The Single Instant of the Adamantine Concentration

How the Last Uninterrupted Path Is at Once the Path's Final Step and Its Self-Completion

中文主題：金剛喻定的一剎那——末後無間道何以是道之最後一步、亦即道之自我終結

I. The Question

Picture a long mountain road. The traveller has covered the whole distance of the ten grounds; before him lies only the last stretch, the one leading to the summit's fruit of buddhahood. The natural way to ask is: how many more steps must he walk to arrive? — as if the path's end were to walk out the remaining count of steps, the last footfall landing on the peak.

But the "final step" the texts present is far more paradoxical. It is not "walking one more stretch of road" but a severance accomplished in a single instant — the adamantine concentration. The previous paper established equal-awakening as the position "off by one": what is lacking is the last portion of the beginningless-nescience-ground, its beginning unexhausted, not wholly severed. This paper asks: how is that "one portion" severed? And the form of the answer forces a deeper question — when this last portion of nescience is severed in the single instant of the adamantine concentration, what happens to the "path" itself?

The thesis: the adamantine concentration, as the last concentration that severs nescience, has a doctrinal form that is not "one more step" but "the path's self-completion." It is the path's final act; and just as that act is completed, the path itself ceases to be a path — the thought that severs is the "trainee's" last thought, and in the next instant there is no defilement left to sever and no "training" to speak of, only the fruit of buddhahood. In other words, the path's end is not the spatial image of "reaching the road's end," but the temporal-event image of "the road spending itself in its last act." When the last step lands, there is no road underfoot — for a "road," as a road, just is "there is still defilement to sever, an uninterrupted path still to arise"; defilement exhausted, path exhausted, in the same instant.

This division bears on how the whole bodhisattva path is brought to a close. Imagine the end as "walking out the remaining steps," and "path" and "fruit" form a continuous, quantitative transition, the last step merely one step among many. Imagine it as "the path's self-completion," and the last thought has a double identity: it is both the path's final act (the causal stage's last mind, the uninterrupted path) and the threshold of the fruit (buddhahood's first instant); "path" and "fruit" are not two successive stretches of road but two faces of one instant — the moment of severing is the moment of attaining. The measure of this third division of the axis is "the last remainder and its dissolution"; the previous paper treated "the last remainder" (the "one" equal-awakening lacks), this paper treats "its dissolution" (the adamantine concentration's single-instant severance).

This paper rests on four lineages' mutually confirming accounts: the Yogācārabhūmi's definition of "the last samādhi of the trainee," the Cheng weishi lun's "single-instant severance · entering the Tathāgata-stage · perfected transformation-of-basis," the Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra's "adamantine cognition knows the beginningless-nescience-ground has an end," and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's "trainee's last mind." Two things must be said first, lest the account overstep. First, the precise phrases "primal-portion nescience" or "the last portion of nescience" are Tiantai and later doxographical terms; a search of the four sources here finds none of them. The texts' own nearest formulation is the Keyūra's "beginningless-nescience-ground," and wherever this paper points to the last root-nescience severed, it uses "beginningless-nescience-ground," not the later language of "one portion." Second, the adamantine concentration runs across two fruition-contexts — the two vehicles (the last mind that becomes an arahant) and the Great Vehicle (entering the Tathāgata-stage) — whose objects-severed and fruits-attained differ; within the passages cited, the texts do not rank the two, and this paper records the sources without adjudicating (see Section V).

The argument proceeds in four moves. Section II lays out the canonical basis. Section III, the core argument, establishes "the path's self-completion" in three layers — the diamond simile (keenest and unbreakable, hence the terminus of severance), the single instant (the moment of instantaneous severance), and the last mind (the causal stage's last thought is the fruition stage's first instant). Section IV offers an interdisciplinary convergence with the physics of the phase transition / critical point, with a strict irreducibility declaration. Section V offers middle-way corrections. Section VI concludes and turns toward the next paper's seam with the attainment axis.

II. The Canonical Basis

2.1 Definition: the adamantine concentration as "the last samādhi of the trainee"

The Yogācārabhūmi gives the clearest definition of the adamantine concentration:

復次，云何金剛喻三摩地？謂最後邊學三摩地。此三摩地最第一故，最尊勝故，極堅牢故，上無煩惱能摧伏故，摧伏一切諸煩惱故，是故此定名金剛喻。¹

"Further, what is the adamantine-like samādhi? It is the last samādhi of the trainee. Because this samādhi is foremost, most excellent, supremely firm; because no higher defilement can crush it, and because it crushes every defilement — for these reasons this concentration is named 'adamantine-like.'"

