Transition Four · From the Ten Dedications to the Ten Grounds

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

An operation: dedication. The accumulated good no longer settles by gravity into the private ledger; it is earmarked to three places—down to beings, up to bodhi, deep into suchness; three reaches, one lamp, and not one reach toward "mine." The good is not lost by dedication but made great by it—the name "indestructible dedication" is its own testimony.

A layer of non-regress: practice-non-regress. The good dedicated entire and no self-fruit retained, the practice of benefit loses its private foothold of retreat—boats burned, no road back, and so the practice stands. Position-non-regress guards "who one is"; practice-non-regress guards "what one is doing"; the first two of the three non-regresses are now in hand.

And with this, the three worthy ranks are complete. The abodes made the person solid, the practices put the person to work, the dedications handed the good over. Look back, and the whole road from the arousing of the mind to here has been the road of the "worthy"—the outer-ordinary entering the worthy, the worthy growing to fullness. Look ahead, and there stands the heaviest border in the book: the worthy and the noble.

The Ten Grounds the scriptures call the "ten noble ones." What lies between worthy and noble? The difference of a single word. Toward the afflictions, the worthy ranks suppress—pressing the afflictions down so they do not stir, the root still in place. The noble ranks sever—pulled out by the root, never to rise again. Suppression is a stone laid on grass: move the stone and the grass returns. Severance is fire through the seed: the seed once charred never sprouts. Thirty stations of the three worthy ranks, and the afflictions were suppressed, not severed; on the threshold of the first ground, the knife falls for the first time—the path of seeing, severing the discriminated afflictions. Readers of the previous volume, The Four Fruits of the Path, will recognize an old word here: sever. The whole śrāvaka road was the subtraction of severed fetters; now, at the Ten Grounds, the grammar of severing returns to the bodhisattva path—the same severing, a different exit: the śrāvaka severs to the end, takes realization, and leaves the table; the bodhisattva severs and does not take realization, keeping a residue to moisten rebirth, walking on toward buddhahood. One knife, two ledgers. Part Five will look at this closely.

Part Five is the longest in the book: four chapters, ten grounds. Chapter one, the first ground, the Ground of Joy: the path of seeing—the stroke by which the worthy becomes noble—and why this ground, of all things, bears the name of Joy. Chapter two, the second through seventh grounds: the path of cultivation—the discriminated afflictions severed, the inborn habits remain, ground by ground worn away, the obstructions passing from coarse to fine. Chapter three, the eighth, the Immovable Ground: the book's other great stress—the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas, effortless and spontaneous practice, the ten masteries, and the last of the three non-regresses: mindfulness-non-regress. Chapter four, the ninth and tenth grounds: the Dharma-teacher's powers of the Ground of Excellent Wisdom, and the consecration of the Dharma-Cloud Ground—another anointing, a full thirty stations above the one in the abodes—up to the summit of the causal stage, stopping at the threshold of equal and sublime awakening.

The worthies are done; the knife is in hand. Now cross the border of worthy and noble, and enter the grounds.