俱舍論 四向四果·沙門性Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · The Four Approaches and Four Fruits · The Nature of the Ascetic Life

Before Reading This Fascicle

The previous fascicle finished with the stream-enterer — after the fifteen minds of the path of seeing he abides in the fruit, and at most returns through birth and death seven times. This fascicle takes that up in its very first breath: “it has already been made out that one who abides in the fruit and has not yet abandoned the defilements abandoned by cultivation is named the stream-enterer, born at most seven times over; now it must next be made out who among the noble ones stand in the stage of abandoning, and first the approach to and the fruit of once-returning are to be established.” One paired formula, the first half gathering up the previous fascicle and the second opening this one. The three ancient masters let the knife of their outlines fall in the very same place here, and the ordinal each marks is one and the same — Puguang marks “below, the second, explaining the approach to and the fruit of once-returning,” Fabao marks “the stanza below, the second, explaining the approach to and the fruit of once-returning,” Yuanhui marks “from here the second, explaining the approach to and the fruit of once-returning.” The three divide their fascicles independently and their boundary agrees throughout with Xuanzang’s: one can see that this cut was opened by the treatise itself.

The skeleton of this fascicle is really only two things. The first is a graduated scale: of the nine grades of defilement abandoned by cultivation in the desire realm, abandoning the third and fourth is family-to-family, abandoning up to the fifth is still the approach to once-returning, abandoning the sixth makes the fruit of once-returning, abandoning the seventh and eighth is one-interval, abandoning the ninth makes the fruit of non-returning; and higher up, abandoning the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the two upper realms, from the first grade of the first absorption to the eighth grade at the summit of existence is all the approach to arhatship, and the single moment that abandons the ninth grade at the summit of existence is named the vajra-like concentration — its path of liberation arising together with the acquisition of the exhaustion of the outflows is the knowledge of exhaustion, and one becomes an arhat. Every stage in the whole fascicle is a point upon this one ruler. The second is an entity: whose fruits, after all, are these fruits? The treatise answers only at the end of the fascicle — they are the fruits of the ascetic life; and the nature of the ascetic life is just the path without outflows itself. The eighty-nine entities of the fruit, the five causes by which four fruits are established, the fruits of the ascetic life obtained even by the mundane path, brahminhood and the wheel of Brahmā and the wheel of Dharma, and in dependence upon which realm they are obtained — this chapter is the gathering-in of the whole fascicle, and the settled board of the whole chapter’s side of the fruits.

Set between them are two of the densest passages of prose commentary: one on how the seven kinds of non-returner open out into nine and gather into the seven destinies of good men (nine hundred twenty-nine characters), and one on the approach to arhatship and the three accounts of the vajra-like concentration (nine hundred forty-four characters). These two passages are where the weight of this fascicle rests, and one should read them slowly.

There is one more thing to say first. This fascicle is among the passages in the whole treatise that most frequently record divergent accounts alongside, and the author’s handling of them is not uniform: in some places he records and passes no judgment (why the Pure Abodes are only five), in others he records and refutes at once (that attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval extends also to the nirvāṇa without remainder; that the difference of with and without exertion lies in taking the conditioned or the unconditioned noble path as object). In reading this fascicle one must first learn to tell these two hands apart, or one will take for the author’s own position an account he has plainly refuted.

I. Family-to-Family: Not One of the Three Conditions May Be Wanting

〔1.1〕What family-to-family is. First ask: the stream-enterer already abides in his fruit; why has he a new name? Because he goes on abandoning defilement, and his stage has moved. The definition the treatise gives is strict — “if the three conditions are complete he is renamed family-to-family”: first by abandoning defilement (abandoning the third or fourth grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation), second by achieving the faculties (obtaining the faculties without outflows that counteract them), third by undergoing birth (yet to undergo three or two of the existences of the desire realm). The three conditions are conjoined, not disjoined. Puguang explains this, saying “if the three conditions are complete he is renamed family-to-family; wherever any is wanting he is not named family-to-family” — let one be missing and it does not count.

The easy error: to suppose that abandoning the third or fourth grade makes one family-to-family automatically. It does not. Abandoning defilement is only the first item; one must also have achieved the faculties without outflows that counteract those defilements, and the number of births must fall in the slot of three births or two. In practice: whenever in reading this fascicle you meet the four words “if the three conditions are complete,” first count out which three conditions they are, and then see how many the stanza states and how many it leaves out — this is a sentence-pattern the whole fascicle uses again and again.

〔1.2〕Why the stanza states only two conditions. First ask: since not one of the three conditions may be wanting, why does the stanza state only “abandoning the third or fourth grade of the desire realm” and “three births or two,” leaving out “achieving the faculties”? The treatise gives the answer itself: “after the fruit of stream-entry it says ‘goes on abandoning defilement,’ and the achieving of the several faculties without outflows that counteract them follows by implication and is already established; therefore it is not fully stated.” — Say “after stream-entry he goes on abandoning defilement,” and the achieving of the counteracting faculties is already contained within it, and can be drawn out; it need not be listed.

Then why must “three births or two” be stated after all? The treatise answers this too: “because there is advance, and as to the births he undergoes they may be fewer, or none, or more than this.” In practice there is advance and retreat and the number of births is not fixed — it may be fewer, he may undergo none at all, it may be more; and just because it is not fixed, the slot “three births or two” must be nailed down. The easy error: to think that what the stanza keeps and drops is a matter of filling out the count of characters. It is not — what can be drawn out by implication is dropped, and what cannot be drawn out must be stated; this is a general rule of the treatise’s stanza form. In practice: hereafter, whenever the stanza and the prose commentary do not tally, first ask whether the item left out can be drawn out from what precedes.

〔1.3〕Why there is no “family-to-family by abandoning the fifth grade.” This is the question in this section where the knife-work shows most. The treatise answers: “because when the fifth is abandoned the sixth must be abandoned, and one grade of defilement cannot obstruct the obtaining of a fruit, as with one-interval, since he has not yet crossed out of the realm.” One who has abandoned the fifth grade must go on to abandon the sixth, and no death and birth is inserted in between — because one single grade of defilement has no power to obstruct the matter of obtaining a fruit. The corroborating instance adduced is “one-interval”: that one has a single grade of defilement remaining and yet does not obtain the fruit of non-returning, because the moment that grade is abandoned he crosses out of the desire realm — it is because of the realm that it becomes an obstruction.

The easy error: to take “one grade of defilement cannot obstruct the obtaining of a fruit” for a general rule. It is not a general rule — the sixth grade cannot obstruct, the ninth grade can, and the difference lies in the two words “crossing the realm.” In practice: here lies the principle of this fascicle’s graduated scale — what really draws the lines is not the number of grades of defilement but the edge of a realm. Whenever you meet “why is no stage established here?”, first ask whether this step crosses a realm.

〔1.4〕Divine family-to-family and human family-to-family. The treatise divides family-to-family further into two kinds: “first, divine family-to-family, who within the destiny of the gods of the desire realm undergoes birth in three or two families and realizes perfect quiescence, whether in one heavenly place or in two or three”; human family-to-family is the same, whether in one continent or in two or three. First ask: what does “family” mean here? It is one “household” among the places of birth — birth in three families or two among the gods, or in three families or two among men. So “three or two families” and “three or two births” are two ways of saying one and the same thing.

Puguang adds a layer beyond the text of the treatise: “it should be known that the divine family-to-family obtains the path among men, and the human family-to-family obtains the path among the gods” — the name marks the place where he undergoes birth, while the place where he obtains the path is precisely the other destiny. The easy error: to read “divine family-to-family” as “one who obtains the path in the heavens.” In practice: the name of a numbered set of dharmas often marks the place of retribution rather than the place of practice, and in reading one must ask which end the name is established from.

〔1.5〕The approach to and the fruit of once-returning. The treatise then fills in the graduations: abandoning one grade up to five grades of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation is all named the approach to the fruit of once-returning; abandoning the sixth grade makes the fruit of once-returning — “he goes up to the heavens once and comes back to the human world once and attains parinirvāṇa, and is named the fruit of once-returning; after this once there is no further birth.” So the words “once-returning” are not a vague description but a real indication of one round-trip. The treatise also gives another name: “this may also be called thin in greed, hatred, and delusion, because only the low grades of greed, hatred, and delusion remain.”

First ask: why “thin” and not “abandoned”? Because of the nine grades only the first six have been abandoned, and the three that remain are of the low grade, and so it is said to be thin. The easy error: to take “thin in greed, hatred, and delusion” for another fruit-stage. It is just another name for the fruit of once-returning. In practice: the treatise often gives one and the same stage two names — one established from the number of births (once-returning), one from the aspect of the defilements (thin in greed, hatred, and delusion); read the two names together and the inner and outer marks of the stage are both clear.

II. One-Interval: The Approach to Non-Returning

〔2.1〕The three conditions of one-interval. The structure is wholly the same as with family-to-family: “it is that once-returner who goes on abandoning the remaining defilements; if the three conditions are complete he is renamed one-interval” — abandoning defilement (the seventh or eighth grade), achieving the faculties, and undergoing birth (yet to undergo the one remaining existence of the desire realm). The stanza likewise states only the first and the third, and “achieving the faculties is not stated, the sense being as explained before.” First ask: why does the treatise walk the same structure through a second time? Because though the stage has advanced the rule has not changed — and this is the treatise’s consistent method in establishing stages. Fabao says here that “when the three conditions are complete he is named one-interval; if one, two, or three are wanting he is not one-interval,” speaking in the same voice as Puguang on family-to-family.

The easy error: to suppose one-interval is a new fruit. It is the approach to the fruit of non-returning. In practice: the boundary between approach and fruit is always at “whether that grade has been abandoned” — before the ninth grade is abandoned it is all approach, and once abandoned it is fruit.

〔2.2〕How one grade of defilement can obstruct the fruit of non-returning. The treatise poses the question itself: “how can one grade of defilement obstruct the obtaining of the fruit of non-returning?” Answer: “because if it is abandoned one thereupon crosses out of the realm.” And it adduces the instance from before: “it was said above that action of the three times is what most obstructs; it should be known that the defilements are like action in this, because it crosses over the homogeneous level and the maturation level of that realm.” Fabao adds a sentence of explanation here, saying that this is “not like the one grade with once-returning that does not obstruct,” and takes the “utmost obstruction of the three times” from the Chapter on Action for a simile — it is likewise the last step, and because it crosses a realm it alone weighs heavy.

First ask: does this not contradict 〔1.3〕, “one grade of defilement cannot obstruct the obtaining of a fruit”? It does not — there the sixth grade was spoken of (which does not cross a realm), here the ninth (which does). One and the same sentence, upon different graduations, means two flatly different things. The easy error: to read the two occurrences of “one grade of defilement” as one and the same matter. In practice: in reading Abhidharma one must form the habit that when the same word appears twice, one first makes sure which stage it hangs upon.

〔2.3〕The gloss on the word “interval.” The treatise glosses its own name: “interval means an interval that intervenes; because that one remaining birth becomes an interval, he does not realize perfect quiescence. Or because one remaining grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation becomes an interval, he does not obtain the fruit of non-returning.” — “Interval” is what intervenes, and what intervenes may be spoken of from the side of birth (one birth still remaining) or from the side of defilement (one grade still remaining). One who has this single interval is named one-interval.

First ask: which of the two accounts is right? The treatise sets them side by side and chooses neither, because what they point at is two faces of one and the same matter. The easy error: to suppose that a gloss has only one correct answer. In practice: the treatise’s glossing of names often takes both ends, “time” and “dharma,” together; when you come upon “either . . . or . . . ,” do not hurry to pick a side.

〔2.4〕The kind of person who abandons first and enters upon seeing the truths afterward. The treatise adds an exception: “one who abandons the third and fourth or the seventh and eighth grades of defilement and then enters upon seeing the truths is, when he afterwards obtains the fruit and until he has cultivated the path of the later and superior fruit, still not called family-to-family or one-interval, because he has not achieved the faculties without outflows that counteract them.” First ask: his defilements are abandoned and his number of births tallies; why does he still not count? Because the second of the three conditions is wanting — those defilements of his were abandoned by a mundane path while he was still an ordinary being, and he has not yet achieved the faculties without outflows that counteract them.

The easy error: to suppose that family-to-family and one-interval look only at how many grades have been abandoned. In practice: this passage is exactly the proof that the condition of “achieving the faculties” cannot be dropped — ordinarily the stanza leaves it out, and yet here it alone draws the boundary. Whenever some condition seems to you a redundancy, look for the border case where it does its work.