"The last samādhi of the trainee" — the concentration at the very edge of the trainee's stage. Why likened to a diamond? The treatise gives two reasons, opposite in direction yet complementary: "no higher defilement can crush it" (nothing higher can break it) and "it crushes every defilement" (it can break all). The first states its unbreakability, the second its power to break all. Elsewhere in the same treatise:

最後學位喻如金剛三摩地生。由此生故，便能永斷修道所斷一切煩惱。²

"At the last station of training, the adamantine-like samādhi arises. By its arising, one can forever sever all the defilements to be severed by the path of cultivation."

"The last station of training," "forever sever all the defilements to be severed by the path of cultivation" — the adamantine concentration arises at the trainee's final station, and once arisen, forever severs every defilement the path of cultivation has to sever. The definition already contains a decisive corollary: being "the last of the trainee" and "severing all while severed by none," there can be after it no defilement left to sever and no keener concentration to arise — it is the terminus of severance.

2.2 What is severed and attained: instantaneous severance, entering the Tathāgata-stage

The Cheng weishi lun places the adamantine concentration at the threshold of the Great Vehicle's ultimate stage, stating what it severs and attains:

謂有俱生微所知障，及有任運煩惱障種，金剛喻定現在前時，彼皆頓斷，入如來地。³

"There remain innate, subtle seeds of the cognitive hindrance, and spontaneously-arising seeds of the affective hindrance; when the adamantine concentration manifests, these are all severed at once, and one enters the Tathāgata-stage."

The tenth ground still retains "innate, subtle seeds of the cognitive hindrance" and "spontaneously-arising seeds of the affective hindrance"; when the adamantine concentration manifests, these "are all severed at once," and one immediately "enters the Tathāgata-stage." The six words "severed at once · enters the Tathāgata-stage" already mark this concentration's critical character — it is not one link in a gradual severing but the moment of an instantaneous one; the severing is, at the same time, "entering the Tathāgata-stage" (becoming a Buddha). Under "transformation-of-basis" the treatise states the fruition-aspect of this moment:

四、果圓滿轉：謂究竟位，由三大劫阿僧企耶，修集無邊難行勝行，金剛喻定現在前時，永斷本來一切麁重，頓證佛果圓滿轉依，窮未來際利樂無盡。⁴

"Fourth, the transformation of perfected fruit: at the ultimate stage, through three incalculable great eons cultivating boundless arduous and excellent practices, when the adamantine concentration manifests, all original coarse-heaviness is forever severed, and the fruit of buddhahood's perfected transformation-of-basis is suddenly realized, benefiting and gladdening [beings] without end to the limit of the future."

Having cultivated excellent practices through three incalculable eons, "when the adamantine concentration manifests, all original coarse-heaviness is forever severed, the fruit of buddhahood's perfected transformation-of-basis suddenly realized." The manifesting of the adamantine concentration is the single moment at which "forever severing coarse-heaviness" and "suddenly realizing the fruit of buddhahood" happen together. Severance (forever cutting coarse-heaviness) and attainment (suddenly realizing the fruit) are not two successive matters but two faces of one manifesting.

2.3 The last thing severed: the beginningless-nescience-ground

What the adamantine concentration severs as the "last portion" is stated most precisely in the Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra:

以此四住地，起一切煩惱故，為始起四住地。其四住地前更無法起故，故名無始無明住地。金剛智知此始起一相有終，而不知其始前有法無法……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。⁵

"Because these four abodes-of-entrenchment give rise to all defilements, they are the originating four abodes. Because before these four abodes no dharma arises, it is called the beginningless-nescience-ground. The adamantine cognition knows that this, in its single-marked arising, has an end, yet does not know whether before its beginning there is dharma or no dharma… 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."

