Part Two · The Ten Abodes · Settle In, Grow Up

The tidal zone has an end. Walk the Ten Faiths through, and ahead lies dry ground—the Ten Abodes.

"Abode": to settle, to stay, to dwell. The mind comes to dwell in the Buddha-dharma and from here has a home: the sūtra says the bodhisattva "dwells in the family of the buddhas of the three times," and all who dwell in this house are called "sons of the Buddha." The faith-position's "bodhisattva in name only" here has his standing made solid; and the first of the Mahāyāna's three non-regresses—position-non-regress—is counted from here.

The two chapters of Part Two walk this house, door and halls. Chapter one: settling in—why "entering the abodes" is a change of kind, how the same aroused mind that regresses in the faith-position no longer regresses once it dwells; of the words "position-non-regress," which one thing it is that can no longer be lost, and what holds it. Chapter two: growing up—past the door lie ten inner halls, from the Abode of Arousing the Mind to the Abode of Consecration; string the ten names together and they trace a line of growth—born in the Buddha's house, the innocent child, the prince, the consecration; how the son of the Buddha grows up in the Buddha's house, and what he becomes when grown.

See the threshold clearly first; then walk the halls slowly. We begin with chapter one.