Realization · Equal & Sublime AwakeningPart 1Paper 1 of 3

Defined by a Single Remainder

SAMBODHI-P01 · v1.0 · 2026-06

Equal-Awakening as the One Nescience Unsevered and the Birth Deliberately Kept

中文主題：差一而立——等覺位何以以「尚餘一無始無明」與「一生補處之留」為相

I. The Question

The bodhisattva path runs from the ten faiths through the ten abidings, ten practices, ten dedications, and across the ten grounds to a summit. With the tenth ground fulfilled and the cloud of Dharma spread, the next step — on the ordinary picture of the stages — ought to be buddhahood itself. Yet between the ten grounds and buddhahood the canon installs one further position: equal-awakening. The question arises at once: if the tenth ground is already fulfilled and the next step is the Buddha, what does this in-between position add, that it deserves to be set apart as a station of its own?

An almost reflexive answer says: equal-awakening is "higher" than the ten grounds. It is a station of yet rounder merit, yet vaster powers, yet deeper wisdom, yet an experience nearer to a Buddha's — as if the ten grounds were ninety-nine points, equal-awakening ninety-nine-point-nine, and buddhahood a hundred. On this image, the mark of equal-awakening is something added: one more measure of merit, one more layer of realized state, approaching the full hundred without reaching it.

The thesis of this paper stands directly opposite: equal-awakening as a position is marked not by "gaining yet more" but by "one thing still remaining." Where the canon defines equal-awakening, its eye is never on what equal-awakening has amassed beyond the ten grounds, but on what still separates it from a Buddha — and that separation is, precisely, off by one: one portion of nescience unsevered, one birth of fruition unspent, one realization that could be taken but is, for buddhahood's sake, not taken. Equal-awakening is not the "ninety-nine-point-nine" high station; it is the threshold position of "off by exactly the last one." It is constituted, in its entirety, by that single remaining thing.

This division is no mere play of words; it bears on how we understand the closing of the entire bodhisattva path. Read equal-awakening as addition, and the terminus of the path becomes an endless asymptote, buddhahood a limit forever approached by adding one more measure and never touched. Read it as the single remainder, and the terminus becomes a definite threshold that can be crossed in one stride: the "one thing remaining" is not an infinitely divisible fraction but a determinate, final, severable object. The first two divisions of this axis have already set out two measures — the śrāvaka path measures fruit by severance (subtraction); the bodhi path measures position by accumulation of provisions (addition). At equal- and sublime-awakening, this closing third division, the measure is neither pure subtraction nor pure addition, but the last remainder and its dissolution. The present paper treats the first half: what that "last remainder" is, and how equal-awakening is defined in its entirety by it. The next paper treats the second half: how that remainder is erased in a single instant.

This paper rests on three textual lineages' positive accounts of equal-awakening: the forty-two-worthies schema and the six natures of the Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra; the eka-jāti-pratibaddha doctrine of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra; and the diamond-versus-sarvajña division of the Renwang Prajñā-sūtra. One thing must be said plainly first: the integer ordinals "equal-awakening is the fifty-first position," "the fifty-two positions," are not the letter of these texts. The Keyūra has its own frame of "forty-two worthies" and "six natures"; "fifty-one / fifty-two" is a later systematizing count (as when Guifeng or Tiantai fold the ten faiths into the count). This paper uses "fifty-two positions" only as a convenient designation familiar to readers today; wherever doctrinal judgment is at stake, it returns to the texts' own language (see Section V).

The argument proceeds in three moves. Section II lays out the canonical basis. Section III, the core argument, establishes in three layers why equal-awakening is the "off-by-one" position — by name (equal-yet-not-sublime), by practice (the withholding of the one-birth bodhisattva), and by what is severed (the hair's-breadth that is the beginningless-nescience-ground). Section IV would turn to interdisciplinary convergence; here it is deliberately omitted, for reasons given in Section VI. Section V offers middle-way corrections. Section VI concludes.

