Chapter 0 · Asking the Way

Opening

You understand the point, and the mind does not obey — everyone has known such moments. What you resolved to set down comes back on its own at night; what you see with perfect clarity, you cannot act on when the moment arrives. Your mind is not entirely in your hands.

This school of learning opens its mouth exactly there. What consciousness-only treats is not a metaphysics hung somewhere far off, but this not-quite-obedient mind of yours at this very moment: how many layers it has, how it runs, why it cannot see itself (the matter of chapters five through eight), and how, step by step, it is brought back into hand (the matter of chapters nine through twelve). No doctrine is expounded in this chapter. An opening chapter does three things only: it catches your question; it states why this learning exists; it lets you see the end of the road first.

1 · "On What Does One Rely, in What Abide" — the Question of Setting Out

To collect the mind, one first needs somewhere to stand. At the opening of the sixth chapter of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, this is exactly what the bodhisattva Maitreya asks the Buddha:

「On what does a bodhisattva rely, in what does he abide, when within the Great Vehicle he cultivates śamatha and vipaśyanā?」

Śamatha is calm — settling the mind down; vipaśyanā is insight — seeing it clearly. These are the two feet of this school's discipline (chapter eleven treats them in full). But Maitreya's question comes before the feet: someone about to set out — on the strength of what does he set out? Relying on what? Abiding where?

The Buddha's answer names only two things:

「Know that the bodhisattva takes the provisional establishment of the Dharma, together with not forsaking the vow of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, as that on which he relies and in which he abides.」

Two supports: one outside, one within. The provisional establishment of the Dharma means the Dharma set up in provisional names by the twelve divisions of the teaching, from the sūtras through the treatises — the verbal teaching itself, established by the Buddha and handed down through the generations. Not forsaking the vow of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi is that non-retreating mind that seeks great bodhi. The one is the support on the side of the Dharma taken as object; the other is the support on the side of the vow of the aroused mind; calm and insight take these two as that on which they rely and in which they abide.

Look carefully at how the labor divides. The teaching is outside — it is already there; it does not wait upon your invention, nor does it vanish because you leave it unread: what the Buddha spoke, what Asaṅga and Vasubandhu expounded, what Master Xuanzang translated — and the annotated translations now stand on the shelf just beyond this book. The vow is within — that is the part no one can supply for you.

What this book can give you lies wholly in the former. The latter, from the moment you turn this page, rests in your hands alone.

2 · "This Treatise Is Now Composed" — Why This Learning Exists

The teaching stands outside; how does it state its own errand? The Cheng Weishi Lun, in its opening passage, has the treatise's author declare it:

「This treatise is now composed in order that those confused and mistaken about the two emptinesses may give rise to correct understanding. Understanding is generated in order to cut off the two heavy obscurations: since the two obscurations arise together with the grasping at self and the grasping at dharmas, if the two emptinesses are realized, those obscurations are cut off accordingly. The obscurations are cut off in order to attain the two surpassing fruits: by cutting off the affliction-obscuration that perpetuates rebirth, one realizes true liberation; by cutting off the obscuration to the knowable that impedes understanding, one attains great bodhi.」

One passage, and three things all declared.

For whom it is composed — "in order that those confused and mistaken about the two emptinesses may give rise to correct understanding." Composed for people confused and mistaken about the two emptinesses (the emptiness of self, the emptiness of dharmas). Where there is a patient, there is medicine.

Where it is headed — "understanding is generated in order to cut off the two heavy obscurations." Understanding is not the destination but the means: the grasping at self and the grasping at dharmas arise together as the two obscurations; realize the two emptinesses, and the obscurations fall accordingly. This learning declares at its first breath: to have understood it counts for nothing; only to have cut off the obscurations counts.

What fruit is gained — "the obscurations are cut off in order to attain the two surpassing fruits." Cut off the affliction-obscuration that keeps birth-and-death running, and one realizes true liberation; cut off the obscuration to the knowable that impedes knowing, and one attains great bodhi.

It does not set out from definitions; it sets out from the disease: someone is confused, therefore the treatise is composed; understanding for the sake of cutting off, cutting off for the sake of attaining. A medicine, not a body of information. (What the two emptinesses are, how the two obscurations are cut, how the two fruits are gained — chapters five and twelve give the full accounts. Here, keep only this one line in mind: understand → cut off → attain.)

3 · "This Is the Uncontaminated Realm" — the End of the Road, Seen First

One who walks a long road has the right to ask about its end first. Of the thirty verses of the Triṃśikā, the last:

「This is the uncontaminated realm — inconceivable, good, and constant, blissful, the body of liberation; in the Great Sage it is named the Dharma.」

The thirty verses set out from a mistaken identification in the first verse — 「Because self and dharmas are provisionally spoken of」 — and close here. "This" points to the fruit of the two turnings of the basis attained in the preceding stage of cultivation; "the uncontaminated realm" — the contaminations forever exhausted, the nature pure and perfectly luminous: inconceivable, good, constant, blissful.

The last two phrases must be read apart. "The body of liberation" — this portion is realized by whoever has left the affliction-obscuration; practitioners of the two vehicles attain it too. "In the Great Sage it is named the Dharma" — the Dharma-body belongs to the Buddha alone; only where both obscurations are forever gone is it called the Dharma of the Great Sage. (The full ledger of the fruit of turning the basis is chapter twelve.)

The end of this road is not a more refined psychology. It is ease, it is liberation — it is what that disobedient mind looks like once it has been turned all the way around.

4 · The Map and the Road

Thirteen chapters, three parts. Part One, Sources and Formation (chapters one through four): where this learning of mind came from, who raised it into a school, and how it is that we can still read it today. Part Two, The Teaching (chapters five through eight): refuting the grasping at self and dharmas, the eight consciousnesses and the mental factors, the three natures and suchness, seeds and perfuming — the entire construction of that mind. Part Three, The Path (chapters nine through twelve): arousing the mind, entering the nature of consciousness-only, calm and insight and the bodhisattva's conduct, the fruit of turning the basis — the entire procedure for bringing it back into hand. Read straight through, or enter at whichever chapter holds your own question.

Beyond this book runs a parallel road: the annotated translations themselves, the eight stations of the reading path — the gate (the Baifa Mingmen Lun), the refutation (the Viṃśikā), the outline (the Triṃśikā), the vow (the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra), the ground (the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra), the practice (the Mahāyānasaṃgraha), the stages (the Cheng Weishi Lun), the breadth (the Yogācārabhūmi). The book is the map; the treatises are the road. Finish any chapter, follow its citations into the original text, and the map becomes the road.

Maitreya's question has its answer: the provisional establishment of the Dharma, and not forsaking the vow of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi. The teaching is on the shelf; the book is in your hands.

The vow is yours.

Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