Giving in the Age of AI

I. Introduction: The Five-Minute Micro-Dāna Scene and the Doctrinal Task

A finger touches the screen; five minutes pass; a button marked "donate" lands on the interface of a mainstream online giving platform; the amount is small, the duration brief, the medium thin; the transfer crosses distance and completes in the interval of an ordinary moment. Is the practitioner's cetanā, as it is shaped in that interval, of one piece with the doctrinal grammar of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle ninety-two, where "giving takes cetanā as its head"? This question is not a question of contemporary commentary, nor a question of critique of technology. It is a doctrinal question: whether a single mind-moment of cetanā suffices as karma-seed, and where the accompanying supports — the platform, the algorithm, the recommendation, the cross-distance transfer mechanism — each fall within the four-conditions architecture.

The Iron Snail dialogue (Q.1, 2026-03-26) left the boundary question — where exactly the line is drawn — publicly suspended; the present paper accepts that open posture and answers only how the doctrinal mechanism of giving in the AI era remains unchanged.

The preceding paper (P29) established a cross-traditional diagnostic instrument built around the twin-factor causal chain pīti-passaddhi: hierarchical (not condemnatory), in-tradition (not externally imposed), and architectural (not accidental). The present paper carries that instrument forward to the doctrinal ground of the AI-era field of giving: AI's arrival neither replaces nor abolishes the chain of giving; AI falls under the fourth of the four conditions (adhipati-pratyaya, glossed in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra as "excluding the seed, the remaining supports — like the eye and its accompanying supports"). This placement is the thesis-spine of the paper: AI is pratyaya — specifically adhipati-pratyaya — never hetu.

Volume One, paper thirty, already establishes the same operator from the recollection-of-Buddha angle: AI accelerates the frequency of the manas cycle, and the single thought-moment of nianfo finds its many landing-points within that accelerated cycle. The present paper takes the same operator from the giving angle. One manas-transformation operator, two verbs; the polyphony will be drawn out at §V.

The register of the present paper is paper-level contemporary application: one step closer to ordinary practice than the modern-diagnosis register of P29, but with the diagnostic discipline unchanged — hierarchical (depth places the act), non-condemnatory (the puritan binary is to be refused), in-tradition (no institutional attack, no naming of platforms, the practitioner as grammatical subject), and architectural (no slippage into contemporary critique-of-technology). The present paper is not the volume-closing of DĀNA; that task belongs to P31.

The question of AI's own ontological status — whether AI possesses sentience, cetanā, or karmic agency — is not a question this paper engages; that question belongs to the view-axis (the Pointing-at-the-Moon Octalogy, series four) and stands within the classical avyākata register of indeterminate questions. The present paper engages only the action-axis: how giving operates when AI sits among the supporting conditions.

The chapters proceed as follows. §II lays out the four-conditions architecture; §III establishes AI's doctrinal placement within the fourth condition together with the doctrinal warrant for momentariness of cetanā; §IV develops anumodanā as the canonical ground for mediated and distributed giving and conducts the dialogue with three contemporary critics; §V sets out the cross-volume polyphony in a single paragraph; §VI concludes and points forward.

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II. The Four-Conditions Architecture: The Canonical Placement of Hetu, Samanantara, Ālambana, and Adhipati

The canonical enumeration and functional gloss of the four conditions (the four pratyaya) receive their clearest single statement in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle three:

There are, furthermore, four conditions: first, the cause-condition (hetu-pratyaya); second, the equal-and-uninterrupted condition (samanantara-pratyaya); third, the object-condition (ālambana-pratyaya); fourth, the dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya). The cause-condition refers to the seed (bīja). The equal-and-uninterrupted condition refers to that which, when this consciousness has ceased without interval, determines the arising of the subsequent consciousnesses — it is the equal-and-uninterrupted condition for those. The object-condition refers to the cognitive-object domain of mind and mental factors. The dominant condition refers to that which, excluding the seed, remains as supports — like the eye and its accompanying supports.¹

This passage provides three things at once: the complete sequence of the four conditions; the functional gloss of each; and the structural subtraction-clause of the fourth condition. The subtraction-clause "excluding the seed, the remaining supports" (除種子，餘所依) — the six characters that, after the seed (bīja, the proximate cause of the cause-condition) has been excluded, deposit the remaining supports under the heading of adhipati-pratyaya — is the architectural anchor of the present paper.

The same fascicle adds a paired statement of correspondence:

Through the seed, the cause-condition is established. Through self-nature, the equal-and-uninterrupted condition is established. Through the cognitive-object domain, the object-condition is established. Through the supporting-base and its accompanying supports, the dominant condition is established.²

The four conditions, on this reading, are not four parallel causes; they are four distinct kinds of conditioning. The seed (hetu / hetu-pratyaya) is the active, productive proximate cause; the latter three conditions are non-productive supporting conditions. The Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle seven, will add a two-directional clause to the fourth condition — to be introduced at §III.

The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle thirty-two, supplies the sūtra-level canonical warrant:

The bodhisattva-mahāsattva who would know the cause-condition (hetu-pratyaya), the sequential condition (anantara-pratyaya), the object-condition (ālambana-pratyaya), and the dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya) of all dharmas — should train in prajñāpāramitā!³

A philological note on translation history is needed. The equal-and-uninterrupted condition (Xuanzang: 等無間緣) and the sequential condition (Kumārajīva: 次第緣) render the same Sanskrit term, samanantara-pratyaya; the object-condition similarly appears as 所緣緣 in Xuanzang and as 緣緣 in Kumārajīva, both rendering ālambana-pratyaya. The present paper uses the Xuanzang forms (samanantara-pratyaya / ālambana-pratyaya) as standard, footnoting the Kumārajīva variants on first occurrence; the two are not alternated in body text.