II. The Canonical Basis

2.1 The name and place of equal-awakening: last of the six natures, close of the forty-two worthies

The Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra gathers the "nature" of the bodhisattva stages under "six natures," with equal-awakening-nature and sublime-awakening-nature standing as the last two:

佛子！性者，所謂習種性、性種性、道種性、聖種性、等覺性、妙覺性。復名六堅……¹

"Sons of the Buddha, as for the natures: the cultivated-seed nature, the nature-seed nature, the path-seed nature, the noble-seed nature, the equal-awakening nature, the sublime-awakening nature. They are also called the six firm [natures]…"

Equal-awakening-nature stands immediately after noble-seed-nature and immediately before sublime-awakening-nature — second to last of the six, with only sublime-awakening beyond it. The sūtra also closes the grounds with a "forty-two-worthies" schema:

十住、十行、十向、十地、無垢地、妙覺地義相，今當說。²

"The ten abidings, ten practices, ten dedications, ten grounds, the stainless ground, and the sublime-awakening ground — their characteristics I shall now expound."

The "stainless ground" and "sublime-awakening ground" are appended after the ten abidings, practices, dedications, and grounds, as the final two; the "stainless ground" here is an alternative name for the position of equal-awakening (see 2.3). Whether by the six natures or the forty-two grounds, equal-awakening's place is fixed by one and the same fact: it lies before sublime-awakening (the Buddha), and immediately before it. "Equal" means equal-to, near-to awakening, yet not awakening itself; the name itself writes in the threshold character of "equal but not yet sublime."

2.2 Bound by one birth: defined by the mark of "withholding realization"

The most substantial doctrinal content of equal-awakening lies not in the Keyūra's positional language but in the eka-jāti-pratibaddha ("bound by one birth") doctrine of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra. The treatise's definition of the one-birth bodhisattva is itself a sentence of "off by one":

有菩薩摩訶薩修四禪乃至十八不共法，未證四諦，當知是菩薩一生補處。³

"There is a bodhisattva-mahāsattva who cultivates the four absorptions through the eighteen distinctive attributes [of a Buddha], yet has not realized the four truths: know that this bodhisattva is bound by one birth."

The treatise immediately glosses the four words "has not realized the four truths":

「未證四諦」者，故留不證。若取證者，成辟支佛；欲成佛故不證。⁴

"'Has not realized the four truths' means: he deliberately withholds, not taking realization. Were he to take realization, he would become a pratyekabuddha; for the sake of becoming a Buddha, he does not realize."

The weight here is great. The one-birth bodhisattva "cultivates the four absorptions through the eighteen distinctive attributes" — that is, as the qualities of a Buddha go, he already possesses very nearly all of them. Wherein, then, does he differ from a Buddha? In "not having realized the four truths." And this "not having realized" is not "cannot realize"; it is "deliberately withholds, not taking" — a chosen reservation of the last realization. Why chosen? "Were he to take realization, he would become a pratyekabuddha" — to take it now is to fall into a fruit of the two vehicles; "for the sake of becoming a Buddha, he does not realize" — for the larger matter of buddhahood, he holds back from taking it.

So the mark of the one-birth bodhisattva is defined by a deeply paradoxical sign: not "what he has realized," but "the one realization he pointedly leaves untaken." His "off by one" is half objective (the last portion of nescience unexhausted, see 2.3) and half — strikingly — chosen: a realization that could be taken but is, out of compassionate vow, kept. The treatise further glosses "one birth":

「一生補處」者，或以相知者，如阿私陀仙人觀其身相，知今世成佛……如遍吉菩薩、觀世音菩薩、文殊師利菩薩等，見是菩薩如諸佛相，知當成佛。⁵

"'Bound by one birth': as known by signs — as the seer Asita, contemplating his bodily marks, knew he would become a Buddha in this very life… as Samantabhadra, Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī and others, seeing this bodhisattva's marks like a Buddha's, know he is to become a Buddha."

"One birth" means "only one birth remaining": this bodhisattva has but a single span of birth-and-death left, and in the next will fill the Buddha's place and become a Buddha — so great bodhisattvas or seers, contemplating his marks, know he will "become a Buddha in this very life." The treatise even raises a question to bring out this "one" as the limit:

但說一生補處，不說二生、三生？⁶

"Why speak only of being bound by one birth, and not of two births or three?"

