俱舍論 白話全本 · 冊6Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Complete Vernacular · Vol. 6

〔Root 1〕The Nature of the Entity of the Path — the Path of Seeing Is without Outflows Alone, the Path of Cultivation Extends to Both, with Outflows and Without

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): As has been said above, the abandoning of the afflictions and the rest obtains the name “full comprehension” at nine excellent stages (full comprehension = knowing all round; here it names the nine fruits of realization obtained in abandoning the afflictions). Yet abandoning must be obtained by the force of the path; what, then, is the mark of this path upon which it depends? The stanza says:

Stanza: It has been said above that the abandoning of the afflictions is by reason of the path of seeing the truths and the path of cultivation. Of these two paths, the path of seeing is without outflows alone (without outflows = that portion which no longer leaks away into birth and death and is not associated with the afflictions), while the path of cultivation extends to both, with outflows and without.

Treatise: It was explained at length above that the abandoning of the several afflictions is by reason of the path of seeing the truths and the path of cultivation. It must then be asked: is the path without outflows alone, or does it extend to what has outflows as well? Answer: the path of seeing should be known to be without outflows alone, while the path of cultivation extends to both, with outflows and without.

Why is the division made so? Because the path of seeing can quickly counteract the three realms (the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm being counteracted all together), and can moreover cut off the nine grades of the afflictions abandoned by seeing all at once in a single moment; a mundane path with outflows has no such capacity, and so at the stage of the path of seeing the path is without outflows alone. With the path of cultivation the case is otherwise, and so it extends to both, with outflows and without.

〔Root 2〕The Four Truths That the Path Realizes — the Names and Entities Already Stated, the Order Established according to Direct Realization

Treatise (transition): Since it has just been said “by reason of seeing the truths,” what then is the mark of this “truth” that is seen? The stanza says:

Stanza: The names of the four truths have already been stated above, namely suffering, origin, cessation, and the path; their entities also are still as they were analyzed there; and as for their order, it is arranged according to the priority and posteriority of direct realization (direct realization = the correct awakened seeing, present and according to reality).

Treatise: The truths are of four kinds, and this name has already been stated above. Where was it stated? In the first chapter, the Chapter on the Elements, at the place where dharmas with and without outflows were analyzed. And how was it stated there? By what the stanza there says: “what is without outflows is the noble path,” which states the truth of the path; “cessation through discernment is release from bondage,” which states the truth of cessation; “and suffering and origin and the world,” which states the truths of suffering and of origin.

Question: is the order of the four truths the same as what was stated there? Answer: it is not. Question: how then? Answer: just as it is now set out — first suffering, second origin, third cessation, fourth the path.

Question: are the entities of the four truths also different? Answer: they are not different. Question: how then? Answer: just as they were analyzed above. And in order to show that the entities are the same as there, the stanza uses the two words “likewise so.”

Question: why are the four truths in this order? Answer: they are spoken of according to the priority and posteriority of the stages of direct realization — what is observed first in direct realization is stated first. Were they not arranged so, it would come about that the cause (origin) were stated first and the result (suffering) after.

Here the author settles in passing a point of form: the order in which some dharmas are stated follows the priority and posteriority of their arising (as with the four foundations of mindfulness), and the order in which some are stated follows merely the convenience of the writing (as with the four right exertions) — for in the case of the four right exertions there is no fixed principle requiring that one must first cut off the evil already arisen and afterwards block the evil not yet arisen; that is merely following the run of the words. But the four truths as now stated are arranged according to the priority and posteriority in the stages of direct realization of the yogins (yogins = persons who cultivate in accord).

Question: why must the order of direct realization be just this? Answer: because it is thus that one contemplates in the preparatory stage (preparation = the preliminary work before formally entering the path of seeing).

Question: why must one contemplate thus in the preparatory stage? Answer: if there be a dharma that is a place to which clinging attachment is bound, and that can moreover work oppression, and is the reason we seek release, then that dharma ought in principle to be observed first. And so the practitioner in the preparatory stage observes suffering first, and suffering is the truth of suffering; next he observes what suffering has for its cause, and so observes the cause of suffering, and the cause is the truth of origin; next he observes what suffering has for its cessation, and so observes the cessation of suffering, and the cessation is the truth of cessation; and last he observes by what path the cessation of suffering is to be reached, and so observes the path to that cessation, and the path is the truth of the path.

It is like a man who first sees the sickness, next seeks out the cause of the sickness, then considers how the sickness is to be cured, and only last seeks the good medicine. The sūtras too have spoken a simile for the order of the four truths — and which sūtra states it? The Sūtra of the Good Physician. As that sūtra says: he who is called a king of physicians is one complete in four qualities and able to draw out the poisoned arrow — first, he knows well the state of the sickness; second, he knows well the cause of the sickness; third, he knows well the curing of the sickness; fourth, he knows well the good medicine. The Tathāgata too is thus, acting as the great king of physicians, and knows according to reality suffering, origin, cessation, and the path. Therefore in the preparatory stage one observes in this order, and the order in the stage of direct realization is likewise the same, since direct realization is drawn forth by the force of the preparation — as ground already looked over may be galloped across without confusion.

Question: what sense does the name “direct realization” point to? Answer: it should be known to point to the sense of “awakening to what is present just as it is” (awakening here and now according to reality).

Question: why is direct realization said to be without outflows alone? Answer: because it faces toward nirvāṇa and correctly awakens to its object; and this awakening is true and moreover pure, and so obtains the name “correct.”

It should further be known: among the four truths, that portion of the appropriated aggregates which belongs to the result is called the truth of suffering, and that portion which belongs to the cause is called the truth of origin — because it can gather suffering together. Since suffering and origin are only a division upon the natures of cause and result, the names are two while the thing pointed to is not two. But the things pointed to by the truths of cessation and of the path are indeed distinct.

Question: why do the sūtras call these four “noble truths”? Answer: because they are the truths of the noble ones, and so obtain the name “noble.”

Question: then for those who are not noble, do these four not turn out to be false? Answer: no — for all persons they are truths, since their nature is without inversion. It is only that the noble ones alone can truly see them, while the rest do not, and so the sūtras call them noble truths only. It is not that for the non-noble they are not truths; it is that these look upon them with an inverted view. As a stanza says: what the noble ones call pleasure, the non-noble call suffering; what the noble ones call suffering, the non-noble call pleasure.

〔Root 3〕How the Truth of Suffering Is Established — All the Formations with Outflows Are Suffering by Conjunction with the Three Kinds of Suffering

Treatise (an objection posed): Some other masters say: among the four truths only two (the truth of cessation and the truth of the path) are noble truths alone, while the remaining two (the truth of suffering and the truth of origin) extend both to the noble and the non-noble; and moreover only one portion, “feeling,” is the entity of suffering, and the rest are not. If that be so, how can it be said that all the formations with outflows are the truth of suffering? The stanza says:

Stanza: Suffering is spoken of by conjunction with the three kinds of suffering, taking in everything as it severally applies; the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the remaining formations with outflows besides are all included therein.

Treatise: Suffering-nature is of three kinds — first the nature of the suffering of suffering, second the nature of the suffering of the formations, third the nature of the suffering of change. All the formations with outflows conjoin, as it severally applies, with these three suffering-natures, and so it is said that they are all the truth of suffering; and to say so is without fault.

