The Ground Where Walking Ends

Why Sublime-Awakening Is the Path's Terminus, Not a Higher Rung Upon It

中文主題：行盡之地——妙覺何以是道之所終，而非道上更高之一階

I. The Question

The previous two papers drove the close of the bodhisattva path to a single point. The first established equal-awakening as the position "off by one" — with one beginningless-nescience-ground remaining, its beginning unexhausted. The second showed how that "one" is severed: the adamantine concentration severs it in a single instant, and the thought that severs is at once the path's last step and, because nothing is left to sever, turns then and there into fruit — "the path's self-completion." The question runs downhill to a point not yet answered: where does that last step land?

The answer is a name: sublime-awakening (miàojué). Once equal-awakening's "off by one" is severed and the adamantine concentration's last thought has settled, what is reached is sublime-awakening — the last of the fifty-two positions, another name for the fruit of buddhahood. But the question is not merely "what is it called"; it is "how is sublime-awakening, as a position, to be read?"

A natural reading takes sublime-awakening as "a higher rung above equal-awakening": equal-awakening nears the Buddha, sublime-awakening nears further, or is the Buddha — as if a higher step on one ascending staircase. The thesis of this paper is that the reading misplaces sublime-awakening. Sublime-awakening is not a higher rung on the path but the path's terminus — the ground on which the adamantine concentration's last step settles, which is to say the place where "walking" (the walking of the stations, this axis's journey through the stages) itself ends. To read it as "a higher rung" is to assume there is the possibility of "one more rung above" (that the path could keep climbing); yet the canon says plainly: above sublime-awakening, no position. Sublime-awakening is not the topmost stair of a staircase but the point at which the staircase ends, with no stair left to climb.

This division carries the structure of the prior two papers to its close. The measure of this third division is "the last remainder and its dissolution": P01 treated the last remainder (equal-awakening's "one"), P02 its dissolution (the adamantine concentration's single-instant severance). This paper treats the settling after dissolution — the remainder dissolved, the path exhausted, the ground reached is sublime-awakening. And sublime-awakening as "the path's terminus" is exactly what hands the Realization axis over to the Attainment axis: the Realization axis writes "how one walks there," and at arrival it stops; what kind of perfected existence stands beyond arrival (the full breadth of the buddha-fruit — ten epithets, three bodies, four wisdoms, ten powers, ten masteries, four qualities) is what the Attainment axis reads.

So this paper is a double close: both the closing paper of the Equal- and Sublime-Awakening division and the second cross-axis seam paper between the Realization and Attainment axes. The first seam stood at the śrāvaka path's exhaustion of taints (Realization's "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints" ∥ Attainment's "The Exhaustion of Taints Is Mastery"); this is the second, at sublime-awakening / the buddha-fruit, reading in common with the Attainment axis's "The Ten Epithets as the Ultimate Signature" (TATHAGATA-P01): the Realization axis reads "the arrival of the path's last step," the Attainment axis reads "the freedom with no further step." One buddha-fruit, read by Realization as "one has walked to it," by Attainment as "freedom."

This paper rests on three lineages' accounts of sublime-awakening / the buddha-fruit as terminus: the Keyūra's "forty-second, sublime-awakening ground" and the close of its six natures; the Cheng weishi lun's "ultimate stage"; the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka's "the Tathāgata's full awakening." The argument proceeds in three moves (§III): sublime-awakening is the limit of the fifty-two positions, with no position above (the path's terminus, not a rung on it); why the "path" ends here (severance and walking have no object left); and the dual-axis two readings of the same sublime-awakening (the seam). Section IV cuts the interdisciplinary convergence (reason in §VI). Section V offers middle-way corrections. Section VI concludes, marks the seam, and hands the full breadth of the fruition-virtue to the Attainment axis.

II. The Canonical Basis

2.1 Sublime-awakening = the forty-second ground, the limit of the fifty-two positions (Keyūra)

The Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra closes the grounds with a "forty-two-worthies" schema, listing the sublime-awakening ground as the forty-second, the very last:

佛子！第四十二地名寂滅心妙覺地，常住一相，第一無極，湛若虛空，一切種智照達無生有諦始終。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。¹

"Sons of the Buddha, the forty-second ground is called the quiescent-mind sublime-awakening ground, abiding ever in a single mark, supreme and without limit, clear as space; its all-knowledge illumines the beginning and end of the unborn and the [conventionally] existent. 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."

