The Perfection of Dhyāna

4.1 The Perfection of Dhyāna

The chapter of the Dazhidu lun (Mahāprajñāpāramitā Śāstra) that expounds meditative concentration opens by citing a single line of scripture, only a handful of words long:

Because it is undistracted and unsavored, one should fulfill the perfection of dhyāna.

A whole chapter, and what it expounds is just those two words—undistracted, unsavored. In this chapter we walk it through with the treatise's author, and watch how "dhyāna" comes to carry the added word "pāramitā." Pāramitā means "crossing over"—to the far shore. The same ladder of the four dhyānas: what must be added before it turns from "dhyāna" into "the dhyāna that crosses to the far shore"?

First, say what the answer does not contain: not greater depth, not greater purity, not some other, more mysterious concentration. The treatise's author is clear: what the bodhisattva practices is still that same ladder of the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless attainments. The ladder has not been exchanged. What has changed is what carries the ladder along.

Two Definitions

The treatise's author poses his own question: if the subject is the perfection of dhyāna, why do the scriptures so often say only the one word "dhyāna"? Then he gives two definitions himself.

The first is great compassion plus the great vow. The bodhisattva, having gained dhyāna, turns back in pity toward beings: in their own minds the subtle bliss of meditative concentration is there from the start, yet they do not know to seek it, and go looking for pleasure instead among things impure, things that are suffering. Seeing this, great compassion rises, and a vow is made—first to bring all beings to this inner bliss of concentration, then to bring them to the bliss of the Buddha's way. The treatise concludes: "It is then that dhyāna gains the name of perfection."

The second is the hand of prajñā. The treatise says that the bodhisattva, in this dhyāna:

does not relish it, does not seek its reward, is not reborn by its reward, and enters the absorption in order to discipline the mind; by the skillful means of wisdom one returns to be reborn in the desire-realm and liberates all beings—and it is then that dhyāna is called a perfection.

Read that string of verbs one at a time: does not relish it—does not stick to the sweetness of the absorption; is not reborn by its reward—does not ride the absorption's karmic force up to take birth in the high heavens; by the skillful means of wisdom, returns to be reborn in the desire-realm—comes back into the midst of beings. Put the two definitions together: the first gives the direction (for whose sake); the second gives the handiwork (by what one is kept from sticking). What makes dhyāna a pāramitā is not any property of dhyāna itself; it is the compassion and the wisdom that move upon it.

Then by what does "does not relish it" hold? Not, says the treatise's author, by gritting one's teeth against craving. The bodhisattva knows the true nature of dharmas, and so enters the absorption "at peace, and does not adhere to its savor"—knowing the true nature, there was never anything in the flavor of dhyāna to stick to. This is prajñā's real handiwork: not pressing a prohibition—"do not crave"—onto dhyāna from the outside, but undoing, from the inside, the very thing called "cravable."

Not Adhering to the Savor Is Not Yet Enough

The treatise's author then raises a sharp objection against himself: the arhat and the pratyekabuddha also do not adhere to the savor of dhyāna—they ceased craving the bliss of absorption long ago—why do they still not attain the perfection of dhyāna?

The answer: "because they lack great compassion, they are not called the perfection of dhyāna." That the saints of the two vehicles do not stick to the savor is true; but lacking great compassion as the direction, not-sticking accomplishes only a pure concentration; it does not make a pāramitā. Hence "in others it is called only dhyāna"—when others practice dhyāna, what they obtain is the name "dhyāna," not the name "pāramitā."

The treatise's author lays three kinds of dhyāna side by side, and the difference shows plainly. The non-Buddhists' dhyāna has three diseases: relishing, wrong view, conceit. The disciples' dhyāna is thin in compassion, perfecting only its own good. The bodhisattva's dhyāna, "in every absorption it does not forget beings, extending loving thought even to the insects"—entered into the deepest absorption, even one small insect remains within his loving thought. Set the three in a row, and what divides them is not at all the depth of the concentration; it is what the concentration is carried by, and toward whom it faces.

