The Instability of the Ten Faiths

Why the Faith-Position Can Still Regress — the Two Name-Systems Set Side by Side

中文主題：十信的不定性——信位仍可退

I. The Question

People have a natural sense of safety about "faith." Once faith arises — faith in the Buddha, in the Dharma, that this path is walkable — it feels as though one has stepped from a rocking raft onto solid ground: "I am finally on my way, and from here it is only forward." Translated into the language of the stations, that sense of safety becomes a sentence: "I have entered the Ten Faiths; I count as the first rung of the noble stations, and at worst it is forward-only, no falling back."

Yet the Ten Faiths of the canon are precisely the stretch that least resembles "solid ground." The Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo) says that one abiding here is "replete with all defilements" and "both regresses and advances"; failing to meet a good friend who teaches the Dharma, one "sinks forever and does not emerge." It judges the faith-position plainly to be "roots-of-good of the regressing portion," set against the "advancing portion" of one who enters the Abode of Arousing the Mind. That is: the Ten Faiths are not the secure first rung of the noble stations, but the outer-ordinary zone before the stations (pre-abode) — a tidal flat, advancing when the tide comes in, regressing when it goes out, its footing not yet firm. The preceding paper, BODHI-P01, established that "arousing bodhicitta enters the gate of the Great Vehicle in a single thought"; this paper presses the sharp follow-up: given that arising is entry, why is this first stretch after the entry (the Ten Faiths) the most prone to regress?

The thesis of this paper: the Ten Faiths are the pre-abode, outer-ordinary, unstable position; the faith-position can still regress. The first of the Mahāyāna's "three non-regresses," position-non-regress, has not yet begun here; its watershed lies at "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind," not at "the single thought of arising." This does not conflict with BODHI-P01 — it is rather P01's necessary correction. Arising does indeed enter in one thought (the gate is open), but what is entered is the gate; the Ten Faiths, the first stretch within, have not yet reached non-regress. To hear "arising as entry" as "arising means secure, means non-regress" is a sweet misunderstanding; this paper dismantles it, restoring the faith-position to what it is — a real beginning, but a fluid, regressible beginning that depends on support.

Before the argument, one fact must be faced: even the names are unsettled. Which ten minds the Ten Faiths are, the texts do not agree. The Yingluo's upper fascicle gives one list; its lower fascicle another (differing from the upper); the Śūraṅgama, fascicle 8, yet another — all three differ. This unsettledness of the names itself mirrors the unsettledness of the faith-position's doctrine. So Section II first sets the three lists side by side without forcing them together (the principle ratified for this project and by the author: take no side), then adduces the scriptural evidence that the faith-position can regress. Section III argues in three layers why the faith-position must be regressible, why the watershed of non-regress lies at entering the abode, and why regressible does not mean useless. Section IV deliberately omits interdisciplinary convergence, for the reason given in Section VI. Section V offers middle-way corrections, taking special care to mark honestly that the explicit testimony for "regression" leans on the Yingluo system. Section VI concludes and looks ahead to entering the abode (the beginning of position-non-regress) in the next paper.

II. The Canonical Basis

2.1 The names of the Ten Faiths: two systems, three lists, set side by side — the nomenclature itself unsettled

To speak of the instability of the Ten Faiths, the first thing one meets is the question "which ten minds are the Ten Faiths" — and it has no settled answer. First, the Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra, upper fascicle, Chapter on the Names of the Worthies and Noble Ones:

未上住前有十順名字，菩薩常行十心，所謂信心、念心、精進心、慧心、定心、不退心、迴向心、護心、戒心、願心。¹

"Before ascending to the abodes there are ten conforming designations; the bodhisattva constantly practises ten minds, namely: the mind of faith, of mindfulness, of vigour, of wisdom, of concentration, of non-regress, of dedication, of protection, of discipline, of vow."

Note two things. First, these ten minds are placed expressly "before ascending to the abodes" (未上住前) — before the ten abodes, that is, before the Abode of Arousing the Mind: the outer-ordinary zone. Second, the list runs "faith, mindfulness, vigour, wisdom, concentration, non-regress, dedication, protection, discipline, vow," with the sixth being "non-regress mind" and the eighth "protection mind."