Note three phrases: "supreme and without limit" (utmost, with nothing above), "all-knowledge illumines… beginning and end" (illumining both, against equal-awakening's "knows the end, not the beginning"), "only a Buddha exhausts the root of beings, beginning and end" (exhausts, with no remainder). The sublime-awakening ground defines itself by "without limit · illumining beginning and end · exhausting" — this is the language of terminus, not of "a higher rung." The sūtra also closes with the six natures, sublime-awakening-nature being the last:

習種性、性種性、道種性、聖種性、等覺性、妙覺性。復名六堅。²

"The cultivated-seed, nature-seed, path-seed, noble-seed, equal-awakening, and sublime-awakening natures. They are also called the six firm [natures]."

Sublime-awakening-nature stands immediately after equal-awakening-nature, with no seventh. Earlier the sūtra glosses its name: 「娑伽婆伽婆佛陀，秦言妙覺者無上地」 — "sa-gava-gava buddha, in our tongue 'sublime-awakening,' the unsurpassed ground."³ The three words "unsurpassed ground" write its limit plainly: unsurpassed means nothing above it.

2.2 Sublime-awakening = the ultimate stage (Yogācāra)

The Yogācāra system does not use the name "sublime-awakening" but marks the same buddha-fruit terminus by the fifth of its five stages of cultivation-and-realization, the "ultimate stage." The Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 9:

五、究竟位，謂住無上正等菩提。……至究竟位，出障圓明，能盡未來化有情類，復令悟入唯識相、性。⁴

"Fifth, the ultimate stage: abiding in unsurpassed perfect awakening… Reaching the ultimate stage, the obscuration is cleared and the clarity is full; one can, to the limit of the future, transform sentient beings, leading them in turn to enter the character and nature of consciousness-only."

"Abiding in unsurpassed perfect awakening," "the obscuration cleared and the clarity full" — the ultimate stage is the buddha-fruit, the two hindrances cleared (forever ended) and the clarity full. This is the Keyūra's "sublime-awakening ground" under another name: one marks it "sublime-awakening," the other "the ultimate stage," both naming the last terminus of the five stages / fifty-two positions. "The obscuration cleared, the clarity full" is especially telling: it defines sublime-awakening's character as the fullness shown once obscuration is cleared away — a fullness disclosed by the consummation of subtraction (hindrances ended), not an extra layer of realized state added on.

2.3 Sublime-awakening = the Tathāgata's full awakening (Avataṃsaka)

The eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka's "Manifestation of the Tathāgata" describes the same ultimate awakening in the idiom of "the Tathāgata's full awakening":

佛子！菩薩摩訶薩應知如來成正覺，於一切義無所觀察，於法平等無所疑惑，無二無相，無行無止，無量無際，遠離二邊，住於中道，出過一切文字言說……於一念中悉知三世一切諸法。⁵

"Sons of the Buddha, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva should know that the Tathāgata's full awakening observes nothing in any object, doubts nothing in the evenness of dharmas; without duality, without mark, without going, without stopping, without measure, without bound; far from the two extremes, abiding in the middle way, passing beyond all letters and speech… in a single thought knowing all dharmas of the three times."

The four words "without going, without stopping" (無行無止) may serve as this paper's eye: at the Tathāgata's full awakening, both "going" (the motion of approach) and "stopping" (the stasis of dwelling) are passed beyond — there is no path left to walk and no ground left to halt upon. The Avataṃsaka uses not "sublime-awakening / the fifty-two positions" but its own "Tathāgata's full awakening · single-marked and markless · in one thought knowing the three times"; the three lineages differ in their names (the Keyūra's "sublime-awakening," the Weishi's "ultimate stage," the Avataṃsaka's "the Tathāgata's full awakening"), but the buddha-fruit terminus they point to is one (three names, one referent, not forced into one term; see Section V).

III. The Core Argument

Section II has set out the three lineages marking sublime-awakening / the buddha-fruit in the language of terminus. This section establishes the thesis: sublime-awakening is the path's terminus, not a higher rung upon it. In three layers — no position above, the path ends here, the dual-axis two readings.

