Chapter 9 · Ground, Hearing, and the Arising of the Mind of Awakening

Part Three · The Path

For whom is the path opened? Where does one enter?

Those who stand at the gate mostly carry two doubts: one is "am I qualified?", the other is 'I do not yet trust, and I have not yet made the vow — does that count as having begun?' The scriptures and treatises of this school have answers to both questions, but the answer is not a warranty that anyone may take for himself: it speaks at once of innate fitness, of later perfuming, of differences in faculty, and of the Tathāgata's not-forsaking. This chapter judges no one's lineage; it only sets these several threads of scripture-and-treatise side by side and states them clearly.

1 · Lineage — The Ground of the Path

To ask "am I qualified?" easily turns lineage into an identity one can validate for oneself, like punching one's own ticket. But the Yogācārabhūmi, in the Bodhisattva Stage, first states a restriction that cannot be left out:

「A person of no lineage (pudgala), being without lineage, though he possess the arousing of the mind and the undertaking of preparatory practice as his support, is decidedly incapable of fulfilling unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening.」

Only afterward does it set out the two kinds of bodhisattva lineage:

「First, the naturally abiding lineage; second, the lineage accomplished through cultivation.」

The treatise then at once defines each: the "naturally abiding lineage" is "that which has been handed down in succession from beginningless ages, obtained by [its] intrinsic nature (dharmatā)"; the "lineage accomplished through cultivation" is "that which is obtained by having first repeatedly practiced roots of good"; and it closes with one line, "as for the intended meaning here, both kinds are taken." So the "accomplished through cultivation" does indeed point out that repeated practice and perfuming-cultivation can accomplish one tier of lineage; yet one cannot infer from this that 'later cultivation can substitute for a lacking naturally-abiding [lineage].' The Cheng weishi lun puts it more tightly: "One must possess these two lineages of the Great Vehicle before one can, step by step, awaken and enter consciousness-only." As for the essence of the two lineages and their priority, the ancient commentaries list divergent readings from Jayasena, Candrapāla, Dharmapāla, and others; this book only transmits their divergence, and does not adjudicate the various views into a single meaning on their behalf.

The Laṅkāvatāra divides more finely, and more honestly:

「Furthermore, Mahāmati! There are five uninterrupted lineages. What are the five? Namely: the uninterrupted lineage of the śrāvaka vehicle, the uninterrupted lineage of the pratyekabuddha vehicle, the uninterrupted lineage of the tathāgata vehicle, the indeterminate lineage, and the separate lineage.」

What is worth pausing to look at is how the sūtra discerns the characteristics: it distinguishes, by the inclination and response at the time of hearing the Dharma, which vehicle-gate is suitable to be expounded. Take the śrāvaka vehicle as an example:

「If, on hearing it expounded that the self-characteristic and the common characteristic of the aggregates, the elements, and the sense-fields are to be severed and known, the pores of his whole body beam with delight and joy … this is called the uninterrupted lineage of the śrāvaka vehicle.」

The Laṅkā also says the indeterminate lineage is one that, "when those three kinds are expounded, enters according to what is expounded and is formed accordingly"; and it says that setting up the lineages is an expedient device for the first stage of governing the ground. This shows that discerning the characteristics is bound up with expounding the Dharma in response to capacity; it does not let the reader crown himself with a lineage on the strength of a single moment of being moved, still less may the five kinds be rewritten as a mere psychological test.

