Chapter 0 · Asking the Way
第〇章 · 問道
Opening
How do I begin? Where should the mind rest? What is the path? And when one arrives, what is that?
If these are the questions that brought you to this book, you have come to the right place—and you are not alone. This chapter does one thing only: it lets you see that someone in the sūtras has already asked your question for you, and asked it better than either you or I could. No doctrine will be explained here. This chapter is the doorway, not the classroom.
1 · Someone in the Sūtras Has Already Asked Your Question
At the opening of the Diamond Sūtra, the Buddha has just returned from seeking alms, washed his feet, and taken his seat. The elder Subhūti rises from the assembly and asks, on behalf of everyone who will come after him, that one question:
「World-Honored One! When good men and good women arouse the mind of unsurpassed perfect awakening, where should that mind abide? How should they subdue their minds?」 〔羅什譯《金剛般若波羅蜜經》善現啟請分·T08 0748c27（分題 0748c24）〕
In today's words: when an ordinary person has aroused the aspiration to walk this path, where should the mind rest? What should one do when the mind is in turmoil? Is this not precisely your question? Now notice the Buddha's answer:
「This is how one should abide; this is how one should subdue the mind.」 〔同分〕
「This is how one should abide」—abide just so. In what way? The Buddha does not give a numbered list in this sentence, because 「just so」 points toward the whole sūtra that follows. It is an answer that has not yet answered: the question is asked in one sentence, but the answer requires an entire sūtra. This book is the same. Your question is received in this chapter; across the next twelve, the answer gradually unfolds.
2 · Why This Teaching Exists
Why, then, did the Buddha teach prajñā at all? The treatise tradition asks this on your behalf at its very opening. The first act in the first fascicle of the hundred-fascicle Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra is a question:
「For what causes and conditions did the Buddha teach the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra? The dharmas of the buddhas are not spoken of their own accord for no matter or for some minor cause and condition, just as Mount Sumeru, king of mountains, does not move for no matter or for some minor cause and condition. What great causes and conditions are present now for the Buddha to teach the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra?」 〔《大智度論》卷一·T25n1509 0057c23 起·待譯〕
Mount Sumeru does not move for some small matter, and a buddha does not speak for some minor cause and condition—what, then, is the reason? One sentence in the treatise master's answer points directly to those for whom the teaching is given:
「The Buddha now wishes to teach the bodhisattva practices extensively for Maitreya and the others; therefore he teaches the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra.」 〔同卷·T25 0058a·待譯〕
「Wishes to teach the bodhisattva practices extensively for Maitreya and the others」—this teaching is spoken for people walking the path, not for a library. If you are someone who wishes to walk, this teaching was spoken for you.
3 · What Arrival Is
Before setting out, look first at the destination. In its 260 characters, the Heart Sūtra places the fruit where you can see it at a glance:
「Because the bodhisattva relies on prajñā-pāramitā, the mind is without obstruction; because it is without obstruction, there is no fear. Far beyond inverted and dreamlike thinking, the bodhisattva reaches ultimate nirvāṇa.」 〔玄奘譯《般若波羅蜜多心經》·T08n0251 0848c14 起〕
The mind is without obstruction; there is no fear; inverted and dreamlike thinking lies far behind; ultimate nirvāṇa is reached—this is what arrival looks like. But you may ask: do the later chapters not say that everything is 「non-attainment」? How, then, are we to speak of this fruit? Good question. That is precisely the passage this book will lead you through (chapters five, nine, and twelve); here we point out the road without stealing the answer. For now, keep the destination in mind: the end of this path is not abstruse talk, but 「there is no fear」.
4 · How to Walk through This Book
One last thing: the map. This book has thirteen chapters in three parts. Part One · Sources and Formation (chapters one through four)—where the sūtras in your hands came from and who enabled us to read them through; Part Two · Doctrine (chapters five through eight)—emptiness, the two truths, the knowing that does not know, and nonduality: what prajñā is actually saying; Part Three · The Path (chapters nine through twelve)—arousing the mind, contemplation, practice, and fruit: how to walk. Read straight through, or enter at the chapter where your own question lives.
Beyond this book runs a parallel road: the annotated translations themselves. The seven stations on the Prajñā reading path are the gate (the Heart Sūtra), the discipline (the Diamond Sūtra), contemplation (the Mañjuśrī Prajñāpāramitā), the sūtra body (the Smaller Prajñāpāramitā), the testimony of nonduality (the Vimalakīrti Sūtra), the Chinese response (the Zhaolun), and the treasury (the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra). At every station stands a complete annotated translation of an original text. The book is the route map; the sūtras are the road itself. Finish any chapter, follow its citations into the original text, and begin walking there.
Subhūti has asked his question, and the Buddha has said, 「This is how one should abide.」 What is “this”?—turn the page.
Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