Yet the same Yingluo, restating the ten minds of the faith-position in its lower fascicle, Chapter on Explaining the Meaning, gives an altered list:

其人略行十心，所謂：信心、進心、念心、慧心、定心、戒心、迴向心、護法心、捨心、願心。²

"That person broadly practises ten minds, namely: the mind of faith, of vigour, of mindfulness, of wisdom, of concentration, of discipline, of dedication, of Dharma-protection, of equanimity, of vow."

Here it runs "faith, vigour, mindfulness, wisdom, concentration, discipline, dedication, Dharma-protection, equanimity, vow": the ninth has become "equanimity mind," the upper fascicle's "non-regress mind" has vanished; "protection" has been filled out to "Dharma-protection"; and the order of mindfulness and vigour is swapped. One and the same sutra, one and the same faith-position, and the two lists already disagree.

The Śūraṅgama-sūtra, fascicle 8, sets up a third system, the names wearing yet another face:

妙信常住，一切妄想滅盡無餘，中道純真，名信心住。……名念心住。……名精進心。……名慧心住。……名定心住。……唯進無退，名不退心。……名護法心。……名迴向心。……名戒心住。……所去隨願，名願心住。³

"Wondrous faith abiding constant, all deluded thoughts extinguished without remainder, the Middle Way pure and true — this is called the Abode of the Mind of Faith. … the Abode of Mindfulness. … the Mind of Vigour. … the Abode of the Mind of Wisdom. … the Abode of the Mind of Concentration. … advancing only, without regress — the Mind of Non-regress. … the Mind of Dharma-protection. … the Mind of Dedication. … the Abode of the Mind of Discipline. … wherever one goes, accordant with vow — the Abode of the Mind of Vow."

The Śūraṅgama runs "faith, mindfulness, vigour, wisdom, concentration, non-regress, Dharma-protection, dedication, discipline, vow": the sixth sets up "non-regress mind" (agreeing with the Yingluo's upper fascicle, differing from its lower), has no "equanimity mind," and the order of "Dharma-protection and dedication" differs again from both Yingluo lists. Set the three side by side and the divergence is plain at a glance:

Source	6th	7th	8th	9th	Feature
Yingluo, upper (1011c)	non-regress	dedication	protection	discipline	has "non-regress," no "equanimity"
Yingluo, lower (1017a)	discipline	dedication	Dharma-protection	equanimity	has "equanimity," no "non-regress"
Śūraṅgama, fasc. 8 (0142a)	non-regress	Dharma-protection	dedication	discipline	has "non-regress"; protection/dedication order differs

Whether "equanimity mind" or "non-regress mind" is included, whether protection precedes dedication, whether mindfulness precedes vigour — all three lists differ; and even between the Taishō and the Song-Yuan-Ming editions there is a variant ordering of the "wisdom, concentration, non-regress" segment in the upper fascicle. This paper here takes no side and forces no merger: this is both the handling-principle ratified for this project and by the author, and a foreshadowing of an argument below (3.3) — the unsettledness of the names answers to the unsettledness of the faith-position's doctrine.

2.2 The faith-position is regressible and unstable: "both regresses and advances," "sinks forever and does not emerge"

Whatever the variance in names, "the faith-position can regress" the Yingluo's lower fascicle states plainly. On its reward and its destination:

若一劫二劫三劫修十信，受六天果報。……具足一切煩惱，集無量善業，亦退亦出。若值善知識學佛法，若一劫二劫方入住位。若不爾者，常沒不出。⁴

"If for one, two, or three kalpas one cultivates the Ten Faiths, one receives the reward of the six heavens. … Replete with all defilements, amassing measureless wholesome karma, one both regresses and advances. If one meets a good friend and studies the Buddha-dharma, then in one or two kalpas one enters the abodes. If not, one sinks forever and does not emerge."