3.1 No position above: sublime-awakening is the path's end, not a rung on it

Break first the "higher rung" reading. A rung, as a rung, presupposes the possibility of "one more rung above" — a staircase, as a staircase, has above each stair another. If sublime-awakening were "a higher rung above equal-awakening," then one should logically ask: and above sublime-awakening? But the three lineages answer in one voice: above sublime-awakening, no position. The Keyūra makes it the "forty-second ground" (the last), the sublime-awakening-nature the last of the six natures, its name "the unsurpassed ground" (2.1); the Weishi makes the ultimate stage the fifth of five (the last); the Avataṃsaka makes the Tathāgata's full awakening "unsurpassed" (without duality or mark, without measure or bound). All three mark sublime-awakening with "last · unsurpassed · exhausting · without limit" — these are words of the end, not words of a stair.

So the difference between sublime- and equal-awakening is not the difference between "a lower and a higher stair on one staircase," but between "the second-to-last stair" and "the point where the staircase ends, with no stair left to climb." Equal-awakening is a position on the path (above it, one step remains: sublime-awakening); sublime-awakening is the path's terminus (above it, no step remains). To read sublime-awakening as "a higher rung" is to assume the path can keep climbing above it; "no position above" says the path has, at this point, no "above" to climb to. Sublime-awakening is not on the path; sublime-awakening is where the path ends.

3.2 The path ends here: because severance and walking have no object left

The second layer asks: why does the "path" end exactly at sublime-awakening, not earlier or later? Because the activities that define the "path" as a path — severance (of defilement) and walking (of approach) — have, at sublime-awakening, no object left to act upon.

As to severance: P02 established that the adamantine concentration severs the last portion of the beginningless-nescience-ground in a single instant; at sublime-awakening / the ultimate stage, "the obscuration is cleared and the clarity is full" (2.2), "only a Buddha exhausts the root of beings" (2.1) — the two hindrances forever ended, no defilement left to sever. Severance, as severance, requires "a defilement to be severed" as its object; the defilements exhausted, severance has nothing to apply to. As to walking: the Avataṃsaka's "without going, without stopping" (2.3) — the motion of approach requires "a ground not yet reached" as its object (one walks only toward somewhere); sublime-awakening being the ultimate, there is no "ground not yet reached" to approach, so "walking" too has nothing to apply to. Severance objectless, walking objectless — the "path" (the journey of severing and walking) ceases of itself here.

This is the cashing-out, at the terminus, of P02's "path's self-completion." P02 said: the last severing thought, because nothing is left to sever, turns then and there into fruit; this paper says: the sublime-awakening on which that turning-into-fruit lands is precisely the ground where "severance and walking are both objectless" — so the path does not stop outside sublime-awakening, but ceases in the very act of reaching it, because its activity has no object left. Sublime-awakening as "the path's terminus" is not the spatial sense of "a sublime-awakening city at the road's end," but the activity sense of "the work of walking the path, having nothing left to do, is exhausted." Walking exhausted — hence the ground where walking ends.

3.3 The dual-axis two readings: Realization reads "arrival," Attainment reads "freedom"

The third layer lands on the seam. The same sublime-awakening / buddha-fruit admits of two readings. This axis (Realization) discharges its office here: all along it has written "how one walks there" — how the four śrāmaṇya-fruits sever fetters, how the bodhisattva positions accumulate provisions, how equal-awakening is off by one, how the adamantine concentration severs the last — and to walk to sublime-awakening is the arrival of this "walking the path." The Realization axis reads sublime-awakening as "one has walked to it": the settling of the path's last step, the consummation of the journey.

But the same sublime-awakening / buddha-fruit the Attainment axis (the Tathāgata's mastery) reads from the other face: "the freedom with no further step to walk." Where the Realization axis sees "arrived at the terminus," the Attainment axis sees a perfected mode of being in which "there is no further terminus to approach, hence nowhere to go and yet nothing not free." As of a traveller reaching home: the Realization axis records "he walked to the door of his home" (arrival, the journey's end), the Attainment axis records "the at-home freedom of his dwelling thereafter" (nothing left to journey toward, the character of abiding). One and the same "reaching home," read once as "walked there," once as "dwells at ease."

