One Precept, Held to the Buddha-Ground
8.4 One Precept, Held to the Buddha-Ground
Those who have received the precepts often think of the precept as a threshold: cross it, and you have passed; the work from then on should move over to concentration and wisdom, the precept receding into the background, a matter long since settled. The picture given by the Avataṃsaka's Chapter on the Ten Bhūmis is exactly the reverse.
The ten grounds are the ten stations of the bodhisattva path from shallow to deep. In recounting each ground, the Chapter on the Ten Bhūmis has one fixed formula that recurs: with each ascent to a ground, it says that this ground, among the ten perfections, takes some one perfection as "presiding"—specially exerted, specially pure—and at once appends the line, "the rest are not unpracticed, but according to capacity and measure." At the first, the Joyful Ground, giving presides; at the second, the Stainless Ground:
Among the ten perfections, precept-keeping predominates; the rest are not unpracticed, but according to capacity and measure.
Read the two clauses together and the structure is plain: each ground has one presiding perfection, while the remaining nine are cultivated all the same, their measure set according to strength. The precept "predominates" at the second ground—yet the same passage says plainly that "giving and precept-keeping are pure and fully accomplished": giving and precept-keeping stand side by side, accomplished together. Presiding is not possessing alone.
The second ground's very name is the precept. "Stainless"—the stain departed from is "the defilement of broken precepts"; the bodhisattva Vasubandhu's commentary says: "Because it departs from the defilements of the afflictions—such as the deluded mind that gives rise to the breaking of precepts—and the pure precept is fully accomplished, it is named the Stainless Ground." This ground is named by the precept—the precept is not one item among this ground's affairs; the precept defines what makes this ground this ground.
What, then, does the precept of this ground look like? The text takes the ten courses of good action as its substance, and each course opens with the word "nature": "by his very nature departs from all killing of living beings… by his very nature does not steal… by his very nature does not engage in sexual misconduct…" By his very nature departs—not refraining with effort under outward prohibition, but departing of itself, out of one's very nature. Vasubandhu says that at this ground "the nature-precept is accomplished, for whatever is to be done is done naturally." Set against the first ground's "precept guarded by deliberation"—where the force of deliberation must still be raised to guard against transgression—the precept-keeping of the second ground is already natural conduct. The same precept-keeping: one must be guarded with effort; the other comes forth of its own accord.
Vasubandhu has a simile that says this advance through and through—refining gold in alum. The first ground is like refining gold by fire, removing the coarse defilements on the outside; the second ground puts the gold back to boil in alum, removing "the defilement of its own luminous substance," until the gold reaches "its own-nature truly pure." So the true sense of "presiding" is "advancing in purity": not that the other grounds have no precept, not that the precept belongs exclusively to the second ground, but that the same piece of gold is, at this ground, refined the purer. The perfections pervade every ground; there is no ground at which they are uncultivated; the precept at this ground advances in purity, and so the ground is named for it.
And the deepest stretch of the Chapter on the Ten Bhūmis on the precept comes later. The text says: one and the same "highest-grade ten courses of good action"—mark it, the same one—divides, by the depth of its cultivation, into four fruits. Cultivated with wisdom, but with the mind narrow and base, dreading the three realms, wanting in great compassion, understanding by hearing the voice of another—it constitutes the śrāvaka vehicle. Cultivated and purified, awakening of oneself and not through another's teaching, but with the skillful means of great compassion not fully furnished—it constitutes the pratyekabuddha vehicle. Cultivated and purified, with the mind vast and measureless, compassion fully furnished, giving rise to the great vow, not abandoning beings, longing for the great wisdom of the buddhas—it constitutes the bodhisattva's vast course. Pure in every mode, on up to the realization of the ten powers and the four fearlessnesses—"all the Buddha-dharmas are brought to accomplishment."
The phrase "again, this highest-grade ten courses of good action" the text speaks four times running. The four times speak of one and the same precept-substance: the ten good courses the śrāvaka keeps and the ten good courses accomplished at the buddha-ground are the same ten—not one rule added, not one taken away. What changes is only the scope of mind, the compassion and vow, the awakening, the wisdom with which this same precept-substance is cultivated. The height of the precept lies not in how many rules one has received and holds, but in with what mind one cultivates the same one rule. One precept, held to the buddha-ground.
Vasubandhu then grades the inside of this precept as well. The pure precept of the Stainless Ground opens into three: the purity of the precept of desisting—the ten courses of good action, ceasing from evil; the purity of the precept of gathering wholesome dharmas—amassing good, "higher than the purity of the precept of desisting"; the purity of the precept of benefiting beings—benefiting beings, "higher than the precept of gathering wholesome dharmas." Each layer above the last. The three clusters of pure precepts read in Part Four have their prototype exactly here. Above ceasing-from-evil stands amassing-good; above amassing-good, benefiting-beings—within a single ground, the precept is itself a stair ascending layer by layer.
Gather the picture in. On the vertical axis of the bodhisattva path the precept has its "stage-allocation": it stands out specially at one ground (presiding at the Stainless Ground), and runs the whole length according to capacity and measure (pervasive); and one and the same precept-substance can turn from the guard of deliberation to the naturalness of the nature-precept; from ceasing evil, to amassing good, to benefiting beings; from the śrāvaka's measure, cultivated up to the measure of the buddha-ground. On whatever rung of the stair, the practitioner keeps one and the same precept; the difference is only with what scope of mind, what compassion and vow, what wisdom it is cultivated. Precept-keeping is itself a road that runs up to the buddha-ground.
Part Eight is walked. Four chapters, four positions, gathered into a single word: complete.
The Śūraṅgama assembly laid the foundation—gathering in the mind is the precept; from the precept concentration is born; the four instructions are the decisive sense for entering concentration, not one to be lacked (chapter one). The Gateways of Perfect Penetration in the same sūtra showed forth the gate—Upāli's gathering-in, Ucchuṣma's transmutation, Kāśyapa's contraction; the precept stands co-equal with the other gateways, itself a gate into concentration (chapter two). The Lotus assembly saw clearly the form of the precept inside the gate—to abide in, not to keep away from; the restriction turned out from within the practice; the precept is that capacity to "preach in peace" (chapter three). The Huayan ten grounds gave it vertical depth—presiding yet pervasive; one precept, held to the buddha-ground (chapter four).
The foundation is what the precept bears up; the gate is where the precept passes through; the practice is how the precept walks; the stage-allocation is where the precept arrives. Look at the four faces together, and the precept is complete.
The sentence laid down at the close of Part One—when the precept is pure, concentration comes of itself—has here its full settlement: the Heyi-jing's chain says it is so by the nature of things; the Śūraṅgama says that lacking the precept it cannot come to be; the Gateways chapter says the precept can walk there by itself; the ten grounds say it keeps company the whole way, growing purer the longer it is held.
The scriptural road has here been walked to its end. But the one reading the sūtra lives today.