That before the four abodes-of-entrenchment no dharma arises is named the "beginningless-nescience-ground" — this is the last root-nescience severed. Equal-awakening's (the stainless bodhisattva's) adamantine cognition knows this nescience "in its single-marked arising has an end" (knows it severable, knows its end), and so "naturally flows into the ocean-ground of sublime-awakening." Note the words "naturally flows into": it is not "expend more effort over a further stretch" but knowing-the-end-and-thereby-flowing-in — between severance and entering there is no room for a third act. The Keyūra has "naturally flows in," the Cheng weishi lun has "instantaneous severance in one kṣaṇa"; the two differ in wording (one lacks the word "instant," the other marks it explicitly), and they are recorded without forced merger; but both point to the same doctrinal mechanism: the turn from equal- to sublime-awakening admits no gradual intermediate.

III. The Core Argument

Section II has set out the four lineages' mutually confirming accounts. This section establishes the thesis: the adamantine concentration's severance has the doctrinal form of "the path's self-completion." In three layers — the diamond simile, the single instant, the last mind.

3.1 The diamond simile: keenest and unbreakable, hence the terminus of severance

Begin with why "diamond" is the apt simile. The Yogācārabhūmi defines it by two marks (2.1): it crushes every defilement, and is crushed by no higher defilement. An everyday blade can cut things but itself dulls, and can be cut by something harder; the diamond serves as simile precisely because it cuts all and is cut by none. Returned to the context of severing defilement, the doctrinal force is strong: if there is a concentration that can sever every defilement, and above which there is no defilement able to sever it, then after this concentration there can be, logically, no "defilement left to sever" — for every defilement has been crushed by it; nor any "keener concentration" — for above it nothing prevails.

So the name "adamantine concentration" already defines it as "the terminus of severance." It is not "yet another uninterrupted path" within the course of severing defilement, but "the last uninterrupted path" — after which no uninterrupted path can arise, because an uninterrupted path, as such, just is "arisen in order to sever some defilement"; defilement exhausted, the work of severing has no object, the path of severing has nothing to apply itself to. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra glosses the adamantine samādhi as "able to break all defilements and fetters with nothing left over" — exactly this sense: break to "nothing left over," and the work of breaking ends right there.⁶ The doctrinal weight of the diamond simile lies wholly in the "unbreakable" face — only because it is unbroken can it be the last severance.

3.2 The single instant: the moment of instantaneous severance, admitting no gradual intermediate

The second layer lands on "the single instant." The Cheng weishi lun states that the moment of severing the last hindrance is "one kṣaṇa":

菩薩要起金剛喻定，一剎那中，三界頓斷。所知障種……乃至正起金剛喻定，一剎那中方皆斷盡。⁷

"The bodhisattva must arouse the adamantine concentration; in a single instant, the three realms are severed at once. The seeds of the cognitive hindrance… up until, just as the adamantine concentration is aroused, in a single instant are all severed completely."

"In a single instant the three realms are severed at once," "in a single instant are all severed completely" — the last severance is not a gradual diminishing but a single-thought total exhaustion. Why must it be "a single instant" and not "gradual"? This turns on the nature of what is severed. The severances of the first two divisions were largely gradual (the śrāvaka severs fetter by fetter, the bodhisattva severs ground by ground); but at the last portion, the "beginningless-nescience-ground," what is severed is "the support of all defilements, the root from which defilements arise" (the four abodes-of-entrenchment all arise in dependence on this beginningless-nescience-ground). To sever a "root of all defilements" cannot be done piecemeal like pruning branches — the moment the root is cut, everything arising in dependence on it loses its support and is exhausted together. So the text marks it "in a single instant the three realms severed at once": not severing one portion of the three realms and then another, but the root cut and branch-and-leaf exhausted together in one thought.

This rules out the picture of "the last step as a gradual transition." Were the interval between equal- and sublime-awakening gradual, there would have to be some intermediate state of "half equal-awakening, half sublime-awakening"; but the text, with "instantaneous severance in one kṣaṇa" and "naturally flows in," declares no intermediate — before the thought in which the adamantine concentration manifests is equal-awakening (path), after it is sublime-awakening (fruit), with no third position between. The instantaneous severance of a single kṣaṇa is the doctrinal guarantee that between "path" and "fruit" no mediation intervenes.

