俱舍論 道體·四諦二諦·入修加行Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · The Nature of the Path · The Four Truths and the Two Truths · Entering Cultivation and the Preparatory Practices

Before Reading This Fascicle

The previous chapter said all it had to say about the abandoning of the afflictions, and so this fascicle turns on its heel in its very first sentence: “yet abandoning must be obtained by the force of the path; what is the mark of this path by which it comes about?” — abandoning does not happen of itself; it depends upon the path. The whole Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble opens from that one question.

Here the three ancient masters let the knife of the outline fall in the same place, and adjudge it threefold word for word: Puguang’s Record marks “within this chapter the main text is threefold: first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path in general; second, explaining the truths that the path realizes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the noble path”; Fabao’s Commentary marks “the main text of this chapter is threefold: first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path; second, explaining what the path observes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the path”; Yuanhui’s Verse Commentary marks “within this chapter the main text is threefold: first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path in general; second, explaining the truths that the path realizes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the path.” Three houses divided their fascicles independently, and the three sections they adjudge are entirely the same — which shows that these three cuts were not forced upon the text by later hands. This fascicle walks exactly through the first two sections and steps into the opening section of the third (explaining the preparatory practices of the noble path).

There is one line to take hold of before reading this fascicle: it is a checklist of what must be prepared before entering the path. First it asks what the path is (its entity), then what the path sees (the four truths, the two truths), then how one comes to walk it (abiding in discipline, the three discernments, the purified bodily vessel, the two gates for entering cultivation). Inserted in the middle is the densest dispute in the whole fascicle — whether pleasant feeling really exists — and that is not a digression; it is the contest over the foundations of whether the truth of suffering can stand at all. If the foundation is loose, the first of the four truths collapses.

One more thing should be said in advance. This fascicle has two places where the author stands over on the side of the Sarvāstivādins (the real existence of pleasure, and the glosses of discontent and great desire), and one place where he speaks out on behalf of other masters against the Vaibhāṣikas (the three discernments). One and the same author, guarding the Sarvāstivādins in this passage and objecting to the Vaibhāṣikas in that — in reading, do not hurry to enlist him on a side; see first, in each passage, which principle it is that he is guarding.

I. The Path Divides in Two: The Path of Seeing Is without Outflows Alone, the Path of Cultivation Extends to Both

〔Checklist One〕Why the path of seeing can have no portion with outflows. First the question: since abandoning depends upon the path, might the path be a mundane path with outflows? The treatise answers in two halves: the path of seeing is without outflows alone, the path of cultivation extends to both. The reason is not a stipulation of form but a limit of capacity — “because the path of seeing can quickly counteract the three realms,” and “because it cuts off the nine grades of what is abandoned by seeing all at once, and no mundane path has such capacity.” A mundane path can only suppress level by level and grade by grade; it cannot counteract the three realms all at once, nor cut off nine grades in a single moment; and being unable, it does not qualify.

The easy error: to take “without outflows” for a badge of status, and so to read the path of seeing’s freedom from outflows as “it is without outflows because it is of high rank.” The order runs exactly the other way — it is because it has this capacity for cutting off all at once that it is adjudged to be necessarily without outflows. Of the path of cultivation, “the path of cultivation, being different, extends to both,” because cultivation must grind away portion by portion, and a mundane absorption with outflows can also take part in the work of suppressing the afflictions, and so it is let in.

In practice: hereafter, whenever some stage is adjudged “without outflows alone,” first ask, “what has it done that a path with outflows cannot do?” If that can be answered, the adjudication is not a label but a conclusion. Yuanhui here brings out one very serviceable detail of his own, marking it as “the stage of fifteen minds” — the cutting off all at once of the path of seeing falls within those fifteen minds, and this is the most concrete sentence any of the three commentaries offers on this passage.

II. The Name and Entity of the Four Truths: Old Names Taken Up Again, Not Newly Established

〔Checklist Two · First Part〕Why it says “already spoken of before.” First the question: the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble is only now to treat the four truths properly, so why does it open by saying “the four truths were already spoken of before”? Answer: because the names of the four truths appeared long ago, in the Chapter on the Elements where dharmas with and without outflows were analyzed — and the treatise points out the place quite plainly: “what is without outflows is the noble path” states the truth of the path, “cessation through discernment is release from bondage” states the truth of cessation, and “and suffering and origin and the world” states the two truths of suffering and origin. And the entity? It too is the same entity as before, which is why the stanza uses the two words “likewise so.”

The easy error: to read this passage as redundant repetition. It is not repetition but a joint — the form of Abhidharma is that a dharma has its own place where it is established, where it is analyzed, and where it is put to use; here the old entity is only borrowed for a new use (from the analysis of the entity of dharmas to what the path realizes).

In practice: in reading this treatise, whenever you meet “already spoken of before” or “as analyzed above,” do not skip over it; the author is telling you in which chapter that concept is registered. Go back and take one look, and the whole passage often comes clear. There is another thing here to fix in mind: the names are two but the thing is not different — the treatise says that suffering and origin are only the division of appropriated aggregates on the side of result and on the side of cause, “by this division of suffering and origin into the natures of cause and result, the names differ but the thing is not different”; whereas for the truths of cessation and of the path the things are indeed distinct.

〔Checklist Two · Second Part〕Why the order is suffering, origin, cessation, path. First the question: since origin is the cause of suffering, why is the cause not spoken of first? Answer: because the order of the four truths is not set by cause and effect but is “spoken of according to the priority and posteriority of the stages of direct realization” — what is observed first in direct realization is spoken of first. And the order of direct realization comes in turn from the manner of contemplation in the preparatory stage; and why does the preparatory stage contemplate in this way? The treatise gives a measure: any dharma that is a “place of clinging attachment,” that can moreover “work oppression,” and that is besides the reason one seeks release, ought in principle to be observed first. Suffering is just such a dharma, and so suffering is observed first, and then one asks in order after the cause of suffering (origin), the cessation of suffering (cessation), and the path to that cessation (the path).

The easy error: to take this order for a logical ordering, and so to find “result before cause” unreasonable. It is not a logical ordering but a practice ordering — and the treatise at once nails the point down with two similes: one, seeing the sickness, seeking its cause, considering its cure, seeking the good medicine; two, the four qualities of the king of physicians in the Sūtra of the Good Physician (knowing well the state of the sickness, its cause, its cure, and the good medicine). A physician takes up a case from the symptoms, not from the first page of a textbook of pathology.

In practice: this can be carried straight over into one’s own work — first see clearly where the present oppression lies (suffering), then track down its cause (origin), then make sure that it can be stopped (cessation), and only last ask after the method (the path). Invert the order, and the method becomes empty talk. The treatise also settles in passing a point of form: the order in which dharmas are stated has three sources — following their arising (as with the four foundations of mindfulness), following mere convenience of phrasing (as with the four right exertions), and following direct realization (as with the four truths); do not run the three together.

III. The Three Kinds of Suffering Take in Everything with Outflows: The Skeleton of the Truth of Suffering

〔Checklist Three〕Why even happiness is counted within the truth of suffering. First the question: the world plainly has agreeable things in it, so how can it be said that “all the formations with outflows are the truth of suffering”? The treatise answers with the utmost articulation: it does not force pleasure to be called suffering, but apportions three kinds of suffering-nature — the agreeable formations with outflows conjoin with the suffering of change (a pleasant object will perish), the disagreeable with the suffering of suffering (suffering laid upon suffering), and the rest with the suffering of the formations (flowing on without staying is itself oppression). Each in its own way, and not one of them is left out.