Three further distinctions must be held apart. The cause-condition (hetu-pratyaya) is the first of the four conditions; it is not an abbreviation for dependent origination (pratītya-samutpāda) and not a generic gloss for "condition." The term pratyaya names "condition" in general; all four are pratyaya, but only the first is at the same time hetu (cause). Dependent origination (pratītya-samutpāda) is the overarching doctrine; the four-conditions architecture is one structural articulation of its mechanism. If these three terms collapse into one another, the central thesis of the present paper fractures: AI must remain within the category of pratyaya (specifically adhipati-pratyaya) and must not be treated as hetu. Any formulation that places "AI as the cause-condition of giving" is, by the lights of the present paper, a collapse of the architecture.

Returning to the implication of the subtraction-clause "excluding the seed, the remaining supports": if the karma-seed of an act of giving is the practitioner's cetanā, then AI's accompanying supports — the platform, the algorithm, the recommendation, the cross-distance transfer mechanism — fall under the heading "remaining supports," in the same category as the practitioner's eye, hand, language, and the long historical accompanying-supports of charitable action. AI is not the seed of giving; AI neither replaces nor abolishes the practitioner's cetanā. AI sits in the fourth condition, in the same conceptual class as the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra's exemplar "the eye and its accompanying supports." This placement is neither a diminishment of AI's functional reach nor a deification of its transformative power. As the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle seven, will spell out at §III, the fourth condition operates bidirectionally — favouring or obstructing depending on what passes through it — and this is the doctrinal ground for the hierarchical (not deterministic) reading the paper sustains throughout.

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III. AI Within the Fourth Condition: "Excluding the Seed, the Remaining Supports" and the Doctrinal Warrant for Momentary Cetanā

§II established AI's placement within the fourth condition. The present section establishes its doctrinal warrant — why a single mind-moment of cetanā suffices as karma-seed, and why cross-distance, short-duration micro-giving is not a derivative or lesser form. The opening citation comes from the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle ninety-two:

Among all mental and mental-concomitant dharmas, at the time of attaining the path, prajñā is supreme; in concentration, samādhi is supreme; at the time of producing karma, cetanā is supreme. Once cetanā-karma has been generated, it gives rise to the karma of body, speech, and mind. Giving, meditation, and the rest take cetanā as their head — like a needle leading the thread when sewing.⁴

This passage is the unique place in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra literature where "giving" (dāna) is named explicitly as the practice that takes cetanā as its leading factor, and the simile of needle and thread is given alongside. In sewing, every stitch is a stitch; there is no "real stitch" set against "false stitch." The simile survives translation intact and transfers cleanly to the phenomenology of the "single tap of mind": every act of online micro-giving is one stitch in the cloth; difference lies in the depth of the needle's penetration, not in the ontological status of the stitch.

The phrase "cetanā is supreme" (以思為首) is the doctrinal centre of §III. Cetanā as the bearer of mind-karma (manas-karma) is a continuous canonical thread running from the Pāli Āgama through the Xuanzang Vijñaptimātra tradition. From the Madhyama-āgama 111 (Pāli parallel: AN 6.63 Nibbedhika-sutta):

What is the knowledge of karma? It is taught: there are two kinds of karma — cetanā and that which has been willed (cetayitvā). This is the knowledge of karma. What is the knowledge of the arising-condition of karma? It is contact.⁵

Nāgārjuna takes this up directly in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, chapter on karma, MK 17.2–3:

The Great Sage taught two karmas — cetanā and that which arises from cetanā; the cetanā of which the Buddha spoke is mind-karma; that which arises from cetanā is the karma of body and speech.⁶

Vasubandhu, in the Abhidharmakośa, fascicle thirteen, systematizes the same point:

What is the substance of karma in question here? It is the cetanā of the mind and that which has been done by cetanā. Hence the canonical text says: there are two kinds of karma — first, cetanā-karma (cetanā-kamma); second, karma performed-after-having-willed (sañcetanika-kamma) — the latter being that which is done by cetanā.⁷

Xuanzang's Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle one, gives the final standardization:

The cetanā that can move the body is called body-karma; the cetanā that can move speech is called speech-karma. The deliberating cetanā and the deciding cetanā, being concomitant with the mind and moving the mind itself, are called mind-karma.⁸

This four-stratum thread — Pāli Āgama → Madhyamaka verse → Abhidharma systematization → Vijñaptimātra standardization — represents a doctrinal load borne across four registers; it is not a sectarian proposition. A five-minute act of giving made through the touch of a screen has, as its karma-seed, the practitioner's cetanā at that moment — not the duration, not the quantity, not the medium. This is the thesis-spine of "five-minute micro-dāna" at the doctrinal level: brevity of time, smallness of quantity, thinness of medium do not determine whether a karma-seed is established. What sorts the act is the depth of cetanā, not the form of the giving-act.

