure, and fixes only merit's direction.

After Part Three, a transition leads into the Four Great Vows.

Part Four · The Four Great Vows · The Bodhisattva Vow in Everyone's Mouth (two chapters)

Back to the four sentences the Chinese tradition knows best.

Chapter one, "Four Sentences That Were a Map All Along," lifts their origin: they are not four wishes, but the Four Noble Truths in another voice—the old map of suffering, origin, cessation, and path: the hearer uses it to leave; the bodhisattva uses it to vow. Chapter two, "Contending with Empty Space," draws the thorn of "beings are numberless—can they ever all be liberated?"—knowing full well that beings are like space, one vows to ferry beings-like-space; this, Master Zhiyi says, alone is the genuine raising of the awakening-mind.

After Part Four, a transition leads into Amitābha's original vows.

Part Five · The Original Vows of Amitābha · A Vow Accomplished (two chapters)

The furthest place vow-power reaches: one vow became a Buddha, and a land.

Chapter one, "If, When I Attain Buddhahood," returns to the seat of the Buddha Lokeśvararāja, to hear the monk Dharmākara make the forty-eight vows—each clause sealed with "may I not take the perfect awakening"; the vow burned into a land, has now already become a Buddha, dwells at present in the West. Chapter two, "Other-Power Can Be Ridden," hears Master Tanluan's simile of the feeble man and the wheel-turning king—other-power is not indolence, not a transaction, but the entrusting of one's vow to a vow that holds.

After Part Five, a transition leads into Samantabhadra's conduct-vows.

Part Six · Samantabhadra's Conduct-Vows · Vow and Conduct, Mended into One (three chapters)

The home ground of the ten royal vows.

Chapter one, "Conduct-Vow Is a Single Word," watches why the text counts conduct and vow together—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. Chapter two, "Moment to Moment, Without Weariness," answers the perplexity no one quite says aloud: must the vow be re-made every day?—what holds the line is the power of contemplative practice, not the I that wearies. Chapter three, "The Last Turn," watches why the ten vows close on universal transference—the first nine accumulate, the tenth turns; what is set down is the accountant, not the merit.

After Part Six, a transition leads into the vow and emptiness.

Part Seven · The Vow and Emptiness · The Deepest Question of the Volume (three chapters)

The edge of prajñā, set against the vow.

Chapter one, "Vowing with Nothing to Attain," watches the Diamond Sūtra's exemplar: the bow at full draw, and the archer empty—and Nāgārjuna blocks, with his own hand, the fork of "since all is empty, no vow need be made." Chapter two, "Immovable for Having No Ground," watches the true guarantee of non-retreat: not gripping tightest, but seeing the vow was never arisen—no thing has arisen that could be lost. Chapter three, "The Bodhisattva Does Not Abide in Nirvāṇa," watches an inexhaustible, unretreating vow walk up to the gate of nirvāṇa, and turn away without entering—rest declined, not because it is impossible, but because of the vow.

After Part Seven, the last transition leads to the laying down of the brush.

Part Eight · Attaining Bodhi · Laying Down the Brush (two chapters)

The gathering of this volume, and of all six.

Chapter one, "One Unbroken Breath," catches the word "attain" at the Heart Sūtra's end—the bodhisattva's ultimate nirvāṇa and the buddhas' attaining of bodhi, a two-step ascent inside a single breath; and what carries the first step into the second is transference-and-vowing. Chapter two, "The Six Gates Were One Sentence All Along," turns over the bottom of the whole series—recollection, giving, repentance, discipline, concentration, vow: what the six volumes have been, all along. What that chapter says, the map does not write.

After Part Eight, the road is walked.

How to Walk This Road

Last, a few words on how to read.

Straight through is best. This book is a road with a head and an end. Read from the first page to the last and you will watch one vow grow, stage by stage, from one person's turning into the full accomplishment of the buddhas of the three periods. The "transitions" between the parts are there to carry your breath—each gathers what the last part won, names what the last part's language could not handle, and hands you gently into the next. Do not skip them.

You may also pick your stage. Whichever stretch sits closest to your heart now, read it first. The daily reciter of the Buddha's name will find Part Five the most familiar; the daily chanter of the four great vows may go first to Part Four; whoever feels that vowing is "empty" and merit-making "solid"—please read first the ox and the driver in Part Three.

Only the last two parts: keep the order. Parts Seven and Eight are the road's deepest stretch and its sealing; they can be received only by arriving along the road before them. The final chapter above all—do not turn to it first. Some views show true only at the road's end; turned to early, the whole road's laying is forfeited.

The catalog numbers and source texts are not in the body. Every passage of sūtra and treatise this book quotes has been collated word by word against the canonical originals; but the numbers, fascicles, and Sanskrit and Pāli originals are all gathered in the appendices at the back. In the body text, there is only one person, following the scriptures, telling it to you slowly. Whoever wishes to look closer—the appendices hold it all.

The map is read. Eight stages, one direction.

We begin with the first stage—telling two words apart: wish, and vow.