Within this, whatever formations with outflows are agreeable (fitting and lovable) are called suffering because they conjoin with the “suffering of change” (a pleasant object becomes suffering when it perishes); whatever formations with outflows are disagreeable (not fitting) are called suffering because they conjoin with the “suffering of suffering” (suffering laid upon suffering); and the remaining formations with outflows besides these are called suffering because they conjoin with the “suffering of the formations” (flowing on without staying, they are of themselves oppression).

Question: what is meant by “agreeable, disagreeable, and the rest”? Answer: it is the three feelings, pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant, in that order; and it is by the force of these three feelings that the several formations with outflows which conform to pleasant feeling and the rest obtain the names “agreeable” and so on.

Why is it said so? Because pleasant feeling comes to be of suffering-nature by “change” — as the sūtra says: pleasant feeling when it arises is pleasant, while it abides is pleasant, and when it perishes is painful. Painful feeling comes to be of suffering-nature by its “entity” — as the sūtra says: painful feeling when it arises is painful, and while it abides is painful. Feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant comes to be of suffering-nature by “the formations,” since it is made by many conditions — as the sūtra says: whatever is impermanent is suffering. As it is with feeling, so it is with the several formations that conform to those feelings.

Some other masters explain it thus: suffering is itself of suffering-nature, and so is called the nature of the suffering of suffering; and pushing on in the same way, the formations are themselves of suffering-nature, and so are called the nature of the suffering of the formations.

It should be known that the reason the agreeable and the disagreeable are here apportioned severally to the suffering of change and the suffering of suffering is that each of them has a portion not shared with the others (the side in each that is most evident). Spoken according to the true principle, all the formations come to be suffering by reason of “the suffering of the formations” — and this layer only the noble ones can observe and see. Therefore a stanza says:

Quoted stanza: It is as when an eyelash is set upon the palm of the hand and a man feels nothing at all; but if it be set upon the eyeball it becomes harm and moreover unease. The fool is like that palm and does not feel the eyelash that is the suffering of the formations; the wise man is like that eyeball, and at one touch there arises the deepest revulsion and dread.

Treatise: For the fear of suffering that arises in a fool while he undergoes the aggregates of fierce suffering in the Avīci hell does not come up to that portion of revulsion which is in the host of the noble ones before the aggregates of the summit of existence (the five aggregates of the highest level of the three realms).

Question: then the truth of the path too ought to be taken in by the suffering of the formations, since it also is of conditioned nature. Answer: the truth of the path is not suffering — “going against the mind of the noble ones” is the mark of the suffering of the formations, and when the noble path arises it does not go against the mind of the noble ones, since it is precisely what draws forth the exhaustion of all sufferings.

As for one who observes all that is conditioned and takes nirvāṇa for peace, he too first sees that those dharmas are suffering and only afterwards observes the cessation of those dharmas as peace; and so the two words “conditioned” are used here only to bring out that portion which has outflows.

Question: if it be granted that among dharmas there is pleasure as well, why is suffering alone said to be a noble truth? The explanation of one class of masters is: because pleasure is too little. It is as when a few mung beans are put into a heap of black beans: the little goes with the much, and the whole is called a heap of black beans. What man of discernment, for the sliver of pleasure there is in pouring water upon a poisoned sore, would take the poisoned sore for pleasure? Another class of masters explains it by a stanza:

Quoted stanza: Because it can be a cause of suffering and can gather sufferings together, and because one who has suffering still longs for it, therefore “pleasure” too is called suffering.

〔The Long Prose Passage Following Root 3 · Part One〕The Dispute over the Nonexistence of Real Pleasure — Whether Pleasant Feeling Really Exists

Treatise (the author explains for himself): Spoken according to the true principle it should be said: the noble ones observe that all “existence” (birth and death in the three existences) and all pleasure are in entity suffering, since with respect to “the suffering of the formations” they are of one taste; and by this suffering is established as a truth and pleasure is not.

Question: how is even pleasant feeling observed as suffering? Answer: because it is impermanent in nature and goes against the mind of the noble ones. This is like observing form and the rest by the mode of apprehension of suffering, where that “mark of suffering” is not altogether the same as the suffering of painful feeling.

Someone says: pleasant feeling is a cause of suffering, and so the noble ones too observe it as suffering. The author adjudges this explanation unreasonable — to be able to act as a cause of suffering is the mode of apprehension of “origin,” and what has that to do with “suffering”? Besides, if the noble ones be born in the form or formless realm, how should the idea of suffering arise when they take the dharmas there as object? The aggregates there are not causes of painful feeling. Moreover the sūtras speak separately of “the suffering of the formations”; and if it were as he says, what use would be left for the item of the suffering of the formations?

A further question: if it is by “impermanence” that pleasure is observed as suffering, then what difference is there between the two modes of apprehension, “impermanent” and “suffering”? Answer: because they are dharmas of arising and perishing, they are observed as impermanent; because they go against the mind of the noble ones, they are observed as suffering. And merely by seeing impermanence one can know that a thing goes against the mind of the noble ones, and so the mode of impermanence can draw forth the mode of suffering.

〔i〕The other school establishes its position (the Sautrāntika and Mahāsāṃghika line · a divergent account set out): Some masters of another school maintain thus: there is definitely no real pleasure; feeling is suffering alone.

〔ii〕The school puts its own question and answers it (the question posed by that school itself): How is this known? It is known by teaching and by principle.

〔iii〕That school adduces three sūtras as its proof from teaching: How is it known by teaching? As the World-Honored One says: of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering. And again the sūtra says: you should observe pleasant feeling with suffering. And again the sūtra says: to take suffering for pleasure is called inversion.

〔iv〕That school takes principle as its proof: How is it known by principle? Because all the causes of pleasure are indeterminate. That is to say: clothing, food, cold and warmth, and such things are commonly granted by sentient beings to be causes of pleasure; yet if these things be used at the wrong time or beyond measure, they can produce suffering and so become causes of suffering instead, and ought not to be called causes of pleasure. At a stage of increase, or even where the measure is even, merely because it is unseasonable they become causes of suffering and produce suffering. Hence it may be known that clothing and the rest were causes of suffering all along, and only when the suffering grows strong does their true character show. And with the shifting of the modes of deportment (walking, standing, sitting, lying) the principle should be the same.

〔v〕That school opens two further sections: Moreover, it is just when suffering is being counteracted that the sense of pleasure arises; and it is just when suffering is being slightly exchanged off that the sense of pleasure is born. That is to say: so long as one has not yet been pressed by the sufferings of hunger, thirst, cold, heat, weariness, and desire, a man does not give rise to the sense of pleasure in those so-called causes of pleasure. Therefore in whatever can counteract a heavy suffering the fool falsely reckons that it is able to produce pleasure, when in fact there is no cause that determinately produces pleasure. And in the exchanging off of suffering the fool takes it for pleasure — as a man carrying a heavy load shifts it for a moment from one shoulder to the other. Therefore feeling is suffering alone, and there is definitely no real pleasure.

〔vi〕The author brings out and displays the position of the Sarvāstivādins: The masters of Abhidharma (the Sarvāstivāda line which this treatise follows) say that pleasure really exists, and this saying is reasonable.