The implication of the needle simile extends naturally into momentariness. In the space of a single mind-moment, cetanā has already become karma; karma has already become seed. This is what Nāgārjuna fixes in the prose section of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 17.6:

Karma is of arising-perishing character; it does not endure even one mind-moment — how much less until the time of its fruit!⁹

The ontological status of karma is precisely arising-perishing; not even one mind-moment of persistence is required, and this in no way prevents its fruition. Once momentariness is set down, the "brevity of the moment" cannot stand as an objection to the establishment of karma. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle twenty-four, in its exegesis of the ten-powers section of the Initial Chapter, supplies the most vivid simile in the entire canonical chain:

Question: "It is reasonable that ripened and unripened differ — but how can a little time of mind at the moment of dying surpass a whole life's sustained action?" Answer: "Though this mind-moment is brief, its mind-power is sharp — like fire, like poison: though minimal, it accomplishes great matters. The mind at the moment of dying, being decisively vigorous, surpasses a hundred years of sustained action."¹⁰

A philological note is required here. The text of fascicle twenty-four reads 「勝百歲行力」 ("surpasses a hundred years of sustained action") — xing-li, the power of action sustained over a life. The later Lebang wenlei (T1969《樂邦文類》T47, No. 1969View on CBETA online reader ↗A, compiled by Zongxiao in 1200 CE) reformulates this phrase as 「勝百年願力」 — substituting yuan-li (vow-power) for xing-li (action-power) — and is a Pure Land paraphrase, not the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's own wording. The present paper cites the source text of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra directly at T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, fascicle 24, and does not transmit the Lebang wenlei reformulation. The fire-and-poison simile, on its own terms, transfers to the phenomenology of the "single tap of mind": brevity does not negate sharpness; a thin medium does not negate depth of cetanā.

The quantitative anchor in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra is the sharpest blade in this doctrinal chain. From the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, northern recension, fascicle nineteen, "Pure Conduct" chapter (translated by Dharmakṣema):

Great King! Even if for a whole month, every day, one were to provide food and clothing reverently to all sentient beings — this does not match one-sixteenth of the merit of a single mind-moment of Buddha-mindfulness.¹¹

The exact wording here, as preserved at T0374《大般涅槃經》T12, No. 374View on CBETA online reader ↗ p.0480a01-02, is 「假使一月，常以衣食供養恭敬一切眾生」 — the characters chang (constantly) and gong-jing (reverently) are present in the northern recension, and the secondary paraphrase that drops these characters is not the canonical source. The Buddha addresses King Prasenajit; the duration is a month, the depth is reverential, the offering is food and clothing, the scope is all beings — and this quantitative magnitude does not reach one-sixteenth of one mind-moment of Buddha-mindfulness. The sharpness of the 16:1 ratio is not a sectarian assertion; it is the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra's own quantitative testimony. At the doctrinal level, "a single mind-moment of Buddha-mindfulness" stands here as the canonical statement that depth of cetanā substitutes for, and outweighs, the bodily quantum of merit-action.

The hierarchical primacy of mind-karma is fixed bidirectionally in the Abhidharmakośa, fascicle eighteen:

If that is so, then why, among the three categories of punishable karma, does the Buddha teach mind-punishment to be the gravest offence, and again teach that wrong view is the gravest among offences? From the standpoint of the five inexpiables, the breaking of the Saṅgha is most severe; from the standpoint of the three categories of punishable karma, mind-offence is greatest; from the standpoint of the five erroneous views, wrong view is heaviest.¹²

The "mind-punishment is the gravest offence" formula installs the hierarchy on the unwholesome side; the same fascicle installs it on the wholesome side:

The cetanā that experiences the ripening of the highest-of-existence is, among worldly wholesome states, the supreme fruit-producer.¹³

The extremum of the unwholesome and the extremum of the wholesome both take cetanā as their vehicle. Fascicle thirteen supplies the foundational sentence:

Cetanā is mind-karma; what is done [by it] is body-karma and speech-karma.¹⁴

With the load-bearing thesis — mind-karma as the bearer of the three-karma system, cetanā as the content of mind-karma — set down, the implication of AI's placement at the fourth condition can be drawn out further. AI's accompanying supports (platform, algorithm, recommendation, cross-distance transfer mechanism) are supporting conditions, not productive proximate causes; the practitioner's cetanā is the hetu, and AI is the pratyaya. The same AI accompanying-support, presented to practitioners of differing cetanā-quality, yields differing fruit. This is precisely the bidirectional clause of the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle seven:

Fourth, the dominant condition: namely, if there is a dharma possessed of dominant power, capable, with respect to other dharmas, of either favouring or obstructing them. Although the prior three conditions are likewise dominant, what is here singled out as the fourth excludes those and takes the remainder, in order to display the distinctive marks of the conditions.¹⁵

The phrase "either favouring or obstructing" (或順、或違) is the doctrinal backstop for the present paper's red line: a single condition-category covers both AI's facilitating and AI's obstructing operation, and this protects the paper from sliding into a utopian-AI or apocalyptic-AI register. To the practitioner of deep cetanā, AI's accompanying support functions as a "favouring" dominant condition; to the practitioner of shallow cetanā, the same support functions as an "obstructing" dominant condition. The condition is not the cause; the practitioner's cetanā is the cause of the fruit. This hierarchical, non-deterministic reading is the paper's standing posture.

As to AI's own ontological status — whether AI possesses sentience, cetanā, or karmic agency — the present paper takes no position. That terrain belongs to the Pointing-at-the-Moon Octalogy, series four (the view-axis), and to the avyākata category of indeterminate questions deferred for doctrinal reasons. The present paper argues only at the action-axis level concerning the doctrinal mechanism of giving; AI's own ontological standing is bracketed and held outside the red line.

The three-wheel-empty (tri-maṇḍala-śūnyatā) doctrine of giver-recipient-gift is the central theme of fascicles eleven and twelve of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra and of P13 of the present series. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle eleven:

The Buddha addressed Śāriputra: "The bodhisattva-mahāsattva, dwelling in prajñāpāramitā through the dharma of non-dwelling, perfects dāna-pāramitā through the dharma of nothing-given — the giver, the recipient, and the gift not being apprehensible."¹⁶

The present paper takes only this one sentence; the full architecture of three-wheel-empty is P13's territory and is not re-derived here. A single line of implication can, however, be drawn: "taking cetanā as the head" establishes cetanā as bearer, and three-wheel-empty establishes the phenomenology of cetanā as "neither-able-nor-object" — the two interlock doctrinally, the former installing the establishment of the karma-seed, the latter installing its ultimate aspect of liberation. AI-era micro-giving, when the practitioner's cetanā is deep enough, enters this same correspondence; when cetanā is shallow, it does not lose the establishment of its karma-seed. The hierarchical (not puritan) reading is reinforced here.