★Seam marker: This paper reads in common with the Attainment axis's "The Ten Epithets as the Ultimate Signature" (TATHAGATA-P01) the same sublime-awakening / buddha-fruit passage (the 2.1–2.3 Keyūra sublime-awakening ground and six natures, the Weishi ultimate stage, the Avataṃsaka Tathāgata's full awakening). The same passage, the same referent: Realization reads "the arrival of the path's last step," Attainment reads "the freedom with no further step." The two readings do not conflict; they are two faces of one buddha-fruit: the Realization axis writes "how one walks to sublime-awakening" (inside the threshold, the journey), the Attainment axis sets out from sublime-awakening to write "sublime-awakening as the full breadth of freedom" (beyond the threshold, the fruition-virtue). This is the second cross-axis seam, structurally mirroring the first (at the śrāvaka path's exhaustion of taints: Realization's "The Approach to the Exhaustion of Taints" ∥ Attainment's "The Exhaustion of Taints Is Mastery"). Whether Realization's "arrival" and Attainment's "freedom" are two faces of one instant, or admit a finer ordering — that cross-axis adjudication is, by the axes' convention, held at the seam, not settled by this axis alone; this paper marks them only as "two readings of one sublime-awakening," leaving the fineness of their reconciliation to be jointly adjudicated at the seam (cf. the first seam's adjudication of "exhaustion and mastery co-arising" in ARHAT-P01 / SRAMANA-P09 as a near precedent). ★

This third layer also fixes this paper's boundary: the Realization axis reads sublime-awakening only as far as "the path's terminus · arrival." The full breadth of sublime-awakening as fruition-virtue — the ten epithets, three bodies, four wisdoms full, ten powers and four fearlessnesses, the Tathāgata's ten masteries, the four qualities of great nirvāṇa — is what the Attainment axis reads, not the office of the Realization axis (see Section V, Correction 3, and Section VI). Where this paper has touched in passing "the two hindrances ended · obscuration cleared, clarity full · all-knowledge," it was only to mark what the path arrives at, not to unfold the fruition-virtue; that unfolding sets out from the Attainment axis's TATHAGATA-P01.

✅ Doctrinally sound: taken together, the three layers support "sublime-awakening is the path's terminus, not a higher rung upon it" — no position above (all three lineages mark it last · unsurpassed · exhausting, with no fifty-third position), the path ends here (severance and walking objectless, walking exhausted), the dual-axis two readings (the same sublime-awakening, Realization reading arrival, Attainment reading freedom, held at the seam, not unilaterally settled). Sublime-awakening as the Realization axis's close lies precisely in its being "the ground where walking ends": walking exhausted here, the Realization axis hands over here to the Attainment axis.

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: "Sublime-awakening = a higher realized state above equal-awakening (as if a fifty-third position)." This is the "higher rung" reading the paper breaks. Sublime-awakening is not a higher stair on an ascending staircase but the point where the staircase ends, with no stair above (3.1). All three lineages mark it "last · unsurpassed · exhausting · without limit" — words of the end, not of a stair. To read it as "a higher rung" presupposes that one more rung could be climbed above it (that the path could keep ascending), exactly counter to the explicit "only a Buddha exhausts · the unsurpassed ground · the ultimate stage." Sublime-awakening's loftiness lies not in being "one rung higher" than equal-awakening, but in being the ground where "no rung is left to climb."

⚠️ Correction 2: Sublime-awakening, the ultimate stage, and the Tathāgata's full awakening are three names for one buddha-fruit terminus, recorded without forcing them into one term; and the integer "fifty-two positions / the fifty-first–fifty-second" is a later systematization. First, this paper sets the Keyūra's "sublime-awakening," the Weishi's "ultimate stage," and the Avataṃsaka's "Tathāgata's full awakening" side by side because the three lineages name one buddha-fruit terminus each in its own idiom (the Keyūra and Weishi in positional system-names, the Avataṃsaka in the "Tathāgata's full awakening · all-knowledge-knowledge" idiom rather than the "sublime-awakening / fifty-two positions" system). Though they share a referent, their name-systems differ; this paper records the three lineages' language and marks the shared referent, without recasting them into a single term or letting one system's name overwrite another's. Second, as flagged in the prior two papers: the integer "fifty-two positions," "sublime-awakening as the fifty-second," is a later systematizing count (Guifeng, Tiantai folding the ten faiths into the count); the Keyūra has its own "forty-two worthies" and "six natures" frame. This paper uses "the limit of the fifty-two positions" as a designation familiar to readers today, returning at points of doctrinal judgment to the texts' own "forty-second ground · sublime-awakening ground · unsurpassed ground."