Three phrases, each pointing to instability. First, "replete with all defilements" (具足一切煩惱) — the person at the faith-position has severed no defilement, utterly unlike the stream-enterer's subtractive accomplishment of "three fetters severed"; he cultivates faith with a full load of fetters still on him. Second, "both regresses and advances" (亦退亦出) — able to regress, able to advance, the direction unfixed, like the water of a tidal flat, its ebb and flow set by conditions. Third, the destination turns on outer conditions: "if one meets a good friend and studies the Buddha-dharma," one enters the abodes in a kalpa or two; "if not, one sinks forever and does not emerge" — failing to meet a good friend, one may sink for long kalpas and not get out. A station that can "sink forever and not emerge" is plainly not "a secure noble rung that only advances."

This instability the Yingluo further fixes with a paired set of terms:

住退分善根如上說。佛子！發心住者，是上進分善根人。⁵

"The roots-of-good of the regressing portion at the abode-[gate] are as stated above. O son of the Buddha, one in the Abode of Arousing the Mind is a person of the roots-of-good of the advancing portion."

"Roots-of-good of the regressing portion" set against "roots-of-good of the advancing portion": what the faith-position cultivates are roots-of-good of the regressing portion — the portion that can fall back; only at the Abode of Arousing the Mind does one become "a person of the advancing portion" — the portion that advances without regress. The line is drawn clean: the boundary between regressible and non-regressing falls here, at the abode (the Abode of Arousing the Mind) — the faith-position on this side of the line (regressing portion), the Abode of Arousing the Mind on that side (advancing portion). Section III will show this to be the very starting-point of the Mahāyāna's "position-non-regress."

2.3 The gate of the faith-position and its standing: a single thought of faith arouses bodhicitta — yet still pre-abode

Where, then, is the entrance to the faith-position? The Yingluo, lower fascicle:

從不識始凡夫地，值佛菩薩教法中起一念信，便發菩提心。是人爾時住前，名信想菩薩，亦名假名菩薩，亦名名字菩薩。⁶

"From the ground of the ordinary being who has not yet recognized the beginning, meeting the teaching of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, one gives rise to a single thought of faith, and thereupon arouses bodhicitta. This person is then pre-abode, named a faith-conceiving bodhisattva, also a provisional-name bodhisattva, also a nominal bodhisattva."

An ordinary being, "giving rise to a single thought of faith" within the teaching of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, thereupon arouses bodhicitta — which dovetails exactly with BODHI-P01's "arousing bodhicitta is the entry": the entry-mark of the faith-position is "arising of faith → arousing bodhicitta." But the sutra at once gives this entrant three titles: "faith-conceiving bodhisattva," "provisional-name bodhisattva," "nominal bodhisattva," and marks him expressly as "then pre-abode." All three titles carry the sense of "not yet made good" — a bodhisattva called such by way of conception (faith-conceiving), by way of provisional name, by way of nominal designation, still "pre-abode." Arising has brought him through the gate and earned him the name of bodhisattva, yet he is not yet the made-good bodhisattva of the abode-position. The gate is open (P01), but the first stretch within is still a land of "provisional names."

Yet the faith-position, though unstable and pre-abode, is not trifling. The Yingluo, lower fascicle, Chapter on the Mother of Buddhas, establishes its standing:

所謂十信心，是一切行本。是故十信心中，一信心有十品信心，為百法明門。⁷

"The ten minds of faith are the root of all practice. Therefore among the ten minds of faith, one mind of faith has ten grades of faith, making the hundred gates of luminous dharma."

The ten minds of faith are "the root of all practice" (一切行本) — the root of every bodhisattva practice to come; one mind of faith opens into ten grades, and the ten minds multiplied make "the hundred gates of luminous dharma." This gives the faith-position a double identity: in stability it is the least settled (regressible, pre-abode, provisional-name), yet in function it is the most fundamental (the root of all practice). How it can be at once "the least stable" and "the most fundamental" is precisely the tension Section III will resolve.

III. The Core Argument

Section II presented three things: the names are unsettled, the faith-position can regress, and faith is the root of all practice. This section argues in three layers: why the faith-position must be regressible (3.1); why the watershed between regress and non-regress lies at "entering the abode" rather than at "the single thought of arising" (3.2); and why regressible does not mean useless, with the unsettledness of the names mirroring the unsettledness of the doctrine (3.3).