〔vii〕The author presses back against that school in three rounds: How is it known? Let us first press back with a question: having struck out pleasure, what will you call suffering? First round — if you say that oppression is suffering, then since there is gratification too, pleasure should be established; second round — if you say that harm is suffering, then since there is benefit too, pleasure should be established; third round — if you say that the unloved is suffering, then since there is the lovable too, pleasure should be established.

〔viii〕That school’s defense: Suppose it be said that the entity of the lovable is not real, since when the noble ones are separated from defilement what was lovable becomes unlovable instead.

〔ix〕The Sarvāstivādins refute that defense: It is not so. That a lovable dharma becomes unlovable when the noble ones are separated from defilement is by their observing it through another gate. That is to say: if there be a feeling whose intrinsic mark is lovable, that feeling has never become unlovable. Yet when the noble ones are separated from defilement, they grow weary of that feeling by other modes of apprehension — that is, they observe that feeling to be a place of heedlessness, to be accomplished only by vast effort, and to be alterable and impermanent, and so call it unlovable; it is not that its intrinsic mark is a dharma that is unloved. Were its own entity unlovable from the first, then no one ought to have given rise to love for it; and if no love arose at all, then the noble ones on being separated from defilement would have no need to take up other modes of apprehension to observe pleasant feeling and grow deeply weary of it. Therefore, spoken from the side of the intrinsic mark, there really is a real pleasant feeling.

〔x〕The Sarvāstivādins explain through the first sūtra adduced by that school: As for the World-Honored One’s saying that “of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering,” the Buddha himself has already explained it through. As the sūtra says: the Buddha told Ānanda: it is in dependence upon all formations being impermanent, and all that is conditioned being alterable, that I spoke thus with that sense implicit. Hence it may be known that this sūtra did not speak thus with respect to the single sense of “the suffering of suffering.”

Moreover, if it were with respect to their intrinsic marks that all feelings were said to be suffering, why should Ānanda have needed to put the question: the Buddha in another sūtra speaks of three feelings — pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and feeling that is neither painful nor pleasant — with what implicit sense does this sūtra then say that of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering? Ānanda ought only to have asked thus: with what implicit sense are three feelings spoken of? And the World-Honored One ought only to have answered thus: it is with this implicit sense that I speak of three feelings. Since the sūtra has no such question and answer, one may see that with respect to their intrinsic marks there really are three feelings. And since the World-Honored One said “it is with an implicit sense that I say of all the feelings there are, not one is not suffering,” he has already shown that what this sūtra states is spoken in dependence upon another sense and is not the truly definitive meaning.

Again the sūtra says “you should observe pleasant feeling with suffering,” and it should be known that the purport of this sūtra is to show that pleasant feeling has two natures: first it has the nature of pleasure — by the one gate of its intrinsic mark it is lovable; second it has the nature of suffering — in dependence upon another gate it is also a dharma impermanent and alterable. Yet observing it as pleasure is able to become bondage, and one who is greedily attached is relishing just this savor; observing it as suffering is able to bring release, and one who observes thus comes to be free of greed. And because observing suffering can bring release, the Buddha exhorts sentient beings to observe pleasure as suffering.

Question: how is it known that its intrinsic mark is pleasure? As a stanza says:

Quoted stanza: The Buddhas correctly and universally awake to it that all formations are impermanent and all that is conditioned is alterable, and therefore say that the feelings are suffering.

〔The Long Prose Passage Following Root 3 · Part Two〕Explaining Through the Third Sūtra · Refuting the Proof from Principle · Establishing That Pleasant Feeling Really Exists

Treatise: Again the sūtra says “to take suffering for pleasure is called inversion,” and this too is spoken in dependence upon another sense: because worldly men, amid the several pleasant feelings, the objects of fine desire, and that portion of pleasure there is in the several existences, reckon them as pleasure without qualification, and so fall into inversion. It should be known that the several pleasant feelings, spoken of by another gate, have the nature of suffering as well, and yet the world observes them as pleasure without qualification, and so falls into inversion; the objects of fine desire are little in pleasure and much in suffering, and the world observes them only as pleasure, and so falls into inversion; and with the three existences it is likewise. Therefore this sūtra cannot establish that pleasant feeling is not real.

Question: if the intrinsic marks of feeling were really all suffering, what profit is there in the Buddha’s speaking of three feelings? And to say that the World-Honored One spoke in conformity with worldly convention is not correct principle — for the World-Honored One said of himself, “it is with an implicit sense that I say of the feelings there is none that is not suffering.”

Moreover, when the Buddha observed the five feelings he spoke words according to reality. As the sūtra says: whatever faculty of pleasure there is and whatever faculty of gladness there is, these two should be known to be pleasant feeling, and so on at length; and again he says thus: if with correct discernment one observes these five faculties according to reality, the three fetters are forever cut off, and so on at length.

Again, how should the Buddha, upon one painful feeling, have followed worldly convention and analyzed it into three? And if it be said that worldly men give rise to the three senses of pleasure and the rest upon low, middling, and high sufferings in that order, and that the Buddha followed them in speaking of the three feelings of pleasure and the rest — this principle too is wrong. For pleasure also has three grades, and in that case there ought to arise upon low suffering and the other two only the sense of high pleasure.

Again, when a man undergoes the pleasure born of excellent scent, taste, touch, and the rest, what low suffering is there in it, that worldly men should give rise therein to the sense of pleasant feeling? And if it be granted that there is a low suffering at that time, then, that low suffering having ceased and not arisen again, worldly men at that moment ought to have the sense of the utmost pleasure — since at this stage all the sufferings are wholly absent. And as for undergoing the pleasure of desire, the same may be pressed in the same way.

Again, when a feeling of the low grade is present it ought in principle to be distinct, keen, and apprehensible; and when a feeling of the middling grade is present the opposite of this is the case — how is that to be made out?

Again, the lower three meditative absorptions are said to have pleasure, and in that case they ought to have low suffering; and the levels above are said to have equanimity, and in that case they ought to have middling suffering. That suffering should increase the more excellent the absorption grows — where is the reason in that? Therefore one ought not, in dependence upon low, middling, and high suffering, to establish the three feelings of pleasure and the rest in that order.

Again the sūtra says: the Buddha told Mahānāman: if form were suffering without qualification and not pleasure and not attended by pleasure, and so on at length. Hence it may be known that there is definitely some portion of real pleasure.

Thus the proofs from teaching adduced by that school do not establish the showing that there is no real pleasure; and the proofs from principle they set up do not amount to proof either.

To take first their item that “all the causes of pleasure are indeterminate” — this is not correct principle, for they have mistaken the sense of “cause.” It should be known: it is by being observed together with the differences of stage of the support (body and mind) that an outer object comes to be a cause of pleasure or a cause of suffering; it is not by the outer object alone. If this object at this stage of this support can act as a cause of pleasure, then it has never in such a case failed to act as a cause of pleasure — and so a cause of pleasure is not indeterminate. It is as with the fire of the world, which by being observed together with the differences of stage of what is boiled and roasted comes to be a cause of cooking or, on the contrary, a cause of spoiling, and not by that fire alone. If this fire at this stage of what is boiled is a cause of cooking, then it has never in such a case failed to be a cause of cooking — and so a cause of cooking is not indeterminate. With causes of pleasure it is likewise, and the principle of their being determinate is established.

Moreover, is the cause of pleasure within the third meditative absorption indeterminate? That cause has not at any time been able to produce suffering.