Only "one birth" is spoken, and not two or three, precisely because "one birth" is already the limit of the stages — with this one birth remaining, the Buddha's place is filled, and there is no further "next rung" to add. The Avataṃsaka ("Manifestation of the Tathāgata") lists the "bodhisattva bound to one birth" within a high sequence of the ultimate stage ("last-body bodhisattva / one-birth-bound bodhisattva / consecration bodhisattva"), synonymous with eka-jāti-pratibaddha⁷ — corroborating testimony.

2.3 The stainless ground and the adamantine mind: equal-awakening's other name and its keen cognition

The Keyūra also names the position of equal-awakening the "stainless ground," describing its conduct:

行過十地解與佛同，坐佛坐處……住是百千三昧中，如是佛行，故入金剛三昧，一相無相寂滅無為，故名無垢地。⁸

"Having passed beyond the ten grounds, his understanding equal to a Buddha's, seated where Buddhas are seated… abiding in hundreds of thousands of samādhis, such is his Buddha-conduct; he enters the adamantine samādhi, single-marked and markless, quiescent and unconditioned — and so it is called the stainless ground."

"Passed beyond the ten grounds, understanding equal to a Buddha's, seated where Buddhas are seated" places him above the ten grounds, his understanding like a Buddha's; "enters the adamantine samādhi, single-marked and markless" gives his concentration, whence the name "stainless ground." One easily confused term must be flagged at once: this "stainless ground" (wúgòu-dì) is the Keyūra's name for the position of equal-awakening, above the ten grounds and below sublime-awakening — and it is by no means the same as the second of the Avataṃsaka's ten grounds, the "stainless / immaculate ground" (vimalā-bhūmi), which is the second ground within the ten. One lies outside the ten grounds (equal-awakening), the other within them (the second ground); same name, different positions, not to be conflated (see Section V).

The keen cognition of equal-awakening the Renwang Prajñā-sūtra marks with "diamond":

是菩薩從善地至於薩婆若……此忍入金剛三昧。下忍中行名為菩薩，上忍中行名為薩婆若，共觀第一義諦，斷三界心習，無明盡相為金剛，盡相無相為薩婆若。⁹

"This bodhisattva, from the ground of good up to sarvajña… this forbearance enters the adamantine samādhi. Practicing in the lower forbearance he is called a bodhisattva; practicing in the higher forbearance he is sarvajña [the all-knowing, i.e. the Buddha]; together they contemplate the supreme truth and sever the mental habits of the three realms. The mark of nescience's exhausting is the diamond; the markless mark of exhaustion is sarvajña."

"The mark of nescience's exhausting is the diamond; the markless mark of exhaustion is sarvajña" draws the line between equal-awakening and Buddha with utmost clarity: "the mark of nescience's exhausting" (nescience all but exhausted, not yet wholly so) is the diamond — equal-awakening's adamantine mind and cognition; only "the markless mark of exhaustion" (where even the mark of "exhaustion" is gone) is sarvajña, the Buddha's all-knowing. Equal-awakening's adamantine cognition is the keenest cognition that severs nescience, yet it still stands on the side of "the mark of nescience's exhausting" — a blade exhausting and yet with one thing remaining, not the Buddha-cognition that has exhausted.

III. The Core Argument

Section II has set out the three lineages' positive accounts. This section establishes the thesis: equal-awakening is constituted in its entirety by "the single remainder," not by "an abundance surpassing the ten grounds." In three layers — name, practice, severance.

3.1 By name: "equal" is equal-yet-not-sublime — the name itself is a threshold

Begin at the most surface level, the name. The "equal" of "equal-awakening" means "equal to, on a par with awakening" — it describes a position whose awakening is "all but equal" to a Buddha's sublime awakening. But "all but equal" is exactly not "is." The Keyūra's six natures list "equal-awakening-nature, sublime-awakening-nature" in succession (2.1); the very order of the names is a doctrinal declaration: equal stands before sublime; equal is not sublime.