3.1 Why the faith-position must regress: outer-ordinary and still fettered, no fetter severed, of the regressing portion

The regressibility of the faith-position is not an accidental weakness but a consequence of its structural place. Ask: for a station to be "non-regressing," what must it have? At minimum, some "irreversible accomplishment already made" to hold it up — as the four śrāmaṇya-phalas hold up the stream-enterer's non-regress by "a fetter already severed" (an unconditioned cessation; this is the subtractive non-regress argued in the sramana axis). But the person at the faith-position is "replete with all defilements" (2.2), with not one fetter severed and no unconditioned cessation to lean on; what he "amasses" is "measureless wholesome karma" (conditioned merit, which can grow or shrink), not "a fetter already severed" (an unconditioned, irrecoverable subtractive accomplishment). The thing holding him up being conditioned and changeable wholesome karma, the station naturally advances and regresses with it — this is the structural root of "both regresses and advances."

Put otherwise: what the faith-position cultivates is the fostering of wholesome mental factors — faith, vigour, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom — an additive accumulation; and what is accumulated additively depreciates, can be lost. Today brimming with faith, tomorrow shaken by one adverse condition; today vigorous, tomorrow slid into sloth. The Yingluo's judging the faith-position "roots-of-good of the regressing portion" (2.2) is made precisely on this — that what is leaned on is conditioned roots-of-good, not unconditioned severance of fetters.

A homely contrast: a licence earned versus a touch drilled. A licence (like the fruit of severed fetters), once obtained, is not revoked because your hand is rusty today — it is an irreversible qualification. But "touch" (like the faith-position's roots-of-good) is otherwise: an athlete, a musician, a few weeks unpractised, and the touch fades. The faith-position's "faith, vigour, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom" are just this sort of "touch," needing daily maintenance, sliding the moment one slackens — not a once-and-for-all "licence." To take the Ten Faiths for a licence that "once held cannot be dropped" is to mistake touch for licence. By its very nature it regresses — because it is still only touch, with no "licence of severed fetters" yet pressed beneath it.

✅ Doctrinally sound: "replete with all defilements … both regresses and advances" and "roots-of-good of the regressing portion" (Yingluo, lower fascicle) positively judge the faith-position to be an outer-ordinary position with no fetter severed, of the regressing portion. Its regressibility is, in the text, an explicit judgement; in doctrine, the structural necessity of "what is leaned on being only conditioned roots-of-good, with no unconditioned severance beneath."

3.2 The watershed of non-regress lies at "entering the abode," not at "the single thought of arising"

This layer is the joint where this paper meets BODHI-P01. P01 established that "arousing bodhicitta enters the gate of the Great Vehicle in one thought"; left unqualified, this slides all too easily into "one thought of arising means non-regress." This paper draws the line clean: entry and position-non-regress are two different things, and their watershed lies not at the thought of arising but at "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind."

The scriptural evidence stands at the end of 2.2: "the roots-of-good of the regressing portion at the abode-gate are as stated above; one in the Abode of Arousing the Mind is a person of the advancing portion." The boundary between regressible (regressing portion) and non-regressing (advancing portion) falls plainly at the Abode of Arousing the Mind. The faith-position (pre-abode) is on the regressing side; the Abode of Arousing the Mind on the advancing side. The Mahāyāna's "three non-regresses" — position-non-regress, practice-non-regress, mindfulness-non-regress — begin, by this, with the first, position-non-regress, at entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind (the first of the ten abodes), and not at the Ten Faiths. The Ten Faiths are the fermenting zone "before position-non-regress," not position-non-regress itself.

So P01 and P02 compose one complete and non-contradictory picture: the single thought of arising carries you through the gate of the Great Vehicle (P01: arising as entry, counted among the bodhisattvas); but the first stretch of road within the gate (the Ten Faiths) is still the regressing-portion outer-ordinary, where you "both regress and advance," and only by walking through the Ten Faiths and truly "entering the abode" (the Abode of Arousing the Mind) do you cross the watershed of "position-non-regress" (P02). "Entry" is P01's business; "the beginning of position-non-regress" is the business of "entering the abode" — and between them lies the whole regressible stretch of the Ten Faiths. To conflate the two breeds the misunderstanding "I have aroused the mind, so I do not regress"; to distinguish them is to know that after arising there remains a real stretch of road, dependent on support, advancing and regressing.