Ask further: what are “agreeable, disagreeable, and the rest”? The treatise itself fastens them back to the three feelings — pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant, in that order; and it adduces a sūtra for each: pleasant feeling is “pleasant when it arises, pleasant while it abides, painful when it perishes,” painful feeling is “painful when it arises, painful while it abides,” and of feeling that is neither, “whatever is impermanent is suffering.”

The easy error: to read the three kinds of suffering as three degrees of suffering (small, middling, great). They are not degrees but three routes by which a thing comes to be suffering — the suffering of change is suffering by way of alteration, the suffering of suffering is suffering by way of its own entity, the suffering of the formations is suffering by way of being made by many conditions and flowing on without staying. The three routes cannot be substituted for one another.

In practice: this section is the skeleton of the whole chapter. Hereafter, whenever you meet the two words “with outflows,” you can try the three kinds of suffering upon it: is this dharma suffering only when it perishes, or suffering in itself, or suffering fundamentally because it is in motion? Run the three questions through, and “what has outflows is suffering” ceases to be a slogan. The treatise adds one sentence that carries the weight: what truly pervades everything is the suffering of the formations — “in truth all formations are suffering because of suffering, and this only the noble ones are able to observe and see”; the apportioning of the sufferings of change and of suffering to the agreeable and the disagreeable only takes the side of each that is not shared with the others.

IV. The Eyelash and the Eyeball: Why Only the Noble Ones See the Suffering of the Formations

〔Checklist Four〕What the simile of a single eyelash is saying. First the question: if the suffering of the formations pervades everything with outflows, why does the ordinary man feel nothing of it? The treatise adduces a stanza in answer: set an eyelash on the palm of the hand and a man feels nothing at all; set it on the eyeball and it becomes harm and unease. The fool is like the palm and cannot feel the eyelash that is the suffering of the formations; the wise man is like the eyeball, and at one touch there arises the deepest revulsion and dread. The treatise then pushes the contrast to its limit — the fear of suffering that arises in a fool while he undergoes the aggregates of fierce suffering in the Avīci hell does not come up to the revulsion of the noble ones before the aggregates of the summit of existence.

The easy error: to read it as a lyrical remark that “the noble ones are more sensitive.” It is in fact a sentence of measure: the coarseness or fineness of what is felt is not settled by the magnitude of the suffering but by the support of the observer. Let the suffering of the hells be ever so fierce; falling upon a dull place it is only the suffering of suffering. The suffering of the formations is exceedingly slight; falling upon a keen place it becomes a great dread.

Ask further: then the truth of the path too is conditioned — should it not also be taken in by the suffering of the formations? The treatise answers flatly: no — the mark of the suffering of the formations is “to go against the mind of the noble ones,” and the arising of the noble path does not go against the mind of the noble ones; on the contrary it is just what draws forth the exhaustion of all sufferings. And so the two words “conditioned” are here used only to bring out that portion which has outflows.

In practice: this passage can be used to correct a common misconception — that cultivation means blunting one’s feeling. Precisely the opposite: it means growing that pair of eyeballs; and once they are grown, what one did not before feel to be a problem begins to be one.

V. Mung Beans and the Poisoned Sore: The Little There Is of Pleasure Will Not Establish a Truth

〔Checklist Five〕Why suffering alone is established as a noble truth and pleasure is not. First the question: if it be granted that among dharmas there is pleasure as well, why is suffering alone said to be a noble truth? The treatise first records the explanation of one class of masters: because pleasure is too little — as when a few mung beans are put into a heap of black beans, the little goes with the much and the whole is called a heap of black beans; and it adds a counter-question: what man of discernment, for the sliver of relief there is in pouring water upon a poisoned sore, would take the poisoned sore for a pleasure? Another class of masters explains by a stanza: because it “can be a cause of suffering, can gather sufferings together,” and because “one who has suffering still longs for it,” pleasure too is called suffering.

The easy error: to take these two explanations for the author’s settled account. The treatise at once brings out its own correct account — “in truth it should be said that the noble ones observe that all existences and all pleasure are in entity suffering, since with respect to the suffering of the formations they are of one taste; and by this suffering is established as a truth and pleasure is not.” The real reason is not that “pleasure is little,” but that “with respect to the suffering of the formations they are of one taste.” The treatise even turns back and strikes out the account that “the noble ones observe pleasant feeling as suffering because it is a cause of suffering”: being able to serve as a cause of suffering is the mode of apprehension of origin, and has nothing to do with the mode of apprehension of suffering; besides which, when the noble ones are born in the form and formless realms and take the dharmas there as their object, those aggregates are not causes of painful feeling, and yet the idea of suffering can still be turned upon them.

In practice: in reading Abhidharma one must learn to tell an “interim explanation” from a “final adjudication.” The treatise commonly lists several houses’ convenient accounts first, and then brings out a sentence of its own beginning “in truth it should be said”; that sentence is the load-bearing wall. One further distinction is appended here: how are the two modes of apprehension, “impermanent” and “suffering,” kept from being confused? The treatise says it clearly — because they arise and perish they are observed as impermanent; because they go against the mind of the noble ones they are observed as suffering; and merely by seeing impermanence one can know that a thing goes against the mind of the noble ones, which is why the mode of impermanence can draw forth the mode of suffering.

VI. The Dispute over the Nonexistence of Real Pleasure (Part One): One Side Establishes Its Position, the Other Presses Back

〔Long Prose Passage · Following Root 3〕Who is speaking. This is the densest passage of debate in the fascicle, and before reading it one should set the speakers in order. Following Puguang’s markings sentence by sentence: the opening passage, “some masters of another school maintain thus: there is definitely no real pleasure; feeling is suffering alone,” is a setting out of a divergent account, and Puguang expressly assigns the position to the Sautrāntikas and the Mahāsāṃghikas — “some Sautrāntikas, Mahāsāṃghikas, and the rest maintain thus: there is definitely no real pleasure; all three feelings are suffering alone”; next, “how is this known? By teaching and by principle” is that school putting its own question and answering it; the three sūtras adduced are that school’s proof from teaching, and “because all the causes of pleasure are indeterminate” is that school’s proof from principle; and further down, “again, the sense of pleasure arises only when suffering is being counteracted, and the sense of pleasure is born only when suffering is exchanged off,” which Puguang marks as that school “opening two further sections to show that there is no real pleasure: first, the sense of pleasure in counteracting suffering; second, the sense of pleasure in the exchange of suffering.”

First the question: where does the strength of this side’s proof from principle lie? It lies in its having seized upon a real observation — one and the same clothing and food, taken at the wrong time or beyond measure, produces suffering; from which they infer that clothing and food are causes of suffering all along, and that the truth shows itself only when the suffering grows strong. Then the two further sections: the sense of pleasure always arises only when suffering is counteracted (only when hungry does the rice smell good), and is always born only when suffering is exchanged off (only on shifting the load does one feel light). Whence the conclusion, “therefore feeling is suffering alone, and there is definitely no real pleasure.”

The easy error: to read this passage as the author’s own contention. It is not — Puguang changes the label at once in the very next sentence: “the author brings out and displays that the Sarvāstivāda school says that beyond painful feeling pleasure really exists, and this saying is reasonable.” The author here stands on the side of the Sarvāstivādins, and does so by open declaration, not as a neutral report.