Trivial as this seems, it already rules out the "addition" picture. Were equal-awakening merely "a ten-ground with a little more merit," then it and a Buddha would differ by quantity — amass a little more merit and one nears the Buddha, an asymptote. But "equal–sublime" names not a graduated scale of quantity but the two sides of a qualitative boundary: "equal" is at the threshold of awakening but not stepped in; "sublime" is stepped in. Between threshold and crossing lies not "one more measure of merit" but "the presence or absence of a single step." The name of equal-awakening already defines it as a position standing on the threshold, not yet across — and the far side of that threshold holds only one thing: sublime-awakening. A position defined as "the near side of a certain threshold" is defined by that threshold, by the "not-yet-crossed," and not by how much it has amassed on the near side.

3.2 By practice: the withholding of the one-birth bodhisattva — marked by an "untaken realization"

The second layer enters the paradoxical structure of eka-jāti-pratibaddha (2.2). On the ordinary imagining, the nearer one is to a Buddha, the more one "has realized"; yet the Śāstra defines the one-birth bodhisattva precisely by "has not realized the four truths, deliberately withholding." This means: the gap between equal-awakening and a Buddha lies not in some deficiency of "what equal-awakening has realized too little," but in a reservation — equal-awakening "holds back a realization it could take."

This "withholding" turns "off by one" from a mere "gap of insufficient capacity" into "a gap governed by vow." Picture an artisan who already meets every condition for certification, yet declines to collect the certificate — not because he would fail the examination, but because he knows that once he holds a certain certificate he is sorted into a smaller trade ("becomes a pratyekabuddha"), while his ambition is for the greater matter ("for the sake of becoming a Buddha"); so he would rather, for now, not collect it. The one-birth bodhisattva's "withholding" is just this: to take the most readily takeable realization (the ultimate of the direct seeing of the four truths) is to land in a fruit of the two vehicles; for the full scope of buddhahood, he simply does not take it. So half of his "off by one" is withheld by himself.

This layer dismantles the "addition" picture entirely. On the addition picture, the nearer to a Buddha, the more realized and the less reserved; the equal-awakening the texts present is the opposite — he is equal-awakening because he reserves that "last realization" untaken. His loftiness of station shows itself not as "having taken the most," but as "most qualified to take, yet taking last." Here "off by one" is not a defect but a stature: only one whose ambition is the full measure of buddhahood would stay his hand at the ultimate of the two vehicles, ready to grasp. The mark of equal-awakening is set by this "untaken realization" — the deepest sense of "one thing still remaining."

3.3 By severance: the hair's-breadth is the beginningless-nescience-ground

The third layer lands on the most concrete object of severance. On what determinate object, exactly, do equal- and sublime-awakening differ? The Keyūra's "Chapter on the Great Assembly's Receiving the Teaching" gives the most precise line:

金剛智知此始起一相有終，而不知其始前有法無法……唯佛知始知終。是無垢菩薩一切智齊知自地，常住第一義諦中，自然流入妙覺海地。¹⁰

"The adamantine cognition knows that this [nescience], in its single-marked arising, has an end, yet does not know whether before its beginning there is dharma or no dharma… only a Buddha knows both beginning and end. This stainless bodhisattva's all-cognition fully knows his own ground; abiding ever in the supreme truth, he naturally flows into the ocean-ground of sublime-awakening."

The "this" in the line refers to what the preceding text calls the "beginningless-nescience-ground" (before the four abodes-of-entrenchment no dharma arises, hence "beginningless-nescience-ground"). The adamantine cognition of equal-awakening (the stainless bodhisattva) knows that this beginningless-nescience-ground "has an end" (knows it is severable, knows its end-mark), yet "does not know its beginning" (cannot exhaust its source); only a Buddha (sublime-awakening) "knows both beginning and end." In other words, the "hair's-breadth" between equal- and sublime-awakening has a determinate content: whether the beginning of the beginningless-nescience-ground is thoroughly known. Equal-awakening already knows its end, already can all but sever it, yet has not exhausted its beginning; to exhaust its beginning, knowing both beginning and end, is sublime-awakening, is buddhahood.