Next, as to their saying that “the sense of pleasure arises only when suffering is being counteracted,” this has been refuted above: when a man undergoes the pleasure born of excellent scent, taste, touch, and the rest, what suffering is being counteracted, that worldly men should give rise therein to the sense of pleasure? And even granting that at that time a coarse and heavy suffering is being counteracted, then, that suffering which is counteracted having ceased and not arisen again, there ought at that moment to arise the sense of the utmost pleasure instead. Again, what suffering is being counteracted, that the pleasure of the meditative absorptions arises? Refutations of this kind may be spoken by comparison with what precedes.

Again, as to their saying that “the sense of pleasure is born only in the exchanging off of suffering, as in shifting a load” — in truth it is the stage of this body itself that can produce pleasure: right up until this stage of the body has not yet perished there must be pleasure arising, and once it has perished it is not so. Were it not thus, then the latter part of this stage ought to have pleasure ever increasing, since the suffering grows gradually slight. And the producing of pleasure and the easing of weariness by exchanging off the four modes of deportment of the body should be understood in the same way.

Again, if there had been no suffering beforehand, why at the last moment should a sense of suffering suddenly arise? It is by reason of the body altering and the stages differing — as after wine and the like have been drunk a sweet or a sour savor arises. Therefore the principle that pleasant feeling really exists is established.

Hence it is determinately known: the several formations with outflows are all called suffering, as it severally applies, because they conjoin with the three kinds of suffering.

〔The Long Prose Passage Following Root 3 · Continued〕The Entity of Suffering Is Also the Truth of Origin — Explaining Through the Sūtra’s Saying That Craving Is Origin

Treatise (an objection posed): If it be said that the entity of the formations of suffering is at the same time called the truth of origin, this account must transgress the sūtra, for the sūtra says only that “craving” is origin.

Answer: The sūtra speaks of craving as origin with respect to an excellent portion; spoken according to the true principle, the remaining dharmas are the truth of origin as well.

Question: by what is this principle known? Answer: because other sūtras state the remaining dharmas as well. As the Bhagavat (the World-Honored One) says in a gāthā (a stanza):

Quoted stanza: Action, craving, and ignorance, being causes, summon the formations of a further existence, and make the several existences continue on; and this is called a pudgala (the “person” who comes and goes and takes birth again and again).

Treatise: Again the sūtra speaks of “the five kinds of seed,” which is to state under another name “consciousness together with appropriation”; and that sūtra says “placed within the element of earth,” which is to state under another name “the four stations of consciousness.” Therefore what the sūtras state is speech with an implicit sense, while Abhidharma speaks according to the marks of dharmas.

Yet the sūtra’s saying that craving is origin is spoken with a partiality toward the side of “the cause of setting going”; while the gāthā’s saying that action, craving, and ignorance are all causes is a complete statement of “production” and “setting going” together with the causes of those two.

Question: how is this known? Answer: that action is the cause of production and craving the cause of setting going is what the sūtra states; and moreover that sūtra shows in order that the formations of a further existence have a cause, have a condition, and have a source. And it is in order to establish the distinction of seed and field that it speaks of “consciousness together with appropriation” and “the four stations of consciousness” — and so it is not craving alone that is the entity of the truth of origin.

Question: what dharma is called “production”? What dharma is called “setting going”? Answer: the appearing of an entity with the differences of class such as realm, destiny, and mode of birth is called production; and the continuing on of a further existence without such differences is called setting going. Action and the craving for existence are the causes of these two in that order. It is as a seed is the productive cause of the sprouts of the several particular kinds of grain and wheat and the rest, while water is the setting-going cause of every sprout without distinction; and action and the craving for existence as cause of production and cause of setting going should be understood in the same way.

Question: that craving is the cause of setting going — what principle is there in proof? Answer: because apart from craving a further existence definitely does not set going. That is to say: a man who has craving and a man who has left craving both alike come to the end of life, and only in the one who has craving is a further existence seen to set going again. By this principle it is proved that craving is the cause of setting going — the setting going or not setting going of a further existence follows determinately upon craving.

Again, it is because there is craving that the continuum tends toward a further existence: it is plainly seen that wherever there is craving, the continuum of mind runs there again and again. From this it may be known by comparison that it is because there is craving that the continuum hastens toward a further existence.

Again, in the matter of appropriating a later body, there is no other dharma that binds and sticks fast as greedy craving does. It is as bean-powder, mixed with water at the bath and rubbed upon the body, sticks to the body when it has dried and is hard to get off, and nothing else is like it. In the same way there is no other dharma that can serve as the cause of appropriating a later body as the craving for self does — and by this principle it is proved that craving is the cause of setting going.

〔Root 4〕The Conventional Truth and the Ultimate Truth — the Two Similes of the Pot and the Water

Treatise (transition): Thus the World-Honored One says that the truths are of four kinds; and another sūtra says that the truths are of two kinds — first the conventional truth, second the ultimate truth. What are the marks of these two truths? The stanza says:

Stanza: The cognition of that thing is gone once it has been broken; or once the remaining components have been analyzed out with discernment, that cognition is likewise gone — such, as with the pot and the water, is the conventional truth. What differs from this is called the ultimate truth.

Treatise: If the cognition of some thing is gone once that thing has been broken, that thing should be known to be called the conventional truth. It is as when a pot is broken into shards and the cognition “pot” is gone; and with clothing and the rest it is likewise.

And again if there be a thing such that, once the remaining components have been analyzed out of it with discernment, the cognition of it is gone, that too is conventional — as when water is analyzed with discernment into visible form and the rest (the several portions of form, scent, taste, and touch) and the cognition “water” is gone; and with fire and the rest it is likewise.

Just while that thing has not yet been broken and not yet been analyzed, it is set up as that thing by the world’s idea and name — and because it is conventionally established, it is called conventional. To say in dependence upon conventional principle that there is a pot and the like is real and not false, and so it is called the conventional truth.

If some thing differs from this, it is called the ultimate truth. That is to say: the cognition of that thing is not lost even after it has been broken; and after the remaining components have been analyzed out with discernment, the cognition of it is still there — such a thing should be known to be called the ultimate truth. It is as when form and the rest are broken down to the ultimate atom, or when taste and the rest are analyzed away with superior discernment, and the cognition “form” is still constantly there; and with feeling and the rest it is likewise. This really exists, and so is called ultimate. To say in dependence upon ultimate principle that there is form and the rest is real and not false, and so it is called the ultimate truth.

Treatise (recording a divergent account): The preceptors of former times say thus: the dharmas taken as object by the knowledge that transcends the world and by the correct worldly knowledge obtained after that knowledge are called the ultimate truth; and the dharmas taken as object by the remaining knowledges besides these are called the conventional truth. (This account is recorded alongside.)

〔Root 5〕The Preparatory Practices of the Noble Path — First Abide in Pure Discipline, Then Cultivate the Three Discernments Formed through Hearing, Reflection, and Cultivation

Treatise (transition): The truths having been analyzed, it should next be said: by what means is one to apply oneself, so as to move toward the path of seeing the truths? The stanza says:

Stanza: One who is about to move toward the path of seeing the truths should abide in discipline and apply himself; what he cultivates is the three discernments formed through hearing, through reflection, and through cultivation, which take respectively the name for their object, both name and sense for their object, and the sense for their object.