A contrast: getting a gym membership card, versus building a muscular base that is not easily lost. Getting the card (arising, entry) is a momentary decision; once done, you "are a member" — but that does not mean you have built fitness. The first weeks after signing up are the most prone to undoing by fits-and-starts effort (both regresses and advances); most people, indeed, thereby "sink forever and do not emerge," never setting foot in the door again. Only by persisting to some critical point, where the body truly adapts and forms a base not easily lost (entering the abode, position-non-regress), can one speak of "being secure." The thrill of the moment of signing up is not the moment of "being secure"; nor is the thought of arising the moment of "position-non-regress."

✅ Doctrinally sound: "regressing portion / advancing portion" bounded by "the Abode of Arousing the Mind" (Yingluo, lower fascicle) establishes that the Mahāyāna's "position-non-regress" begins at entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind, not at the thought of arising or at the Ten Faiths. This supplies what BODHI-P01's "arising as entry" left unsaid: entry is not non-regress; between them lies a regressible stretch of Ten Faiths.

3.3 Unstable yet not useless — and the unsettledness of the names mirroring the unsettledness of the doctrine

The last layer resolves the tension left at the end of 2.3: if the faith-position is "the least stable" (regressible, pre-abode, provisional-name), how is it also "the most fundamental" (root of all practice, hundred gates of luminous dharma)? The answer: the two not only do not conflict, they are two faces of one thing. Precisely because faith is "the root of all practice" — the root of all the abodes, practices, dedications, and grounds to come — it must sit at the very front, at the most unadorned, the least fetter-severance-hardened place; and "frontmost, most unadorned, unhardened" is exactly "most regressible." A root is a root precisely in that it is not yet lignified, still tender and woundable; were it already hard and immovable, it would not be a sprouting root but a finished trunk. The regressibility of the faith-position is not its defect but its honest aspect as the first sprouting of all practice.

This also answers "why called a provisional-name bodhisattva": "provisional name" is not a term of disparagement but of fidelity — the bodhisattva-name here is provisionally set up upon a first-sprouting faith, with the whole unwalked road still standing between name and reality. To grant this is to keep the practitioner from seeking, at the faith-position, a "made-good solidity" it ought not to have — and from making light of faith because faith regresses.

As for the unsettledness of the names (the three lists set side by side in 2.1), it may serve as a mirror of this doctrinal instability — and here caution is required: this is to be marked as a hypothesis, not an argument. That the three systems' lists of Ten-Faith names could not be unified (whether to include "equanimity / non-regress mind," whether protection precedes dedication) is, first of all, a philological fact of transmission, translation, and canonical redaction, and need not all carry doctrinal weight. Yet its answering to "the faith-position being by nature a fluid, unsettled outer-ordinary zone" is still worth savouring: the closer to the source of the road, the less hardened by later positions a stage is, the more its names display a kind of unset elasticity; whereas at the fruits (the four śrāmaṇya-phalas, defined by severed fetters) the names turn precise and hard to budge — because what they point to is already unconditioned, made good. The looseness of the names and the looseness of the doctrine here sound the same note, and may serve as a gentle corroboration, but should not be pressed into strict causation.

⚠️ Heuristic analogy: "the unsettledness of the names mirrors the unsettledness of the doctrine" is a suggestive correspondence, not a logical argument; the divergence of the three systems' lists is mainly to be assigned to philological factors of transmission and redaction, and this paper does not use it to make good the faith-position's doctrine. Let the reader take the savour of the correspondence, not grasp it as causation.

Taken together, the three layers — the faith-position must regress, being outer-ordinary and still fettered, no fetter severed, of the regressing portion (3.1); the watershed of regress and non-regress lies at "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind" (the beginning of the advancing portion, of position-non-regress), not at the thought of arising, so that P01's "arising as entry" and this paper's "the faith-position can regress" run in parallel without conflict (3.2); regressible is not useless — faith is the root of all practice, the first-sprouting root, and its regressibility is just its unadorned, honest aspect, with the unsettledness of the names mirroring this instability of doctrine (3.3, the last marked a hypothesis) — jointly establish the thesis: the Ten Faiths are the pre-abode, outer-ordinary, unstable, regressible position; position-non-regress begins at entering the abode, not at the single thought of arising.