3.3 The last mind: the thought that severs is the path's last thought as a path

The third layer is the core of the thesis. The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra marks the position of the adamantine samādhi as "the trainee's last mind":

「如金剛三昧」者，能破一切諸煩惱結使無有遺餘……即是學人末後心，從是心次第得三種菩提；聲聞菩提、辟支佛菩提、佛無上菩提。⁸

"The 'adamantine-like samādhi' can break all defilements and fetters with nothing left over… it is the trainee's last mind, and from this mind one successively attains the three awakenings: the awakening of the śrāvaka, of the pratyekabuddha, and the unsurpassed awakening of a Buddha."

The five words "the trainee's last mind" are the key to "the path's self-completion." "Trainee" (the one with-training) means one still on the path, still with something to learn and to sever; "last mind" means the trainee's final thought. The adamantine concentration is this last mind — it is still "training" (still path, still the causal stage), yet it is training's last thought; "from this mind one successively attains awakening," the next thought being beyond-training, the fruit. So this thought has a double identity: as the mind that severs, it belongs to the "path" (the uninterrupted path, the causal stage); and precisely because it severs the last defilement, it is at the same time the path's terminating thought — after it there is no defilement to sever, so the "path" has nothing to apply itself to and of itself ceases.

The Cheng weishi lun confirms this with the fine structure of "uninterrupted path / path of liberation":

二乘根鈍，漸斷障時，必各別起無間、解脫……菩薩利根，漸斷障位，非要別起無間、解脫，剎那剎那能斷證故。⁹

"Those of the two vehicles, being of dull faculties, when gradually severing the hindrances must arouse the uninterrupted [path] and the path of liberation each separately… The bodhisattva, of keen faculties, when gradually severing need not arouse the uninterrupted and the liberation separately, for in instant after instant he is able to sever and to realize."

The uninterrupted path is the path of "actually severing defilement"; the path of liberation is the path of "having severed, realizing cessation." Those of the two vehicles, being dull, must "arouse separately" the two paths when severing (first arouse the uninterrupted to sever it, then arouse the liberation to realize it); the bodhisattva, of keen faculties, "in instant after instant is able to sever and realize" — in the same instant both severs (uninterrupted) and realizes (liberation), needing no separate arousal. Returned to the adamantine concentration: the bodhisattva's last thought severs (uninterrupted) and realizes (liberation) in all but the same moment — the thought that severs has barely landed, and the realized fruit appears; the path's final act is at once the fruit's first manifesting. This is the most precise doctrinal expression of "the path's self-completion": the path does not reach its end and then stop, but in its last severing act, because there is nothing left to sever, turns then and there into fruit. The severing thought is the path's last thought; at the moment of total severance, the path has spent itself into fruit.

⚠️ A heuristic analogy (to be developed in Section IV): this structure of "the path completing itself in its last thought" has points of contact with certain intuitions from the physics of the phase transition / critical point — but it is a heuristic analogy, not a theoretical equivalence; see Section IV, with its strict irreducibility declaration.

✅ Doctrinally sound: taken together, the three layers support "the path's self-completion" from three sides — the diamond simile establishes it as "the terminus of severance" (keenest and unbreakable, so no severance applies after it); the single instant establishes it as "the moment of instantaneous severance" (root cut, branch-and-leaf exhausted, no gradual intermediate); the last mind establishes it as "the causal stage's last thought is the fruition stage's first instant" (the severing thought is the path's last thought). Together they show: the "hair's-breadth" between equal- and sublime-awakening is crossed in the single instant of the adamantine concentration, by "path" turning into "fruit" — not walked across, but the path terminating, in that thought, into fruit.

IV. Interdisciplinary Convergence

The structure of "the path completing itself in its last thought" has intuitive points of contact with the physics of the phase transition / critical point that admit a three-layered convergence. This section proceeds by the three layers: likeness / fundamental difference / irreducibility.

Likeness (the heuristic layer). A phase transition describes a system that, under the accumulation of continuous change, undergoes at a critical point a discontinuous, holistic, directional change of state: water's temperature falls continuously, and at the critical point of zero degrees Celsius the whole congeals to ice within an exceedingly narrow phase boundary; a supersaturated solution, once disturbed, crystallizes wholesale in an instant. Its intuitive structure shares three points with the single-instant severance of the adamantine concentration: first, before the "critical point" there is continuous approach (the bodhisattva's accumulation over three great eons), while the critical point itself is a discontinuous leap (instantaneous severance in one kṣaṇa); second, the change is "holistic" — not a local incremental shift but the whole system transforming at one stroke (the root cut, branch-and-leaf exhausted together); third, after the change there is no return to the prior state (the fruit of buddhahood does not regress). The image of "a last increment triggering a whole-system phase transition" does formally echo "the last thought severing, and path becoming fruit."