⚠️ Correction 3: This paper stops at sublime-awakening as the path's terminus (the Realization face); it does not unfold sublime-awakening's fruition-virtue (the Attainment face). Sublime-awakening / the buddha-fruit is one body with two faces: Realization reads "the arrival of the path's last step," Attainment reads "the freedom with no further step." This paper, the Realization axis's closing paper, reads only as far as "the path has walked to sublime-awakening · walking ends here"; the full breadth of sublime-awakening as fruition-virtue — the ten epithets, three bodies, four wisdoms full, ten powers and four fearlessnesses, the Tathāgata's ten masteries, the four qualities of great nirvāṇa — is what the Attainment axis reads (from TATHAGATA-P01), not the office of the Realization axis. Where this paper has touched in passing the two hindrances ended, obscuration cleared and clarity full, all-knowledge, it was only to mark what the path arrives at, not to unfold the fruition-virtue. One should not take this paper as having said all of sublime-awakening: it says "how the path walks to sublime-awakening and ceases there," not "what kind of perfected existence the buddha-fruit is" — the latter sets out from the Attainment axis.

VI. Conclusion

Essential restatement. Sublime-awakening is the path's terminus, not a higher rung upon it. Three layers support this: no position above — all three lineages mark it last · unsurpassed · exhausting · without limit, with no further position, so it is "the path's end" not "a rung on the path" (3.1); the path ends here — its defining activities (severance and walking) have at sublime-awakening no object left (the two hindrances ended, so severance has nothing to apply to; the ultimate reached, so walking has nothing to approach), and walking exhausted ceases (3.2); the dual-axis two readings — the same sublime-awakening, Realization reading "the arrival of the path's last step," Attainment reading "the freedom with no further step," two faces of one fruit, with the fineness of their reconciliation held at the seam, not unilaterally settled (3.3).

Guidance for practice. This paper corrects, for the practitioner, the tendency to imagine the "terminus" as a "higher place." One approaching the ultimate is most prone to imagine the buddha-fruit as "a layer of realized state higher, brighter, more excellent than equal-awakening," so that practice becomes an endless climb of "one more rung," the summit forever overhead. "The ground where walking ends" is the remedy: sublime-awakening is not overhead, but where "there is no higher to go" — the path's end is not to climb the topmost rung, but to walk until "no rung is left to climb, no defilement left to sever, no ground left to approach," and there to cease. What the practitioner should feel here is not the climbing-mind of "I must go a little higher" but the resting of "to have walked it out is itself [the end]" — what is needed is not more height, but to walk this path of subtraction, accumulation, and dissolution until there is nothing left to do and it ceases of itself. To rest is the ground; walking exhausted is the awakening.

Open questions. First, this paper deliberately cut the Section IV interdisciplinary convergence: the structure of "the path's terminus · walking exhausted and ceasing" might seem comparable to a mathematical "limit / fixed point" or a process's "halting (ceasing on meeting a termination condition)," but these are dominated by "approaching an external target value" or "satisfying a formal condition," fundamentally at odds with sublime-awakening's sense of "ceasing because the activity itself has no object left, the terminus being an unconditioned buddha-fruit"; a forced analogy would lose the truth, so it is left out. Second, as the second seam paper, this paper reads the sublime-awakening / buddha-fruit passage in common with TATHAGATA-P01: Realization reads "arrival," Attainment reads "freedom." Whether these two are two faces of one instant (as the first seam's "exhaustion and mastery co-arising") or admit a finer temporal ordering between "arrival" and "freedom" — that cross-axis adjudication is, by the axes' convention, held at the seam and not settled by this axis alone, awaiting joint adjudication at the seam (cf. the first seam's "co-arising" adjudication in ARHAT-P01 / SRAMANA-P09 as a near precedent). Third, this paper hands the full breadth of sublime-awakening's fruition-virtue to the Attainment axis: the ground where walking ends is precisely where the Attainment axis sets out — the buddha-fruit as the perfected freedom of ten epithets, three bodies, four wisdoms, ten powers, ten masteries, four qualities unfolds from TATHAGATA-P01, "The Ten Epithets as the Ultimate Signature." Here the Realization axis lays down its pen.