〔2.5〕The fruit of non-returning and the abandoning of the five lower fetters. “If he abandons the ninth grade he becomes the fruit of non-returning, because he certainly does not come back to be born in the desire realm. This may also be called one who has abandoned the five lower fetters.” The treatise adds at once an honest sentence: “although two or three must certainly have been abandoned first, at this time they are gathered together and abandoned all at once.” First ask: the five lower fetters are plainly abandoned one after another; why is it only here that he is called “one who has abandoned the five lower fetters”? Because it is only at this moment that they are gathered together and reckoned as abandoned to exhaustion. The easy error: to suppose the five fetters are abandoned all together in this single moment. In practice: “gathering the abandonments together” is a key way of keeping the ledger in this fascicle, and it will be used once more at the end of the fascicle when the five causes for establishing four fruits are treated (“third, gathering the abandonments together, namely because by one single acquisition one obtains the several abandonments”) — one and the same ledger-method, answering across the fascicle.

III. The Seven Kinds of Non-Returner (the First of the Two Long Prose Passages)

〔3.1〕How the seven kinds are counted out. The treatise gives the total and the manner of division in its first breath: “this non-returner is said in sum to be of seven kinds; and first, the differences of those who proceed to the form realm are five: first, attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval; second, upon birth; third, with exertion; fourth, without exertion; fifth, going upstream.” Five who proceed to the form realm, plus the four who proceed to the formless (taken as one class), plus attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life — five and one and one make seven.

First ask: why do “the differences of those who proceed to the formless realm being four” count as only one? Because those four are divided according to the differences of “attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth,” and in nature belong to one class. The easy error: to reckon seven, nine, and four together into one heap. In practice: this section has three numbers (seven, nine, four), each with its own manner of division — seven is the general gate, nine is the fine division of those who proceed to the form realm, and four is the fine division of those who proceed to the formless; make out the denominator of each of the three numbers first, and this passage will not confuse you.

〔3.2〕How each of the five names is arrived at. The treatise glosses them one by one: attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, hence named in the interval; attaining parinirvāṇa upon having been born, hence named upon birth; attaining parinirvāṇa with exertion and without exertion, hence named with exertion and without exertion; flowing upward, hence named going upstream. Then it gives the real sense of each: “the one said to attain parinirvāṇa in the interval is he who, going to the form realm, attains parinirvāṇa while abiding in the stage of intermediate existence”; “the one said to attain parinirvāṇa upon birth is he who, going to the form realm and being born, attains parinirvāṇa before long, because he is furnished with the diligent cultivation and the path of swift advance”; “the one attaining parinirvāṇa with exertion is he who, going to the form realm and being born, does not let his preparatory effort rest for a long time and attains parinirvāṇa only by much exertion”; “the one attaining parinirvāṇa without exertion is he who, going to the form realm and being born, after a long while lets his preparatory effort slacken and rest and attains parinirvāṇa without much exertion.”

First ask: where do with exertion and without exertion differ? In the presence or absence of “the path of swift advance” — with exertion is having the diligent cultivation and not the swift advance, without exertion is lacking the diligent cultivation and having the swift advance. The easy error: to take the words at face value and suppose “with exertion” means practicing and “without exertion” not practicing. Both are noble ones and both must attain parinirvāṇa; what differs is only the keenness or dullness of the path and the amount of exertion. In practice: whenever you meet a pair of names set over against each other, look for the sentence in the treatise that gives the criterion (here, “having the path of swift advance” and “not having it”), and do not rely on the surface of the words.

〔3.3〕Which nirvāṇa is meant in the case of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval. The treatise inserts a recording and a refutation: “the parinirvāṇa spoken of here is the one with remainder. Some other masters say: it extends to the one without remainder as well. This is unreasonable, because that one has no mastery over the casting off of his life.” First ask: on what does the author refute? On “no mastery over the casting off of life” — that one, in the stage of intermediate existence, cannot yet cast off his life at will, and so it cannot be said that he enters the nirvāṇa without remainder.

The easy error: to take this passage for a case of “recording without adjudication.” It is not — the author records the opposing side and disallows it at once; the case is closed. In practice: the mark by which one judges in this fascicle whether the author has closed a case is quite clear — after “this is unreasonable” or “this account is unreasonable,” it is no longer a case awaiting decision.

〔3.4〕The order of with and without exertion, and an explanation that gets refuted. The treatise records another account and refutes it: “some say: the difference between these two is that they take the conditioned and the unconditioned noble path as object and obtain nirvāṇa in that order. This account is unreasonable, for the fault is too sweeping.” — Someone holds that the difference between the two lies in whether the object is the conditioned or the unconditioned path; the author adjudges the fault too sweeping.

Thereafter the treatise gives the principle of the order it does allow: “yet that the sūtras state without exertion first and with exertion after — such an order accords with principle” — because what is accomplished without having to use exertion goes more smoothly than what is accomplished only by using exertion, and so the sūtra states without exertion first. First ask: why does the author take the trouble to explain the sūtra’s order? Because someone will ask why, if “with exertion” looks the more diligent in name, the sūtra puts it last. The easy error: to suppose the sūtra’s order was set down at random. In practice: the treatise’s general rule in explaining the order of a sūtra is to speak from the keenness of the path and not from the aspect of diligence — and this rule will be used again at the end of the fascicle in treating the five marks of the wheel of Dharma. The cross-treatise engagement over this passage (Saṅghabhadra’s counter-assessment of the author’s refutation) is in the section of further resonances.

〔3.5〕Going upstream: the one who walks upward. The treatise glosses the name: “the one said to go upstream has the sense of proceeding upward, for flowing and proceeding are one in sense.” The real sense is: he dies out of the desire realm and is born into the form realm, yet cannot realize perfect quiescence there, but must be born ever higher by stages before attaining parinirvāṇa. Then it divides him into two classes: “this one who goes upstream differs in two ways, because cause and result differ” — as to cause, whether he has the mixed cultivation in the meditative absorptions; as to result, whether Akaniṣṭha or the summit of existence is his utmost place.

First ask: why do cause and result correspond just so? Because one who mixedly cultivates the fourth absorption can be born in the Pure Abodes, and so his utmost place is Akaniṣṭha; one who does not can only relish the several absorptions as he rises, and so his utmost place is the summit of existence. The easy error: to suppose that going upstream is one kind of person. It is two roads. In practice: “because cause and result differ” is the treatise’s standard sentence-pattern for classification — look first at the cause cultivated, then at the fruit born into; set the two ends against each other and the classes fall out of themselves.

〔3.6〕The full leap, the half leap, and dying everywhere. The treatise glosses them one by one: the one making the full leap has already cultivated the four absorptions mixedly while in the desire realm, falls away from the upper three absorptions, and by the relish of the first absorption as condition is born into the Brahmakāyika Heaven; by the force of what he practiced repeatedly in his former life he is again able to cultivate the fourth absorption mixedly, and dying from there he is born in Akaniṣṭha — “dying out of the very first place and born into the very last heaven, leaping over the middle at one stroke: this is the sense of the full leap.” The one making the half leap is born by stages from the Brahmakāyika Heaven down into the Pure Abodes, and in the middle can leap over one place and be born in Akaniṣṭha, “and because he leaps but not fully he is named half leap.” The one who dies everywhere “from there by stages undergoes birth everywhere in every place, and only at the last is able to be born in Akaniṣṭha; because he has died in every place he is named dying everywhere.”

Under the head of the half leap the treatise inserts a sentence in passing: “a noble one is certainly not born in the place of the Mahābrahmā Heaven, because it is a place of wrong views, and because of the single teacher.” Puguang sets out the reason for this, saying “a noble one is certainly not born in the place of the Mahābrahmā Heaven, because it is a place where the wrong view of clinging to rules and observances arises, and because he calls himself the one final teacher of the path.” First ask: where do the three kinds differ? In “how many places are leapt over” — the full leap leaps fourteen places, the half leap leaps one or more but not all, and dying everywhere leaps none. The easy error: to read “dying everywhere” as dying a great many times. “Dying” here is the ending of life after a birth has been undergone, and dying everywhere means having undergone one birth in every place. In practice: each of the three names fastens upon an action (leaping all, leaping part, leaping none), and remembering the actions is quicker than remembering the names.

〔3.7〕The non-returner is not born twice in a place where he has been born. The treatise sets down a hard rule: “there is no non-returner who undergoes a second birth in a place where he has already been born, for as regards birth he always seeks what is superior and not what is equal or inferior.” And it explains its own ground: “it is by this that the sense of non-returning is complete, for he certainly does not come back to be born in a place where he has been born; not being born even in his own place, how much less will he be born below.” First ask: what has this rule to do with the name “non-returning”? Everything — the name of non-returning was established from “not coming back to be born below,” and the treatise here pushes it to the limit: he is not born twice even in the same place, still less anywhere lower.

The easy error: to suppose “non-returning” means only not returning to the desire realm. In practice: the treatise often pushes the extension of a numbered dharma’s name to its limit later in the text; when you read a construction like “not even . . . , how much less . . . ,” a limit is being pressed.

〔3.8〕The road of going upstream without the mixed cultivation. The treatise goes on to explain the second class: “the rest, who have no mixed cultivation in the meditative absorptions, can go to the summit of existence and there attain parinirvāṇa” — having no prior mixed cultivation, and taking the relish of the several absorptions as his condition, he dies from here and is born everywhere throughout the places of the form realm, only he cannot go to the five Pure Abode heavens; after the end of his life in the form realm he is born in order through the three formless spheres, and at the last is born at the summit of existence and there attains parinirvāṇa. Then the treatise gives an overall adjudication: “of the two who go upstream, the former is of the practice of contemplation and the latter of the practice of stilling, because they differ in delighting in discernment and in absorption.”

First ask: why can he who has no mixed cultivation not reach the Pure Abodes? Because the Pure Abodes are precisely what the five grades of mixed cultivation draw down (as the next section says). The easy error: to suppose the two roads differ only in speed. They differ in nature — the one delighting in discernment walks the practice of contemplation, the other delighting in absorption walks the practice of stilling. In practice: this sentence, “delighting in discernment, delighting in absorption,” is one of the few judgments of temperament in the whole fascicle, and it explains why two who are alike non-returners should end in places poles apart.

〔3.9〕Why it is said that “Akaniṣṭha and the summit of existence are their utmost places.” The treatise sets an objection to itself: it does not contravene principle that the two who go upstream should attain parinirvāṇa in a lower level, so why is it said that they take those two places as their utmost? Answer: “because beyond those there is no place to proceed to, as the stream-enterer is born at most seven times over.” First ask: what is this simile saying? That “utmost” is an upper limit and not a place that must be reached — the stream-enterer returns at most seven times, and it is not that he must return seven times. The easy error: to read “utmost place” as “the place he must reach.” In practice: wherever the treatise says “utmost,” it always has the sense of an upper limit, and this holds when reading of lifespans and of numbers of births as well.

〔3.10〕The four who proceed to the formless realm, and attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life. The treatise gathers up the seven kinds: “the differences of those who proceed to the formless realm are four, namely that while in the desire realm they have become free of craving for the form realm and at the end of life here are born into the formless . . . because they are divided by the differences of attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth; these with the five above make six non-returners. And there is one who proceeds neither to the form nor to the formless realm but abiding here is able to attain parinirvāṇa, named attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life; with the six above this makes seven.” First ask: why does attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life also count as a non-returner? Because he has abandoned the five lower fetters and is not born in the desire realm; only he does not go to the form or the formless either, but attains parinirvāṇa in this very body. The easy error: to suppose that “non-returning” must involve being born upward. In practice: this last of the seven kinds shows precisely that the positive side of the definition of “non-returning” is “not coming back,” not “necessarily going up.”

IV. The Nine Kinds: Three Kinds Each Divided into Three

〔4.1〕How the nine are opened out. The treatise answers with the utmost brevity: “the five non-returners who proceed to the form realm are established in sum as three, each divided into three, and so there come to be nine kinds.” The three are attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, upon birth, and going upstream; with exertion and without exertion are both gathered into upon birth (as the text below says of itself, “these all attain parinirvāṇa after being born, and so all should be named upon birth”). First ask: how do five come to be three? Because the denominator has changed — seven and five are divided by “the place and manner of attaining parinirvāṇa,” while three is divided by “the position in time.”

The easy error: to suppose the nine come from five plus four or some other addition. In practice: whenever one and the same set of dharmas suddenly takes a different number, first ask whether the denominator has been changed.