IV. Interdisciplinary Convergence

(This paper deliberately omits the interdisciplinary-convergence section; the rationale and explicit skip-declaration appear in Section VI. In brief: one of the paper's principal points is the philological judgement of "the three systems' Ten-Faith name-lists set side by side without taking a side," a matter of canonical collation and doctrinal boundary; forcing in a psychological model of "trust-building / habit-formation," though superficially comparable, cannot sustain a three-layered convergence — likeness / fundamental difference / irreducibility — over the three senses of "outer-ordinary regressible," "the watershed of position-non-regress," and "the root of all practice" without lapsing into forced analogy. So, per the series' editorial convention, it is cut, and the skip declared here.)

V. Middle-Way Corrections

This section clears away three misreadings that crowd close upon the thesis, two of which bear directly on documentary boundaries and require special honesty.

⚠️ Correction 1: The three name-lists are set side by side and must not be forced into one. This paper lists the three Ten-Faith name-lists of the Yingluo upper fascicle, the Yingluo lower fascicle, and the Śūraṅgama fascicle 8 (2.1) in order to display their inconsistency, not to quietly settle on a "correct version" behind the scenes and then argue from it. The divergences among the three (whether "equanimity / non-regress mind" is included, the order of protection and dedication, the order of mindfulness and vigour), and even the variant ordering between the Taishō and the Song-Yuan-Ming editions, should all be set out faithfully; the internal inconsistency between the Yingluo's own two fascicles should likewise not be smoothed away. Although 3.3 uses "the names' unsettledness mirroring the doctrine's unsettledness" as a correspondence, it has been marked plainly as a heuristic analogy, and no one system is made good as the standard text on its strength. Should a reader meet, elsewhere, one list taken as "the standard Ten-Faith names," let it be known that this is that author's selection, not the consensus of the three systems' texts.

⚠️ Correction 2: The explicit testimony for "the faith-position can regress" leans on the Yingluo system; the Śūraṅgama does not state it, and the two must not be spliced. This is the boundary this paper must mark most honestly. The key explicit lines supporting "the faith-position can regress" — "replete with all defilements · both regresses and advances · sinks forever and does not emerge," and "regressing portion / advancing portion" (2.2) — all come from the Yingluo's lower fascicle. The Śūraṅgama, fascicle 8, though it likewise lists the ten minds of faith, sets out flatly the names and merits of each mind-abode and does not produce any regression-language of the "both regresses and advances / sinks forever and does not emerge" type; indeed its sixth establishes a "non-regress mind" (2.1), whose tenor leans, if anything, toward "advancing without regress." So this paper's argument for "the faith-position can regress" has its scriptural centre of gravity in the Yingluo system; one must not read the Śūraṅgama, too, as plainly stating that the faith-position regresses — that is what it does not say. The paper argues from the Yingluo's explicit text while honestly acknowledging: were one to rely on the Śūraṅgama alone, the force of "regressible" would be greatly weakened. This gap is marked plainly, in keeping with the project's source record, so that the Yingluo's position is not passed off as the shared sense of both systems.

❌ Misreading 3: "The faith-position can regress" means "faith is worthless, faith need not be cultivated"; and: "arousing bodhicitta is the gate of the faith-position" is not the shared teaching of both systems. First, regressible by no means equals useless. The canon plainly establishes the Ten Faiths as "the root of all practice," the hundred gates of luminous dharma (2.3, 3.3) — the root of every later practice, the most fundamental and the most unadorned, its regressibility being the honest aspect of a first-sprouting root, not a sign that it may be discarded. To hear "faith regresses" as "faith need not be cultivated" is the very inversion of pulling up the root; precisely because it regresses, it must all the more be maintained daily, and protected against regression by meeting a good friend. Second, one more documentary boundary must be marked: this paper's 2.3 establishes "arousing bodhicitta is the gate of the faith-position" by "a single thought of faith thereupon arouses bodhicitta," and this explicit line is found only in the Yingluo's lower fascicle (anchor 6); the Śūraṅgama system has no cognate. So this dovetail — "arousing the mind as the entry to the faith-position" (the very scriptural basis of this paper's joint with BODHI-P01) — likewise has its documentary centre of gravity in the Yingluo. The paper argues from it while marking its source, and does not make good for the Śūraṅgama what it has not stated.