Fundamental difference (the rupture layer). Yet this likeness goes no further than formal intuition, and three fundamental differences set the two worlds apart. First, reversibility: physical phase transitions are mostly reversible (ice melts back to water, oscillating with the external condition of temperature); the beginningless-nescience-ground severed by the adamantine concentration is an unconditioned severance, which once done does not regress, with no principle of "melting back." Second, the agent: a phase transition is driven by external conditions (the increase or decrease of temperature or pressure, an imposed external cause); the adamantine concentration's severance is accomplished by the self-power of wisdom (the adamantine cognition severs nescience of itself), not forced by an external agent. Third, the nature of what changes: a phase transition is a rearrangement of conditioned matter, before and after which there is only arising-and-ceasing material form, with no "severance of nescience" to speak of; the fruit of buddhahood the adamantine concentration attains is an unconditioned fruition-virtue, "abiding ever in a single mark, inconceivably permanent" — no thermodynamic state at all.

Irreducibility declaration. So this convergence stops strictly at the heuristic intuition of "the discontinuous leap at a critical point," and ⚠️ may not be pressed into theoretical equivalence. The adamantine concentration is not a physical phase transition; the fruit of buddhahood is not a thermodynamic phase; "wisdom severing beginningless nescience" and "a change of material state" belong to different categories — one the unconditioned cessation of mind's severing of defilement, the other the conditioned change of matter's configuration. To liken the adamantine concentration to a phase transition can help a reader today grasp the shape of "continuous approach, critical sudden change, no regress"; but to conclude from this that becoming a Buddha is a kind of "phase transition" is to fall into passing off a conditioned physical state for an unconditioned fruition-virtue — the very error this convergence means to forestall. To borrow the shape to illumine the meaning is permitted; to take the substance as identical is not.

V. Middle-Way Corrections

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

❌ Misreading 1: "The adamantine concentration = a very deep meditative experience, in which the attainer abides." This misreads the adamantine concentration as a high meditative state one can "abide in" (like the four absorptions and four formless attainments, which one enters and dwells in). But the texts define the adamantine concentration by its function (severing — the last uninterrupted path, crushing every defilement) and its critical character (instantaneous severance in one kṣaṇa, on manifesting one enters the Tathāgata-stage), not by experiential depth. Note especially: the adamantine concentration's mark is "a single instant," the moment of severance — its character is the very opposite of "abiding long in some state"; it is the path's last thought, not an abode to be sustained. To read it as "abiding in some diamond-like great meditative experience" both mistakes its functional sense of "severing" for an experiential sense of "feeling" and mistakes its instantaneous "moment" for a dwellable "ground" — consistently at odds with this axis's first division and its theme of "not measuring fruit by experience."

⚠️ Correction 2: "Primal-portion nescience / the last portion of nescience" is later doxographical language; this paper's source texts' own term is "beginningless-nescience-ground." Where the exposition uses phrases like "the last portion of nescience," it follows a later (Tiantai etc.) doxographical idiom as a convenience. But it must be stated as fact: a search of the four sources here — Yogācārabhūmi, Cheng weishi lun, Keyūra, Śāstra — finds no "primal-portion nescience" or "one-portion nescience"; the count "one portion" and the name "primal portion" belong to the later systematizing language of the Awakening of Faith lineage and Tiantai. The texts' own nearest formulation of the last root-nescience severed is the Keyūra's "beginningless-nescience-ground" (p1022a06). Wherever this paper points to this last thing severed, it uses "beginningless-nescience-ground," not the later "one portion / primal portion."