〔4.2〕The three speeds upon which the division into three rests. The treatise gives the manner of division: attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval divides into three, being “attaining parinirvāṇa swiftly, not swiftly, and after a long time, as displayed by the simile of the three sparks”; attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth divides into three by reckoning with exertion and without exertion together with it; going upstream divides into three because the leap, the half leap, and the rest differ. And all three sets alike “attain parinirvāṇa swiftly, not swiftly, and after a long time, so that set over against one another they are not confounded.”

First ask: why is it stressed that they are “not confounded”? Because all three sets use the same ruler (fast and slow), and without the declaration a reader would suspect that the “swiftness” of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval and the “leap” of going upstream were two different things. The easy error: to take the simile of the three sparks as an ornament belonging to attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval alone. It is the measuring-rod of the whole section. In practice: the treatise says here only “as displayed by the simile of the three sparks” and does not bring out the simile in detail; this section may be read alongside the Yogācāra lineage’s giving of the three similes one by one — see the section of further resonances.

〔4.3〕The three gates of action, defilement, and faculty. The treatise gives the cause of the threefold division: “because action, defilement, and faculty differ, there are the differences of swift, not swift, and long in coming.” Then it fits each gate: as to action, the difference of having done and increased the three actions “to be experienced upon their raising,” “in the next life,” and “in a later life”; as to defilement, the difference in the active presence of the low, middle, and high grades; as to faculty, the difference of the high, middle, and low. And at last the fine division: “the first two and the third: the first two are each constituted as three by the differences of defilement and faculty, and not by a difference of action; the latter three are divided into three by the difference of action to be experienced in a later life.”

First ask: why are attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval and upon birth not divided by action? Because for those two classes the place of birth is already settled and the difference falls upon defilement and faculty; only one who goes upstream must be born again and again by stages, and so is divided by action to be experienced in a later life. The easy error: to suppose the three gates are apportioned evenly over the nine kinds. They are not — the first six are by defilement and faculty, the latter three by action besides. In practice: this is the passage of nicest measure in the fascicle — one and the same set of causes carries different weight upon different classes; in reading the gate of causes of a numbered set of dharmas, one must look class by class to see how much work it actually does.

V. The Seven Destinies of Good Men: Why Nine Are Stated as Seven

〔5.1〕The author’s first self-posed question. The treatise asks itself: “if that is so, why in the sūtras does the Buddha say there are only seven destinies of good men?” And answers itself: “three in the interval and three upon birth, with going upstream as one — the sūtra establishes the seven destinies of good men in accordance with this. Because they have the dharma of going upstream they are named going upstream, and because in this the sense is the same they are for the time being established as one.” — Three in the interval, three upon birth, one going upstream, making seven. Though going upstream is of three kinds, since all have the dharma of “going upstream,” the sense being the same, they are provisionally gathered into one. Puguang marks this expressly as the author posing and answering a question to himself, and explains it as “explaining the two lines above.”

First ask: why is it just going upstream that may be gathered, and not those in the interval and upon birth? Because the three kinds in the interval and the three upon birth really differ in stage as to “place” and “time,” whereas the three who go upstream are alike upon one road going upward, and their sense is the same. The easy error: to suppose that one of seven and nine must be wrong. The two numbers have two denominators: nine is the fine division by action, defilement, and faculty; seven is a name established by the sense of a good man. In practice: where one dharma has several numbers, first ask what this number is for.

〔5.2〕The second question: why only these seven count as good men. The treatise asks itself again: “why are the destinies of good men established in accordance with these alone, and not in accordance with the other noble ones in training?” Answer: “destiny has the sense of proceeding; the other ones in training all practice wholesome action without difference. These seven alone all practice wholesome action and do not practice evil action, while the others are not so. And these seven alone proceed to the upper realms and do not come back again, while the others are not so.”

First ask: since the other ones in training also practice the good, why do they not count? Because “practicing the good” is not enough to mark them off; one needs “practicing the good and not the evil,” and “going and not returning” besides — the two together are the mark peculiar to these seven. The easy error: to take “good man” for a term of praise or blame. It is the name of a numbered dharma defined with strictness, and neither of its two criteria may be wanting. In practice: whenever an ordinary-looking term is set up as a numbered dharma, look for the marking-off conditions the treatise gives — usually there is more than one.

〔5.3〕The third question: what to do with the sūtra’s other definition of “good man.” The treatise raises an objection itself: a sūtra says, “what is a good man? He who has achieved the right view of one in training” — on that account every one in training would be a good man. The treatise answers with great nicety: the other ones in training, spoken of “by another gate,” may also be said to have the nature of good men, since with respect to the five evils they have obtained the discipline of never doing them, and their unwholesome defilements are for the most part abandoned; but “the destiny of a good man is not established by that other gate; it is established by practicing only the good and not the evil, and by relying only upon a superior cause to go to the upper realms.”

First ask: is this not a contradiction? It is not — one and the same word has a wide and a narrow sense under two gates: spoken of by “nature” it is wide, and every one in training may be so called; established as a name by “destiny” it is narrow, and only these seven. The easy error: to hurry to reconcile or to rank when sūtra and treatise do not use a word alike. In practice: the treatise’s standard method with unevenness in the sūtras is “dividing by gates” — first ask which gate the sentence speaks from, and most unevenness resolves on the spot. The divergent markings of the three commentaries on this passage are in the section of further resonances.

VI. The Noble Ones Who Have Undergone Birth: Not Going to Another Realm · Not Sharpening the Faculties · Not Falling Back

〔6.1〕The noble one who has already undergone birth in the desire realm. The treatise establishes: “if one in the noble stage has undergone birth in the desire realm, he certainly does not go on to be born in the form or the formless realm, because having realized the fruit of non-returning he is settled upon attaining parinirvāṇa in the present body.” — If he advances to non-returning he must finish in the present body, and will not be born again into an upper realm. As for the noble one who has undergone birth in the form realm, “the principle of his being born up into the formless is admitted, as with one who proceeds to the form realm and goes at the extreme to the summit of existence.”

First ask: why are the noble ones who have undergone birth in the desire and in the form realm treated differently? Because one who has undergone birth in the desire realm has a path ripened to the extreme and, as soon as he obtains non-returning, attains parinirvāṇa in the present body; while one who has undergone birth in the form realm is already upon the road of going upstream. The easy error: to take “having undergone birth” for a fruit-stage. It is a record of history — a noble one who has undergone birth before. In practice: every restriction this section sets down hangs upon that one line of history.

〔6.2〕How that sentence of Śakra’s is to be taken. The treatise adduces a doubt from the testimony of scripture: “yet Śakra, lord of the gods, spoke thus: I have heard that there are gods named Akaniṣṭha, and when I afterwards fall away I shall be born there.” Śakra had already obtained stream-entry; how could he say he would be born in Akaniṣṭha? The treatise adduces one who explains it through, by way of answer: “the Vaibhāṣika masters explain thus: because he did not comprehend the marks of the Abhidharma; and to make him glad, the Buddha did not forbid him.”

Puguang here brings out the occasion the treatise does not detail, saying that Śakra came to take refuge in the World-Honored One when the five marks of decay appeared, and that the Buddha preached the dharma for him and he obtained the fruit of stream-entry, and only afterwards did he utter this vow. First ask: the Buddha knew his error; why did he not forbid it? The answer has two layers: Śakra did not comprehend the marks of the Abhidharma, and forbidding him would have profited nothing and made him unglad. The easy error: to suppose that the Buddha’s not forbidding was a tacit endorsement of the saying as correct. Not forbidding is meeting the occasion, not approving. In practice: in reading the words of persons in a sūtra, first ask whether the sentence is the Buddha’s, or spoken by someone in the sūtra and not forbidden by the Buddha — the two carry different weight.

〔6.3〕The sharpening of the faculties and falling back not allowed. The treatise asks and answers itself: “why is it not allowed that noble ones who have undergone birth in the desire realm and who are born upward should have the sharpening of the faculties and falling back? Because they certainly have neither. And why certainly not? Because the faculties they have practiced after undergoing birth are ripened to the utmost, and because they have obtained a superior support to depend upon.”

First ask: is “because they certainly have neither” not a mere repetition? It is not — the treatise at once presses on with “and why certainly not?” and gives two real causes: the faculties are ripened to the utmost, and the support is already superior. The easy error: to take the former answer for an evasion. The treatise’s questions and answers are often in two grades: first the fact is settled, then the reason is brought out. In practice: when you meet an answer that looks circular, read one sentence further and the reason will usually be there.

〔6.4〕Why one in training not yet free of craving has no attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval. The treatise again asks and answers itself: “why is it that one in training not yet free of craving for desire has no attaining parinirvāṇa within the intermediate existence? Because his noble path is not yet ripened through, because he cannot yet easily make it present, and because the latent tendencies he has are not of the feeblest.” Thereafter the text of the treatise marks a second explaining through of its own: “the Vaibhāṣika masters explain thus: because the dharmas of the desire realm are the hardest of all to cross over, and because he still has many other things to do” — and the things remaining are three: he should still go on abandoning the two defilements, unwholesome and indeterminate; he should still go on obtaining the second and third fruits of the ascetic life; and he should still cross over the dharmas of the three realms all together — while “abiding in the stage of intermediate existence there is no such capability.”

First ask: do the two explanations conflict? They do not — the first speaks from the path and the defilements, the second from what remains to be done; one inward, one outward. The easy error: to take the second for something added by a commentator. It is a second explanation expressly marked in the text of the treatise itself, not a later supplement. In practice: the prose commentary of this treatise often gives its own explanation first and then adduces a supplementary explanation by masters of its own school, and the two standing together are the complete answer.

VII. The Mixed Cultivation of the Meditative Absorptions

〔7.1〕Which is cultivated first. The treatise answers: “whoever would cultivate the four meditative absorptions mixedly must cultivate the fourth absorption mixedly first, because that concentration is the most capable, and because among the several practices of ease it is the most excellent.” First ask: why not begin from the first absorption? Because the concentration of the fourth absorption is the most capable of bearing the work, and it is also the most excellent among the practices of ease. The easy error: to suppose that training always goes from the shallow to the deep. Here it is precisely the most excellent that is taken first, as the door. In practice: wherever the order runs contrary to common sense, the treatise always gives the reason — look for that “because.”

〔7.2〕How it counts as accomplished. The treatise gives an extremely fine order of moments: first he enters the fourth absorption and many thought-instants without outflows are present in succession, which draw forth many with outflows, and again many without outflows; turning about in this way the later stretches grow shorter by degrees, until at last two thought-instants without outflows, two with outflows, and two without outflows, which is named “the completion of the preparatory effort of the concentration of mixed cultivation”; then reduced to one without outflows, one with outflows, one without outflows, “and thus, the middle moment with outflows being mixed in by the moments without outflows before and after, it is named the completion of the fundamental of the concentration of mixed cultivation.” The treatise also fits a correspondence to it: “the first two moments are like the uninterrupted path, the third moment like the path of liberation.”

First ask: where do the completion of the preparatory effort and the completion of the fundamental differ? In whether the middle stretch with outflows is two thought-instants or one — reduced to one, it is called the completion. The easy error: to suppose “mixed cultivation” means cultivating what has outflows and what has not all mingled together. It does not — three minds, without outflows, with outflows, without outflows, are present one after another, the one without outflows clamping the one with outflows between. In practice: this passage is the only place in the fascicle that describes the marks of cultivation moment by moment, and in reading it one should hold in mind along with it that set of numbers “three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen” (see the next section), for the two sections are one matter.

〔7.3〕Why the mixed cultivation is undertaken. The treatise lists three conditions: “first, for the sake of birth; second, for the sake of ease in the present; third, for the sake of blocking a falling back into the arising of the defilements.” Then it fits them stage by stage: of non-returners, those of keen faculties do it for ease in the present dharma and for birth in the Pure Abodes, and those of dull faculties also for blocking a falling back (“because they fear falling back”); of arhats, those of keen faculties for ease in the present dharma, and those of dull faculties also for guarding against a falling back into the arising of the defilements. The treatise adds a further reason: “cultivating mixedly in this way makes the concentration associated with relish remote” — the mixed cultivation pushes the absorption that is relished away.

First ask: why do the keen and the dull do the same thing for different reasons? Because the dull have the possibility of falling back, and so need one further layer of guarding. The easy error: to suppose all three conditions belong to everyone. They are taken according to stage and to faculty. In practice: wherever the treatise lists a number of conditions, it commonly goes on to apportion them among persons, and this step must not be skipped — the conditions are the general statement, and the apportioning is the real sense.