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IV. Anumodanā: The Doctrinal Warrant for Mediated Giving, in Dialogue with Contemporary Critics

§III established the ground of the practitioner's cetanā as the karma-seed of the single-tap act. §IV proceeds one step further: when the practitioner participates in a giving-act through cross-distance, mediated transmission — when funds traverse a platform, pass through a transnational organisation, are routed through a relay mechanism, and finally reach the recipient — what is the practitioner's doctrinal position within the giving-act? The canonical answer is anumodanā (rejoicing-in-merit).

The Pāli textual ground is AN 5.36, Kāladānasutta:

Ye tattha anumodanti, veyyāvaccaṁ karonti vā; Na tena dakkhiṇā ūnā, tepi puññassa bhāgino.¹⁷

Bhikkhu Sujato's English translation (CC0):

Those who rejoice at that, or do other services, don't miss out on the offering; they too have a share in the merit.

Those who rejoice and those who provide services: the dakkhiṇā is not made thin by this, and they too share in the puñña. This stanza is the most explicit canonical warrant in the Pāli corpus for mediated and distributed giving: a giving that is neither direct hand-to-hand delivery nor bodily transport remains, at the position of anumodanā and veyyāvaccaṁ karoti (rendering service, lending aid), a full sharing in the merit's plenitude.

The Mahāyāna intensification is more thoroughgoing. From the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle sixty-one, exegesis of "Rejoicing and Dedication":

The bodhisattva, merely through the rejoicing of mind, surpasses the giving and all the uncontaminated merits of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and all sentient beings — how much more so the offering of flowers, incense, scripture-rolls, and the like!¹⁸

The passage does not depreciate material offerings; it installs the amplifying force of anumodanā's cetanā — the "rejoicing of mind," in its directional orientation as cetanā, exceeds in measure the giving of śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and all beings. The same chapter supplies a definitional anchor:

The merit of rejoicing requires no exertion of body or speech in the performance of meritorious acts; one needs only mental skill in witnessing another's merit-making — thereupon rejoicing and forming this thought: "Among all beings, those who can cultivate merit and walk the path are the most distinguished!"¹⁹

"Without exertion of body or speech" plus "by mental skill" — this language draws the phenomenology of mediated giving directly. The mediated practitioner sits, in functional doctrinal structure, at the position of anumodanti + veyyāvaccaṁ karonti: the practitioner does not place the gift into the recipient's hands directly, does not personally reach the field of giving; but "by mental skill, witnesses another's merit-making" — and the directional orientation of the practitioner's cetanā toward the merit-flow of others has been canonically installed, two millennia ago, as a full share in the merit's plenitude.

One distinction must be marked. Anumodanā is not a third item placed in parallel to cetanā; it is a species of cetanā — specifically, the cetanā directed toward another's merit-flow (the pubba / muñca / apara-cetanā of the canonical three-phase framing). The P30 register of anumodanā (one of the seven offerings established in fascicle sixty-one of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra) is not identical with pīti (the fifth bojjhaṅga, the jhāna-factor of rapture treated in P29). The Chinese character 喜 covers both, as does the English "joy"; the present paper holds them apart consistently by context.

Three further canonical witnesses, cross-linked in a single sentence each: the fiftieth-relay parable of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, "Rejoicing Merit" chapter, where the merit of the fiftieth person's single moment of rejoicing exceeds the eighty-year giving of a great donor (P21's territory, not re-derived here)²⁰; the universalising scope of Samantabhadra's fifth great vow in the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra — "down to a single mote of dust, I rejoice in all" (P25/P26's territory, not re-derived here)²¹; and the double ring of self-rejoicing-plus-encouraging-others-to-rejoice in fascicle forty-five of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, "Bodhisattva-bhūmi" — "universally rejoicing in all merits of all beings in all directions, and likewise leading others to such rejoicing"²². These four cross-traditional canonical statements converge on the same point: the doctrinal structure of anumodanā does not depend on face-to-face transmission; the sharing of merit traverses distance, time, and the subject-object structure, and remains plenitudinous.

From this can be established the three-way functional division that frames AI-era giving doctrinally: the platform (the mainstream online giving platform, as accompanying support) sits at the adhipati-pratyaya slot — under the heading "excluding the seed, the remaining supports"; the practitioner's cetanā serves as the cause-condition (the seed), and at the position of anumodanti + veyyāvaccaṁ karonti carries the function of anumodanā (a directional species of cetanā); the giving-act (the transmission of the gift itself) operates at the field-execution layer of dāna-pāramitā. The canonical statement is explicit: within this three-way functional division, the practitioner's share in the merit is in no way diminished; it is plenitudinous.

We can now move into the dialogue with contemporary critics. The phenomenology of AI-mediated giving — the single-tap, the cross-distance transfer, the thin form of intervention — has been the subject of three distinct lines of critical-academic interrogation: Slavoj Žižek's critique of pseudo-action; Peter Hershock's critique of the attention-economy; and Lewis Hyde's anthropology of the gift-circle. The present paper, in turn, acknowledges the sociological validity of each observation and replies, on the basis of canonical doctrine, to the framing-presupposition each carries.