Treatise: Whoever sets his mind to move toward the seeing of the truths should first abide in pure śīla (discipline), and thereafter apply himself to the discernment formed through hearing and the other two. That is to say: he first takes up the hearing that conduces to seeing the truths; having heard, he seeks diligently for the sense of the dharma he has heard; having got the sense of the dharma, he reflects upon it without inversion; and having reflected, he is able to cultivate in dependence upon concentration.

The practitioner abiding thus in discipline and applying himself, the discernment formed through reflection arises in dependence upon the discernment formed through hearing, and the discernment formed through cultivation arises in dependence upon the discernment formed through reflection.

Question: what is the difference in mark among these three discernments?

〔The adjudication of the Vaibhāṣika masters〕: The Vaibhāṣika masters say that the marks of the three discernments differ in order with respect to taking the name as object, taking both name and sense as object, and taking the sense as object — the discernment formed through hearing takes the name alone for its object, since it is not yet able to relinquish the letter and observe the sense; the discernment formed through reflection takes both name and sense for its object, sometimes drawing the sense out of the letter and sometimes drawing the letter out of the sense, since it has not yet wholly relinquished the letter to observe the sense; and the discernment formed through cultivation takes the sense alone for its object, since it is already able to relinquish the letter and observe the sense alone. It is as with a man swimming across deep and rapid water: one who has never learned will not let go of the float he depends on, one who has learned but is not accomplished now lets go and now grasps, and one who has learned well does not wait upon any support but swims across by his own strength. With the three discernments it is likewise.

〔The objection of other masters · set out by the author〕: Someone says: if that is so, the discernment formed through reflection cannot be established — for since it extends both to taking the name as object and to taking the sense as object, it should in that same order fall under what is formed through hearing and what is formed through cultivation, and where is there any place left for it of its own?

〔The explaining through〕: Now on careful examination the difference of mark among the three is without fault: what is meant is that, in the practitioner, the superior discernment born in dependence upon hearing the authoritative teaching is called formed through hearing, the superior discernment born in dependence upon reflecting upon correct principle is called formed through reflection, and the superior discernment born in dependence upon cultivating concentration is called formed through cultivation. The two words “formed through” are to show that these three superior discernments are accomplished by the three causes of hearing, reflection, and concentration; as the world says of the life of an ox and the rest that it is, in that order, formed through eating grass.

〔Roots 6–8〕The Three Causes of a Purified Bodily Vessel — Seclusion of Body and Mind · Contentment and Fewness of Desires · Abiding in the Four Noble Lineages

Treatise (transition): Those who wish to apply themselves diligently to learning in “cultivation” — how are they to purify this bodily vessel of theirs, so that their practice may be quickly accomplished? The stanza says:

Stanza: One must be complete in the seclusion of body and the seclusion of mind, and must be without “discontent” and “great desire” — and discontent and great desire mean seeking yet more of what has been obtained and longing much for what has not been obtained, these two being what the stanza calls “what one is without.” What counteracts them is contrary to them, extends to the three realms and moreover to what is without outflows, and has non-greed for its nature. The four noble lineages likewise have non-greed for their entity, and among them the first three are contentment alone. The first three are the provisions that assist the path and the fourth is the occupation that assists the path, and all are for counteracting the arising of the four cravings; and stated by another gate, they are for the temporary stilling and the permanent removal of the desire for what is mine and the desire for the matter of myself.

Treatise: The purity of the bodily vessel is in brief by three causes: which three? First, seclusion of body and mind; second, contentment and fewness of desires; third, abiding in the four noble lineages.

What is called seclusion of body is separation from confused dwelling together; what is called seclusion of mind is separation from unwholesome applied thought. For these two to be accomplished one must rely upon contentment and fewness of desires.

What is called contentment is being without “discontent”; what is called fewness of desires is being without “great desire.”

Question: what is the difference between these two that are thus struck out? The masters of Abhidharma all say thus: to seek yet more of the fine clothing and the rest that has already been obtained is called discontent; to long in many directions for the fine clothing and the rest that has not yet been obtained is called great desire.

〔The author’s objection and his establishing of another account〕: Is not “seeking yet more” likewise a taking of what has not been obtained for its object? In that case the difference between the two does not stand. Therefore it should here be said thus: to be gloomily unhappy over what has already been obtained because it is not fine and not much is called discontent; and to seek the fine and the abundant in the matter of clothing and the rest not yet obtained is called great desire. Contentment and fewness of desires are precisely what counteract these two, and so their difference may be known as the contrary of this.

Contentment and fewness of desires extend to the three realms and moreover to what is without outflows; the two they counteract are affiliated to the desire realm alone. The entity of contentment and fewness of desires is non-greed; the two they counteract have the greed of desire for their nature.

Because they can produce the host of the noble ones they are called noble lineages. The entity of the four noble lineages is likewise non-greed; and among the four, the entity of the first three is contentment alone — that is, being content with clothing, food, and bedding as they are obtained.

Question: the fourth noble lineage is called “delight in abandoning and delight in cultivating”; how does it too have non-greed for its entity? Answer: because it can cast away the greed of desire for “existence.”

Question: to show what sense are the four noble lineages established? Answer: because the disciples have forsaken the worldly provisions of life and the worldly occupation, and have gone forth in taking refuge with the Buddha in quest of release. The World-Honored One, master of the Dharma, in pity for them established two things: first the provisions, second the occupation. The first three noble lineages are the provisions that assist the path, and the last one is the occupation that assists the path. If you can do the latter occupation in dependence upon the former provisions, release is not far off.

Question: why are these two things established? Answer: it is for counteracting the arising of the four cravings. Therefore the sūtra says: bhikṣus, listen well! The craving that has clothing for its cause arises when it is to arise, abides when it is to abide, and clings when it is to cling; and of the cravings that have food and bedding, and existence and nonexistence, for their causes, it is said in the same way. It is for counteracting these four that the four noble lineages are spoken of.

Following this same sense and shifting to another gate, it may be said: the Buddha spoke the four noble lineages in order to still temporarily and to remove permanently “the desire for what is mine” and “the desire for the matter of myself.” What is called the matter of what is mine is clothing and the rest; what is called the matter of myself is one’s own body; and the greed that takes them as object is called desire. It is for the temporary stilling of the first three greeds that the first three noble lineages are spoken of; and it is for the permanent extinguishing of all four greeds that the fourth noble lineage is spoken of.

〔Root 9〕The Two Gates for Entering Cultivation — the Contemplation of Impurity and Mindfulness That Holds the Breath

Treatise (transition): Thus the bodily vessel upon which cultivation depends has been spoken of; by which gate, then, is one properly to enter cultivation? The stanza says:

Stanza: The essential gates for entering cultivation are two, namely the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness that holds the breath; one in whom greed is dominant and one in whom applied thought is dominant should cultivate them, each his own, in that order.

Treatise: Of the gates for properly entering cultivation the essential ones are two — first the contemplation of impurity, second mindfulness that holds the breath.

Question: who properly enters cultivation by which gate? Answer: it should be known in that order. One in whom greed is dominant, that is, one in whom greed is fierce and repeatedly manifest, such a sentient being is called a practitioner of greed, and by observing the impure he can properly enter cultivation; one whose applied thought is much and whose mind is scattered is called a practitioner of applied thought, and in dependence upon mindfulness that holds the breath he can properly enter cultivation.