VIII. The Pure Abodes Are Only Five

〔8.1〕Five grades of mixed cultivation draw down five Pure Abodes. The treatise answers: “because the mixed perfuming and cultivating of the fourth meditative absorption has five grades, the Pure Abodes are only five.” The five grades are “the low, the middle, the high-high, the surpassing-high, and the utmost,” and their counts of minds are three, six, nine, twelve, and fifteen — “herein for the first grade three minds present suffice for its completion, namely first without outflows, next raising one with outflows, and after that one without outflows. The second grade has six, the third nine, the fourth twelve, the fifth fifteen.” The treatise adds a sentence on the mechanism: “it should be known that here the force of what is without outflows perfumes and cultivates what has outflows and makes it draw down the Pure Abodes.”

First ask: why are they multiples of three? Because the smallest unit of one round of mixed cultivation is just three minds (without outflows, with outflows, without outflows), and the five grades are one round up to five rounds. The easy error: to take the five grades for five different absorptions. They are five measures of perfuming and cultivating in one and the same absorption. In practice: the one-to-one drawing of five places by five grades is a clean specimen of the treatise’s principle that “the measure of the cause settles the place of the result” — the numbers must tally before the doctrine will stand.

〔8.2〕The account of another party. At the end the treatise records one account: “some other masters say: by the dominance in order of the five, confidence and the rest, the five Pure Abodes are drawn down.” — By the dominance in order of the five faculties, confidence, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, the five Pure Abodes are drawn down. First ask: which does the author take? The text of the treatise sets them side by side and adds no refutation. The easy error: to conclude from the presence of two accounts that the latter is denied. What decides whether it is denied in this fascicle is whether there is a sentence of judgment such as “this is unreasonable”; and here there is none. In practice: read this alongside 〔3.3〕 and 〔3.4〕 and the author’s two hands (recording alongside, and setting up a refutation) are plain at a glance.

IX. The Bodily Witness

〔9.1〕How the name bodily witness is established. The treatise answers: “to have the acquisition of the absorption of cessation is called having obtained the absorption of cessation; it is that non-returner who, if within his body there is the acquisition of the absorption of cessation, is renamed the bodily witness. That is, the non-returner witnesses by his body a dharma resembling nirvāṇa, and so is named the bodily witness.” First ask: what is “the acquisition of the absorption of cessation”? It is the dharma “acquisition” — the acquisition of having obtained the absorption of cessation. Having this acquisition is called having obtained the absorption of cessation.

The easy error: to suppose the bodily witness is another fruit-stage. It is another name upon the fruit of non-returning, the designation turning because he has obtained the absorption of cessation. In practice: the treatise’s regular way of establishing names is “upon a certain stage a certain dharma is obtained, and upon that very stage the name is turned” — family-to-family, one-interval, thin in greed, hatred, and delusion, one who has abandoned the five lower fetters, the bodily witness, are all the same manner of name-making.

〔9.2〕Why he is called the “bodily” witness. The treatise poses a question to itself: “why is he said to be named the bodily witness alone?” And answers itself: “because mind is absent, and because it arises in dependence upon the body.” — The absorption of cessation is an absorption without mind, and at the time of witnessing it mind is no longer proceeding, so that what remains is the body alone, and the name is established from the body. Puguang here marks the word “question” expressly, and takes “because mind is absent, and because it arises in dependence upon the body” for the author’s own answer.

The author thereafter brings out one further explanation: “speaking as the principle really is, one should say: he rises from the absorption of cessation and obtains what he had not obtained before, the quiescence of a body possessed of consciousness, and thereupon thinks thus: this absorption of cessation is the most quiescent of all, utterly resembling nirvāṇa. Witnessing thus the quiescence of the body, he is named the bodily witness; it is because the acquisition and the cognition are present that the quiescence of the body is witnessed.” First ask: where do the two explanations differ? The former speaks from the absence of mind within the absorption, the latter from what is obtained and thought after rising from it. The easy error: to suppose the latter denies the former. It is “speaking as the principle really is” — a further and more exact layer of statement. In practice: wherever you see the words “speaking as the principle really is,” that is a settled statement brought out by the author himself, and it weighs more than the general explanation before it. The cross-treatise engagement raised by this explanation is in the section of further resonances.

〔9.3〕Why the bodily witness is not listed among the eighteen in training. The treatise asks and answers itself: “the sūtras say there are eighteen in training; why is the bodily witness not stated among them? Because the cause depended upon is wanting.” And it glosses “the cause depended upon” for itself: “namely the three trainings without outflows and their fruit, in dependence upon whose differences those in training are established. Since the absorption of cessation is neither a training nor the fruit of a training, the differences among those in training are not stated with respect to achieving it.”

First ask: where is the bone of this reason? In “the differences among those in training are established in dependence upon the three trainings and their fruit” — and since the absorption of cessation is neither a training nor the fruit of a training, it is not upon the axis of classification of that list. The easy error: to suppose the bodily witness fails to enter the eighteen in training because his stage is not high enough. It is not a question of stage but of the axis of classification. In practice: that a dharma fails to enter a given table is often not because it is inferior but because it is not in that table’s denominator — this is a general rule for reading every table of numbered dharmas.

〔9.4〕The fine division into twelve thousand nine hundred sixty. The treatise takes the occasion to push the fine marks of the non-returner to the extreme: by faculty it comes to three, by level to four, by lineage to six, by place to sixteen, by freedom from the defilement of a level to thirty-six; establishing them by the four gates together (place, lineage, freedom from defilement, faculty), six times nine gives fifty-four, sixteen times fifty-four gives eight hundred sixty-four, multiplied threefold gives two thousand five hundred ninety-two; and the five kinds reckoned together, “the accumulated number comes to twelve thousand nine hundred sixty.” The treatise adds a convention of the ledger: “whoever is freed from the nine grades of defilement of a lower level is said to be named bound by all the bonds of the upper level, so that the counts of freedom from defilement of every level may come out even.”

First ask: what use is reckoning so finely? Its use is in displaying that “such is the coarse aspect, and the fine division is without end” — the stages may be divided without limit, while the reality of realization does not lie in the numbers. The easy error: to sink into the arithmetic and forget the occasion on which the treatise speaks the passage (“the differences of the non-returner in their coarse aspect are as stated; analyzed finely the number comes to many thousands”). In practice: the method of verifying the reckoning is in the text of the treatise itself — fifty-four times sixteen gives eight hundred sixty-four, times three gives two thousand five hundred ninety-two, and two thousand five hundred ninety-two times five gives twelve thousand nine hundred sixty; the two ends clasp, and the numbers will not be misremembered.

X. The Approach to Arhatship and the Vajra-like Concentration (the Second of the Two Long Prose Passages)

〔10.1〕Where the approach to arhatship begins and ends. The treatise establishes: “it is that non-returner who goes on abandoning the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the form and formless realms; from the abandoning of the first grade of the first absorption up to the abandoning of the eighth grade at the summit of existence, he should be known to be renamed the approach to arhatship.” First ask: why does it stop at the eighth grade of the summit of existence? Because the abandoning of the ninth grade belongs to the fruit and not to the approach. Yuanhui says here, “the non-returner, from the abandoning of the first grade of the first absorption up to the abandoning of the eighth grade at the summit of existence, is named the approach to arhatship, because he proceeds toward the fruit of arhatship,” agreeing throughout with the text of the treatise.

The easy error: to suppose that the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the two upper realms are divided into several fruit-stages as in the desire realm. The two upper realms have one approach and one fruit only, with no further stage set up in between. In practice: the nine grades of the desire realm yield two fruits and one approach, while the seventy-two grades of the two upper realms make only one approach and one fruit — the density or sparseness of the stages hangs upon the vital point of the realm, and not upon the quantity of the defilements.

〔10.2〕Why the vajra-like concentration alone gets this name. The treatise answers: “the ninth uninterrupted path that abandons the defilement of the summit of existence is also said to be named the vajra-like concentration, because it is able to break every latent tendency, and because it has already broken them before.” And it adds at once the most crucial qualifier: “it does not break every really existent thing; it is able to break every capability.” — It is not that it actually broke every defilement (the earlier defilements had long since been broken), but that it has the capability of breaking them all. Then it gives a comparison: “among the uninterrupted paths able to abandon defilement, the one associated with this concentration is the most excellent.”

Puguang explains this, saying “the vajra-like concentration: as a worldly vajra can break everything, so is this concentration, able to break every defilement. Hence.” First ask: why does that qualifier matter? Because without it the passage would say that “only in the last moment are all the defilements broken at once,” which contravenes the graduated abandoning that precedes. The easy error: this is precisely to read it as a breaking of all at once. In practice: a simile always has its own portion that is taken — what is taken here is the capability of “being able to break,” not the fact of “having broken”; in reading any simile, first ask which portion is taken.

〔10.3〕The first account of the differences of cognition, mode of apprehension, and object: fifty-two. The treatise sets out the first account: the vajra-like concentration extends to a dependence upon nine levels, and by the differences of cognition, mode of apprehension, and object, that gathered under access concentration has fifty-two. The reckoning is: the subsequent cognitions concerning suffering and concerning origination take the suffering and origination of the summit of existence as object with four modes of apprehension each, making eight; the cognitions of dharma concerning cessation and concerning the path have four modes of apprehension each, making eight; the subsequent cognition concerning cessation takes the cessation of the eight levels as object with four modes of apprehension each, making thirty-two; the subsequent cognition concerning the path takes the path of the eight levels as object with four modes of apprehension in all, making four — eight and eight and thirty-two and four give exactly fifty-two. And the treatise explains the ground of the last item: “because the paths of the class of subsequent cognition that counteract the eight levels are causes of one another as of one class, and must take them all together as object.” Then it lists the numbers of the other levels: the intermediate absorption and the four absorptions the same fifty-two, the sphere of space twenty-eight, the sphere of consciousness twenty-four, the sphere of nothingness twenty — because in the formless there is no cognition of dharma, nor any subsequent cognition concerning cessation taking a lower level’s cessation as object.

First ask: why do the three formless levels diminish in turn? Because the higher one goes the fewer are the levels taken as object. The easy error: to take fifty-two for a number to be memorized. It is a sum that can be verified item by item. In practice: wherever the treatise brings out a large number, it can usually be reckoned again by its items — divide into items, then add, and the number comes alive.

〔10.4〕The second and third accounts. The second account: the subsequent cognition concerning the path also has four modes of apprehension severally for the path of each of the eight levels, exceeding the first account by twenty-eight, so that access concentration gathers eighty kinds, the other levels being reckoned accordingly (the sphere of space forty, the sphere of consciousness thirty-two, the sphere of nothingness twenty-four). The third account: the subsequent cognition concerning cessation takes the cessation of the eight levels as object both severally and all together, with four modes of apprehension each, exceeding the first account by one hundred twelve, so that access concentration gathers one hundred sixty-four, the other levels accordingly (the sphere of space fifty-two, the sphere of consciousness thirty-six, the sphere of nothingness twenty-four). The treatise closes with a sentence: “if one analyzes by lineage, faculty, and the rest, still more kinds come to be; this should be pondered out as principle requires.”

First ask: where exactly do the three accounts differ? Wholly in the taking or leaving of “severally as object” and “all together as object” — in the first account the subsequent cognition concerning the path takes them only all together, in the second it takes them severally, in the third the subsequent cognition concerning cessation takes them both severally and all together. The easy error: to take the three accounts for three different concentrations. They are three ways of counting one and the same concentration. In practice: the excess numbers can be checked — eighty less fifty-two gives twenty-eight, and one hundred sixty-four less fifty-two gives one hundred twelve; the treatise itself marks out these two excesses, and they are just the key to the reckoning that it leaves the reader. Puguang marks this passage as “three accounts in all” and lists them without adjudicating, while Fabao has an adjudication of his own — see the section of further resonances.

〔10.5〕The knowledge of exhaustion and the completing of one beyond training. The treatise goes on: “since this concentration is able to abandon the ninth grade of defilement at the level of the summit of existence, it can draw forth the knowledge of exhaustion that proceeds along with the acquisition of the exhaustion of those defilements.” Then it settles its position: “the vajra-like concentration is the last uninterrupted path among those that abandon defilement; the knowledge of exhaustion is the last path of liberation among those that abandon defilement; because this path of liberation arises together with the acquisition of the exhaustion of the several outflows for the first time, it is named the knowledge of exhaustion.” The knowledge of exhaustion once arisen, “one becomes the fruit of the arhat beyond training.”

