Transition Two · From the Ten Abodes to the Ten Practices

Part Two is finished. Two more things are in hand.

A threshold: entering the abodes is a change of kind, because what bears the mind up underfoot has changed—from roots of good that depreciate, to the standing of one who has entered the Buddha's house and taken its name. Position-non-regress is counted from here, but it locks only the one layer of "position": no falling to the two vehicles, no reverting to the ordinary; the non-regress of practice and of mindfulness still lies down the road. And what holds it is the view's refusal to turn before the root dilemmas—hearing "Buddha or no Buddha, Dharma or no Dharma" with a mind unmoved—not the flush of experience.

An arc of upbringing: the Ten Abodes are the whole of a Buddha-son's growing up in the Buddha's house. The names themselves disclose the thread of royal blood—Noble Birth, the Innocent Child, the Prince, the Consecration—from the entering resolve to the investiture, accomplishing the ten knowledges, his realm beyond even the Dharma-Prince's fathoming. And the consummation is still of the causal stage: a coronation is a beginning, not an end.

It is exactly this "beginning" that forces the next stretch of road.

One who has received office cannot stay home. The Consecration's ten knowledges—shaking worlds, illuminating worlds, disciplining beings—not one of them is enjoyed behind a closed door; they are powers for work. A king crowned must hold court; a Buddha-son invested must go out. Out to where? To where beings are. To do what? To benefit them. By what means? The six perfections—giving, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, wisdom. The Ten Abodes raised the person; the Ten Practices put the person to use. Part Three walks the "Ten Practices": the ten steps by which what was grown in the Buddha's house is carried into the crowd of beings and practiced—from the first, the Practice of Joy, to the tenth, the Practice of Truth.

Mark the weight of this turn. Through the first two parts, the center of gravity has stayed on the practitioner himself: is the faith steady, does the position hold, has the view taken its stand—all matters of "I." The Ten Practices swing the lens around: the object of the practice is beings, its content the six perfections, its field the world. The Great Vehicle speaks always of "benefiting self and benefiting others"; at the Ten Practices, benefiting others becomes for the first time the main curriculum, no longer a side effect. And the turn brings a new question in with it: at home, a view that stands firm counts as stability; out among beings, will the work itself sweep one away? Giving meets the backlash of one's own clinging; patience meets outrage heaped on insult—is the practice done in joy, or done through gritted teeth? And the regress or non-regress of this layer of "practice"—practice-non-regress—where does it finally take hold? Part Three is a single chapter, but that chapter must make the character of the practice-position plain: why the first of the ten is named, of all things, the Practice of Joy—and by what right the tenth bears the name of Truth.

The house is established; the office is received. Now—open the door, and go out.