〔Two accounts recorded together〕: Some other masters say: because mindfulness that holds the breath has not many objects, it can settle scattered applied thought; while the contemplation of impurity has objects in abundance, and the manifold differences of color and shape draw forth yet more applied thought, and so it cannot counteract it. And yet other masters say: mindfulness that holds the breath turns upon the inner gate and so can settle scattered applied thought; while the contemplation of impurity turns for the most part upon the outer gate, like eye-consciousness, and so cannot counteract it.

〔Root 10 · Root 11〕The Contemplation of Impurity — the Contemplation of the Chain of Bones That Counteracts All Four Greeds, and the Three Stages of Its Cultivation

Treatise (transition): Here the contemplation of impurity should first be made out. What is the mark of such a contemplation? The stanza says:

Stanza: In order to counteract the four greeds alike, let the contemplation of the chain of bones be made out first. Extending from a single one as far as the ocean for its bound, and then drawing back again — this is called the stage of first taking up the work. From the removal of the foot bones on to the removal of half the skull — this is called the stage of practice matured. Fastening the mind between the brows — this is called the stage of surpassing attention.

Treatise: The contemplation of impurity is cultivated precisely for counteracting greed. Now the differences of greed are in brief of four kinds: first greed for color (coveting hue), second greed for shape (coveting figure), third greed for fine touch (coveting the feel), fourth greed for attendance (coveting the other’s bearing and service). To cultivate the contemplation of impurity taking the discolored corpse and the like as object counteracts the first greed; taking the devoured corpse and the like as object counteracts the second greed; taking worms and maggots and the like as object counteracts the third greed; taking the motionless corpse as object counteracts the fourth greed.

If one cultivates the contemplation of impurity taking the chain of bones as object (the joints of the bones linked together like a chain), one can counteract all four of these greeds alike — because within the chain of bones there is no object of those four greeds. Therefore the cultivating of the contemplation of the chain of bones should be made out first.

Since this contemplation is taken in by attention through resolve alone (a contemplation of imagining), and since it takes only a portion for its object, it does not cut off the afflictions, but can only suppress them and keep them from being manifest.

Now the yogin cultivating the contemplation of the chain of bones has in all three stages: first, first taking up the work; second, practice matured; third, surpassing attention.

That is to say: when the practitioner of contemplation would cultivate such a contemplation of impurity, he should first fasten his mind upon one part of his own body — a toe, or the forehead, or some other part, wherever he himself likes; and the mind having settled, he reflects by the force of resolve, imagining upon that part of his own body, that skin and flesh rot and fall away and that the bones are gradually made clean, until he observes the chain of bones of the whole body complete.

Having seen a single one, he observes a second, and thus gradually extends — a room, a monastery, a park, a village, a kingdom, until the whole earth is filled to the ocean for its bound, and chains of bones fill it throughout, in order that resolve may be increased.

Then upon what has been extended he gradually draws back and observes, until he observes a single chain of bones only; and at this point the contemplation of impurity gradually drawn back is accomplished, and this is called the yogin’s stage of first taking up the work.

In order that the force of resolve in the drawn-back contemplation may grow strong, he first removes the foot bones within this single one, reflects upon the remaining bones and fastens his mind and abides; and gradually, on to removing half the skull, he reflects upon the remaining half and fastens his mind and abides. At this point the contemplation of impurity yet further drawn back is accomplished, and this is called the yogin’s stage of practice matured.

In order that the resolve of the drawn-back contemplation may become free in its use, he removes that half skull, fastens his mind between the brows, and abides limpidly upon a single object with concentration. At this point the contemplation of impurity drawn back to its utmost is accomplished, and this is called the yogin’s stage of surpassing attention.

There is a contemplation of impurity whose object is small and whose attention is not free — here a fourfold distinction should be made, since there is a difference of attention matured and unmatured, and a difference of object from one’s own body to the ocean.

〔Root 12〕The Contemplation of Impurity Analyzed through the Several Gates — Nature · Level · Object · Place · Mode of Apprehension · Time-Period · Outflows · Obtaining

Treatise (transition · eight questions): What is the nature of this contemplation of impurity? To how many levels does it extend? What object does it take? In what place is it born? What mode of apprehension has it? What time-period does it take as object? Is it with outflows or without? Is it obtained upon separation from defilement or obtained through preparatory effort? The stanza says:

Stanza: It has non-greed for its nature and extends to ten levels; it takes the visible form of the desire realm for its object and is born in the human destiny alone; it has the mode of apprehension of impurity and takes its own time-period for object; it is with outflows, and extends to the two, being obtained upon separation from defilement and obtained through preparatory effort.

Treatise: As was asked above, the answers are now given in order.

This contemplation has non-greed for the nature of its entity and extends to ten levels — namely the four meditative absorptions, the four access stages, the intermediate meditative absorption, and the desire realm.

It takes for its object the visible form of the desire realm alone. Question: what is it that is seen? Answer: it is color and shape. That it takes the “sense” for its object is by this already established.

It is cultivated only by one born in the human destiny, and among the three continents excluding the northern; the other destinies cannot even so much, much less those born in the other two realms.

Since the name “impurity” has been established for it, it has the mode of apprehension of impurity alone.

In whatever time-period it is, it takes the object of that same time-period; and if it be a dharma that will not arise, it takes all three time-periods for object.

Since it is associated with attention through resolve alone, this contemplation should in principle be with outflows alone.

It extends to the two, being obtained upon separation from defilement and obtained through preparatory effort, since there is a difference between what has once been obtained and what has not once been obtained.

〔Root 13〕Mindfulness That Holds the Breath — Nature · Five Levels · Object · Support · The Two Obtainings · Real Attention · The Six Causes

Treatise (transition): The differences of mark of the contemplation of impurity having been stated, mindfulness that holds the breath should next be made out. What is its difference of mark? The stanza says:

Stanza: Mindfulness of the breath has discernment for its entity and extends to five levels; it takes the wind for its object and arises in dependence upon a body of the desire realm; it extends to the two, being obtained upon separation from defilement and obtained through preparatory effort; it is associated with real attention alone and the non-Buddhists have it not; and it has six differences, namely the six matters of counting and the rest.

Treatise: What is called mindfulness of the breath is the mindfulness of āna and apāna spoken of in the sūtras. What is called āna is the holding of the breath in, meaning the drawing of the outer wind in so as to enter the body; and apāna is the holding of the breath out, meaning the drawing of the inner wind out so as to go beyond the body. Discernment, by the force of mindfulness, observes this as its object, and so it is called the mindfulness of āna and apāna.

Question: since it has discernment for the nature of its entity, why is it called “mindfulness”? Answer: because it is held by the force of mindfulness, the object is distinct and what is to be done is accomplished — as the four foundations of mindfulness likewise have discernment for their entity and are called foundations of mindfulness.

It extends to five levels — namely the first meditative absorption, the access stages of the second and third meditative absorptions, the intermediate meditative absorption, and the desire realm; because this mindfulness is associated with the feeling of equanimity alone. It should be known that painful feeling and pleasant feeling can conduce to drawing forth applied thought, and this mindfulness is precisely what counteracts applied thought, and so it does not arise together with them; and gladness and pleasure can go against fixity upon an object, and this mindfulness is accomplished only by fixity upon its object, and being contrary in this way it does not arise together with them either.