First ask: are the vajra-like concentration and the knowledge of exhaustion one or two? Two — the one an uninterrupted path, the other a path of liberation, following one upon the other. The easy error: to confound the two as one matter. In practice: the uninterrupted path abandons and the path of liberation realizes — this pair is used throughout the treatise; and at the end of this fascicle, in treating the eighty-nine fruits of the ascetic life, the same pair will be used again to divide nature from fruit.

〔10.6〕How the two names “beyond training” and “arhat” arise. The treatise glosses “beyond training”: “the things he should train in for the sake of obtaining a further fruit are for him no longer, and so he obtains the name beyond training.” It glosses “arhat”: “because he should now only do what benefits others, and because all who have defilement should make offerings to him, the name arhat is established in accordance with this sense.” First ask: from which end is each of the two names established? “Beyond training” from “there being nothing further to train in,” and “arhat” from “doing what benefits others and being worthy of offerings” — the one blocking, the other displaying. The easy error: to suppose the two names are synonyms doubled. In practice: the treatise commonly establishes names in pairs — one blocking what is absent, one displaying what is present; read the two names together and the whole aspect of the stage comes out.

〔10.7〕The name “in training” and the marking off of the ordinary being. The treatise asks itself: “the four approaches and three fruits made out above are all named in training; why do these first seven obtain the name in training?” Answer: “because for the sake of obtaining the exhaustion of the outflows they constantly delight in training.” Trainings must be three: the higher discipline, the higher mind, the higher discernment, with discipline, concentration, and discernment for their entity. Someone objects: an ordinary being too should be named in training. The treatise answers: “not so, because he has not seen and known the principle of the truths as it really is, and because it is admitted that he may at a later time lose the right training,” and it adduces the Buddha’s words, “training in what should be trained in, training in what should be trained in — such a one alone do I call one in training,” to bring out that the Well-Gone One’s saying the word “training” twice over is to display “training in what is rightly to be trained in without falling away.”

First ask: what is it that the ordinary being lacks? Two things — he has not seen the truths as they really are, and he may lose the right training. The easy error: to suppose that whoever is training counts as one in training. “In training” is the name of a stage from the seeing of the truths upward. In practice: where a word is repeated in a sūtra there is commonly a sense in it, and the treatise regularly enters upon its explanation of a sūtra by way of the repeated word; this is a clean specimen.

〔10.8〕Why one abiding in his intrinsic state is still named in training. The treatise asks itself again: “when a noble one abides in his intrinsic state, how is he named in training?” Answer: “because the intention to train is not yet fulfilled, like a traveler resting a while; or because the dharmas of training constantly follow after him.” And it defines the dharmas of training and of one beyond training: “what are the dharmas of training? The dharmas without outflows and conditioned of one in training. What are the dharmas of one beyond training? The dharmas without outflows and conditioned of one beyond training.”

First ask: does one count as training when he is not at his effort? He does — because the intention to train is not yet fulfilled, and because the acquisition of the dharmas of training constantly follows him. The easy error: to equate “training” with the preparatory effort presently before one. In practice: a stage hangs upon “acquisition” and upon “intention,” and not upon whether one is at his effort at this moment — and this holds in reading every name of a stage in the treatise.

〔10.9〕Why nirvāṇa is named neither training nor beyond training. The treatise puts two questions and gives two answers: it is not named training, “because one beyond training and an ordinary being achieve it as well”; it is not named beyond training, “because one in training and an ordinary being achieve it as well.” First ask: why are the two reasons of the same form? Because “training” and “beyond training” are names established with respect to persons, and nirvāṇa is achieved by all three kinds of person, so that it can be hung upon neither side. The easy error: to suppose that nirvāṇa fails to enter the stages because it is too lofty. It is because it does not mark persons off that it does not enter a classification whose axis is persons. In practice: once again it is proved that a dharma’s failing to enter a given table is a matter of the denominator (the same principle as 〔9.3〕).

〔10.10〕The eight noble ones and the five entities. The treatise gathers up: “thus those in training and those beyond training come in all to eight noble pudgalas, because proceeding upon an approach and abiding in a fruit are each of four.” But it corrects itself at once: “although the names are eight the entities are only five, namely abiding in the four fruits and the approach to the first fruit, because the approaches to the latter three fruits are not apart from the preceding fruit.” And it marks out the range of application: “this is said with regard to one who obtains the fruits in due order. If one doubly free of craving or wholly free of craving abides within the path of seeing, he is named the approach to the fruit of once-returning or of non-returning, and is not gathered under the preceding fruit.”

First ask: which of eight and five is real? The names are eight and the entities five — because the approach to each of the latter three fruits is just the person of the preceding fruit, and does not make a further entity. The easy error: to suppose eight and five contradict each other. Name and entity are two axes, each with its own number. In practice: the treatise often gives a tidy number and immediately corrects its real count, and in reading one must keep the two layers of “name and entity” and of “general and particular” apart.

XI. By What Path the Defilement of What Level Is Left Behind

〔11.1〕The summit of existence is left behind by the path without outflows alone. The treatise establishes: “only the path without outflows frees one from the defilement of the summit of existence, and not a path with outflows.” Three reasons: “because above this there is no further mundane path; because a level cannot counteract that level itself; because the defilements of that very level increase by attachment here.” Then it draws out a general rule: “if those defilements increase by attachment with respect to this, this certainly cannot counteract those defilements; if this has the power to counteract those, then those certainly do not increase by attachment with respect to this; therefore the path of a level does not counteract that level.” As for the other eight levels, “they extend to the two paths, since both the mundane and the supramundane path can free one from them.”

First ask: are the three reasons three matters or one? The first is a fact (above the summit of existence there is no mundane path to borrow), and the latter two are the two faces, positive and negative, of one and the same principle. The easy error: to take “a level does not counteract that level” for a slogan. It has a definite mechanism — increase by attachment. In practice: wherever the treatise brings out a general rule it usually gives at once the two forms, positive and negative (“if . . . then . . . ; if . . . then . . .”), and that paired construction is its form of proof.

〔11.2〕How many acquisitions of release from bondage there are. The treatise establishes: “when the several noble ones in training by a path with outflows become free of the defilement abandoned by cultivation in the lower eight levels, they can draw forth both acquisitions of release from bondage in full; becoming free of them by a path without outflows is likewise, because what the two paths do is the same.”

The treatise then records the divergent explanation of one party and refutes it. Some other masters take “there is a casting off of the acquisition without outflows and yet the defilements are still not achieved” for their proof, saying that when one becomes free of defilement by a path without outflows an acquisition of release from bondage with outflows must arise as well — for otherwise, when at the sharpening of the faculties the dull noble paths are cast off all at once, the release from bondage in respect of the upper defilements would all be unachieved, and those defilements would have to be achieved over again. The author adjudges: “this proof is unreasonable.” The reason is that that noble one, even without an acquisition of abandonment with outflows, would still not achieve the defilements of the upper levels — and he adduces two instances, one of sharpening the faculties after becoming separated from the summit of existence, and one of an ordinary being not achieving the lower defilements when born upward.

First ask: are the conclusions of the author and of those other masters the same? They are the same — both allow the two acquisitions of release from bondage; what is at issue is “what is to be used as proof.” The easy error: to suppose the author denies the “two acquisitions.” What he denies is that manner of proof, not that conclusion. In practice: in disputes it very often happens that the conclusion is shared and the argument differs; in reading one should first ask whether what is at issue is the thesis or the reason.

〔11.3〕The two items obtained by implication. The treatise fills out the whole table by “implication”: an ordinary being using a path with outflows draws forth only an acquisition of abandonment with outflows; a noble one, when by a path without outflows he becomes free of the defilements abandoned by seeing and of the defilements abandoned by cultivation at the summit of existence, draws forth only an acquisition of abandonment without outflows. First ask: why need these two not be set up as main text? Because they can be drawn out from the criterion given above. The easy error: to take the text of “implication” for something secondary. It is a filled-in cell of the table, and without it the table is not complete. In practice: in reading this treatise, wherever you see “it is already established by implication” or “it follows of itself by implication,” you should of your own accord fill that cell into the table.

〔11.4〕By the path of which level the defilement of which level is left behind. The treatise establishes: a path without outflows, if gathered under access concentration, “can free one from the desire realm up to the summit of existence”; those gathered under the intermediate absorption, the four absorptions, and the three formless spheres, “each according as it fits can free one from the defilement of its own and of the upper levels; not from the lower, because those are already left behind.” A path with outflows, on the other hand, “can all of it free one only from the level next below, and not from its own level and the rest,” for three reasons: the defilements of its own level increase by attachment here, its force is feeble, and (the upper levels) are already left behind.

First ask: why can access concentration alone free one from every level? Because it is the lowest level upon which the path without outflows depends, and above it there is nothing in the way. The easy error: to suppose that the higher the absorption the more defilements it can free one from. Quite the contrary — the higher one goes the fewer it can free one from, because the lower levels are already left behind. In practice: read this section together with 〔11.1〕 and the whole treatise’s table of freedom from defilement is complete: the vertical axis is the level depended upon, the horizontal the level freed from; what has outflows can go only one cell downward, while what is without outflows can run through them all.

〔11.5〕Whether the path of liberation too is at the neighboring stage. The treatise asks and answers itself: the uninterrupted paths are all gathered under the neighboring stage, but the paths of liberation are not. “The neighboring stages upon which the paths depend are eight, namely the four meditative absorptions and the lower edges of the formless spheres. Those freed from are nine, namely the desire realm and the eight absorptions. When the first three neighboring stages free one from the defilement of the lower three, at the moment when the ninth path of liberation is present one either enters the fundamental absorption or remains at the neighboring stage. When the five neighboring stages above each free one from the lower defilement, at the moment when the ninth path of liberation is present one must enter the fundamental absorption and not remain at the neighboring stage.”

The reason is very fine: “because the neighboring stage and the fundamental absorption are equal in the faculty of equanimity; because the neighboring stages and the fundamental absorptions of the lower three absorptions differ in the faculty of feeling.” — The neighboring stages and the fundamental absorptions of the upper five levels are alike the feeling of equanimity, and so one must enter the fundamental absorption; the neighboring stages of the lower three absorptions have the feeling of equanimity while their fundamental absorptions have the feelings of joy and pleasure, and since the feelings differ the turning is difficult, and so remaining at the neighboring stage is allowed. The treatise adds two sentences: “some are unable to enter, because turning into a different feeling is somewhat difficult; yet at the time of freeing oneself from the lower defilement one must be delighting in what is above,” and “if the feelings do not differ, one must enter the fundamental absorption.”

First ask: why does the boundary fall just between the lower three and the upper five? Precisely because of the sameness or difference of the faculty of feeling. The easy error: to suppose this is a convention. It has a real cause — the sameness or difference of feeling. In practice: whenever you meet a boundary line that looks arbitrary, look for that “because” the treatise gives; the treatise’s boundaries are almost never without a cause.

〔11.6〕What the mundane path takes as object, and what modes of apprehension it makes. The treatise establishes: “the mundane uninterrupted and liberation paths can take, in that order, the lower level and the upper level as object, making coarseness, suffering, and obstruction, and calm, sublimity, and escape.” The uninterrupted paths take as object the dharmas with outflows of the level next below their own, making any one of the three modes of apprehension of coarseness, suffering, and obstruction; the liberation paths take as object the dharmas with outflows of the level next above, making any one of the three modes of apprehension of calm, sublimity, and escape. All three names have their gloss: “because it is not quiescent it is said to be named coarse”; “because it can be crossed over only by great toil, and because it is not sublime, it is said to be named suffering, since it has much coarse heaviness able to do harm”; “because it is not a going forth it is said to be named obstruction, since it can obstruct one’s crossing out of one’s own level, as the thick wall of a prison obstructs going out.” As for calm, sublimity, and escape, they are “to be explained by reversing this.”

First ask: why do the uninterrupted paths take the lower and the liberation paths the upper as object? Because at the time of abandoning one must be disgusted with what is below, and at the time of realizing one must delight in what is above — one disgust and one delight, which are exactly the two feet of going forth. The easy error: to take the six modes of apprehension for six psychological descriptions. They are contemplative practices with strictly determined objects — three taking the lower, three the upper. In practice: the simile “like the thick wall of a prison” is the most memorable sentence in the section — an obstruction is not a resistance from outside but the very thickness of one’s own level. The divergence of the two translations’ renderings in this section is in the further resonances.