Here we must also, forthrightly, preserve the one-vehicle tension internal to the consciousness-only scriptures. The Saṃdhinirmocana says that the three vehicles "all share this one sublime, pure path," and so the Buddha "with hidden intent declares that there is only one vehicle"; but the very next line at once qualifies it:

「It is not the case that, throughout the whole realm of sentient beings, there are no diverse lineages of sentient beings」

The sūtra further says that the śrāvaka lineage "solely bent toward quiescence," even when it receives the Buddha's valiant transforming guidance, still "can never be brought to sit at the seat of the Way and realize anuttarā-samyaksaṃbodhi." This is a limiting aspect that Xuanzang's consciousness-only school cannot warm away. On the other side, the Laṅkā, after dividing the icchantika into two kinds, further says that the one who has cast away all roots of good "again, by the spiritual power of the Tathāgata, at some time gives rise to roots of good," the reason being that "the Tathāgata does not forsake any sentient being"; while the other kind, the bodhisattva-icchantika, on account of his original vow not to forsake sentient beings, does not take up parinirvāṇa. Reading the two sides together: one may neither guarantee that everyone presently possesses the tathāgata lineage, nor, on this basis, pronounce a sentence of permanent abandonment upon any particular sentient being. The scriptures and treatises set up the categories; the practitioner does not overstep his place to pass judgment on persons.

2 · Perfuming by Right Hearing — Hearing in Accord with the Dharma

The ground has been spoken of; now the seeds. In the "Basis of the Knowable," the Mahāyānasaṃgraha puts a sharp question to itself: the supramundane mind has never once arisen — so where do its seeds come from? The author of the treatise answers himself:

「Again, the supramundane mind has never before been cultivated, so its perfuming must decidedly be absent; and there being no perfuming, from what seed does it arise? Therefore one should answer: it arises from the seeds of the perfuming by right hearing that are the outflow of the utterly pure dharma-realm.」

This is the Mahāyānasaṃgraha's answer to 'from what seed does the supramundane mind, which has never before arisen, arise': it comes from perfuming by right hearing; and the Dharma that is heard is "the outflow of the utterly pure dharma-realm." One cannot shrink "right hearing" down to the ear's brushing against words. Vasubandhu's Commentary on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha explains it plainly: "To listen without error to such scriptures and the like — hence it is called right hearing." To listen, without error, to the teaching that is the outflow of the pure dharma-realm — that alone is the right hearing meant here.

What does it mean to hear "in accord with the Dharma"? The Saṃdhinirmocana, in the Chapter on the Analysis of Yoga, gives the sequence of work:

「The bodhisattva, in regard to this, listens well, receives well, is well-versed in [its] words, well investigates it in mind, and well penetrates it in view」

Listening well, receiving well, being well-versed, investigating, penetrating — five verbs that separate 'the words having once entered the eye' from "hearing in accord with the Dharma." It is not a ritual, nor a self-guarantee, but a complete sequence of steps: hearing, receiving, thinking, penetrating.

Where does that seed fall? It falls into this ordinary, defiled mind of ours. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha answers in advance 'my mind is not clean enough — can it hold [the seed]?':

「This perfuming through hearing, wherever it operates within any one locus of its basis, lodges within the maturation-consciousness, blending and turning together with it, like water and milk; yet it is not the ālaya-vijñāna, for it is of the nature of a seed that counteracts it.」

Water and milk in one vessel, yet the milk is not the water — the perfuming-through-hearing lodges within the defiled mind, yet is not of the nature of the defiled mind. You do not need first to have a pure mind before you can receive the pure seed.

But this account of the "seeds of perfuming by right hearing" in the Mahāyānasaṃgraha cannot be seamlessly equated with the Cheng weishi lun's account of lineage. The Cheng weishi lun synthesizes the two kinds of seeds — the innate and the newly perfumed — and says that at the time of hearing the true Dharma one can also perfume-and-activate the innate untainted seeds, causing them gradually to increase. The ancient commentaries of the Dharmapāla lineage go further, judging the tainted perfuming-through-hearing of the pre-grounds stage to be "a resource that leads the root-seeds to increase in number." So one may say that right hearing can assist and arouse, augment, and draw forth the supramundane mind; one may not say that a single hearing of the Dharma creates the naturally-abiding lineage out of nothing.