IV.1 Žižek: Pseudo-Action and Substitute Engagement

Slavoj Žižek, in First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (2009) and In Defense of Lost Causes (2008), sustains a continuous critique of the contemporary forms of online action — Twitter expression, periodic micro-donation, mere "awareness-raising" without commitment — as functionally constituting pseudo-action: discharging the conscience without requiring the actor to confront the structural conditions that produce suffering; the single-tap donation as a form of "substitute engagement," performing the appearance of solidarity while the life-world remains unchanged.

Acknowledgement. Žižek's observation that "the ease of pseudo-action can dull attention to structural problems" is sociologically valid; any "frictionless beneficence" architecture carries this risk — structurally homologous with the instrumentalisation critique developed in P29. The fact that "the design of the platform tends to channel the practitioner along the path of lowest resistance to the completion of the giving-act" has no automatic doctrinal exoneration at its surface stratum; the diagnostic instrument (the pīti-passaddhi twin-factor of P29), applied at this stratum, hierarchically sorts the depth of cetanā.

Rejoinder. Žižek's framing, however, presupposes a binary: "true action requires deep commitment; otherwise it is pseudo-action." This is a Protestant-style binary. The doctrine of anumodanā (AN 5.36 with the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle sixty-one) explicitly commends non-direct participation as a full share in the merit's plenitude; "without exertion of body or speech, only by mental skill" is the canonical refusal of Žižek's binary. Performing mediated giving with directional cetanā is the canonical mode, not a derivative of a more authentic form. Žižek's framing assumes a theology of hand-delivered direct action that the Buddhist dāna tradition has never held; the doctrinal establishment of anumodanā and veyyāvaccaṁ karoti was already settled, on canonical ground, two thousand years before the contemporary debate.

IV.2 Hershock: The Buddhist Critique of the Attention-Economy

Peter Hershock, in Buddhism in the Public Sphere (2006), Liberating Intimacy (1996), and a series of articles on the attention-economy across 2010–2021, treats the structural capture of attention from a Huayan interpenetration framework: the contemporary AI accompanying supports (recommendation algorithms, engagement-optimisation, dwell-time metrics) structurally capture the practitioner's attention, with the consequence that "the cultivation of true cetanā in action" is structurally constrained.

Acknowledgement. Hershock's voice, situated within the critical-academic line of Buddhist studies (cognate in register with the McMahan / Sharf line drawn on in P29), offers a valid structural analysis of attention-capture; that analysis is itself the doctrinal backstop for the W11 red line — AI's "dominant power" can favour or can obstruct, and there is no doctrinally neutral free pass. A practitioner whose attention has been captured by algorithm will, by structural necessity, have a constrained depth of cetanā; the diagnostic instrument sorts hierarchically at this layer.

Rejoinder. Hershock's framing, however, risks sliding into a deterministic reading according to which "technology constitutes a structural obstruction." This reading collides with the bidirectional clause of the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle seven ("either favouring or obstructing"). The dominant condition is condition, not cause; the practitioner's cetanā is the proximate cause. The same AI accompanying support yields differing fruit for practitioners of differing cetanā-quality — "favouring" sitting at the favouring position, "obstructing" sitting at the obstructing position, both finding their proper place within the functional category of adhipati-pratyaya. The paper's hierarchical (not deterministic) reading supplements Hershock's critique: the critique operates at the sociological layer, but the doctrinal mechanism is not surrendered to sociological capture. The depth of the practitioner's cetanā, in any medium, remains the ultimate determining factor.

IV.3 Hyde: The Anthropology of the Gift-Circle

Lewis Hyde's classic anthropological study The Gift (1983) treats the gift as a form of relation-formation: in contrast to commodity exchange, the gift forms a circulating ring that sustains the cohesion of community; the circulation of the gift through a hand-delivered network is a condition of the formation of relation.

Acknowledgement. Hyde's model offers an important grounding for face-to-face gift-circles; direct giving remains valid and is not rendered obsolete. This grounding aligns with the W7 non-puritan posture of "both ends viewed equally": the doctrinal commendation of mediated giving does not entail the obsolescence of direct giving.

Rejoinder. Hyde's model, however, presupposes physical circulation: the gift must circulate through a hand-delivered network as a necessary condition for the formation of relation. The architecture of anumodanā (AN 5.36) is more thoroughgoing than Hyde's model: merit accumulates even in the absence of face-to-face circulation, because the cetanā of anumodanā has already completed the doctrinal participation — the formation of relation is constituted in the form of cetanā's directional orientation toward another's merit-flow, and physical circulation is not its precondition. Hyde's framework does not encompass the distributed participation at the level of anumodanā; the Buddhist dāna doctrine, here, exceeds the limits of Hyde's anthropology.

IV.4 The Continuation of the Three-Layered Dialogue: Reinforcing the W7 Red Line

The common continuation across the three layers of acknowledgement-plus-rejoinder is this: the diagnostic instrument is throughout hierarchical (depth places the act), never condemnatory (the puritan binary is refused). A practitioner's mediated micro-giving and a practitioner's hands-on, long-term offering are both events of cetanā — the difference is in depth of cetanā, not in the establishment of karma. Any formulation that "real giving must be hands-on, long-term, or large-quantity" is a violation of the W7 line: the Buddhist dāna doctrine, across two thousand years of canonical positioning, has never held such a puritan binary.

The P29 red line ("no-institutional-attack") is reinforced here: the target of the present critique is consistently the practitioner's quality of cetanā in the general user, never the structure of any particular platform. Anonymous descriptors ("mainstream online giving platforms," "common one-tap donation interfaces") replace brand-naming; the practitioner is preserved as grammatical subject, the platform held in anonymity. This is not externally imposed self-censorship; it is a structural feature: the voice of the present paper arises from within the tradition's doctrinal authority, not from an external critique-of-technology register.