XII. After the Knowledge of Exhaustion

〔12.1〕The unshakable and the not unshakable. The treatise establishes: “for the several arhats of the unshakable lineage, after the knowledge of exhaustion the knowledge of non-arising arises with nothing intervening, and there arises no further knowledge of exhaustion or right view of one beyond training. For the other arhats apart from those of the dharma of the unshakable, after the knowledge of exhaustion a knowledge of exhaustion arises, or else the right view of one beyond training is drawn forth, and not the knowledge of non-arising, because it is admitted that they may afterwards fall back.”

First ask: why does the knowledge of non-arising not arise for one not of the unshakable? Because the knowledge of non-arising is the cognition that “they will not arise again,” and since it is still admitted that he may fall back, he cannot say that sentence. The easy error: to suppose the knowledge of non-arising is merely a strengthened knowledge of exhaustion. The two cognitions determine different matters — the one determines “already exhausted,” the other “will not arise again.” In practice: the name of a stage can usually be read backward into the content it determines; when you read the name of a cognition, first ask what it has determined.

〔12.2〕Whether the unshakable have right view. The treatise sets itself a question: “does no right view arise for those of the unshakable lineage spoken of above?” Answer: “right view does arise, only it was not stated, because every worthy fruit has this.” — It is not that he has none; it is that since every worthy fruit has it, it need not be stated. “That is, for one of the dharma of the unshakable, after the knowledge of non-arising a knowledge of non-arising arises, or the right view of one beyond training.”

First ask: why is what is “held in common” the very thing not stated? Because what the stanza is making out is the differences. The easy error: to conclude, from a dharma not being listed under some stage, that the stage does not have it. In practice: the treatise’s not stating something may mean “it has it not,” and may mean “it is held in common and so need not be stated separately” — the two must be told apart from the context, and this section gives a clear instance.

XIII. The Nature of the Ascetic Life and the Fruits of the Ascetic Life

〔13.1〕What the nature of the ascetic life is. The treatise answers with the utmost directness: “the several paths without outflows are the nature of the ascetic life; one who bears this path is named an ascetic, because he is able to strive and to still the defilements.” And it adduces a sūtra for testimony: “because he is able to strive and to still away the several evil and unwholesome dharmas,” down to “therefore he is named an ascetic.” Puguang glosses the name here, saying “ascetic here means striving and stilling, because he is able to strive and to still the defilements” — the two words striving and stilling fasten exactly upon the treatise’s “strive” and “still.”

First ask: is the nature of the ascetic life a person or a dharma? A dharma — the path without outflows itself; it is the one who bears this path who is called an ascetic. The easy error: to read “ascetic” as a social condition or a matter of robes. In this treatise it is the name of a fruit-stage, with only one criterion: whether there is a path without outflows. In practice: the four approaches and four fruits of the whole fascicle come down to the entity only here — before this it was the graduations, and here it is the ruler itself.

〔13.2〕Why an ordinary being is not a true ascetic. The treatise answers: “because an ordinary being cannot proceed with finality toward nirvāṇa without a different destination, he is not a true ascetic.” First ask: what does “different” refer to? To a fork in what he proceeds toward — what he proceeds toward may not really be nirvāṇa, or he may proceed toward it and not with finality. The easy error: to take this for a term of disparagement. It is a sentence of criterion — the nature of the ascetic life being the path without outflows, and the ordinary being having none, he naturally does not come in. In practice: for every “not a true such-and-such” in the treatise one should turn back and find the defining sentence; match the definition and the judgment is plain.

〔13.3〕How the eighty-nine are reckoned. The treatise establishes: “the conditioned and the unconditioned are the fruits of the ascetic life; the sūtras say the differences of these are four, but speaking as the marks really are and reckoning by stage they are eighty-nine, all having the paths of liberation and the cessations through discernment for their nature.” The reckoning is: for abandoning the defilements abandoned by seeing there are eight uninterrupted paths and eight paths of liberation; for abandoning the defilements abandoned by cultivation there are eighty-one uninterrupted paths and eighty-one paths of liberation — eight and eighty-one give eighty-nine.

Then it divides nature from fruit: “the several uninterrupted paths are only the nature of the ascetic life, and not its fruit; the several paths of liberation are also the entity of the conditioned fruit of the ascetic life, being their homogeneous result and result of human effort. Each single cessation through discernment is only the entity of the unconditioned fruit of the ascetic life, being their result of release from bondage and result of human effort.” Yuanhui sets up a double-edged gloss here, saying “on the side of the sense of stilling evil it is named the nature of the ascetic life; on the side of being the homogeneous result of the uninterrupted path it is named a fruit of the ascetic life” — one and the same path of liberation is nature as regards stilling evil and fruit as regards homogeneity.

First ask: why is the uninterrupted path only nature and not fruit? Because it is abandoning, and has not yet realized. The easy error: to take the eighty-nine for eighty-nine fruit-stages. They are eighty-nine paths of liberation with their corresponding cessations through discernment. In practice: the parting of nature and fruit lies wholly at that one cut between the uninterrupted path and the path of liberation — the cut was set up already at 〔10.5〕, and here is its harvest.

〔13.4〕Why the sūtras state only four fruits. The treatise answers: “if a stage of the path of abandoning is complete in the five causes, the Buddha in the sūtras establishes it as a fruit.” The five causes are: casting off the path once obtained (casting off the path of the fruit and of the approach obtained before), obtaining a superior path (obtaining the superior path gathered under the fruit), gathering the abandonments together (by one single acquisition obtaining the several abandonments), obtaining the eight cognitions (the four cognitions of dharma and the four subsequent cognitions), and being able to cultivate the sixteen modes of apprehension all at once. “At the stages of the four fruits the five causes are all complete, and at the other stages they are not, and therefore the Buddha does not state them.”

First ask: which of the five causes marks off most sharply? “Gathering the abandonments together” and “obtaining the eight cognitions” are the hardest — only at a fruit-stage is there that single gathering acquisition, and only then are the four of dharma and the four subsequent complete. The easy error: to suppose that the four fruits are established from the felt experience of practice. They are established from these five checkable conditions. In practice: the third cause, “gathering the abandonments together,” uses the same ledger-method as “abandoning the five lower fetters” in 〔2.5〕 — what the treatise buried earlier is settled here. Puguang and Fabao differ upon the boundary of “the other stages”; see the further resonances.

〔13.5〕Why the two fruits obtained by a mundane path also count. The treatise sets itself an objection: “if the pure path alone is the nature of the ascetic life, how are the two fruits obtained by the force of a path with outflows also gathered under the fruits of the ascetic life?” The answer has two layers. First: “this fruit does not have for the nature of its fruit of abandoning only the cessation through discernment obtained by the mundane path; it takes in besides the cessation through discernment obtained upon the path of seeing, mixed among them, and the whole makes one fruit, because they are obtained by one and the same acquisition of the path of the fruit.” And it adduces a sūtra for testimony — the fruit of once-returning is “abandoning the three fetters and being thin in greed, hatred, and delusion,” and the fruit of non-returning “abandoning the five lower fetters”; the three fetters are just what is abandoned upon the path of seeing, so that a portion obtained without outflows really is contained therein. Second: “again, the cessation through discernment obtained by a mundane path is upheld by the acquisition of abandonment without outflows, and because upheld by that force he does not die even when he falls back, it too obtains the name of the entity of a fruit of the ascetic life.”

First ask: how do the two layers of reason divide their work? The first says “there is really a portion without outflows within it,” the second says “its continuance rests upon being upheld by an acquisition without outflows.” Puguang sets a sentence of judgment under the first layer: “the lesser follows the greater, and it is named a fruit of the ascetic life.” The easy error: to suppose that a mundane path too can count as the nature of the ascetic life. It cannot — the nature is without outflows alone; what can count is the fruit. In practice: nature and fruit may have different sources — this is the most crucial sentence in the section, and the one exceptional handling in the whole chapter.

XIV. Brahminhood · the Wheel of Brahmā · the Wheel of Dharma

〔14.1〕The three other names. The treatise establishes: the true nature of the ascetic life “is also said in the sūtras to be named the nature of brahminhood, because it can drive away the several defilements”; “this same is also said to be named the wheel of Brahmā, because it is turned by the power of the true Brahmā king”; the Buddha “is endowed with the unsurpassed quality of Brahmā, and so the World-Honored One alone should be named Brahmā,” with the sūtra adduced for testimony, “the Buddha is also named Brahmā, also named quiescent, also named cool.”

First ask: from which sense is each of the three names established? Brahminhood from “driving away the defilements,” the wheel of Brahmā from “being turned by the true Brahmā,” Brahmā from “the unsurpassed quality of Brahmā.” Puguang glosses the word “Brahmā,” saying “Brahmā here means pure.” The easy error: to suppose this is Buddhism borrowing the names of the non-Buddhists. The reasons the treatise gives lie wholly in the sense — because it drives away defilement, because it is turned by the true Brahmā — and not in where the name came from. In practice: when a name is established, first ask what reason the treatise gives; and the three commentaries’ glosses of the name “brahmin” happen to diverge — see the further resonances.

〔14.2〕Why the wheel of Dharma is the path of seeing alone. The treatise establishes: “within this, in dependence upon the path of seeing alone, the World-Honored One in some places says it is named the wheel of Dharma. As a wheel of the world has the marks of swiftness and the rest, the path of seeing resembles it and so is named the wheel of Dharma.” The five marks are: “because the path of seeing the truths proceeds swiftly; because it lets go and takes up; because it subdues what is not yet subdued; because it presses down what is already subdued; because it turns about upward and downward — being complete in these five marks it is like a wheel of the world.”

First ask: how are the five marks fitted on? Swiftness answers to the wheel’s quick turning, letting go and taking up to the wheel’s leaving and meeting the ground before and behind, subduing what is not yet subdued and pressing down what is subdued to the wheel’s crushing, and turning about upward and downward to the wheel’s revolution. The easy error: to read the simile as rhetoric. Here it is fitted mark for mark, and each of the five marks has a real referent. In practice: the treatise’s rule in using a simile is “first bring out the marks of what is likened, then fit them mark by mark” — whenever you meet a simile, first count how many marks it lists.

〔14.3〕Another way of fitting it. The treatise records a divergent account: “the Venerable Ghoṣa says thus: as a wheel of the world has the marks of spokes and the rest, the eightfold noble path resembles it and is named a wheel. That is, right view, right thought, right diligence, and right mindfulness are like the spokes of a worldly wheel; right speech, right action, and right livelihood are like the hub; right concentration is like the rim; and therefore it is named the wheel of Dharma.”

First ask: where do the two accounts differ? The former takes the wheel’s “function” (swiftness, letting go and taking up, subduing, revolving), this one its “body” (spokes, hub, rim). The stanza takes both accounts in with “because in swiftness and the rest it resembles a wheel, or because it is complete with spokes and the rest.” The easy error: to suppose the two accounts exclude each other. The word “or” in the stanza is precisely the mark of their standing together. In practice: one simile may be taken from its function or from its body; the treatise lets both stand without judging, and the reader need not choose a side for it either. The differing designation of this master in the two translations is in the further resonances.

〔14.4〕How it is known that the wheel of Dharma is the path of seeing alone. The treatise asks and answers itself: “because when the path of seeing arose for Kauṇḍinya and the rest, it was said that the true wheel of Dharma had been turned.” — It is at the arising of the path of seeing for Kauṇḍinya and the rest that scripture says “the wheel of Dharma has been turned,” and hence it is known that what is meant is the path of seeing. Puguang glosses the name Kauṇḍinya, saying “Ājñāta here means ‘he has understood,’ and Kauṇḍinya is as said before.”

First ask: what kind of proof is this? It is a proof from teaching, and taken moreover from “when the words about turning the wheel of Dharma appear.” The easy error: to suppose this is an inference. It is a proof from the text. In practice: the treatise commonly uses proof from principle and proof from teaching together in establishing a thesis, and this is a specimen of pure proof from teaching — the type of evidence differing, the manner of refuting it differs too.

〔14.5〕The three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension. The treatise explains: “this is the noble truth of suffering, this should be fully comprehended, this has been fully comprehended — these are named the three turnings. And at the moment of each single turning there arise separately and severally the eye, the cognition, the clear knowing, and the awakening, and this is said to be named the twelve modes of apprehension.” And it adds: “such three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension belong to every truth; yet because the numbers are equal, only three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension are stated, as one says the two dharmas and the seven-place skill and the like.”