⚠️ Correction 3: The adamantine concentration runs across two fruition-contexts (the two vehicles and the Great Vehicle), and the treatise records variant views on when residual contaminants are relinquished; both are recorded without adjudication. First, the Yogācārabhūmi's adamantine concentration is generally spoken of as "the last of the trainee," severing the defilements of the path of cultivation to become an arahant (a sense bearing on this axis's first division — the śrāvaka's arahant fruit — and on the seam with the attainment axis's arahant mastery); the Cheng weishi lun's adamantine concentration severs the two hindrances at the Great Vehicle's ultimate stage, entering the Tathāgata-stage (becoming a Buddha). The two differ in what is severed (all defilements / the innate seeds of the two hindrances) and in fruition-context (arahant / Tathāgata-stage); within the passages cited the texts do not rank the two, and this paper records the sources, leaving adjudication to the author. Second, on when the "residual contaminated, inferior uncontaminated seeds" are relinquished, the Cheng weishi lun records an "[alternative] interpretation" holding that these residual seeds are not yet relinquished at the adamantine concentration (the uninterrupted path) but await the subsequent path of liberation to be cast off (else, abiding in the uninterrupted path, one should already be called a Buddha, and the later path of liberation should be useless);¹⁰ this is recorded as one of the treatise's variant views, and this paper does not pronounce which is correct, marking it only as one facet of the fine "uninterrupted path / path of liberation" structure.

VI. Conclusion

Essential restatement. The adamantine concentration's severance has the doctrinal form not of "one more step" but of "the path's self-completion." Three layers support this: the diamond simile establishes it as "the terminus of severance" — crushing all while crushed by none, so that after it no defilement is left to sever and no uninterrupted path left to arise (3.1); the single instant establishes it as "the moment of instantaneous severance" — what is severed being the beginningless-nescience-ground, the support of all defilements, the root cut and branch-and-leaf exhausted in one thought, with no gradual intermediate (3.2); the last mind establishes it as "the causal stage's last thought is the fruition stage's first instant" — the adamantine concentration being "the trainee's last mind," the thought that severs being at once the path's final act and, because there is nothing left to sever, turning then and there into fruit, with the bodhisattva's keen-facultied "severing and realizing in instant after instant" making most plain the single moment in which severing is realizing (3.3). Together they show: the "hair's-breadth" between equal- and sublime-awakening is crossed in the single instant of the adamantine concentration, by "path" turning into "fruit."

Guidance for practice. This paper's use for a practitioner is to correct two tendencies. First, it corrects the spatial imagining that "the path's end is walking one more stretch of road" — the path's end is not "the count of steps walked out" but "the moment the last severing act is done, the path, having nothing left to sever, ceases of itself"; so at the path's ultimate one should feel not the mileage-anxiety of "how many steps remain" but the readiness of "where the severing thought lands, path becomes fruit." Second, it corrects the experience-seeking tendency of "wanting a diamond great-concentration to abide in" — the adamantine concentration is the last moment of severance, not a state to dwell in long; one who, at the final pass, still grasps after "abiding in some meditative state" falls under what Section V refutes. What the practitioner should bear in mind is the single moment of "the uninterrupted is the liberation" — the instant of severing is the instant of realizing, with no separately sought waystation between.

Open questions. Section IV offered a convergence with the "phase transition / critical point," strictly marked as a likeness only of "critical sudden change," not of substance; a genuine question for later treatment: is there a model closer-fitting than the phase transition — one of "crossing a threshold by unconditioned severance (not conditioned change of state)" — robust enough to bear a deeper convergence? This is left open. More central: the "path's self-completion" established here — its last thought being at once "the path's final step" (the severing uninterrupted path) and "the fruit's first manifesting" (the realized liberation) — this same single instant the realization axis reads as "the road's last step," while the attainment axis (the Tathāgata's masteries) will read as "the mastery with no further step to walk." How the one moment of the adamantine concentration / sublime-awakening's becoming-a-Buddha admits of these two readings, and how the two are to be distinguished and harmonized, is the theme that SAMBODHI-P03 co-authors in parallel with TATHAGATA-P01 of the attainment axis — where the second seam of the two axes is set.