VI. Conclusion

Essential restatement. The Ten Faiths are the pre-abode, outer-ordinary, unstable, regressible position. On the textual side, the Yingluo plainly judges the person at the faith-position "replete with all defilements · both regresses and advances," entering the abodes only on meeting a good friend and otherwise "sinking forever and not emerging," and sets "regressing-portion roots-of-good / advancing-portion roots-of-good" against each other, drawing the boundary between regressible and non-regressing at "the Abode of Arousing the Mind"; the Śūraṅgama and the Yingluo, the two systems' three lists, are set side by side and do not fully agree, and even the Yingluo is internally inconsistent. On the doctrinal side, three layers support this: the faith-position must regress, being outer-ordinary and still fettered, no fetter severed, of the regressing portion (3.1); the watershed of position-non-regress lies at "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind," not at "the thought of arising," so that BODHI-P01's "arising as entry" and this paper run in parallel without conflict, each correcting the other (3.2); regressible is not useless — faith is the root of all practice, the first-sprouting root, its regressibility being its unadorned, honest aspect, with the unsettledness of the names mirroring it (3.3, the last marked a hypothesis).

Guidance for practice. Let the practitioner by no means take "I have aroused faith, I have aroused the mind" for a guarantee of "I do not regress." Arising has brought you through the gate (P01), but you stand on the most regressible stretch of road: a full load of undelivered defilements, leaning on nothing but conditioned roots-of-good, liable to slide at one adverse gust, even to "sink forever and not emerge." So the work of the faith-position is not to seek a "made-good solidity" it ought not to have, but two things: first, to maintain daily that faith, vigour, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom which, like touch, regress; second, to "meet a good friend and study the Buddha-dharma" — actively to draw near the wholesome conditions that can protect you from regression. The real security (position-non-regress) lies ahead, at "entering the abode," not in this present moment of aroused faith; to see this clearly is neither to lose heart and make light of faith because faith regresses, nor to grow complacent and halt because one has aroused the mind.

Open questions. First, this paper deliberately cut the Section IV interdisciplinary convergence: the core dispute of the faith-position leans toward canonical collation (the three systems' names set side by side) and the station-doctrine of "outer-ordinary regressible / position-non-regress"; contemporary models of "trust-building / habit-formation," though superficially comparable, cannot sustain a three-layered convergence not lapsing into forced analogy over the senses of "root of all practice" and "the watershed of position-non-regress," so it is better omitted. Second, an unresolved documentary question: this paper's explicit centres of gravity for both "the faith-position can regress" and "arousing the mind as the gate of the faith-position" lie in the Yingluo system; the Śūraṅgama system does not state the former and has no cognate for the latter. The relation of the two systems on the doctrine of the Ten Faiths (complementary, divergent, or reconcilable) this paper sets side by side without forcing together, leaving it to a later treatment, or to a paper dedicated to the two systems' agreements and differences. Third, this paper points the beginning of "position-non-regress" toward "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind," which hands the baton precisely to the next paper: BODHI-P03 will enter the first of the Ten Abodes, the Abode of Arousing the Mind, and treat head-on "entering the abode · the beginning of position-non-regress" — here the regressible tidal flat ends, and the non-regressing dry land begins. The instability of the Ten Faiths is set out in order to throw into relief why that step of entering the abode is the true watershed.

Notes

References

I. Buddhist Primary Sources

• Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (菩薩瓔珞本業經). Trans. Zhu Fonian. T24, no. 1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗. (Chapters on the Names of the Worthies and Noble Ones, on Explaining the Meaning, and on the Mother of Buddhas.)
• Śūraṅgama-sūtra (大佛頂首楞嚴經). Trans. Pāramiti. T19, no. 0945《大佛頂首楞嚴經》Śūraṅgama-sūtra (Chinese)T19, No. 945View on CBETA online reader ↗. (Fascicle 8, the ten mind-abodes.)