First ask: is not three times four twelve? Then why is it said that every truth has them? Because every truth has three turnings and each turning gives rise to four things, so that the real count is twelve turnings and forty-eight modes of apprehension; it is only because the count is equal for every truth that the count of one truth is raised to cover the rest. The easy error: to reckon the twelve modes of apprehension as three turnings times four truths. The twelve are three turnings times four things (eye, cognition, clear knowing, awakening). Yuanhui has a word-for-word fitting of the four words “eye, cognition, clear knowing, awakening” — see the further resonances. In practice: when the numbers of a set of dharmas will not tally, first ask whether the number raises one to cover the rest, or is a real total.

〔14.6〕The author’s own objection and his gathering-up. The treatise records the Vaibhāṣika masters’ fitting of the three turnings to the three paths (of seeing, of cultivation, and beyond training), and at once objects to itself: “if that is so, the three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension are not the path of seeing alone; how can it be said that the name of the wheel of Dharma is established upon the path of seeing alone?” And concludes for itself: “therefore one should only say that it is just the whole body of dharma-teaching belonging to these three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension that is named the wheel of Dharma; this accords with correct principle.”

First ask: does this overturn what went before? It does not — what went before, “the path of seeing resembles a wheel and so is named the wheel of Dharma,” was a name established from resemblance, while here “the body of dharma-teaching is named the wheel of Dharma” is a name established from turning within another’s continuum; the two rest on different grounds. The treatise then glosses the word “turning”: “because by this body of dharma-teaching it goes into another’s continuum and makes him understand the sense. Or all the noble paths are the wheel of Dharma, because they turn within the body of one to be trained. When the path of seeing arises in another’s continuum it has reached the first step of turning, and so is named already turned.” The easy error: to suppose that of the author’s account and the Vaibhāṣika masters’ one must be right. The author has given a wider definition that houses them both. In practice: the real sense of the word “turning” is “entering into the continuum of another” — the wheel of Dharma is a wheel because it has moved onto somebody else, and this is the most crucial sentence in the chapter. Yuanhui has a further school-marking here — see the further resonances.

XV. In Dependence upon Which Realm They Are Obtained

〔15.1〕The first three fruits and the fourth. The treatise establishes: “the first three are obtained in dependence upon a body of the desire realm alone; the obtaining of arhatship is in dependence upon bodies of the three realms.” First ask: why can arhatship be obtained in all three realms? Because by then the business of the path of seeing has long been done, and what remains is only the abandoning of the defilements abandoned by cultivation, which a body of an upper realm can also accomplish. The easy error: to suppose that the higher the fruit-stage the more excellent the body it requires. Quite the contrary — the earlier the stage the stricter the condition it requires. In practice: this section is the gathering-in of the whole fascicle, and it draws every stage that has gone before back to the single condition of “body.”

〔15.2〕Why the third fruit too cannot be obtained in dependence upon an upper realm. The treatise first gives a step: “the first two fruits, not having become free of craving for desire, are reasonably enough not obtained in dependence upon an upper realm” — those of the first two fruits are of themselves not yet free of craving for desire, and to say that they do not obtain their fruit in an upper realm raises no difficulty. The difficulty is with the third fruit: he is already free of craving for desire; why can he not obtain it in an upper realm? The treatise answers: “by principle and by the testimony of teaching.”

The principle is: “because in dependence upon a body of an upper realm there is no path of seeing; and it is not that one who has become free of craving for desire before leaving the path of seeing may have the principle of realizing the fruit of non-returning by leaping.” — Realizing non-returning by leaping requires the path of seeing; and since there is no path of seeing in the upper realms, there is no realizing it by leaping to speak of. First ask: where is the joint of this step? In the two words “realizing by leaping” — one who has become free of craving beforehand may upon entering the path of seeing obtain the fruit of non-returning directly, and this is called realizing by leaping; and the precondition of realizing by leaping is the path of seeing. The easy error: to suppose the third fruit is not obtained in an upper realm because his freedom from craving is insufficient. It is because the path of seeing is not in the upper realms. In practice: the answer of this section does not lie in whether he is qualified, but in whether that process is there at all.

〔15.3〕Why there is no path of seeing in the upper realms. The treatise gives three causes: “because within the formless there is no right hearing”; “and because within that realm one does not take a lower level as object, the ordinary beings of the form realm being attached to the pleasure of the superior absorptions”; “and because there is no feeling of suffering and so no disgust arises, and without disgust one cannot obtain the path of seeing.”

First ask: at which realm is each of the three causes aimed? The first at the formless (no hearing), the second at the form realm (attached to the pleasure of absorption and not taking a lower level as object), the third holding for both upper realms (no feeling of suffering and so no disgust). Yuanhui sets out the reason under the third cause, saying “to enter the path of seeing one must be disgusted with suffering; in the form realm there is no disgust with suffering, because one is attached to the pleasure of absorption.” The easy error: to spread the three causes evenly over the two realms. Each has its own object. In practice: what the path of seeing requires the treatise here marks out in reverse, in three items — hearing, taking what is below as object, and disgust; read forward they are lacks, and read backward they are the conditions.

〔15.4〕The testimony of teaching. The treatise adduces a sūtra: “there are five pudgalas who penetrate here and reach finality there, namely those who attain parinirvāṇa in the interval up to those who go upstream.” Then it glosses the key word: “this word penetrate refers to the path of seeing alone, because it is the first preparatory effort for realizing perfect quiescence. By this, the path of seeing is certainly absent in the upper realms.”

First ask: how does this sūtra prove the point? Because the sūtra says expressly “penetrate here and reach finality there” — the penetrating (the path of seeing) is here (the desire realm), and the finality (attaining parinirvāṇa) is there (the upper realms); had the upper realms a path of seeing, the sūtra would not have apportioned them so. The easy error: to read “penetrate” as realizing a fruit. The treatise has fixed it: penetrating refers to the path of seeing alone. In practice: the force of a proof from teaching lies wholly in the fixing of the key word — for every sūtra the treatise adduces it first fixes the word, and this sentence is the last and the cleanest demonstration of it in the fascicle. The whole fascicle is thereby gathered in: from the three conditions of family-to-family to the body upon which the path of seeing depends, one graduated scale has been measured to its end, and the ruler itself is that one sentence, “the several paths without outflows are the nature of the ascetic life.”

Further Resonances: The Mirror of the Three Commentaries

The foregoing is the sense of this fascicle’s own text. Below is a separate section gathering four matters: the adjudications and divergences of the three commentaries, Saṅghabhadra’s refutations and supplements, the divergences of Paramārtha’s earlier translation, and coordinates for parallel reading. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading one and the same passage. All are recorded alongside without adjudication, each restored to its own place.

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

One commentary wholly absent from this fascicle. The commentaries upon this fascicle have one plain gap: Shentai’s commentary is a fragmentary text, and of the seven fascicles surviving only one belongs to the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble, and that one marks itself as expounding fascicle twenty-five of the treatise — precisely the next fascicle. This fascicle (fascicle twenty-four of the treatise) has no Shentai to hang upon. This is a conclusion reached after checking the surviving fascicles item by item, and not a failure of searching; the want is marked as it stands, and is not supplied from the text of another fascicle.

The question-and-answer structure of the seven destinies of good men: each of the three adds a layer. This is the passage where reading the three commentaries together tells most in this fascicle. Puguang marks out the first layer — the author posing and answering a question to himself (“if that is so, why . . . does the Buddha say there are only seven destinies of good men,” marked as “the question, and the stanza answering it”). Fabao marks out a second layer besides — taking the treatise’s “why are the destinies of good men established in accordance with these alone, and not in accordance with the other noble ones in training” as the question and “destiny has the sense of proceeding” and what follows as the answer, which is a division Puguang did not separately set up. Yuanhui adds a third layer — setting up a further question and answer, “why are the two fruits of stream-entry and once-returning not established as destinies of good men.” The three together make the chain of question and answer in this passage complete. Which marking is the more complete this section does not adjudge; it records only the divergence of the three houses’ markings.

The inclination as to the order of with and without exertion: Puguang alone hands down a judgment. The text of the treatise says only that “the sūtras state attaining parinirvāṇa without exertion first and with exertion after, and such an order accords with principle,” and does not say for itself whose party it takes. Puguang first marks the intent of the refutation, saying that what the author refutes is that “attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval and upon birth also take the conditioned as object, and abandon defilement by the unconditioned, and ought likewise to be named with exertion and without exertion,” and then adjudges outright, “the author’s intent inclines to the Sautrāntikas, and therefore he approves it.” ⇒ The text of the treatise itself carries no such label; this is Puguang’s adjudication. Fabao and Yuanhui mark nothing here. Recorded without adjudication.

The definition of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval: Fabao takes Saṅghabhadra’s explanation directly. Puguang makes his own explanation of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, while Fabao, in explaining the sentence “the one said to attain parinirvāṇa in the interval,” cites the text of the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle directly for his explanation. This is a consistent feature of Fabao’s form — where Saṅghabhadra has already explained something, he often takes it directly rather than composing another explanation of his own. The fact itself is worth noting: though both are commentaries upon the Kośa, the direction from which they take their material differs. Recorded without adjudication.

The three accounts of the vajra-like concentration: Puguang lists without adjudicating, Fabao cites the Correct Principle and adjudges the third correct. Puguang marks the passage “three accounts in all, this being the first master,” and divides them one by one without making a choice. Fabao expressly sets a question, “among the three accounts which is correct?”, and cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle in answer, adjudging the third master (one hundred sixty-four kinds) correct. ⇒ The text of the treatise itself hands down no judgment (saying only, “if one analyzes by lineage, faculty, and the rest, still more kinds come to be; this should be pondered out as principle requires”). Fabao’s adjudication is a commentator’s adjudication, not the settled doctrine of the treatise. Recorded without adjudication.

The range of the five causes that establish four fruits: Fabao alone adds the sharpening of the faculties. The text of the treatise says, “at the stages of the four fruits the five causes are all complete, and at the other stages they are not.” Puguang explains along with the text, and brings out for himself a passage on the reason, “the defilements abandoned by seeing are easily abandoned, and one fruit is established for them in sum; the defilements abandoned by cultivation are hard to abandon, and three fruits are established for them separately.” Fabao, on the other hand, opens a cell of his own, saying “by this text of the treatise, only these four stages and one who sharpens his faculties have these five causes, and the other stages have them not; and by this the sharpening of the faculties is also named obtaining a fruit” — reckoning the stage of sharpening the faculties too among those complete in the five causes. ⇒ The text of the treatise does not touch upon the sharpening of the faculties. This is Fabao’s own supplement, recorded without adjudication.

The gloss on the name “brahmin”: three houses, three ways. Puguang has here no gloss of sound and sense (glossing only the word “Brahmā” as “pure”). Fabao glosses it as “pure conduct,” and cites the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle for a further sense besides, saying “silent, void, and unmoved is named Brahmā.” Yuanhui glosses it as “pure aspiration,” and reconciles it for himself, saying “it is the same in sense as striving and stilling” — drawing the gloss of brahmin back to the gloss of ascetic. ⇒ Pure conduct, pure aspiration, and no gloss: the three houses diverge, and this is recorded without adjudication.

Whether the wheel of Dharma is the path of seeing alone or extends to the three paths: Yuanhui alone marks a school. The text of the treatise objects to itself and concludes for itself, saying “therefore one should only say that it is just the whole body of dharma-teaching belonging to these three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension that is named the wheel of Dharma,” and does not mark from which school the sense comes. Yuanhui, on the other hand, marks it by school outright, saying “if one follows the Sautrāntikas, the wheel of Dharma is not the path of seeing alone.” ⇒ The text of the treatise itself makes no such marking. Neither Puguang nor Fabao marks a school here. Recorded without adjudication.

Yuanhui’s numbers and fittings not in the text of the treatise. Two places are worth noting: first, under the first of the five marks of the wheel of Dharma, Yuanhui notes for himself that “by ‘swift’ is meant the fifteen moments,” giving a number the text of the treatise has not; second, under the sentence “there arise separately and severally the eye, the cognition, the clear knowing, and the awakening,” he fits it word by word, saying “within the path of seeing, the receptivity to dharma is named the eye, the cognition of dharma the cognition, the subsequent receptivity the clear knowing, and the subsequent cognition the awakening.” Both are supplements of a commentator and not in the text of the treatise, and in reading one should keep the layers distinct.