The Keyūra states the converse at the sublime-awakening ground:

第四十二地名寂滅心妙覺地，常住一相……唯佛窮盡眾生根本有始有終，佛亦照盡乃至一切煩惱、一切眾生果報。¹¹

"The forty-second ground is called the quiescent-mind sublime-awakening ground, abiding ever in a single mark… only a Buddha exhausts the root of beings, its beginning and its end; the Buddha also illumines exhaustively even all defilements and all beings' fruition."

"Only a Buddha exhausts the root of beings, its beginning and end" marks sublime-awakening by "exhausting both beginning and end" — exactly answering equal-awakening's "knows the end, not the beginning." This pins "off by one" to a point past further division: what is lacking is precisely this last portion of the beginningless-nescience-ground, its beginning unexhausted, not wholly severed. Equal-awakening is not "a stretch of distance short"; it is "this one portion short" — a determinate, final, severable object.

✅ Doctrinally sound: taken together, the three layers support "off by one" from three sides — by name, "equal yet not sublime" (the name is a threshold); by practice, "withholding realization" (one realization kept); by severance, "knowing the end, not the beginning" (one nescience unexhausted). All three name three faces of the same "one": the single step at the near side of the threshold, the single realization held untaken, the single portion of nescience whose beginning is unexhausted. Equal-awakening is constituted, in its entirety, by this "one."

The three layers jointly establish the thesis: equal-awakening is marked not by an abundance surpassing the ten grounds, but by the "off by one" of "a single thing remaining." And how this "one" is severed — how, in a single thought-moment, "knowing the end, not the beginning" turns into "knowing both beginning and end" — is the matter of the next paper, on the adamantine concentration.

IV. Interdisciplinary Convergence

(This paper deliberately omits the interdisciplinary-convergence section; the rationale and the explicit skip-declaration appear in Section VI. The omission is sanctioned by the series' editorial convention: where no deep analogy holds, cut the section and state the skip in the conclusion.)

V. Middle-Way Corrections

This section clears away three common misreadings bearing on the thesis.

❌ Misreading 1: "Equal-awakening = a higher realized state above the ten grounds." This is the "addition" picture broken at the outset. To read equal-awakening as "a high station whose experience, powers, and realized states run one layer deeper than the ten grounds" is to measure it by "abundance gained" — exactly counter to how the canon defines it, by "one thing remaining." The texts never establish its position by "equal-awakening has realized some superior state"; they mark it by "knowing the end, not the beginning" (one portion of severance remaining) and by "one-birth-bound, withholding realization" (one realization remaining). Equal-awakening's loftiness lies not in gaining more than the ten grounds, but in being only that determinate one short of a Buddha. To confuse "off by one" with "one higher rung of realization" is to misread a threshold position as a point on an asymptote.

⚠️ Correction 2: The integer "fifty-two positions, the fifty-first" is a later systematization, not the letter of this paper's source texts. The exposition uses "fifty-two positions," "equal-awakening one place before sublime-awakening," and the like as convenient designations keyed to the doctrinal frame familiar today. But it must be stated as fact: the Keyūra-sūtra has its own frame of "forty-two worthies" (ten abidings · practices · dedications · grounds · stainless ground · sublime-awakening ground) and "six natures (six firm)," and the whole sūtra contains no explicit running integer "fifty-two" or "fifty-one" as a positional count; "fifty-two / equal-awakening as the fifty-first" is a later systematizing number (as when Guifeng Zongmi or Tiantai folds the ten faiths into the count). Wherever doctrinal judgment is at stake, this paper returns to the Keyūra's own "forty-two grounds / six natures" and "stainless ground · sublime-awakening ground" language, and does not let a later integer count stand in for the text's own.