〔One account recorded together〕: Someone says: within the fundamental lower three meditative absorptions there is the feeling of equanimity too. On that account it would be in dependence upon eight levels; for when an absorption of the upper realms is manifest there is no longer any breath.

This concentration takes the wind for its object and arises in dependence upon a body of the desire realm. It is in the human and heavenly destinies alone, excluding the continent of Uttarakuru. It extends to the two, being obtained upon separation from defilement and obtained through preparatory effort. It is associated with real attention alone (not a contemplation of imagining). Only sentient beings within the true Dharma can cultivate it, and the non-Buddhists have it not — because they have none to expound the Dharma, and because they cannot of themselves become aware of so subtle a dharma.

For the mark of this mindfulness that holds the breath to be complete, six causes must be present: first counting, second following, third settling, fourth observing, fifth turning, sixth purifying.

First, counting: what is called counting is to fasten the mind upon the in- and out-breath as its object, to make no other preparatory effort, to let body and mind go, and by mindfulness alone to hold in mind the number of the in- and out-breaths — from one counting to ten, neither less nor more, for fear that the mind be at the moment too much gathered in or too much scattered. Yet within this there may be three faults: first the fault of counting short, taking for one what ought to be two; second the fault of counting long, taking for two what ought to be one; third the fault of confusion, taking the in-breath for the out and the out for the in. If one is free of these three faults it is called correct counting. If the mind scatter partway through the ten, one should count again in order from one; and having finished, begin once more, until concentration is obtained.

Second, following: what is called following is to fasten the mind upon the in- and out-breath as its object, to make no other preparatory effort, and to follow the course of the breath — attending to how far the in-breath and the out-breath each go. That is to say: when attending to the going in of the breath, does it course through the whole body or through one part? Following that breath as it enters, it goes to the throat, the heart, the navel, the hip, the thigh, the shin, and on to the toes, and mindfulness follows it constantly. And if one attends to the going out of the breath, it can leave the body a span or a fathom, and whichever way it goes mindfulness follows it constantly. (Some other masters say: the breath goes out exceedingly far, as far as the circle of wind or the great Vairambha wind. This account is unreasonable, since this mindfulness arises together with real attention.)

Third, settling: what is called settling is to fasten mindfulness at the tip of the nose, or between the brows, or on to the toes, and to settle the mind wherever one likes; and to observe this breath abiding within the body like a thread strung through a bead, and to see whether it is cold or warm, whether it harms or benefits.

Fourth, observing: what is called observing is, having observed this breath-wind, to observe together with it the great elements and derived form that arise along with the breath, and the mind and mental factors that abide in dependence upon form, observing the five aggregates complete as one’s object.

Fifth, turning: what is called turning is shifting — the awareness that took the breath-wind for its object is set within the ever more excellent wholesome roots that follow, and on to the stage of the highest worldly dharma.

Sixth, purifying: what is called purifying is ascending and entering the path of seeing and the rest.

〔One account recorded together〕: Some other masters say: from the four foundations of mindfulness as the first to the vajra-like concentration as the last, this stretch is called turning; and the knowledge of exhaustion and the rest are what is called purifying.

In order to gather up these six marks, a stanza is spoken:

Summarizing stanza: Mindfulness that holds the breath should be known to have six differing marks, namely the distinctions of these six, counting, following, settling, observing, turning, and purifying.

〔Root 14〕The Differences of the Mark of the Breath — Following the Body · Depending on Two · Of the Class of Sentient Beings and Unappropriated · Homogeneous and Not the Object of a Lower Level

Treatise (transition): How are the differences of the mark of the breath to be known? The stanza says:

Stanza: The in- and out-breath follow the body and are settled by it, and turn in dependence upon the differences of the two, body and mind; they are taken in by the class of sentient beings and are unappropriated; they are of homogeneous nature and do not take a lower level as object.

Treatise: According to the level into which the body is born, the breath is taken in by that level, since the breath is taken in as a part of the body.

The turning of this in- and out-breath depends upon the differences of body and mind: for one born in the formless realm, and at the stages such as the kalala (the first stage in the womb), and on entering the absorptions without mind and the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, the breath in all these cases does not turn. That is to say: there must be openings within the body, and the mind of the level to which the in- and out-breath belong must be properly manifest, and only then can the breath turn. And so on coming out of the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, and at the moment of first being born, the breath enters first; and on entering the fourth meditative absorption and the rest, and at the last moment of death, the breath goes out last.

The breath is taken in by the class of sentient beings, since it is a part of the body of a sentient being.

It is not appropriated, since it is separate from the faculties.

It is of homogeneous nature, since it is produced by a homogeneous cause.

It is not nourished, since when the body is growing it diminishes instead.

It is not maturation-born, since after being cut off it can continue and arise again, and no other maturational form is like this.

It is the object of a mind of its own level and of a higher level alone, and is not the object-field of the mind of the mode of deportment or the mind of penetrative effect of a lower level.

〔Roots 15 and 16〕The Four Foundations of Mindfulness — Observation by the Individual and the Common Characteristic · the Three Entities of a Foundation of Mindfulness · Their Order and Their Counteracting of the Inversions

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It has been said above that there are two gates of entering cultivation (the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness of the breath). By the cultivation of these two gates the mind is able to gain concentration. The mind having gained concentration, what further ought one then to cultivate? The stanza says:

Stanza: In dependence upon the calm abiding already cultivated to accomplishment, one cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness for the sake of insight; by the two ways of looking, the individual characteristic and the common characteristic, one observes these four, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas. The intrinsic nature of a foundation of mindfulness is the three discernments formed by hearing and the rest; and besides this there are the two further kinds, the foundation of mindfulness as conjoined and the foundation of mindfulness as object. The order, before and after, of the four foundations of mindfulness is established following the order in which they arise; and because they counteract the four inversions, the foundations of mindfulness are only four.

Treatise: In dependence upon the excellent calm abiding already cultivated to fullness (śamatha, that portion whereby the mind rests upon a single object and is not scattered), and for the sake of cultivating insight (vipaśyanā, that portion whereby one discriminates upon an object and sees its true character), one accordingly cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness.

How, then, are the four foundations of mindfulness to be cultivated? By the two ways of looking, the individual characteristic and the common characteristic, one observes the body, observes feeling, observes mind, and observes dharmas.

What is called the individual characteristic? The four, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas, have each of them its own nature not shared with anything else, and this is called the individual characteristic. What is called the common characteristic? That all conditioned dharmas are impermanent, that all dharmas with outflows are suffering, and that all dharmas are empty and are non-self — these properties, which are not confined to one thing but run through many, are called the common characteristic.

What is the intrinsic nature of each of the four? The intrinsic nature of the body is the four great elements and the form derived from the four great elements. The intrinsic natures of feeling and of mind are just as their names display them (feeling being the receiving of what is felt, mind being the discerning knowledge of an object). The intrinsic nature of dharmas is all the dharmas that remain when body, feeling, and mind have been taken away.

It is transmitted (this being a saying handed down and not the author’s own settled view) that when in concentration one analyzes the body down to the fineness of atoms and time down to the shortness of a moment, and observes them one by one in their several distinctions, this is called the fullness of cultivating the foundation of mindfulness on the body; and the manner in which the remaining three, feeling, mind, and dharmas, are cultivated to fullness should be known upon the same principle.

