Reading Map · How to Read This Book

This book is a very short road, walked in two stretches, with one bridge between. Let me point the way first.

Two Stretches

Part One · Equal-Awakening. Standing by one remainder. The ten grounds are full; one step beyond is the Buddha; yet between them the texts set a position—equal-awakening. What does it have "more," to deserve a station of its own? Part One answers in two chapters: it has nothing more—it is off by exactly one. Chapter One looks at what constitutes the position: named "equal," it is equal and not yet sublime; acting as "the penultimate birth," its mark is realization deliberately withheld; as to what is severed, one portion of beginningless nescience remains—its end known, its beginning unknown. Three "ones": the one step on this side of the threshold, the one realization held untaken, the one nescience whose beginning is unexhausted—equal-awakening is defined entirely by that single remaining thing. Chapter Two looks at how that one is severed: the adamantine concentration, the road's last thought—a concentration that crushes all and is crushed by none, root and branches ended together in a single instant; and the very thought that severs is the road's last thought as a road.

Part Two · Sublime-Awakening. The ground where walking ends. Where the last thought settles bears the name sublime-awakening—the limit of the fifty-two positions, another name for the fruit of buddhahood. One chapter says it all: sublime-awakening is not a higher rung above equal-awakening but the place where the staircase stops; the path's two defining activities—severing and walking—have no object left there, and walking, exhausted, ceases. That chapter carries a second office besides: the series' two axes hand over there. The same sublime-awakening, this volume reads as "arrived"; the twin volume sets out from it, reading "the freedom with no further step to walk."

One Bridge

Between the two parts lies a single "transition." It is short—a bridge: it gathers Part One's two findings and asks Part Two's question in advance. Do not skip it.

Three Ways In, as You Please

One. Straight through. The book is thin; three chapters go in one sitting. They are a single argument—the one that remains, the instant that severs it, the ground where it settles. Miss none, and the threshold comes clear.

Two. If you come carrying the anxiety, begin with Chapter One. If "forever short by a little" hangs in your mind, that chapter was written for you—it exchanges "short by a distance" for "short by this one," and pulls the anxiety up by the root.

Three. If you come carrying a question, go to its chapter. Wondering how the last portion of nescience is actually severed—gradually or at once—go to Chapter Two; asking what buddhahood finally is, and why one says walking ends there, go to Chapter Three. But whichever you visit first, make up Chapter One—without "off by one" in hand, the later chapters' words will warp.

A Few Small Conventions

• Speaking of "the Buddha," this book uses the reverent third person; of bodhisattvas and practitioners, the ordinary one.
• Our root teacher's holy name is written "Namo our root teacher Śākyamuni Buddha."
• The canon's own words stand in indented quotation blocks—one glance tells what is scripture and what is explanation offered to you.
• Scripture numbers, Sanskrit romanization, and source details stay out of the main text entirely; they are gathered in the appendices: chapter-by-chapter sources in Appendix A (Index of Scholarly Notes), romanized terms in Appendix C (Glossary).
• Wherever a name belongs to the later classifiers rather than to the letter of the scriptures—the integers "fifty-two positions, fifty-first position," the phrase "primal nescience"—the main text marks the boundary in passing where it borrows them; the "Variances" of each chapter in Appendix A record the details. The book uses them, and remembers they are classifications.
• This book is the Realization axis's third volume, closing the axis after The Four Fruits of the Path and The Bodhi Path; you need not read those first—this volume begins at equal-awakening and stands on its own; read together, the three rulers light one another. The book has a twin volume on the Attainment axis, on the Tathāgata's mastery: this volume writes the arriving, that one writes what is attained.

Setting Out

The map ends here. The road is short, but it is the whole journey's last stretch.

We begin with Part One, and look that one remaining thing full in the face.