⚠️ Correction 3: "Stainless ground" here names equal-awakening, and is not the Avataṃsaka's second of the ten grounds (vimalā-bhūmi) — same name, different position. The Keyūra names the position of equal-awakening, above the ten grounds and below sublime-awakening, the "stainless ground" (2.3); while the second of the Avataṃsaka's ten grounds is also rendered "stainless / immaculate ground" (vimalā-bhūmi), a station within the ten grounds. One lies outside the ten grounds (equal-awakening), the other within (the second ground); the positions are far apart. A reader meeting the three words "stainless ground" in a different sūtra must judge its referent by context, and must not, on the strength of a shared name, merge equal-awakening with the second of the ten grounds. The "stainless ground" used in this paper refers specifically to the Keyūra's sense, the position of equal-awakening.

VI. Conclusion

Essential restatement. Equal-awakening as a position is marked not by an abundance surpassing the ten grounds, but by the "off by one" of a single remainder. Three layers support this: by name, "equal-awakening" is "equal yet not sublime," a threshold position on the near side of sublime-awakening, defined by the "not-yet-crossed" (3.1); by practice, the one-birth bodhisattva "cultivates the four absorptions through the eighteen distinctive attributes yet has not realized the four truths, deliberately withholding," marked by a realization "held untaken for buddhahood's sake" (3.2); by severance, equal-awakening's adamantine cognition "knows the end, not the beginning," what is lacking being precisely the last portion of the beginningless-nescience-ground, its beginning unexhausted, not wholly severed (3.3). All three are three faces of the same "one": the single step on the near side of the threshold, the single realization held back, the single portion of nescience unexhausted at its beginning.

Guidance for practice. The use of this paper for a practitioner is to correct a tendency to "measure the path's terminus by the feeling of nearness." One approaching the path's ultimate is most prone not to pride but to a kind of asymptotic anxiety — "so close, and yet forever a little short" — as if buddhahood were a limit untouchable however much merit is added. Equal-awakening's "off by one" is the remedy: the terminus of the path is not an infinitely divisible fraction but a determinate, final object that can be severed in a single thought. "Off by one" is not "short by an endless distance"; it is "short by this last one." Here the practitioner may learn the stature of the one-birth bodhisattva's "withholding" — not resting content and grasping at an easily-taken realization midway, but staying his hand for the larger matter; that "withholding" is not stagnation but the composure of one whose aim is the full measure.

Open questions. This paper deliberately cut the Section IV interdisciplinary convergence. The structure of equal-awakening's "off by one" and "withholding realization" might seem comparable to worldly models of "the critical point / the last mile / deliberate delay of gratification," but these are dominated by an increase metaphor — "one more measure of effort and you reach the mark" — fundamentally at odds with this paper's subtraction-threshold structure, in which what is lacking is a determinate nescience and its erasure is not "one more increment" but a severing. A forced analogy would lose the truth, so it is better left out, pending a worldly counterpart-model of "crossing a threshold by exhaustion (not increase)" deep enough for a three-layered convergence (likeness / fundamental difference / irreducibility). Further, the thesis "equal-awakening is defined by the single remainder" must be tested in the next paper: how exactly is that "one" (the last portion of the beginningless-nescience-ground) severed? How do the Yogācārabhūmi and the Cheng weishi lun's "adamantine concentration" turn "knowing the end, not the beginning" into "knowing both beginning and end" in a single instant? How is the seemingly indivisible "hair's-breadth" between equal- and sublime-awakening crossed in one thought? This is the theme of SAMBODHI-P02. Again, equal-awakening's "adamantine cognition" and the śrāvaka path's "adamantine concentration" (the last mind that becomes an arahant) share a name but differ in fruition-context — one opening onto buddhahood, the other onto the exhaustion of taints in an arahant; their likeness and difference are pursued further in the next paper and at this axis's seam with the attainment axis.

Notes

References

I. Buddhist Primary Sources

Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (菩薩瓔珞本業經). Trans. Zhu Fonian. T24, no. 1485. Chapters on the Contemplation of the Worthies, the Exposition of Meaning, the Buddha-Mother, and the Great Assembly's Receiving the Teaching. (Equal-awakening · stainless ground · sublime-awakening ground · six natures · forty-two worthies)
Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (大智度論). By Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva. T25, no. 1509. Chapter on Rebirth. (Eka-jāti-pratibaddha · withholding realization)
Renwang Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (仁王般若波羅蜜經). Trans. Kumārajīva. T08, no. 0245. Chapter on the Bodhisattva's Edification. (Diamond–sarvajña · "the mark of nescience's exhausting is the diamond")
Avataṃsaka-sūtra (eighty-fascicle, 大方廣佛華嚴經). Trans. Śikṣānanda. T10, no. 0279. Manifestation of the Tathāgata. (One-birth-bound bodhisattva; corroborating)

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.)