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 ↗. Chapter on the Contemplation of the Worthies. (Sublime-awakening ground = forty-second ground · the unsurpassed ground · the six-natures terminus)
• Cheng weishi lun (成唯識論). By Dharmapāla et al., trans. Xuanzang. T31, no. 1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗. Fascicle 9 (the five stages · the ultimate stage). (Ultimate stage = abiding in unsurpassed perfect awakening · obscuration cleared, clarity full)
• Avataṃsaka-sūtra (eighty-fascicle, 大方廣佛華嚴經). Trans. Śikṣānanda. T10, no. 0279《大方廣佛華嚴經》(八十華嚴)Avataṃsaka-sūtra (80-fascicle)T10, No. 279View on CBETA online reader ↗. Manifestation of the Tathāgata. (The Tathāgata's full awakening · single-marked and markless · without going, without stopping)

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
Sublime-awakening ground = 42nd ground · without limit · illumining beginning & end · only a Buddha exhausts	Keyūra fasc. 1, Worthies	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1015c09
Six natures · sublime-awakening-nature the last	Keyūra fasc. 1, Worthies	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1012b26
"Sublime-awakening, the unsurpassed ground" (gloss)	Keyūra fasc. 1	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1011b23
Ultimate stage = abiding in unsurpassed perfect awakening · obscuration cleared, clarity full	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 9	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0048b13
The Tathāgata's full awakening · without going, without stopping · in one thought knowing the three times	Avataṃsaka (80) fasc. 52, Manifestation	T10n0279《大方廣佛華嚴經》(八十華嚴)Avataṃsaka-sūtra (80-fascicle)T10, No. 279View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0274c29

Series Cross-Reference Index

• ★ Attainment-axis TATHAGATA-P01, "The Ten Epithets as the Ultimate Signature" (parallel · second seam paper): this paper reads the same sublime-awakening / buddha-fruit passage in common (the Keyūra sublime-awakening ground and six natures, the Weishi ultimate stage, the Avataṃsaka Tathāgata's full awakening). Realization reads "the arrival of the path's last step," Attainment reads "the freedom with no further step"; two faces of one buddha-fruit. This paper hands the full breadth of sublime-awakening's fruition-virtue to TATHAGATA-P01 to begin. The cross-axis "arrival / freedom" adjudication is held at the seam, not unilaterally settled.
• SAMBODHI-P01, "Defined by a Single Remainder" (this division): this paper carries forward its "equal-awakening as the position off by one" — what is reached when the "one" lacking is severed is this paper's sublime-awakening.
• SAMBODHI-P02, "The Single Instant of the Adamantine Concentration" (this division): this paper carries forward its "the adamantine concentration's single instant · the path's self-completion" — the ground on which that last step settles is this paper's sublime-awakening; P02's "the path's self-completion" is here cashed out as "the ground where walking ends."

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Paper: SAMBODHI-P03 · 行盡之地 · Equal and Sublime Awakening · Part 2 · Sublime-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、《成唯識論》T1585、《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

1. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra, fascicle 1, "Chapter on the Contemplation of the Worthies and Noble Ones" (the sublime-awakening-ground passage), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1015c09. Trans. Zhu Fonian. Collated against the CBETA digital canon. ★Seam-shared passage (Realization reads arrival, Attainment reads freedom). ↩

2. Ibid., "Chapter on the Contemplation of the Worthies and Noble Ones" (the six-natures passage), T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1012b26. ★Seam-shared passage. ↩

3. Ibid., T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1011b23: "sa-gava-gava buddha, in our tongue 'sublime-awakening,' the unsurpassed ground." Glossing the name "sublime-awakening" as "the unsurpassed ground." ↩

4. Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 9 (the five stages · the ultimate stage), T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0048b13. By Dharmapāla and others, trans. Xuanzang. "Abiding in unsurpassed perfect awakening · the obscuration cleared and the clarity full." ★Seam-shared passage. ↩

5. Avataṃsaka-sūtra (eighty-fascicle), fascicle 52, "Manifestation of the Tathāgata, part 3," T10n0279《大方廣佛華嚴經》(八十華嚴)Avataṃsaka-sūtra (80-fascicle)T10, No. 279View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0274c29. Trans. Śikṣānanda. "The Tathāgata's full awakening · without going, without stopping · in one thought knowing the three times." ★Seam-shared passage. ↩