Then comes the gentlest line in the whole chapter. Before this seed has sprouted, it is already at work:

「Again, though at the time when the supramundane mind has not yet arisen, it can already counteract the various entanglements of the afflictions, and can already counteract the various perilous evil destinies」

This line proves only this: at the time when the supramundane mind has not yet become manifest, perfuming by right hearing can already exert a counteracting effect. It does not prove that everyone who comes into contact with the words has already achieved right hearing, nor does it prove that we may determine our own lineage from present feeling.

3 · Trust — Mind-Purifying Is Its Nature

Having heard, what then? The two treatises each speak half a sentence, and we set them on one table — this is reading side by side, not fusing two terms into one. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: perfuming through hearing sows the seed of the supramundane mind. The Sūtrālaṃkāra, in the Chapter on Clarifying Trust, enumerates thirteen characteristics of trust, of which the eleventh is:

「Eleventh, the trust of hearing the Dharma — that is, the trust of hearing, since it is born from hearing.」

Hearing comes first, and trust arises in its train. These are the words of the two treatises, each on its own, pointing in the same direction.

What is trust? The Cheng weishi lun's definition is worth reading as a whole:

「What is trust? With respect to the real, the virtuous, the capable, [there is] deep accepting, delight, and desire; mind-purifying is its nature; counteracting non-trust and delighting-in-the-wholesome is its function. Now, the distinctions of trust are, in brief, of three kinds: first, trust that [things] really exist — namely, deeply trusting-and-accepting, with respect to the real facts and principles of the dharmas; second, trust that there is virtue — namely, deeply trusting-and-delighting, with respect to the truly pure virtues of the Three Jewels; third, trust that there is capacity — namely, deeply trusting, with respect to all wholesome things mundane and supramundane, that there is power [in them], that they can be attained and can be accomplished, so giving rise to hope.」

Three kinds of trust, three objects: trust that things really exist — facts and principles as they are; trust that there is virtue — purity is real; trust that there is capacity — the wholesome is doable. Note how the third one closes: "so giving rise to hope." It says only that trusting the wholesome to have capacity gives rise to hope; it does not directly name this hope as the mind of awakening. This chapter reads it together with the preface to the Chapter on Arousing the Mind in the Sūtrālaṃkāra, as one synthesizing bridge for understanding how trust tends toward the vow — not presuming to claim that the original wording of the Cheng weishi lun has already established the two as identical.

And the essential nature of trust is not agreement with a set of propositions. The definition says "mind-purifying is its nature," and the treatise explains its mark itself:

「This nature is limpid and clear, able to purify mind and [the mental factors]. Because mind is preeminent, the name 'mind-purifying' is established. Like a water-clearing gem, it can clear turbid water.」

A water-clearing gem enters turbid water, and the water clears of itself. Trust is something that happens within the water, not a name signed on paper. So the sentence 'my trust is still not enough' mostly conceives of trust as the intensity of a declared stance; what the treatises measure is the clarity or turbidity of the water, not the loudness of the voice.

4 · Arousing the Mind of Awakening — The Gate of the Path

Wherein lies the difference between trust and vow? Trust purifies its water, and hope thereupon arises ("so giving rise to hope"); the vow, then, settles this hope firmly into a great oath. And the sequence of the treatises themselves runs precisely from lineage to this point. The opening line of the Chapter on Arousing the Mind in the Sūtrālaṃkāra:

「Thus, having already analyzed the bodhisattva's lineage, next is analyzed the characteristic of the bodhisattva's arousing of the mind of awakening.」

After lineage comes, immediately, the arousing of the mind — this step of linkage is precisely the chapter-order of the treatise (this chapter's speaking of trust first takes the later-occurring Chapter on Clarifying Trust and brings it forward as a bridge). What does the arousing of the mind look like? The verse says:

「Valor and skillful means, benefit and deliverance; the four greats and the three merits — by the two meanings the mind arises.」

The commentary unfolds the four kinds of greatness:

「First, the greatness of valor — namely, the great-vow diligence is exceedingly deep and hard to perform, yet for a long time one conforms to it. Second, the greatness of skillful means — namely, having donned the armor of the great vow, at all times one skillfully and diligently exerts effort. Third, the greatness of benefit — namely, at all times one works the benefit of self and other. Fourth, the greatness of deliverance — namely, for the sake of seeking unsurpassed awakening.」