In practice: the first labor in reading a passage of debate is to mark out “who is speaking” and only then read the content. Mislabel one sentence, and the whole passage’s purport is turned upside down.

〔Continued〕Three rounds of pressing back, one defense and one refutation. The author’s first step is not to adduce proof but to ask back: having struck out pleasure, what will you call suffering? Puguang marks this as “briefly making three rounds of pressing the Sautrāntikas, to display that pleasure really exists” — if oppression is suffering, then since there is also gratification, pleasure should be established; if harm is suffering, then since there is also benefit, pleasure should be established; if the unloved is suffering, then since there is also the lovable, pleasure should be established. All three rounds have one and the same structure: every word you use to define suffering presupposes its opposite.

The other side’s defense Puguang marks as “this is the citing of the Sautrāntikas’ and others’ defense”: the entity of the lovable is not real, since when the noble ones are separated from defilement what was lovable becomes unlovable. The Sarvāstivādins’ refutation Puguang marks as “the Sarvāstivādins refute”: that the lovable becomes unlovable when the noble ones are separated from defilement is because it is observed through another gate — it is observed as a place of heedlessness, as accomplished only by vast effort, as alterable and impermanent, and therefore called unlovable; it is not that its intrinsic mark was unlovable all along. The treatise adds one further backhanded stroke: if its own entity had been unlovable from the first, no one ought ever to have loved it; and if no love ever arose, then the noble ones on being separated from defilement would have no need to take up other modes of apprehension and grow weary of it.

The easy error: to read “it becomes unlovable on separation from defilement” as “the lovable is false.” What is divided here is the two layers of intrinsic mark and other gate: the lovableness of the intrinsic mark does not change; observed through another gate it may become unlovable. Fail to divide the two layers, and this whole passage will not move.

VII. The Dispute over the Nonexistence of Real Pleasure (Part Two): Explaining Through the Three Sūtras, Refuting the Proof from Principle, Establishing That Pleasure Really Exists

〔Checklist Six · The Long Prose Passage Continued〕How the Buddha himself explained that sentence. First the question: the World-Honored One plainly did say “of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering” — how do the Sarvāstivādins get past it? The treatise answers: the Buddha himself has already explained it through — in the sūtra the Buddha told Ānanda that he spoke thus with an implicit sense, in dependence upon “all formations are impermanent” and “all that is conditioned is alterable.” Puguang marks this as “from here the Sarvāstivādins explain through the three sūtras adduced by the Sautrāntikas and the rest; this explains through the first sūtra.” The treatise adds a most ingenious side-proof: if it were really with respect to their intrinsic marks that all feelings were said to be suffering, Ānanda would have had no need to ask “with what implicit sense does this sūtra say that of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering,” but ought only to have asked “with what implicit sense are three feelings spoken of”; and since the sūtra puts the question and answer the way it does, one may see that with respect to their intrinsic marks there really are three feelings.

The second sūtra, “you should observe pleasant feeling with suffering,” the treatise explains by two natures: pleasant feeling by the gate of its intrinsic mark is lovable (it has the nature of pleasure), and by another gate is impermanent and alterable (it has the nature of suffering); the Buddha exhorts observing pleasure as suffering because observing suffering can bring release, while observing pleasure becomes bondage instead. The third sūtra, “to take suffering for pleasure is called inversion,” the treatise says is spoken with respect to the world’s “reckoning it as pleasure without qualification” — pleasant feelings by another gate have the nature of suffering too, and objects of fine desire are little in pleasure and much in suffering, yet the world sees nothing but the pleasure in them, and so there is inversion.

The easy error: to take “spoken with an implicit sense” for an evasion. It has its rule: every time the treatise adjudges a sūtra to be spoken with a different sense, it must point out in dependence upon which sense it was so spoken (here, upon impermanence and alterability), and must be able to say why the Buddha spoke so (observing suffering can bring release). Where that cannot be pointed out, it may not be called an implicit sense.

In practice: hereafter, when two passages of scripture appear on their face to conflict, do not hurry to adjudge which prevails — first ask, “is this passage spoken with respect to the intrinsic mark, or with respect to another gate?” The treatise gives a complete demonstration of it here.

〔Continued〕How the proof from principle is refuted. The treatise turns back to refute the other side’s “all the causes of pleasure are indeterminate”: this account errs by mistaking the sense of “cause.” A cause of pleasure is never the outer object alone; it must be observed together with the differences of stage in the support. If this object at this stage of this support can act as a cause of pleasure, then it has never in such a case failed to act as a cause of pleasure — and so a cause of pleasure is determinate. The treatise adduces fire as a simile: whether fire is a cause of cooking or a cause of spoiling must likewise be observed together with the stage of what is cooked; one may not therefore say that fire is indeterminate. And it adds one more stroke: is the cause of pleasure within the third meditative absorption indeterminate? That cause has not at any time produced suffering.

As for the two sections, “the sense of pleasure arises only when suffering is counteracted” and “the sense of pleasure is born only when suffering is exchanged off,” the treatise refutes both by the same move: when one undergoes the pleasure born of excellent scents, tastes, and touches, what suffering exactly is being counteracted? And if it be said that a coarse suffering is being counteracted, then, that coarse suffering having ceased and not arisen again, there ought at that time to be a sense of the utmost pleasure instead. The pleasure of shifting a load is the very stage of the body being able to produce pleasure — for were it as they say, the later part of that stage should grow ever more pleasant (since the suffering grows ever slighter), and the fact is otherwise; and if there had been no suffering before, why at the last should a sense of suffering suddenly arise? It is because the body alters and the stages differ, as after wine there arises a taste sweet or sour. Whereupon it concludes: the principle that pleasant feeling really exists is established.

The easy error: to think that what the author refutes is “the existence of painful feeling.” He refutes one thing only — that pleasure has no real entity at all. That the three kinds of suffering take in everything with outflows is a point on which the author has not yielded a single step.

VIII. Action, Craving, and Ignorance: The Sūtra’s Saying That Craving Is Origin Is a Partial Statement, Not the Whole

〔Checklist Seven〕Whether calling the entity of suffering the truth of origin transgresses the sūtras. First the question: the treatise says that the entity of the formations of suffering is also called the truth of origin, yet the sūtra plainly says only that craving is origin — is this not a transgression of the sūtra? The treatise answers: the sūtra “speaks of craving as origin with respect to what is excellent; in truth the remaining dharmas are the truth of origin as well.” And the evidence? Other sūtras state the remainder — the Bhagavat says in a gāthā: “action, craving, and ignorance, being causes, summon the formations to come; they make the existences continue on, and this is called a pudgala.”

Ask further: how can there be two ways of speaking? The treatise divides it very finely: the sūtra’s saying that craving is origin is a partial statement of the cause of setting going, while the gāthā’s saying that action, craving, and ignorance are all causes is a complete statement of production and setting going, together with the causes of both. Action is the cause of production and craving is the cause of setting going; the appearing of an entity with the differences of class such as realm, destiny, and mode of birth is called “production,” and the continuing on of a further existence without such differences is called “setting going.” The treatise fixes it with a simile from farming: a seed is the productive cause of a sprout of one or another particular kind (it settles what will grow), and water is the setting-going cause of every sprout without distinction (it settles whether it will grow at all).