The treatise keeps a warning mirror as well. That seer Part One has met—Rāma, who taught the bodhisattva the concentration of neither-perception-nor-non-perception—the treatise tells of Udraka-Rāmaputra, a seer of his same line: long cultivation won him the absorption; he was born at the peak of the formless realm; and when that heaven's lifespan was spent, because the mind that adhered to absorption had not been removed, he fell instead into an evil destiny. The treatise pronounces on it: "this is the karmic occasion of an adhering mind within absorption." The highest of absorptions, once the mind adheres, becomes a cause of falling. What this mirror reflects is precisely the weight of those words, "does not relish it."

Setting Down Even the Mark of Absorption

The deepest move of this chapter is here.

Ordinary thinking takes the direction of practice to be: leave "distraction," grasp "absorption"—distraction is the bad thing, absorption the good. The treatise's author refuses to walk that way. To grasp the mark of distraction, he says, gives rise to anger and the other afflictions—no surprise there; but to grasp the "mark of absorption"—to seize the mark "I have attained concentration"—itself gives rise to clinging. So the bodhisattva takes neither side:

The bodhisattva grasps neither the mark of distraction nor the mark of absorption—because distraction and absorption are of one mark—and this is called the perfection of dhyāna.

In the true nature, distraction and absorption are not two opposed things. And the treatise's author pushes the move to the very end: the true mark of the five hindrances is the true mark of dhyāna, and the true mark of dhyāna is the five hindrances; even dhyāna's own parts—applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, ease, one-pointedness, the dhyāna-factors—are placed into emptiness along with all the rest: "the absorption and its factors are of one mark," and one "enters the absorption with nothing to depend on." Prajñā does not stop at emptying dhyāna's objects; it empties all the way into dhyāna's inner construction.

Here one thing must be seen clearly, lest the reading run backward. That prajñā empties the marks of dhyāna is not a call to abandon concentration and cease practicing. The raft that crosses the river is for crossing, not for scuttling in midstream. The treatise keeps a simile of great beauty: the asura's lute, with no one to play it, yet constantly sounds of itself and shapes melodies at will—the bodhisattva deep in absorption is just such a lute, dwelling in the deepest absorption, without applied thought, without sustained thought, and at the same time freely preaching the dharma for beings. Entering deepest, functioning most freely—the two were never in each other's way. The raft is still a raft; only, this raft knows itself to be a raft, and does not take itself for the shore.

Not Reborn by Dhyāna

The last block is the hardest stone in this chapter.

One who cultivates deep absorption, by the ordinary law of karmic reward, goes at death to be born in the corresponding dhyāna heaven—the lifespan immensely long, the bliss of dhyāna immensely deep; the karmic force of concentration is a pull that draws upward. The bodhisattva sets himself against it. The treatise cites the sūtra: the bodhisattva, "by the power of skillful means, is not reborn by dhyāna"—does not take rebirth where the absorption would carry him, but at life's end, in pity for beings, vows to be born where there are buddhas and where there are beings. And the treatise speaks the bodhisattva's reason for him, in a single sentence:

If I were reborn by dhyāna, I could not benefit beings widely.

Part One, in fact, saw the prototype of this motion. The Buddha, in those years, attained the peak of the formless attainments and set it aside, because "this dharma does not tend toward nirvāṇa"; the bodhisattva here has every capacity to be born in the high heavens and enjoy the bliss of absorption, yet he blocks that pull and turns, leaping back into the desire-realm. One same judgment, appearing in two places: however deep, concentration is not a home to settle in.

In giving, the three spheres can be empty; in keeping the precept, the mark of transgression can be unobtainable; but "having perfected the highest concentration, declining to enjoy it, and turning back instead into the sea of suffering"—this is a thing only the perfection of dhyāna can speak of. Because only dhyāna has that pull toward the high heavens, a pull that is there to be reversed.

Prajñā has given dhyāna its nature; that is settled. Another tradition, in wholly different language, is even now building a model of the same concentration. The next chapter, the nine stages of mental abiding.