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V. Cross-Volume Polyphony: One Manas-Transformation, Two Verbs

Volume One, paper thirty, "Nianfo in the Age of AI," already takes the same operator from the recollection-of-Buddha angle: drawing on the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, fascicle four — the thesis that "in the pre-transformation phase, the manas deliberates by appropriating the mark of self; in the post-transformation phase, the same manas deliberates by apprehending the mark of no-self" — and on the kāraṇa-pratyaya (opening-up condition) clause for samatā-jñāna's arising-condition, it installs nianfo as a sixth-consciousness practice that serves as the opening-up condition for samatā-jñāna in the manas-transformation mechanism: the deliberative structure of manas does not vanish at transformation; what changes is its content (from self-mark to no-self-mark). That terrain belongs to NIAN P30 §3.2–§3.6 and is not re-derived here.

The present paper takes the same operator from the giving angle: giving, as a sixth-consciousness practice, loosens the grip of "mine" (我所) within the phenomenology of three-wheel-empty — "by the dharma of nothing-given, dāna-pāramitā is perfected; the giver, the recipient, and the gift not being apprehensible" (Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle eleven, cited at §III). A five-minute act of online micro-giving, in the depth of the practitioner's cetanā, can enter into this same correspondence; the same deliberative structure of manas shifts, within the giving-practice, from "grasping at mine" to "no-mine" — structurally isomorphic with the recollection-practice's shift from "grasping at self-mark" to "no-self-mark."

The polyphony anchor-sentence: Volume One, paper thirty, takes the same operator from the recollection-of-Buddha angle — AI accelerates the frequency of the manas cycle, and the single thought-moment of nianfo finds its many landing-points within that accelerated cycle. The present paper takes the same operator from the giving angle — AI accelerates the opportunities for the loosening of mine-ness, and the three-wheel-empty quality of dāna finds its many landing-points within that accelerated cycle. One manas-transformation operator, two verbs — recollection and giving — sustaining a cross-volume polyphony at the Yogācāra layer.

This polyphony is not a structural coincidence but a continuity of doctrinal mechanism: cetanā serves as the bearer (§III); manas is the locus of practice (NIAN P30's territory); the sixth consciousness serves as the opening-up condition for samatā-jñāna (NIAN P30's territory) — two verbs each unfold their own variation upon the same practitioner. AI's accompanying support arrives in both verbs: at the recollection verb it accelerates the frequency of the manas cycle, at the giving verb it accelerates the opportunities for the loosening of mine-ness; both function as adhipati-pratyaya (with the "favouring or obstructing" bidirectional bandwidth), and the determinant of fruit is, in both cases, the depth of the practitioner's cetanā.

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VI. Conclusion: The Diagnostic Instrument Transposed to the Field of Giving, and Forward

Precise restatement. The paper has established three things. First, AI sits at the fourth of the four conditions (adhipati-pratyaya), under the doctrinal warrant of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle three's structural subtraction-clause "excluding the seed, the remaining supports" — AI is pratyaya (specifically adhipati), never hetu. Second, a single mind-moment of cetanā suffices as karma-seed, established through the four-text chain of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 92 ("giving takes cetanā as its head"); Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 17.6 prose ("karma is of arising-perishing character, not enduring one thought-moment"); the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 24 ("mind-power is sharp — like fire, like poison"); and the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, fascicle 19, with its 16:1 ratio — "five-minute micro-dāna" is therefore canonically established at the doctrinal level. Third, anumodanā serves as the doctrinal warrant for mediated and distributed giving, established through AN 5.36 and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 61 ("the merit of rejoicing requires no exertion of body or speech, only mental skill") — the three-way functional division is installed: the platform at adhipati-pratyaya, the practitioner at cetanā plus anumodanā, the giving-act at the field-execution layer. The share in the merit is not diminished; it is plenitudinous.

Practice guidance. Within the "both-ends-viewed-equally" framing, micro-giving has its own discipline. The depth of cetanā is the ultimate determinant; the form of the medium is not. A single-tap act of giving is, when the practitioner has gathered directional cetanā, a complete giving-act in which the karma-seed is fully established; when the practitioner's cetanā floats at the surface stratum of algorithmic capture, the diagnostic instrument (the pīti-passaddhi twin-factor of P29) sorts hierarchically — without condemnation, simply locating the tier. The key lever against W7 collapse: refuse the puritan binary, install no covert standard of "real giving," and keep mediated and direct giving in doctrinal parity.

Open questions and forward continuity. The present paper is paper-level contemporary application, not the volume-closing of DĀNA — the volume's closing is the task of P31, which will integrate, as the third paper of Part IX, the diagnostic instrument across the three Part-IX papers and place it within DĀNA's full doctrinal architecture. The discipline of the practice of micro-giving devolves further to the level of sīla, which Volume Three will take up in its turn. The Pointing-at-the-Moon Octalogy, series four, paper six (How Would the Buddha Use AI) establishes the methodological distinction — AI as adhipati-pratyaya, not hetu-pratyaya — from the view-axis (the epistemological-ontological position); the present paper inherits that distinction without re-elaboration, and contributes its application to the action-axis of giving.

A note of humility, as anchor, from the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle thirty-two:

The Buddha, as it is said, taught the four conditions; but persons of slight insight, fixing on the four conditions, generate misguided arguments. To break their fixation, it is taught that all dharmas are truly empty — nothing is to be broken.²³

The four conditions are a doctrinal architecture, not an ultimate metaphysics; the present paper sets out AI's structural placement at the fourth condition as a doctrinal scaffolding for the establishment of micro-giving, not as a metaphysical settling of the four conditions themselves. The architecture is itself in the position of the finger that points; AI-era giving sits in the position of what lies past the finger — the practitioner's encounter, in the depth of cetanā, with three-wheel-empty.