The easy error: to read “craving is origin” and “action, craving, and ignorance are causes” as two houses in disagreement. They are two registers of one and the same matter — the sūtra speaks with an implicit sense, and Abhidharma speaks according to the marks of dharmas; and the treatise adduces further the “five kinds of seed” as another name for “consciousness together with appropriation,” and “placed within the element of earth” as another name for the four stations of consciousness, showing that the sūtras commonly state the marks of dharmas under other names.

In practice: for the point that craving is the cause of setting going the treatise gives three verifiable proofs — one who has craving and one who has left craving both die, and only for the one with craving does a further existence arise again; the continuum of mind runs repeatedly toward wherever there is craving; and in appropriating a later body nothing clings and sticks as craving does, like bean-powder rubbed on the body with water at the bath, which when dry is hard to get off. All three proofs can be checked against one’s own mind, without waiting for a life to come.

IX. The Pot and the Water: How the Conventional Truth and the Ultimate Truth Are Divided

〔Checklist Eight〕The measure of the two truths is an experiment. First the question: where does the boundary between the conventional and the ultimate lie? What the treatise gives is not a definition but two workable procedures — first, break the thing (the pot shattered into shards) and see whether the cognition of it is still there; second, analyze out the remaining components with discernment (water analyzed into visible form and the rest) and see whether the cognition of it is still there. What is gone once broken or analyzed is the conventional truth; what remains when broken and analyzed is the ultimate truth.

Ask further: does the conventional truth then amount to the false? The treatise says quite plainly that it does not. Just while it is unbroken and unanalyzed, it is set up as that thing by the world’s idea and name, and “to say in dependence upon conventional principle that there is a pot and the like is real and not false, and this is called the conventional truth” — it is true in conventional principle, and that is why it is called a truth at all. The ultimate side runs the same way: form broken down to the ultimate atom, or taste and the rest analyzed away with superior discernment, and the cognition of form remains, “this really exists and so is called ultimate,” and feeling and the rest are likewise.

The easy error: to read the two truths as a division into true and false. The two truths are two kinds of truth, not one truth and one falsehood; otherwise the word “truth” in “conventional truth” would have nothing to rest upon. Another easy error is to take “analyzing out the remainder” for physical pulverizing — it is the analyzing out with discernment of the other dharmas of the same mass, set alongside the procedure of breaking the pot and not the same as it.

In practice: these two procedures may be picked up and used at any time. When you meet with a name, first ask, “once it is broken, is this cognition still there?” and “once its components are separated, is this cognition still there?” The answers settle which of the two truths you should hang it on. Puguang, at the gloss of the conventional truth, adduces the account of conventional earth and water from the earlier Chapter on the Elements as mutual evidence, which shows that this measure runs uniformly through the whole treatise and was not improvised here.

X. Abiding in Discipline and the Three Discernments: The First Flight of Steps into the Path

〔Checklist Nine〕Why it speaks of discipline before anything else. First the question: to move toward seeing the truths, what is the first step? The treatise answers: “one should first abide in pure śīla, and thereafter apply oneself to the discernment formed through hearing and the rest.” The order is firm — first abide in discipline, then take up the hearing that conduces to seeing the truths, then having heard, seek diligently for the sense of the dharma, then having got the sense of the dharma, reflect upon it without inversion, and only then, having reflected, be able to cultivate in dependence upon concentration. Four steps, each locking into the next.

Ask further: where lies the difference among the three discernments? The treatise records the Vaibhāṣika masters’ adjudication: the discernment formed through hearing takes names alone for its object (not yet able to relinquish the letter and observe the sense), the discernment formed through reflection takes both name and sense for its object (sometimes drawing the sense out of the letter, sometimes drawing the letter out of the sense), and the discernment formed through cultivation takes the sense alone for its object (being now able to relinquish the letter and observe the sense alone). And there is an excellent simile attached: in swimming across deep and rapid water, one who has never learned will not let go of his float, one who has learned but is not accomplished now lets go and now grasps, and one who has learned well swims across by his own strength without any support.

The easy error: to read the three discernments as three grades in quantity of knowledge. What they divide is one’s relation to the letter — gripping the letter, running back and forth between letter and sense, relinquishing the letter and observing the sense. However much one knows, so long as one cannot leave the words behind, one is still at the stage of hearing. There is a crucial qualification here too, which Puguang states plainly: this is “distinguishing the three discernments with respect to the preparatory stage”; with respect to the stage at which the three discernments are fully accomplished, all three take the sense alone for their object. Read without that qualification, and the dispute in the next section will be unintelligible.

In practice: take this back and check your own work with it — are you now memorizing the words, or going back and forth between letter and sense, or already able to relinquish the letter and abide in the sense? The three discernments are not a curriculum vitae; they are a position verifiable in oneself at this moment.

XI. The Objection That the Discernment Formed through Reflection Cannot Be Established: One Objection and One Explaining Through

〔The Long Prose Passage · The Section on the Three Discernments〕Where the objection comes from. First the question: since the discernment formed through reflection extends both to taking names and to taking the sense as object, is it not carved up between the discernment formed through hearing and the discernment formed through cultivation? This is exactly the objection recorded in the treatise — “someone says: if that is so, the discernment formed through reflection cannot be established; for since it extends both to taking names and to taking the sense as object, it should in that same order be what is formed through hearing and what is formed through cultivation.” Puguang here expressly assigns it: “the author sets out other masters’ refutation of the Vaibhāṣika sense” — the objectors are other masters, and the author is only setting out their refutation, not establishing it himself.

Ask further: how does the treatise explain it through? The treatise shifts to another angle of naming: the three discernments need not be divided by the breadth or narrowness of their objects, but by their causes — the superior discernment born in dependence upon hearing the authoritative teaching is called formed through hearing, the superior discernment born in dependence upon reflecting upon correct principle is called formed through reflection, and the superior discernment born in dependence upon cultivating concentration is called formed through cultivation. The two words “formed through” are just what shows that these three superior discernments are accomplished by the three causes of hearing, reflection, and concentration — as the world says of the life of an ox and the rest that it is “formed through eating grass.”

The easy error: to read this passage as the author overturning the Vaibhāṣika masters. The two sides are dividing along different axes — the Vaibhāṣikas establish the difference with respect to the object (and only within the preparatory stage), while here the difference is established with respect to the cause that produces them. The axes being different, they do not necessarily exclude each other. One thing is to be noted: Puguang sets up a separate outline label for this passage — “‘now on careful examination the three marks’ down to ‘formed through eating grass’: the author sets out his own understanding” — standing alongside the earlier “the author sets out other masters’ refutation of the Vibhāṣā sense”; so the explaining through of this passage Puguang expressly marks as the author setting forth his own understanding, and not as still setting out the words of other masters.

In practice: when a classification is challenged as having overlapping boundaries, this passage offers a general solution — try another axis of classification. What overlaps in its objects need not overlap in the cause that produces it.

XII. The Three Causes of a Purified Bodily Vessel, and the Four Noble Lineages

〔Checklist Ten · First Part〕Before cultivating, wash the “vessel” clean. First the question: for one who wishes to succeed quickly in cultivation, what is to be done first? The treatise answers: the purity of the bodily vessel is in brief by three causes — seclusion of body and mind, contentment and fewness of desires, and abiding in the four noble lineages. Seclusion of body is separation from confused dwelling together; seclusion of mind is separation from unwholesome applied thought; and for those two to be accomplished one must rely upon contentment and fewness of desires. What is called contentment is being without discontent, and what is called fewness of desires is being without great desire.