Notes

References

I. Buddhist Primary Sources

• Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra (瑜伽師地論). Spoken by Maitreya, trans. Xuanzang. T30, no. 1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579View on CBETA online reader ↗. Fascicles 12 and 34. (Adamantine concentration = the last samādhi of the trainee · forever severs the defilements of the path of cultivation)
• 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 ↗. Fascicles 9 and 10 (ultimate stage · gradual-and-sudden severing of the two hindrances · the perfected-fruit transformation-of-basis). (Instantaneous severance · entering the Tathāgata-stage · uninterrupted / liberation paths)
• 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 Great Assembly's Receiving the Teaching. (Beginningless-nescience-ground · the adamantine cognition knows the end not the beginning · flowing into the ocean-ground of sublime-awakening)
• Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (大智度論). By Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva. T25, no. 1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509View on CBETA online reader ↗. Fascicles 40 and 47. (Adamantine-like samādhi · the trainee's last mind · breaking defilement with nothing left over)

II. Modern Scholarship

(Section IV's interdisciplinary convergence uses the general concept of the physics "phase transition / critical point" as a heuristic analogy, drawing only on its commonly accepted qualitative intuition; it cites no particular modern work's specialized claim, nor does it make any modern theory a criterion of doctrine. Following the open-source spirit of "return to the source," doctrinal judgment rests entirely on the Buddhist primary sources.)

III. Index of Canonical Citations

Point	Source	CBETA id
Adamantine concentration = last samādhi of the trainee; crushes all, crushed by none	Yogācārabhūmi fasc. 12	T30n1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0340b03
At the last station of training the adamantine samādhi arises; forever severs the path-of-cultivation defilements	Yogācārabhūmi fasc. 34	T30n1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0477a01
Innate subtle cognitive-hindrance & spontaneous affective-hindrance seeds severed at once; enters Tathāgata-stage	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 9	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0053c19
Perfected-fruit transformation; adamantine concentration manifesting forever severs coarse-heaviness, suddenly realizes the fruit	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 10	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054c12
Beginningless-nescience-ground; adamantine cognition knows the end not the beginning; flows into the ocean-ground of sublime-awakening	Keyūra fasc. 2, Great Assembly	T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1022a06
In one instant the three realms severed at once; cognitive-hindrance seeds all severed in one instant	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 10	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054b01
Two vehicles must arouse uninterrupted & liberation separately; bodhisattva severs-and-realizes instant after instant	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 10	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054b05
Adamantine-like samādhi; the trainee's last mind; breaks defilement with nothing left over	Śāstra fasc. 47	T25n1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0400b22
Residual contaminants cast off only when the path of liberation arises (an alternative interpretation)	Cheng weishi lun fasc. 10	T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0055a27

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Paper: SAMBODHI-P02 · 金剛喻定的一剎那 · 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（《瑜伽師地論》T1579、《成唯識論》T1585、《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T1485、《大智度論》T1509）。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. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra (瑜伽師地論), fascicle 12, T30n1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0340b03. Spoken by Maitreya, trans. Xuanzang. Collated against the CBETA digital canon. ↩

2. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, fascicle 34, T30n1579《瑜伽師地論》Yogācārabhūmi-śāstraT30, No. 1579View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0477a01. ↩

3. Cheng weishi lun (成唯識論), fascicle 9, T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0053c19. By Dharmapāla and others, trans. Xuanzang. ↩

4. Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 10 (ultimate stage · the "perfected-fruit transformation" of the transformation-of-basis), T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054c12. ↩

5. Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (菩薩瓔珞本業經), fascicle 2, "Chapter on the Great Assembly's Receiving the Teaching," T24n1485《菩薩瓔珞本業經》T24, No. 1485View on CBETA online reader ↗_p1022a06. Trans. Zhu Fonian. [The sūtra takes the "beginningless-nescience-ground" as the last root-nescience severed; "the adamantine cognition knows the end but not the beginning, only a Buddha knows both" is recorded as is; no ranking is imputed by the author.] ↩

6. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (大智度論), fascicle 47, "Exposition of the Samādhis," T25n1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0400b22. By Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva. ↩

7. Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 10 (ultimate stage · the gradual-and-sudden severing of the two hindrances), T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054b01. ↩

8. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 47, T25n1509《大智度論》Mahāprajñāpāramitā-upadeśa-śāstraT25, No. 1509View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0400b22 (same passage as ⁶: "the trainee's last mind · successively attains the three awakenings"). ↩

9. Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 10, T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0054b05. ↩

10. Cheng weishi lun, fascicle 10 (the "[alternative] interpretation" that "the residual contaminants… are cast off only when the path of liberation arises"), T31n1585《成唯識論》Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi-śāstraT31, No. 1585View on CBETA online reader ↗_p0055a27. Recorded as one of the treatise's variant views. ↩