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References

I. Primary Buddhist Sources

Saṃghadeva, trans. Madhyama-āgama (Zhong ahan jing). T26, vol. 1. Translated in the Later Qin, ca. 397–398 CE.

Guṇabhadra, trans. Saṃyukta-āgama (Za ahan jing). T99, vol. 2. Translated in the Liu Song Yuanjia era.

Kumārajīva, trans. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing). T262, vol. 9. Translated in the Later Qin, Hongshi 8 (406 CE).

Prajñā, trans. Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra, forty-fascicle recension, "Practice and Vows of Samantabhadra." T293, vol. 10. Translated in the Tang Zhenyuan era.

Dharmakṣema, trans. Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, northern recension. T374, vol. 12. Translated in the Northern Liang.

Kumārajīva, trans. (attrib. Nāgārjuna). Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (Dazhidu lun). T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. Translated in the Later Qin, Hongshi 4–8 (402–406 CE).

Xuanzang, trans. (Vasubandhu). Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (Apidamo jushe lun). T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 29. Translated in the Tang Yonghui era, 651–654 CE.

Kumārajīva, trans. (Nāgārjuna). Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Zhong lun). T1564《中論》Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (with Piṅgala's commentary)T30, No. 1564Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 409 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30. Translated in the Later Qin, Hongshi 11 (409 CE).

Xuanzang, trans. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra (Yujia shidi lun). T1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579Xuanzang (Tang, 646–648 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30. Translated in the Tang Zhenguan era.

Xuanzang, trans./comp. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra (Cheng weishi lun). T1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585Xuanzang composite (Tang, 659 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 31. Translated/compiled in the Tang Xianqing 4 (659 CE).

Zongxiao, comp. Lebang wenlei. T1969《樂邦文類》T47, No. 1969View on CBETA online reader ↗A, vol. 47. Compiled in the Song Qingyuan 6 (1200 CE).

Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.36, Kāladānasutta. PTS iii 41. Mahāsaṅgīti edition (CC0, publication-safe). Bhikkhu Sujato's English translation is likewise CC0.

II. Modern Scholarship

Hershock, Peter D. Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence. Routledge, 2006.

Hershock, Peter D. Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch'an Buddhism. SUNY Press, 1996.

Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World. Random House, 1983.

Žižek, Slavoj. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. Verso, 2009.

Žižek, Slavoj. In Defense of Lost Causes. Verso, 2008.

III. Sūtra & Śāstra Index

Chinese Buddhist Canon (CBETA Taishō)

T-no.	Title	Translator / Compiler	Fascicle	Use in this paper
T0026《中阿含經》MadhyamāgamaT1, No. 26View on CBETA online reader ↗	Madhyama-āgama (MA 111, Damo xing jing)	Saṃghadeva, Eastern Jin (397–398 CE)	fasc. 27	§III: Āgama witness in the cetanā chain
T0099《雜阿含經》Saṃyukta-āgamaT2, No. 99Guṇabhadra (Liu Song, ca. 435 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Saṃyukta-āgama (SA 482)	Guṇabhadra, Liu Song	fasc. 17	§IV: differentiating anumodanā from pīti
T0262《妙法蓮華經》Saddharma-puṇḍarīkaT9, No. 262Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 406 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, "Rejoicing Merit" ch. 18	Kumārajīva, Later Qin	fasc. 6	§IV: cross-link (P21's territory)
T0293《大方廣佛華嚴經》(四十華嚴)Gaṇḍavyūha (40-fascicle, including the Ten Vows)T10, No. 293Prajñā (Tang, 798 CE)Closes with Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows — the textual locus of NIAN Part VII.View on CBETA online reader ↗	Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra (forty-fascicle), Samantabhadra's fifth vow	Prajñā, Tang	fasc. 40	§IV: cross-link (P25/P26's territory)
T0374《大般涅槃經》T12, No. 374View on CBETA online reader ↗	Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, northern recension	Dharmakṣema, Northern Liang	fasc. 19, "Pure Conduct"	§III: sharpest anchor (16:1 ratio of single mind-moment of Buddha-mindfulness)
T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra	Kumārajīva, Later Qin (402–406 CE); attrib. Nāgārjuna	fasc. 11 / 12 / 24 / 32 / 61 / 92	§II / §III / §IV: multiple anchors (needle-and-thread simile, fire-and-poison simile, rejoicing-of-mind reversal)
T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗	Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya	Xuanzang, Tang (651–654 CE); Vasubandhu	fasc. 13 / 18	§III: systematic articulation (cetanā as mind-karma; hierarchy of mind-karma)
T1564《中論》Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (with Piṅgala's commentary)T30, No. 1564Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 409 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "Examination of Karma" ch. 17	Kumārajīva, Later Qin (409 CE); Nāgārjuna	fasc. 1 / 3	§II / §III: four-conditions verse; momentariness of karma
T1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579Xuanzang (Tang, 646–648 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra	Xuanzang, Tang	fasc. 3 / 45	§II: principal anchor (four-conditions architecture); §IV: double-ring of rejoicing
T1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585Xuanzang composite (Tang, 659 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗	Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra	Xuanzang, Tang (659 CE)	fasc. 1 / 4 / 7	§II: bidirectional clause of adhipati-pratyaya; §V: manas-transformation (reference only)
T1969《樂邦文類》T47, No. 1969View on CBETA online reader ↗A	Lebang wenlei (secondary)	Zongxiao, Song (1200 CE)	fasc. 1 / 4	translation-history discrimination only (W8 attribution discipline; Pure Land paraphrases not cited as primary sources)