Ask further: how are discontent and great desire divided? The treatise first records the account of the masters of Abhidharma: to seek yet more of fine clothing and the rest already obtained is called discontent, and to long in many directions for what is not yet obtained is called great desire. The treatise at once objects against itself: is not “seeking yet more” also taking what is not yet obtained for its object? In that case the difference between the two does not stand. And so it establishes another account: to be gloomily unhappy over what has already been obtained because it is not fine and not much is called discontent; and to seek the fine and the abundant in things not yet obtained is called great desire. As for their natures, contentment and fewness of desires have non-greed for their entity and extend to the three realms and to what is without outflows, while the two they counteract have the greed of the desire realm for their nature and are affiliated to the desire realm alone.

The easy error: to read fewness of desires and contentment as one and the same thing. The boundary lies just at the obtained and the not yet obtained: contentment counteracts dissatisfaction over what has been obtained, and fewness of desires counteracts much seeking after what has not.

〔Checklist Ten · Second Part〕Why the four noble lineages are called “lineages.” First the question: where does the name come from? The treatise answers: “because they can produce the host of the noble ones, they are called noble lineages.” Their entity too is non-greed; the first three (contentment with clothing, food, and bedding as they are obtained) are contentment alone, and the fourth is delight in abandoning and delight in cultivating. Question: how can delight in abandoning and cultivating also have non-greed for its entity? Answer: because it can cast away the greed of desire for existence.

Ask further: why are these four established? The treatise speaks very close to the actual condition of one gone forth — a disciple has forsaken the household provisions and the household occupation and gone forth; the World-Honored One, master of the Dharma, out of pity for them established two things: the first three are the provisions that assist the path, and the fourth is the occupation that assists the path; “if you can do the latter occupation in dependence upon the former provisions, release is not far off.” And what is counteracted is the arising of the four cravings spoken of in the sūtra, having clothing, food, bedding, and existence and nonexistence for their causes. The treatise also states it by another gate: for the temporary stilling and the permanent removal of the desire for what is mine and the desire for the matter of myself — the matter of what is mine being clothing and the rest, the matter of myself being one’s own body, and the greed that takes them as object being desire; the first three noble lineages temporarily still the first three greeds, and the fourth permanently extinguishes all four.

In practice: the four noble lineages are a checklist one can run down — in food, clothing, and lodging, is there still a seeking of the fine and the abundant? In abandoning the afflictions and cultivating the path, is there delight such as one has in seeking food and drink? Puguang glosses it: “the four noble lineages, being that which can produce the host of the noble ones, the seed of the noble, are therefore called noble lineages,” and adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā on the difference between delight in abandoning and delight in cultivating, one account being “delight in abandoning the afflictions, delight in cultivating the noble path” — what is abandoned is the afflictions and what is cultivated is the noble path, and there must be delight at both ends before one counts as abiding in the fourth noble lineage.

XIII. The Two Gates for Entering Cultivation: Fitting the Medicine to the Illness

〔Checklist Eleven〕Why only two gates are given. First the question: the gates for entering cultivation are so many; why are only the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness that holds the breath established as “the essential ones”? The treatise’s answer is by way of counteraction: it is not that the gates are good, but that they are exact to the illness. One in whom greed is fierce and repeatedly manifest is called a practitioner of greed, and by observing the impure he can properly enter cultivation; one whose applied thought is much and whose mind is scattered is called a practitioner of applied thought, and in dependence upon mindfulness of the breath he can properly enter cultivation. The whole value of a gate lies in whether it treats the case aright.

Ask further: why can the contemplation of impurity not counteract applied thought? The treatise records two accounts side by side: one, that mindfulness that holds the breath has few objects and so can settle scattered applied thought, while the contemplation of impurity has many objects, and the manifold differences of color and shape draw forth yet more applied thought; two, that mindfulness that holds the breath turns upon the inner gate and so can settle scattered applied thought, while the contemplation of impurity turns for the most part upon the outer gate, like eye-consciousness, and so cannot counteract it. The two accounts are recorded together, and the treatise makes no choice between them.

The easy error: to read the two gates as two “grades” of entry into the path, and so to want to cultivate the higher one. They are a lateral division of labor, not a vertical stair; choose wrongly, and the medicine will not fit the illness, and the harder one works the more confused one grows.

In practice: before beginning to cultivate, diagnose yourself — over these past months, has what has most often been manifest been the mark of greed, or the mark of distraction? Diagnose clearly and only then choose a gate. Puguang here marks the outline as “from here the second, the separate explanation. Within it, first explaining the contemplation of impurity, second explaining the contemplation that is mindfulness of the breath,” and it is from here that the division of the two gates opens.

XIV. The Contemplation of the Chain of Bones: First Extend to the Ocean’s Edge, Then Draw Back to Between the Brows

〔Checklist Twelve〕Why the chain of bones alone is treated. First the question: greed is of four kinds (of color, of shape, of fine touch, and of attendance), and each has its own object (the discolored and the rest, the devoured and the rest, worms and maggots and the rest, the motionless corpse); why does the treatise insist on treating the chain of bones alone? Answer: because “by taking the chain of bones as object and cultivating the contemplation of impurity, one can counteract all four of these greeds alike, since within the chain of bones there is no object of the four greeds” — in the chain of bones there is no color to covet, no shape to covet, no touch to covet, and no attendance to covet either; the footing of all four greeds is taken away at once. One dharma counteracts four illnesses, and so it is chosen as representative.

Ask further: can this contemplation cut off the afflictions? The treatise says quite honestly that it cannot. “Since this is taken in by attention through resolve alone, and since it takes only a portion for its object, it does not cut off the afflictions, but can only suppress them and keep them from being manifest.” It is a contemplation of imagining, and its function is to hold down and not to pull up by the root.

〔Continued〕How the three stages are walked. The three stages are walked as one extending and one drawing back: the stage of first taking up the work — one first fastens the mind upon one part of one’s own body (a toe, the forehead, or wherever one likes), and the mind having settled, one imagines by the force of resolve that skin and flesh rot and fall away and that the bones are gradually made clean, until one observes the chain of bones of the whole body complete; having seen one, one observes a second, and gradually extends to a room, a monastery, a park, a village, a kingdom, until the whole earth to the ocean’s edge is filled with chains of bones; then upon what has been extended one gradually draws back and observes, until only one chain of bones is observed, and there the stage of first taking up the work is accomplished. The stage of practice matured — within that one chain one first removes the foot bones, reflects upon the remaining bones and fastens the mind upon them, and gradually until half the skull is removed and one reflects upon the half that remains. The stage of surpassing attention — one removes that half skull, fastens the mind between the brows, and abides with limpid concentration upon a single object.

The easy error: to think that the wider the higher. The real order is first extend, then draw back: the extending is to increase the force of resolve, the drawing back is to make resolve free in its use. At the very end nothing is left but a single point between the brows, and the work is deeper than ever. The treatise adds a fourfold distinction — a small object does not entail freedom, since attention may be matured or unmatured and the object may run from one’s own body to the ocean, the two axes crossing to make four alternatives.

In practice: this is one of the few passages in the fascicle that can be followed step by step. Two things are to be remembered: first, in setting out one takes “whatever place one likes” (not everyone must begin from a toe); second, it counts as accomplished only when one can draw it back — to extend and be unable to return is mere dissipation. Yuanhui’s writing on this passage is the fullest, giving instances one by one for the three stages of the chain of bones, and it is the passage of highest teaching value in any of the three commentaries.