Valor is to set down a vow hard to set down and to conform to it for a long time; skillful means is the daily diligence after donning the armor of vow-and-aspiration; benefit is, at all times, benefiting self and benefiting others; deliverance is that what is sought lies solely in unsurpassed awakening. Having read through the four greats, one thing is clear: the gate is not a surge of emotion, it is a vow. Emotion ebbs; the four words "for a long time one conforms" place the arousing of the mind within months and years.

5 · The Twofold Benefit of Self and Other — Compassion Arises of Itself

The Sūtrālaṃkāra first divides the equality of self and other into two levels:

「The bodhisattva attains the equality of the mind of other and self — either attaining it by trust, namely at the time of conventional arousing of the mind; or attaining it by wisdom, namely at the time of ultimate-truth arousing of the mind.」

At the time of conventional arousing of the mind, equality is attained by trust; only at the time of ultimate-truth arousing of the mind is equality attained by wisdom; therefore the first arousing of the great vow cannot be written in advance as already having personally realized, through wisdom, the equality of self and other. The treatise goes on to say:

「Though the bodhisattva has this mind, yet in loving the other's body he outweighs [regard for] his own body. Having toward the other such a superior regard, he no longer distinguishes which is self-benefit and which is other-benefit, since the two are without difference.」

No longer distinguishing which is self-benefit and which is other-benefit — this is not moral self-denial; it is that line itself growing faint. The verse closes still more directly:

「The nature of compassion arises of itself; therefore benefiting others prevails.」

Arises of itself. So benefiting others, in this school, is not an advanced elective, not a supplementary item of 'take care of yourself first.' At the time of arousing the mind, by trust one establishes the equality of self and other and the direction of the compassionate vow; only at the time of ultimate-truth arousing of the mind is that equality realized by wisdom. The sequence of the two levels must not be flattened.

6 · Drawing Together — The Beginning Must Be Stated Precisely

Back to those two questions at the gate.

Am I qualified? — The Yogācārabhūmi says the bodhisattva lineage has the naturally-abiding and the accomplished-through-cultivation, and that "both kinds are taken"; the Cheng weishi lun says one must possess these two lineages before one gradually enters consciousness-only; the Saṃdhinirmocana further preserves the diverse lineages of sentient beings. These words offer no self-test, nor do they permit us to pass verdict on behalf of others. What one can do is hear the Dharma as it really is, arouse the mind, and practice, while leaving the adjudication of lineage within the compass of the scriptures-and-treatises and the Buddha's wisdom.

Not yet trusting, not yet having made the vow — does that count as having begun? — The Mahāyānasaṃgraha says perfuming has its own stages:

「Herein, in dependence on lower-grade perfuming, middle-grade perfuming is accomplished; in dependence on middle-grade perfuming, higher-grade perfuming is accomplished, because through the greater part of one's cultivating-work in hearing, thinking, and cultivating, one attains correspondence.」

The lower can become the middle, the middle can become the higher; this is the sequence of increase of the perfuming by right hearing that the Mahāyānasaṃgraha speaks of. Even when the supramundane mind has not yet arisen, the treatise still says that perfuming by right hearing "can already counteract the various perilous evil destinies." What this gives is a ground that cultivation can increase, not a guarantee that lineage is uniform for all.

So the second question can be answered precisely: not yet having aroused the supramundane mind does not equal right hearing having no effect at all; but "beginning" must be listening without error, investigating according to principle, and continuous perfuming — it cannot be certified merely by having turned past one chapter. The next step is at the fourth station of the reading-path — the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, where the main text of the three chapters, Clarifying Trust, Arousing the Mind, and the Twofold Benefit, awaits. Every sentence cited in this chapter can be checked word for word against the edition by following the coordinates; on this path, there is not a single line that asks you to believe first before you may verify.

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