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Part 1 · The Ten Faiths
The Bodhi Path · 2 papers
This book walks the fifty stations of the bodhisattva path: the Ten Faiths, the Ten Abodes, the Ten Practices, the Ten Dedications, and the Ten Grounds—from the first thought of fa[ from the book's part intro ]
論Study the papersfootnotes · abstracts
01Not a Continuation of ArhatshipA widely held picture imagines the road to buddhahood as a single track: first complete the four śrāmaṇya-phalas and become an arahant, then "turn from the lesser to the greater" (回小向大) and join the bodhisattva path on toward buddhahood. This paper argues that the picture runs head-on against the canon. In the Yogācārabhūmi (chapters on the Arising of the Mind and on Lineage), the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, and the Avataṃsaka-sūtra, the sole entry to the Mahāyāna bodhisattva path is the arising of bodhicitta: the bodhisattva's first arising of the mind has the "first right vow" for its very nature, and once it arises he is already said to have entered unsurpassed awakening and to be counted among the bodhisattvas of the Great Vehicle; the bodhisattva "passes beyond the grounds of the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha and enters the bodhisattva position," surpassing all of the two vehicles from the first arising of the mind, and though he practises the real-limit he does not realize it (不作證). The three witnesses agree: the bodhisattva path and the four fruits are two parallel tracks, not a sequence; one need not first attain arhatship to enter. The paper presses further: the two tracks diverge from the first moment of aspiration — the śrāvaka first aspires only to escape the suffering of aging-sickness-death, whereas the bodhisattva first aspires with great vows and great compassion, "so that the lineage of the Tathāgata not be cut off." Their measures differ accordingly: not the subtraction of "which fetters are severed," but the accumulation of bodhicitta, the two provisions and six perfections, and the non-abiding of "long due for nirvāṇa yet not taking its realization." The conclusion: the independence of the bodhisattva path is not an upgrade upon arhatship, but a distinct vehicle forked from the very first arising of the mind.02The Instability of the Ten Faiths"Faith" is commonly imagined as the most secure foundation of practice — once faith arises, one is on the irreversible road, advancing without falling back. This paper argues that this sense of security runs counter to the standing the canon assigns to the Ten Faiths (śraddhā). In the Bodhisattva-keyūra-sūtra (Yingluo) and the Śūraṅgama-sūtra, the Ten Faiths are the "pre-abode" outer-ordinary position: here the practitioner is "replete with all defilements," "both regresses and advances," must meet a good friend to enter the abodes, and otherwise "sinks forever and does not emerge." The Yingluo opposes "roots-of-good of the regressing portion" to "roots-of-good of the advancing portion," judging the faith-position to belong to the former, the regressible; only one who enters the Abode of Arousing the Mind belongs to the latter, the non-regressing. The paper first sets side by side the two systems' three lists of the Ten Faiths' names — Yingluo (upper fascicle), Yingluo (lower fascicle), and Śūraṅgama (fascicle 8) all differ, and even the Yingluo is internally inconsistent ("non-regress mind" versus "equanimity mind") — to display the unsettledness of the very nomenclature. It then argues why the faith-position must be regressible: it is outer-ordinary and still fettered, has severed no fetter, and belongs to the regressing portion; hence the first of the Mahāyāna's "three non-regresses," position-non-regress, has not yet begun, and its watershed lies at "entering the Abode of Arousing the Mind," not at "the single thought of arising." The conclusion: though arousing bodhicitta enters the gate of the Great Vehicle in a single thought (see BODHI-P01), the first station thus entered is the least stable, outer-ordinary faith-position; faith is not useless — the canon makes the Ten Faiths "the root of all practice," the hundred gates of luminous dharma — but the firmness of the faith-position waits upon entering the abodes, and is not had at the first arising of faith.Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.