XV. The Eight Questions on the Contemplation of Impurity: A Table of Its Properties

〔Checklist Thirteen〕Eight questions answered at one go. First the question: why does the treatise here suddenly put eight questions in a row (what nature, how many levels, what object, where born, what mode of apprehension, what time-period as object, with or without outflows, obtained upon separation from defilement or through preparatory effort)? Because in Abhidharma, to establish a dharma is necessarily to establish its analysis through the several gates — without this table the dharma has no place. The answers in order are: it has non-greed for its nature; it extends to ten levels (the four meditative absorptions, the four access stages, the intermediate absorption, and the desire realm); it takes only the visible form of the desire realm for its object (what is seen being color and shape); it is born in the human destiny alone, and among the three continents excluding the northern; it has the mode of apprehension of impurity alone; in whatever time-period it is, it takes the object of that same period, and if it is a dharma that will not arise it takes all three periods; it is with outflows alone; and it extends to both being obtained upon separation from defilement and being obtained through preparatory effort.

The easy error: to read “with outflows alone” as a disparagement. It is a conclusion drawn out of the restriction stated earlier — “since it is associated with attention through resolve alone, this contemplation should in principle be with outflows alone”; a contemplation established by imagining cannot be without outflows. So too “born in the human destiny alone, among the three continents excluding the northern” is no slight upon other regions, but is said with respect to the conditions for cultivating it.

In practice: in reading an analysis through the several gates, learn to use it backwards — when you see “with outflows alone,” go back and find which restriction forced it out (here, attention through resolve); when you see “extends to both kinds of obtaining,” go back and find which fact supports it (here, that there is a difference between what has once been obtained and what has not). Every cell should be traceable to its source; where it cannot be traced, one has not yet read it through.

XVI. Mindfulness That Holds the Breath: Discernment for Its Entity, and Yet Named Mindfulness

〔Checklist Fourteen〕Why the name is “mindfulness.” First the question: the treatise says that mindfulness of the breath “has discernment for its nature,” so why is there a word for mindfulness in its name? The treatise answers itself: “because it is held by the force of mindfulness, the object is distinct and what is to be done is accomplished” — as the four foundations of mindfulness likewise have discernment for their entity and are called foundations of mindfulness. Puguang here divides it further into two glosses: “the breath being the object, it is called mindfulness that holds the breath; mindfulness being able to hold the breath, it is called mindfulness that holds the breath” — the one naming it from the object, the other from what does the holding.

Ask further: why does it extend to five levels only (the first meditative absorption, the access stages of the second and third, the intermediate absorption, and the desire realm)? The reason the treatise gives is perfectly clean: this mindfulness is associated with the feeling of equanimity alone. Painful and pleasant feeling can conduce to drawing forth applied thought, and this mindfulness is precisely what counteracts applied thought, and so they do not arise together with it; gladness and pleasure can go against fixity upon an object, and this mindfulness is accomplished only by being fixed upon its object, and so, being contrary in this way, they too do not arise together with it. All four feelings being excluded, what remains is equanimity. (Another account says that within the fundamental lower three meditative absorptions there is also the feeling of equanimity, in which case it would be eight levels; the treatise records it alongside.)

The remaining gates: it takes the wind for its object and arises in dependence upon a body of the desire realm; it is in the human and heavenly destinies alone, excluding Uttarakuru; it extends to being obtained upon separation from defilement and through preparatory effort; and it is associated with real attention alone — which divides it very clearly from the contemplation of impurity, that being an imagining and this a real observing. The treatise says outright that only sentient beings within the true Dharma can cultivate it and non-Buddhists have it not, since they have none to expound it and cannot of themselves become aware of so subtle a dharma.

The easy error: to read “associated with equanimity alone” as meaning that in cultivating mindfulness of the breath one is to feel nothing. Equanimity is not numbness; it is not being dragged off by pain, pleasure, gladness, and sorrow; and it is just because one is not dragged off that fixity upon the object can stand.

In practice: this section yields a very serviceable self-check — if while counting the breath the mind keeps circling about “comfortable / uncomfortable,” then most likely one has not yet come to where this mindfulness is.

XVII. The Six Marks: Counting, Following, Settling, Observing, Turning, Purifying

〔Checklist Fifteen〕Why six are established. First the question: for the mark of mindfulness that holds the breath to be complete, which six causes must be present? The treatise lists them: first counting, second following, third settling, fourth observing, fifth turning, sixth purifying; and at the end, to gather up the six marks, it gives the summarizing stanza, “mindfulness that holds the breath should be known to have six differing marks, namely the distinctions of counting, following, settling, observing, turning, and purifying.” The six are not six methods of cultivation; they are the six marks that one and the same cultivation must pass through to be complete.

Counting: fasten the mind upon the breath going in and out, make no other preparatory effort, let body and mind go, and by mindfulness alone hold in mind the number of the breaths, from one to ten, neither less nor more — the reason being “lest the mind be too gathered in or too scattered at the moment.” Within this three faults may occur: the fault of counting short (taking two for one), the fault of counting long (taking one for two), and the fault of confusion (taking the in-breath for the out and the out for the in); free of these three it is called correct counting, and if the mind scatters partway one should count again in order from one, and having finished begin once more, until concentration is obtained. Following: without making a further preparatory effort, follow the course of the breath — attending to how far the breath goes in and out. That is: when attending to the breath going in, does it course through the whole body or through a part? Following that breath inward, it goes to the throat, the heart, the navel, the hip, the thigh, the shin, and on to the toes, and mindfulness follows constantly. If one attends to the breath going out, it can leave the body a span or a fathom, and whichever way it goes mindfulness follows constantly. (Another class of masters says the breath goes out extremely far, as far as the circle of wind or the Vairambha wind. That account is unreasonable, since this mindfulness arises together with real attention.) Settling: fasten mindfulness at the tip of the nose, or between the brows, or on to the toes, wherever one likes, and there settle the mind; and observe this breath abiding in the body like a thread strung through a bead, and whether it is cold or warm, whether it harms or benefits. Observing: having observed this breath-wind, observe together with it the great elements and derived form that arise along with the breath, and the mind and mental factors that abide in dependence upon form, observing the five aggregates complete as one’s object. Turning: turning means shifting — the awareness that took the breath-wind for its object is set within the ever more excellent wholesome roots that follow, and on up to the stage of the highest worldly dharma. Purifying: purifying means ascending and entering the path of seeing and the rest.

The easy error: to take the six marks for six methods among which one may pick and choose. They are one line: only when the counting has brought the mind out of distraction is there talk of following; only when the following holds is there talk of settling; only when the settling is steady is there talk of observing; only when the observing is accomplished is there turning; and only when the turning is carried through is there purifying. To skip a grade is to spin in place.

In practice: the section on the three faults is worth copying out for self-examination — today’s miscounting, was it short, or long, or a reversal of in and out? Each of the three answers to a different illness of mind (torpor, restlessness, lost mindfulness), and only by fitting the case can it be adjusted.