Pāli Literature (PTS / Mahāsaṅgīti CC0)

Text	Reference	Licensing	Use in this paper
Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.36, Kāladānasutta	PTS iii 41	true (Mahāsaṅgīti CC0; Bhikkhu Sujato CC0 translation)	§IV: principal Pāli canonical anchor

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Cross-References

(Cross-links in this paper: DĀNA P12–P14 (dāna-pāramitā architecture, one sentence only); DĀNA P13 (three-wheel-empty, one sentence only); DĀNA P21 (Lotus Sūtra's "Rejoicing Merit," one sentence only); DĀNA P25 / P26 (Samantabhadra's universal-cultivation offering and Dharma-offering, one sentence each); DĀNA P28 (entry into the dharmadhātu, one sentence only); DĀNA P29 (the bojjhaṅga twin-factor diagnostic instrument, carried as instrument in §I); DĀNA P31 (volume closing, forward-handoff one sentence in §VI); Volume Three, SĪLA (half-sentence forward in §VI); NIAN P30 (cross-volume polyphony — framing in §I, seam in §V, forward in §VI); Pointing-at-the-Moon Octalogy S4-P06 (one-sentence cross-genre acknowledgement in §VI).)

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This paper is the thirtieth in Volume Two (DĀNA) of the "Six Practice Gates" series · Part IX #2 · Giving in the Age of AI · adhipati-pratyaya doctrinal grounding This paper is released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Primary-source citations follow the CBETA edition of the Taishō Tripiṭaka.

CBETA collation: all sūtra and commentary citations in this paper have been collated against the CBETA edition of the Taishō Tripiṭaka. GitHub: github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates

Footnotes

1. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle 3, T1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579Xuanzang (Tang, 646–648 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30, p. 0292a01–a07. Translation by Xuanzang. ↩

2. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle 3, T1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579Xuanzang (Tang, 646–648 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30, p. 0292a08–a11. Translation by Xuanzang. Kumārajīva's earlier translations render the second and third conditions as 次第緣 / 緣緣; these forms are footnoted on first occurrence but not alternated in body text. ↩

3. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 32, T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25, p. 0296b11–b14. Translated by Kumārajīva, attributed to Nāgārjuna. ↩

4. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 92, T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. ↩

5. Madhyama-āgama 111, "Sutra on the Cultivation of the Holy Life," fascicle 27, T26, vol. 1. Pāli parallel: AN 6.63, Nibbedhika-sutta. ↩

6. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, chapter 17 on karma, MK 17.2–3 verse, fascicle 3, T1564《中論》Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (with Piṅgala's commentary)T30, No. 1564Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 409 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30. Translated by Kumārajīva. ↩

7. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, "Chapter on Karma," fascicle 13, T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 29. Translated by Xuanzang. ↩

8. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra, fascicle 1, T1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585Xuanzang composite (Tang, 659 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 31. Translated/compiled by Xuanzang. ↩

9. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, chapter 17 on karma, MK 17.6 prose, fascicle 3, T1564《中論》Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (with Piṅgala's commentary)T30, No. 1564Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 409 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30. ↩

10. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 24, exegesis of the Ten Powers in the Initial Chapter, T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25, p. 0238b24–b26. The text reads 「勝百歲行力」 (surpasses a hundred years of sustained action); the later Lebang wenlei (T1969《樂邦文類》T47, No. 1969View on CBETA online reader ↗A, compiled by Zongxiao, 1200 CE) substitutes 願力 (vow-power) for 行力 (action-power) — a Pure Land paraphrase, not the source wording. The present paper cites only the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's own text. ↩

11. Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, northern recension, fascicle 19, "Pure Conduct" chapter, T374, vol. 12, p. 0480a01–a02. Translated by Dharmakṣema. The full canonical wording 「常以衣食供養恭敬一切眾生」 preserves 常 (constantly) and 恭敬 (reverently); secondary paraphrases that drop these characters are not transmitted here. ↩

12. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, fascicle 18, "Chapter on Karma" 4.6, T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 29. ↩

13. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, fascicle 18, T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 29. ↩

14. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, fascicle 13, T1558《阿毘達磨俱舍論》Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyaT29, No. 1558View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 29. ↩

15. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra, fascicle 7, T1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585Xuanzang composite (Tang, 659 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 31, p. 0041a05–a08. ↩

16. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 11, exegesis of Dāna-pāramitā in the Initial Chapter (the seventeenth section), T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. ↩

17. Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.36, Kāladānasutta, PTS iii 41. Mahāsaṅgīti edition (CC0; publication-safe). Bhikkhu Sujato's English translation is likewise CC0. ↩

18. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 61, exegesis of "Rejoicing and Dedication," T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. ↩

19. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 61, exegesis of "Rejoicing and Dedication," T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. ↩

20. Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, chapter 18, "Rejoicing Merit," fascicle 6, T262, vol. 9. Translated by Kumārajīva. The present paper cross-links a single sentence; the primary treatment belongs to P21 of the present series. ↩

21. Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra (the forty-fascicle recension), "Practice and Vows of Samantabhadra," fifth great vow, fascicle 40, T293, vol. 10. Translated by Prajñā. The present paper cross-links a single sentence; the primary treatment belongs to P25 / P26 of the present series. ↩

22. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle 45, "Bodhisattva-bhūmi," T1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579Xuanzang (Tang, 646–648 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 30. ↩

23. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 32, T1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509Kumārajīva (Later Qin, 405 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗, vol. 25. ↩