II. Modern Scholarship

(This paper cites no modern scholarship; the argument rests entirely on Buddhist primary sources, following the open-source spirit of "return to the source." The interdisciplinary-convergence section having been cut, no corresponding modern literature appears. The divergence among the Ten-Faith name-lists is a matter of canonical collation, taken directly from the Taishō collation notes, with no recourse to modern textual studies.)

III. Index of Canonical Citations

Point	Source	CBETA id
Ten-Faith names (Yingluo, upper): faith·mindfulness·vigour·wisdom·concentration·non-regress·dedication·protection·discipline·vow; pre-abode ten conforming designations	Yingluo, upper, Names of the Worthies and Noble Ones	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1011c04
Ten-Faith names (Yingluo, lower, restated): faith·vigour·mindfulness·wisdom·concentration·discipline·dedication·Dharma-protection·equanimity·vow; ninth "equanimity mind"	Yingluo, lower, Explaining the Meaning	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a16
Ten-Faith names (Śūraṅgama): faith·mindfulness·vigour·wisdom·concentration·non-regress·Dharma-protection·dedication·discipline·vow; sixth "non-regress mind"	Śūraṅgama, fasc. 8	T19n0945《大佛頂首楞嚴經》Śūraṅgama-sūtra (Chinese)T19, No. 945View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0142a09
Faith-position replete with all defilements · both regresses and advances · enters abodes on meeting a good friend · else sinks forever and does not emerge	Yingluo, lower, Explaining the Meaning	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a20
Regressing-portion roots-of-good (faith-position) / advancing-portion roots-of-good (Abode of Arousing the Mind), paired	Yingluo, lower, Explaining the Meaning	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a25
A single thought of faith thereupon arouses bodhicitta · pre-abode · faith-conceiving / provisional-name / nominal bodhisattva	Yingluo, lower, Explaining the Meaning	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a13
The ten minds of faith are the root of all practice · one mind of faith, ten grades, making the hundred gates of luminous dharma	Yingluo, lower, Mother of Buddhas	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1019b03

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Paper: BODHI-P02 · 十信的不定性 · The Bodhi Path · Part 1 · The Ten Faiths Author: 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing) · Project: 指月 / Pointing-at-the-Moon · Series: The Realization Paths（行 階位歷程） License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 CBETA collation: 全文引用均依 CBETA 電子佛典核校（《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T1485、《大佛頂首楞嚴經》T0945）；十信名目異同依大正藏校勘記並陳。本篇為大乘分區，無巴利雙軌義務；引文均待 CBETA XML 實核。 Repository: https://github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/realization-paths

Footnotes

1. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), upper fascicle (Chapter on the Names of the Worthies and Noble Ones), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1011c04. Trans. Zhu Fonian. Collated against the CBETA digital canon. The Taishō reads "wisdom mind, concentration mind, non-regress mind" here, where the Song-Yuan-Ming editions read "concentration mind, wisdom mind, discipline mind" (T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗ collation note 1011031); the seventh, "protection mind," appears as "Dharma-protection mind" when restated at 1017a. ↩

2. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), lower fascicle (Chapter on Explaining the Meaning), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a16. The ninth reads "equanimity mind," differing from the upper fascicle's "non-regress mind." The Song-Yuan-Ming editions have additions/deletions around "vigour" (T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗ collation notes 1017006 / 1017008). ↩

3. Śūraṅgama-sūtra, fascicle 8, T19n0945《大佛頂首楞嚴經》Śūraṅgama-sūtra (Chinese)T19, No. 945View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0142a09. Trans. Pāramiti. The Śūraṅgama lists ten mind-abodes, the sixth being "non-regress mind," with no "equanimity mind," and the order of Dharma-protection and dedication differing from both Yingluo lists. ↩

4. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), lower fascicle (Chapter on Explaining the Meaning), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a20. ↩

5. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), lower fascicle (Chapter on Explaining the Meaning), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a25. ↩

6. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), lower fascicle (Chapter on Explaining the Meaning), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1017a13. The three titles — "faith-conceiving bodhisattva / provisional-name bodhisattva / nominal bodhisattva" — all refer to one provisionally so designated, pre-abode, upon faith. ↩

7. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo), lower fascicle (Chapter on the Mother of Buddhas), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1019b03. ↩