XVIII. The Differences of the Mark of the Breath: What This Breath Actually Is

〔Checklist Sixteen〕What the last stanza is distinguishing. First the question: what has gone before treated the method of cultivation; why does this stanza suddenly turn back to analyze the dharma-nature of the “breath” itself? Because it is a rule of Abhidharma that any dharma serving as an object must be given a table of its properties too. There are five answers: following the body — the breath is taken in by whatever level the body is born into, since the breath is a part of the body; depending on two — the turning of the in- and out-breath depends upon the differences of both body and mind, and so for one born in the formless realm, at the kalala stage, and on entering the absorptions without mind and the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, the breath does not turn (there must be openings within the body, and the mind of the level to which the in- and out-breath belongs must be manifest, before the breath turns); of the class of sentient beings, unappropriated — it is taken in by the class of sentient beings (being a part of a sentient being’s body), and yet is unappropriated (being separate from the faculties); homogeneous — it is of homogeneous nature (produced by a homogeneous cause), and is not nourished (when the body grows the breath diminishes instead), nor maturation-born (since after being cut off it can continue again, and no other maturational form is like this); not the object of a lower level — it is the object of a mind of its own level and of a higher level alone, and is not the object-field of the mind of the mode of deportment or the mind of penetrative effect of a lower level.

The easy error: to read “unappropriated” as “not mine.” Appropriated is here a technical term, denoting that portion which is joined with a faculty and so has feeling; and the breath is separate from the faculties, and so is unappropriated — which has nothing to do with ownership.

In practice: this section demonstrates the most typical move of the treatise — having finished with the method of cultivation, turn back and analyze the object itself as well. Hereafter, whenever you read of some gate of contemplation, it is worth asking: what class of dharma is this object itself? Answer that, and the gate of contemplation will not come to rest in imagination. The treatise also settles in passing a verifiable detail: on coming out of the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, and at the moment of birth, the breath enters first; on entering the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, and at the last moment of death, the breath goes out last — one entering and one going out, fastening exactly upon the line “it turns in dependence upon the differences of the two, body and mind.”

Further Resonances: The Mirror of the Three Commentaries

The above is the sense of the treatise’s own text in this fascicle. Below, a separate section gathers four matters: the adjudications and divergences of the three commentaries, Saṅghabhadra’s refutations, the divergences of Paramārtha’s earlier translation, and the coordinates available for parallel reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading one and the same text. Recorded together without adjudication, each restored to its own place.

1. The Adjudications and Divergences of the Three Commentaries

One commentary entirely absent from this fascicle. Shentai’s commentary is a fragment, and of this chapter only Fascicle Seventeen survives, which explains Xuanzang’s Fascicle Twenty-Five (the fourth unit of this chapter); for this fascicle it is wholly wanting. Although the table of contents in Fascicle One does contain the words “Chapter Analyzing the Worthy and the Noble,” that is a table of contents and not commentarial text, and may not be made to serve. The want is marked as it stands.

Three houses take three routes in glossing the chapter name. Puguang glosses the name by “‘worthy’ means worthy and harmonious, ‘noble’ means noble and correct,” and settles the reason for the chapter’s place in the order: “the three chapters above explained what has outflows separately; the three chapters below explain what is without outflows separately. In order that, having wearied of the one, one should come to delight in the other, what is without outflows is explained next”; and among the three chapters on what is without outflows he adjudges that “the Worthy and the Noble explains the result, Knowledge explains the cause, Absorption explains the condition; the mark of the result being coarse and evident, it is explained first” — which sets out at one stroke the skeleton of the whole latter half of the treatise. Fabao instead adduces outside texts to gloss the two words “worthy” and “noble,” and explains by the order of the truths of cessation and the path why this chapter comes after the Chapter on the Latent Tendencies. Yuanhui is briefest, retaining only the sentence “‘worthy’ means worthy and harmonious, ‘noble’ means noble and correct; this chapter explains them at length, hence ‘analysis.’” One caution about searching is to be appended: the five words “Chapter Analyzing the Worthy and the Noble” have zero occurrences in the whole of Yuanhui’s work, and to use them as a search string is bound to yield a false zero.

The chapter-level main outline: three houses adjudge it threefold word for word, with slight differences of wording. Puguang gives “first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path in general; second, explaining the truths that the path realizes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the noble path”; Fabao gives “first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path; second, explaining what the path observes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the path”; Yuanhui gives “first, explaining the nature of the entity of the path in general; second, explaining the truths that the path realizes; third, distinguishing persons with respect to the path.” Fabao moreover gives “distinguishing persons with respect to the path” at the head of the chapter and “distinguishing persons with respect to the stage” at the place of the outline — one and the same house using two forms, recorded as it stands without adjudication. That the three houses adjudge alike while each words it slightly differently is precisely what shows that the outlines were established independently by each house and not copied from one another.

The two paths of seeing and cultivation: Yuanhui alone brings out “the stage of fifteen minds.” Puguang and Fabao are not seen to mention fifteen minds word for word in this passage, while Yuanhui expressly marks “the path of seeing at the stage of fifteen minds can quickly counteract the three realms,” putting the cutting off all at once of the path of seeing upon a definite number of minds. Of the three commentaries, Yuanhui’s teaching scaffold is the most concrete on this passage. Recorded together without adjudication.

The dispute over pleasant feeling: Puguang alone is dense, the other two brief. In the densest passage of debate in this fascicle, Puguang marks the position sentence by sentence in ten places (setting out the divergent account, the other school answering, the other school adducing three sūtras in answer, the other school answering by principle, the two further sections opened, the author displaying the Sarvāstivāda position, the three rounds of pressing, the citing of the Sautrāntikas’ defense, the Sarvāstivādins’ refutation, and the Sarvāstivādins explaining through the first sūtra); neither Fabao nor Yuanhui has this density. The attribution of speakers in the vernacular layer and the exposition layer of this unit follows Puguang’s ten markings as its standard.

The section on the three discernments: here the difference of fullness among the three houses is most marked. Puguang expressly marks “the author sets out other masters’ refutation of the Vaibhāṣika sense,” and first restricts the Vaibhāṣika masters’ adjudication to its proper stage with “distinguishing the three discernments with respect to the preparatory stage”; Fabao has no separate label of attribution in this passage, his attributions being fainter than Puguang’s; Yuanhui simply presents it in the form of question and answer, “Question: how do the three discernments differ? Answer,” and omits the whole of the ‘someone says: if that is so’ debate. One and the same passage: one house marks it most finely, one is faint, one does not take up the passage at all — the characters of the three houses are plain at a glance here. Recorded together without adjudication.

The four noble lineages: Fabao alone supplies a simile. Puguang glosses the name as “the four noble lineages, being that which can produce the host of the noble ones, the seed of the noble, are therefore called noble lineages,” and adduces Mahāvibhāṣā one hundred eighty-one for the threefold explanation of the difference between delight in abandoning and delight in cultivating (one of them being “delight in abandoning the afflictions, delight in cultivating the noble path,” the other two being the pairing of the uninterrupted path with the path of liberation, and of the path of seeing with the path of cultivation). Fabao adduces the Mahāvibhāṣā likewise, but supplies a further simile — “the seed of the host of the noble, and hence called noble lineage. The host of the noble all arise from these four, inheriting one from another in unbroken succession” — taking the succession of the noble lineages to be like the succession of a clan, a simile not seen in Puguang. Yuanhui in this passage is the most succinct in his outline of the three causes. Each of the three has its own strength; no judgment of merit is made.