A divergence of orthography. For the word “lineage,” Puguang and Fabao write one character and Yuanhui another; and the base text here has besides a collation note of a variant reading (the two characters in question). This belongs to orthography and not to doctrine, and is recorded as it stands without alteration.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations and Supplementary Explanations

The chapter titles of Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises in this chapter are not “Analysis of the Worthy and the Noble” — the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle has “Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble, chapter six,” and the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine “Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble, chapter seven” (the chapter number moved back). Search with the Kośa’s chapter title and you will never find them.

The first engagement: the dispute over the order of with and without exertion, in which Saṅghabhadra assesses the author’s refutation in return. The author in this fascicle refutes a divergent account (that the difference of with and without exertion lies in taking the conditioned or the unconditioned noble path as object), saying “this account is unreasonable, for the fault is too sweeping.” Saṅghabhadra, at the same place, first sets out an analysis of his own, then cites that divergent account word for word, then assesses the author’s refutation in return, saying “what the Sūtra-master objects has a great fault; for though the sense here has been well explained through and they are thus far equal, yet they each have a differing stage.” And at the last he closes with the standing of both in scripture — some sūtras state without exertion first and some state with exertion first; the time being no different, there is no contradiction whichever is stated; while for himself he takes “with exertion being the more honorable, I state it first” for his order.

The layers of this engagement must be made out: what Vasubandhu assesses is that divergent account, and what Saṅghabhadra assesses is Vasubandhu’s assessment; the two are not on the same layer. Saṅghabhadra is not re-establishing that divergent account, but explaining it well on its behalf, and bringing out scriptural testimony of his own to show that either order is without contradiction. Two layers of mutual assessment, recorded alongside without adjudication. None of the three commentaries cites this layer of Saṅghabhadra’s counter-assessment.

The second engagement: the dispute over the definition of the bodily witness, with all three layers present. The author, upon the ground of the name bodily witness, brings out an explanation of his own, saying “speaking as the principle really is, one should say: he rises from the absorption of cessation and obtains what he had not obtained before, the quiescence of a body possessed of consciousness,” and so on — what he stresses is that one moment after rising from the absorption. Saṅghabhadra cites it word for word and assesses it, saying “now I say that at the stage of rising from the absorption of cessation, though he obtains the quiescence, not obtained before, of a body possessed of consciousness, yet it is not only at that” stage that the name of bodily witness is obtained — he holds that the name of bodily witness should extend to both times, before and after entering the absorption, and is not limited to the one moment of rising from it. At the last he defends the brief wording of the stanza itself, saying “therefore the former statement is the better in principle; raising the latter limit, it says only: a non-returner who has obtained the absorption of cessation is renamed” the bodily witness — meaning that the stanza’s marking only the three words “obtained the absorption of cessation” already takes in both times, and no new explanation need be set up.

What is at issue is the division of time at which the name bodily witness is obtained. This is the most complete stretch of material for the cross-treatise engagement in this fascicle, all three layers being present. None of the three commentaries cites it. Recorded without adjudication.

A stretch of material that is not a refutation but a supplement. Saṅghabhadra, in the passage adjoining the section on the bodily witness, supplies in full the scriptural testimony the treatise abridged — the World-Honored One addressing the householder Anāthapiṇḍada that the fields of merit are two, the eighteen in training and the nine beyond training, and listing in full the items of the eighteen in training (the approach to stream-entry, the fruit of stream-entry, the approach to once-returning, the fruit of once-returning, the approach to non-returning . . .). The text of the treatise says only “the sūtras say there are eighteen in training” without listing the items, and Saṅghabhadra fills them out. Yuanhui too, in the same section, cites the context “the fields of merit are two, namely the eighteen in training and the nine beyond training,” and the two may be used to corroborate each other. This is a taking-up and not a counter-refutation, and is recorded here.

A fourth account peculiar to the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine. For the differences of cognition, mode of apprehension, and object of the vajra-like concentration, both the Kośa and the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle list only three accounts (fifty-two, eighty, and one hundred sixty-four). The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine in the same section supplies a further account and refutes it itself — “the Venerable Ghoṣa says thus: the vajra-like concentrations are thirteen in all, namely the uninterrupted paths abandoning the defilements abandoned by seeing and by cultivation” at the summit of existence, thirteen moments in all — and then says, “this too is not so, since the eight uninterrupted paths before the four subsequent receptivities are not of the utmost grade.” ⇒ This account is found neither in the text of this fascicle nor in the corresponding passage of the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, and is a supplement peculiar to the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine. Its establishment and its place are recorded only, without adjudication of merit.

One honest negative proposition. Sentences that mark Vasubandhu expressly by the two words “the Sūtra-master” are, within the range of this fascicle, fully enumerated in the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle at two (the two engagements above), and in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine within the same range at zero. But this proves one thing only: that the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine does not, within this fascicle, use the designation “the Sūtra-master” to point at Vasubandhu by name. It cannot be inferred from this that the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine has no engagement in this fascicle — in fact it supplied that fourth account above. A zero result for a designation is not the same as no engagement.

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

Paramārtha’s text titles this chapter “Analysis of the Persons of the Path and Fruit of the Noble Ones,” and divides the whole chapter into three fascicles where Xuanzang divides it into four — the counts of fascicles differing, their boundaries cannot possibly coincide one by one, and the passage matched to this fascicle straddles two of his. Add that the chapter title is rendered wholly otherwise, and a search of Paramārtha’s text with Xuanzang’s words is bound to come up empty; comparison across the two texts can only be made by the structure of the scene.

The renderings form a system of their own. For faculties without outflows he has faculties without flow; for the fruit of once-returning, sakṛdāgāmin; for non-returner, anāgāmin; for the four names of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval and the rest, uniformly the abridged extinction in the interval, extinction upon birth, extinction with exertion, extinction without exertion; for the full leap, half leap, and dying everywhere, leaping out, half leaping out, and retreating everywhere; for Akaniṣṭha he keeps the transcription; for attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life, attaining parinirvāṇa in the present dharma; for access concentration, the concentration of non-attainment; for the acquisition of release from bondage, the attainment of separation through extinction; for the vajra-like concentration, the vajra-simile samādhi; for the unshakable lineage, the dharma that is not broken. The particle of interrogation too forms a system — Xuanzang has “on what ground,” Paramārtha “how is it.”

Two instances where the two ways of translating part most visibly. The first is the gloss upon “one-interval”: Xuanzang glosses “interval” as an intervening interval, speaking from the interval of time; Paramārtha glosses it as “the sense of obstruction,” speaking from what is obstructed. One and the same character, two angles of glossing, while the fact pointed at is the same (one birth still remaining unspent). The second is the seven destinies of good men: Xuanzang has “destinies of good men,” Paramārtha “the practice of the worthy and the noble” — this is the most pervasive divergence of technical rendering in the fascicle, the two translations having nothing whatever in common here.

The names of the five grades of the Pure Abodes: the two translations differ wholly while corresponding in order. Xuanzang has low, middle, high-high, surpassing-high, and utmost; Paramārtha has soft, middle, high, high-middle, and high-high. The correspondence stage by stage is: Xuanzang’s third, “high-high,” to Paramārtha’s third, “high”; Xuanzang’s fourth, “surpassing-high,” to Paramārtha’s fourth, “high-middle”; Xuanzang’s fifth, “utmost,” to Paramārtha’s fifth, “high-high.” The opening and gathering are nearly the same while the systems of rendering-characters are far apart; both are recorded and left standing, and what they rest upon is not forced to an explanation.

One structural divergence of opening and gathering. For that dispute over the acquisitions of release from bondage, Xuanzang gathers it under one and a half lines of stanza, “a noble one by the two paths freed from the eight abandoned by cultivation, each two acquisitions of release from bondage,” and puts the whole exchange from “the explanation of some other masters” onward into the prose commentary; Paramārtha, on the other hand, works this dispute into the verse itself, in four passages of verse explained line by line. One and the same dispute, the one placing it in the prose and the other upon the face of the verse — this is not a divergence of doctrine but a divergence of the form of translating. Recorded without adjudication.

The three names of the modes of apprehension of the mundane path differ wholly in the two translations. Xuanzang has coarseness, suffering, and obstruction, and calm, sublimity, and escape; Paramārtha has coarse heaviness, oppression, and the thick wall, and quiescence, beauty, and going forth. What is interesting is “the thick wall” — Xuanzang puts it into the simile in the prose commentary (“as the thick wall of a prison can obstruct going out”), while Paramārtha takes “the thick wall” outright for the name of the mode of apprehension. One and the same image, taken by the one as a simile and by the other as a name.

Two ways of taking the name of the nature of the ascetic life. Xuanzang takes the rendering by sense, giving the nature of the ascetic life and the fruits of the ascetic life; Paramārtha keeps the transcription, having throughout the transcribed term and the fruit of the transcribed term. As for the number eighty-nine, Xuanzang says eighty-nine outright while Paramārtha has “ninety less one” — what is pointed at is the same and the manner of stating it differs. So too with the Buddha’s name Brahmā: Xuanzang renders by sense, and Paramārtha keeps the transcription.

One and the same person designated differently in the two translations. For the one who speaks of “spokes and the rest,” Xuanzang has “the Venerable Ghoṣa,” Paramārtha “the Bhadanta Qusha.” This fascicle matches them directly by the structure of the scene, recording without adjudication.

The alignment of the section on the path that frees from defilement. The section on the path that frees from defilement (the summit of existence freed by the path without outflows alone, the acquisitions of release from bondage, the path of access concentration, liberation at the neighboring stage, the modes of apprehension of the mundane path) begins in Paramārtha’s text at the head of his fascicle eighteen, opening with “by what path does one in training become free of craving,” and its verses correspond one by one with Xuanzang’s Roots 47 through 50 — the page anchors of each item are in item nine of this unit’s apparatus.

4. Coordinates for Parallel Reading

What this fascicle establishes is a graduated scale from family-to-family up to the arhat, and the entity given in the one sentence “the several paths without outflows are the nature of the ascetic life.” Both of these have passages in the Yogācāra lineage that may be read alongside them word for word.

The simile of the three sparks, brought out in that lineage and abridged in this. This fascicle says that attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval divides into three, “as displayed by the simile of the three sparks,” while the simile itself the text of the treatise abridges. The root treatise of the Yogācāra lineage gives the similes one by one for the same dharma — the first kind like the tiny spark of a small splinter of fire that perishes as soon as it is raised; the second like the stream of sparks from an iron ingot hammered white-hot, which is extinguished before it falls; the third like the stream of sparks from that hot iron beaten, which perishes before it reaches the ground. Three similes fastening upon three speeds, exactly the passage this fascicle leaves out. The definition of one-interval also agrees fully in the two systems.

The vajra-like concentration: the same name hung upon a different outline. This fascicle hangs the vajra-like concentration at the end of the approach to arhatship (the uninterrupted path abandoning the ninth grade of defilement at the summit of existence). The root treatise of the Yogācāra lineage, on the other hand, hangs it upon the mark of the completion of “cultivating the path as it has been obtained,” saying that because the vajra-like concentration of one in training reaches finality, his cultivation is completed. One and the same name of a concentration, the one marking what it abandons and the other what it completes.

The arhat and the casting off of the name of the store-consciousness. This fascicle has the vajra-like concentration draw forth the knowledge of exhaustion and so complete one beyond training. The Consciousness-Only lineage uses the same concentration as the boundary at which the eighth consciousness casts off the name ālaya — saying that it is finally cast off at the stage of the arhat, and widening for itself what it takes in, stating expressly that the arhat here spoken of takes in the fruit-stages beyond training of all three vehicles; and as for the defilements associated with manas, it says that when the vajra-like concentration is present their seeds are abandoned all at once and one becomes an arhat. ⇒ The standard that “the vajra-like concentration is the last abandoning” is unaltered in the two systems; the entity abandoned, however, differs — this fascicle hangs it upon the ninth grade of defilement at the summit of existence, and Consciousness-Only upon the seeds of the obstruction of the defilements and the defilements associated with manas. And the extension of the one name “arhat” differs too: this fascicle speaks of it only as the fruit of the śrāvaka, while Consciousness-Only states expressly that it takes in all three vehicles. One and the same name, one and the same knife, and what the two ages cut is different — this is the place in this fascicle most open to parallel reading.

As for the direction in which they are to be taken up, what each of the two systems establishes is recorded word for word only, and no reconciliation is made on their behalf.