III. Index of Canonical Citations

Point	Source	CBETA id
Six natures: equal- and sublime-awakening as the last two	Keyūra fasc. 1, Worthies	T24n1485_p1012b26
Forty-two grounds: stainless & sublime-awakening grounds appended after the ten grounds	Keyūra fasc. 2, Exposition	T24n1485_p1017a07
Eka-jāti-pratibaddha = four absorptions through eighteen attributes, four truths unrealized, withheld	Śāstra fasc. 39	T25n1509_p0343c07
The name "bound by one birth" (known by signs, a Buddha in this life)	Śāstra fasc. 40	T25n1509_p0350a12
Why only "one birth," not two or three	Śāstra fasc. 38	T25n1509_p0337b06
One-birth-bound bodhisattva (ultimate-stage sequence)	Avataṃsaka (80) fasc. 51, Manifestation	T10n0279_p0270b13
Stainless ground = passed the ten grounds, enters adamantine samādhi, single-marked & markless	Keyūra fasc. 2, Exposition	T24n1485_p1018b09
"Mark of nescience's exhausting = diamond; markless mark of exhaustion = sarvajña"	Renwang fasc. 1, Edification	T08n0245_p0826c22
Adamantine cognition knows the end, not the beginning; only a Buddha knows both	Keyūra fasc. 2, Great Assembly	T24n1485_p1022a08
Sublime-awakening ground; only a Buddha exhausts beings' root, beginning and end	Keyūra fasc. 1, Worthies	T24n1485_p1015c09

Paper: SAMBODHI-P01 · 差一而立 · Equal and Sublime Awakening · Part 1 · Equal-Awakening 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、《大智度論》T1509、《仁王般若波羅蜜經》T0245、《大方廣佛華嚴經》T0279）。Pāli 引文採 PTS reference 雙軌標示（本篇未引 Pāli）。 Repository: https://github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/realization-paths

Footnotes

Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (菩薩瓔珞本業經), fascicle 1, "Chapter on the Contemplation of the Worthies and Noble Ones," T24n1485_p1012b26. Trans. Zhu Fonian. Collated against the CBETA digital canon. ↩
Ibid., "Chapter on the Exposition of Meaning," T24n1485_p1017a07. ↩
Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (大智度論), fascicle 39, T25n1509_p0343c07. By Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva. ↩
Ibid., gloss on "withholds, does not realize," same passage, T25n1509_p0343c07. ↩
Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 40, T25n1509_p0350a12. ↩
Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 38, T25n1509_p0337b06. ↩
Avataṃsaka-sūtra (eighty-fascicle), fascicle 51, "Manifestation of the Tathāgata," T10n0279_p0270b13. Trans. Śikṣānanda. "One-birth-bound bodhisattva" is synonymous with eka-jāti-pratibaddha. ↩
Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra, fascicle 2, "Chapter on the Exposition of Meaning" (the stainless-ground passage), T24n1485_p1018b09. ↩
Renwang Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (仁王般若波羅蜜經), fascicle 1, "Chapter on the Bodhisattva's Edification," T08n0245_p0826c22. Trans. Kumārajīva. ↩
Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra, fascicle 2, "Chapter on the Great Assembly's Receiving the Teaching," T24n1485_p1022a08 (following p1022a06, "hence called the beginningless-nescience-ground"). [The sūtra's own "knows the end / knows both beginning and end" distinction is recorded as is; no ranking is imputed by the author.] ↩
Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra, fascicle 1, "Chapter on the Contemplation of the Worthies and Noble Ones" (the sublime-awakening-ground passage), T24n1485_p1015c09. ↩