The contemplation of impurity and mindfulness that holds the breath: Yuanhui is the fullest and Puguang the most skilled at glossing names. Puguang marks the outline as “from here the second, the separate explanation. Within it, first explaining the contemplation of impurity, second explaining the contemplation that is mindfulness of the breath,” and sets out sentence by sentence the counteracting relation of the four greeds and the four contemplations; and on mindfulness that holds the breath he brings out two glosses, “the breath being the object, it is called mindfulness that holds the breath; mindfulness being able to hold the breath, it is called mindfulness that holds the breath.” Fabao’s writing is briefer. Yuanhui gives instances one by one for the three stages of the chain of bones, his writing being the fullest and of the highest teaching value. ⇒ In the doctrinal content within the range of this fascicle the three houses have no divergence, all following Vasubandhu’s treatise; what differs is only the fullness of the teaching scaffold.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations

Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises name this chapter not “Chapter Analyzing the Worthy and the Noble” but “Chapter Adjudicating the Worthy and the Noble”; and the chapter numbers of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine are all moved one place later than in the base text and the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, so that its chapter on the worthy and the noble is in fact entitled “Chapter Seven, Adjudicating the Worthy and the Noble.” To search the two treatises with this treatise’s chapter name is bound to yield a false zero.

The dispute over pleasant feeling: Saṅghabhadra restates the two parties himself and does not cite. Saṅghabhadra in this chapter restates the two sides on his own account — first bringing out the other school’s position, “here some of another school say: there is definitely no real pleasure; feeling is suffering alone,” and listing its proofs from principle; then at once establishing his own school’s position, “the masters of Abhidharma all say that pleasure definitely really exists. How is this known? Because the capacities of the productive causes of suffering and of pleasure differ,” shifting the proof to “the capacities of the productive causes differ.” The scene agrees entirely with the twofold structure of teaching and principle in Vasubandhu’s prose, except that he does not adopt the citing form, but restates both parties himself. One meaning and two schools, recorded together, without adjudication of which prevails.

The section on the three discernments: the bluntest verdict in the fascicle. Vasubandhu records other masters’ objection and explains it through with “now on careful examination the three marks have no fault of difference”; Saṅghabhadra cites him word for word and then passes a verdict — “he says this because he has failed to reach the sense of the Vibhāṣā” — and then sets out positively the true sense of the Vaibhāṣika masters. This pair is a double reversal: Vasubandhu refutes the surface sense of the Vaibhāṣikas, and Saṅghabhadra says in return that Vasubandhu’s own explaining through still fails to reach the true sense of the Vaibhāṣikas. The two schools recorded together, without adjudication of which prevails.

The glosses of discontent and great desire. Vasubandhu objects against the masters of Abhidharma’s gloss and establishes an account of his own; Saṅghabhadra cites the new account — “the Sūtra-master says: it should be said thus, that to be gloomily unhappy over what has already been obtained because it is not fine and not much is called discontent” — and adjudges it unreasonable, turning about to defend the masters of Abhidharma’s original gloss. The two schools recorded together, without adjudication of which prevails.

The explanation of the desire for what is mine and the desire for the matter of myself. Saṅghabhadra cites Vasubandhu’s explanation — “the Sūtra-master here makes his own explanation, saying: the matter of what is mine refers to clothing and the rest” — and says that its sense does not differ from what precedes and that the stanza ought not to have made separate lines for it; whereupon he establishes an explanation by another gate, “therefore the Vaibhāṣika masters of my school explain these lines further by another gate,” bringing out by “the grasping at what is mine as mine” the independent purport of the stanza’s four words “temporarily stilled and permanently removed.” The two schools recorded together, without adjudication of which prevails.

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

The chapter name differs entirely. Xuanzang gives “Chapter Analyzing the Worthy and the Noble,” Paramārtha “Chapter Six, Part One, Analyzing the Noble Path and the Persons of the Fruits” — Paramārtha does not take up the two words “worthy and noble,” but marks the chapter directly by the two axes of “the noble path” and “the persons of the fruits.” To search Paramārtha’s text with Xuanzang’s words is bound to yield a false zero; the aligning of passages one by one takes the structure of the scene throughout.

One instance of the lines of a stanza exchanging places. Xuanzang gives “the path of seeing is without outflows alone, the path of cultivation extends to both,” Paramārtha “the path of cultivation is of two kinds, the path of seeing is without flow alone” — the two lines exchange their order while the doctrine agrees entirely. “Without outflows / without flow” is then a systematic difference of rendering-character running through the whole piece.

In the section on the two truths the difference of rendered names is most concrete. Xuanzang gives “when that is broken the cognition of it is gone, and so too when the remainder is analyzed with discernment; as with the pot and the water, this is conventional; what differs from this is called ultimate,” Paramārtha “if on breaking there is no cognition of it, and by cognition the remainder is removed likewise, the conventional truth is like the pot and the water; what differs from this is called the true truth” — Xuanzang uses the full names “conventional truth” and “ultimate truth,” while Paramārtha gives simply the two-character abbreviations “conventional truth” and “true truth” (the “true” here being purely a technical term and not the translator himself). The order of the lines and the similes of the pot and the water agree entirely in the two versions.

The order of exposition of the two gates for entering cultivation is inverted. Xuanzang brings out the contemplation of impurity first and mindfulness of the breath after, while Paramārtha first sets up “the order of entering cultivation by mindfulness of ānāpāna” as the heading of the passage and then turns back to set out the contemplation of impurity of the practitioner of greed; the doctrine (the practitioner of greed cultivating the contemplation of impurity, the practitioner of applied thought cultivating mindfulness of the breath) agrees entirely, and only the order of the writing differs. As to rendered names, Xuanzang uses both the transcription “mindfulness of āna and apāna” and the abbreviated rendering by sense “mindfulness that holds the breath,” while in the passages found in Paramārtha only the transcribed form appears. So too with the names of the three discernments — Xuanzang uses the full names “the discernment formed through hearing” and the rest, Paramārtha the abbreviations “the discernment of hearing” and the rest. No judgment of merit is made between the two translations.

Honest record: in Paramārtha’s text, for the several passages of the simile of the good physician, the joint statement of the three kinds of suffering, the dispute over pleasant feeling, and the six matters of mindfulness that holds the breath together with the differences of the mark of the breath, the word-for-word close collation has not yet been completed, and is recorded as awaiting supplement, Xuanzang’s words not being used to fill the gap.

4. Coordinates for Parallel Reading

The two gates for entering cultivation in this fascicle have places available for parallel reading in the Yogācārabhūmi of the Yogācāra root lineage, and all three sets are anchored word for word. First, this fascicle matches two classes, the practitioner of greed and the practitioner of applied thought, to the two gates, while the Yogācārabhūmi, under the same measure of “establishing a practitioner by which affliction is dominant,” opens it out into seven classes (the practitioner of greed, of hatred, of delusion, of pride, of applied thought, of equal parts, and of slight dust) — the measure the same, the fullness different. Second, this fascicle establishes four objects of impurity by the four greeds and takes the chain of bones as counteracting them all, while the Yogācārabhūmi first asks what the object of impurity is and states in brief six kinds of impurity, its list under outer decaying impurity overlapping much with the objects of this fascicle, though the principle of arrangement differs: this fascicle takes the greed counteracted for its cord, and that text the classes of impurity. Third, for the mindfulness that holds the breath of this fascicle, that text takes the mindfulness that has the in- and out-breath for its object as the object of mindfulness of ānāpāna, and further establishes the fine headings of the intermediate in-breath and the intermediate out-breath, which this fascicle does not have. ⇒ The coordinates are recorded only, with no judgment of higher and lower; the choice among these links belongs to doctrinal adjudication.