Treatise (question and answer · the entity of the four foundations of mindfulness): Question: What, then, is called the entity of the four foundations of mindfulness?

Answer: Each of these four foundations of mindfulness has three entities, because of the three distinctions of intrinsic nature, conjunction, and object.

First, the foundation of mindfulness as intrinsic nature has discernment for its entity. This discernment is again of three kinds, namely the discernment formed by hearing, the discernment formed by reflection, and the discernment formed by cultivation (the three discernments of discrimination accomplished through listening, through pondering, and through cultivating concentration); and as regards these three, each likewise gets the name of a foundation of mindfulness.

Second, the foundation of mindfulness as conjoined has for its entity discernment together with the other dharmas coexisting with it at the same time (mental factors such as feeling, perception, and volition, and the dharmas associated with it).

Third, the foundation of mindfulness as object has for its entity those dharmas which discernment takes as its object (that is, the four objects themselves, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas).

Question: How is it known that the intrinsic nature of a foundation of mindfulness is discernment and not some other dharma?

Answer: The sūtra says — abiding in the body one observes along the body, and this is called the foundation of mindfulness on the body; and so likewise with the remaining three, feeling, mind, and dharmas. Every name that speaks of ‘observing along’ points to nothing but the entity of discernment, for apart from discernment there is no function of observing-along.

Treatise (question and answer · why the name “foundation of mindfulness” is established upon discernment): Question: Since the entity is discernment, why is the name ‘foundation of mindfulness’ established upon discernment?

Answer: The Vaibhāṣika masters (the masters of the Sarvāstivāda school’s own tenets) say: because within this class of dharmas the force of mindfulness is especially preponderant. That is to say, it is by the sustaining force of mindfulness that discernment gets to proceed — as when one splits wood with an axe, the cleft is held open by the force of the wedge (the axe being discernment, the wedge mindfulness).

The author then says: if one speaks plainly and in strict principle, one should say that it is discernment that makes mindfulness stand fast, and that therefore the name foundation of mindfulness is established upon discernment — for it is following upon what discernment observes that mindfulness is able to record it clearly.

For this reason the Venerable Aniruddha said: if anyone is able, abiding in the body, to observe along the body, then taking the body as object mindfulness gets to stand fast, and so on at length (the remaining three on this model). The World-Honored One also said: if anyone abides in the body and observes along the body, mindfulness stands fast and is not mistaken.

Treatise (question and answer · a separate proof of the foundation of mindfulness as object): Yet another sūtra says this: by what do these four foundations of mindfulness come to be gathered? By what do they come to cease? By the gathering of food, contact, name-and-form, and attention there are gathered, in that order, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas; by the ceasing of food, contact, name-and-form, and attention there cease, in that order, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas.

It should be known that what that sūtra speaks of is the foundation of mindfulness as object (since what is said to be gathered and to cease is the four objects and not the discernment that observes), for mindfulness is what gets to stand fast upon those four objects.

Again, the fourfold difference of the foundations of mindfulness is also established following the difference of their objects as one’s own continuum, another’s continuum, and one’s own and another’s continuum together (observing one’s own body, observing another’s body, observing both together). Thus each of the foundations of mindfulness is again of three kinds.

Treatise (the ground of their order): That these four foundations of mindfulness are set before and after in this way means that their order is established following the order in which they arise.

Question: And why is the order of their arising just so?

Answer: Because what is coarse and evident in the aspect of its object ought to be observed first. Or it may be said that all the several desires and greeds proceed upon this one thing, the body, and so the four foundations of mindfulness place the observation of the body first. Yet greed for the body arises from taking delight in feeling; taking delight in feeling arises from the mind’s not being tamed; and the mind is untamed because the afflictions are not yet cut off — hence the observation of feeling, of mind, and of dharmas follows in just this order.

Treatise (the counteracting of the inversions · mixed and unmixed objects): These four foundations of mindfulness counteract, each in its own order, the four inversions of ‘purity, pleasure, permanence, and self’ (reckoning the impure pure, the painful pleasant, the impermanent permanent, the not-self a self), and so they are only four, neither more nor fewer.

Of the four, the first three have unmixed objects only (each observing one object); what the fourth, the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas, takes as object extends to both the mixed and the unmixed. If one observes dharmas alone, it is called having an unmixed object; if among the four objects, body and the rest, one takes two, three, or four of them and observes them together, it is called having a mixed object.

〔Root 17〕The Foundation of Mindfulness on Dharmas with a Total Object — Observing the Four Objects Together in One · Cultivating the Four Modes of Apprehension

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): When the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas such as the body with mixed objects has thus been cultivated to ripeness, what further ought one then to cultivate? The stanza says:

Stanza: That practitioner, abiding within the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas, observes the four objects together and cultivates these four modes of apprehension: impermanent, suffering, empty, and non-self.

Treatise: That person who practices observation, abiding within the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas whose object is total and mixed, observes together the four objects, body, feeling, mind, and dharmas, and cultivates the four modes of apprehension — namely impermanent, suffering, empty, and non-self (a mode of apprehension being that view which the mind raises up upon its object).

〔Roots 18–20〕The Four Wholesome Roots — Heat, Summit, Receptivity, and the Highest Worldly Dharma

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): When this observation has been cultivated to accomplishment, what wholesome root arises? The stanza says:

Stanza: From this arises the wholesome root of heat, which observes the four noble truths in full and cultivates the sixteen modes of apprehension; the wholesome root of summit that arises next is likewise so. These two wholesome roots, when they first set foot, are the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone, and when they advance further they have all four foundations of mindfulness. The wholesome root of receptivity that comes next is the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone; its low and middling grades are the same as summit (observing the four truths in full with the sixteen modes of apprehension), while its high grade observes only the suffering of the desire realm, cultivating one mode of apprehension only and lasting one moment only; and the highest worldly dharma is likewise so. These wholesome roots all have discernment for their entity; taken together with their attendants they are of the nature of the five aggregates, save that acquisition is to be excepted.

Treatise (the wholesome root of heat): When the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the common characteristic as a total object is cultivated and ripens by degrees up to the highest of the high grades, then, after this foundation of mindfulness, there arises the first wholesome root of the factors conducive to penetration, named the wholesome root of heat.

Why is this dharma named heat? Because it is named the wholesome root of heat as being like ‘heat’ (the warmth that is there when a thing is about to burn but has not yet burned) — it is the forerunner of the fire of the noble path which can burn up the firewood of the afflictions; as before a fire breaks out there is first a warm vapor, it is therefore called heat.

Because the station of this wholesome root of heat is long, it is able to observe in full the objects that are the four noble truths, and able also to cultivate in full the sixteen modes of apprehension. Observing the noble truth of suffering it cultivates four modes of apprehension: first impermanent, second suffering, third empty, fourth non-self. Observing the noble truth of origin it cultivates four modes of apprehension: first cause, second origin, third production, fourth condition. Observing the noble truth of cessation it cultivates four modes of apprehension: first cessation, second calm, third excellent, fourth escape. Observing the noble truth of the path it cultivates four modes of apprehension: first path, second suitable, third proceeding, fourth deliverance. The differences among these modes of apprehension will be analyzed below in their own place (the Chapter on Knowledge).

Treatise (the wholesome root of summit): When this wholesome root of heat has increased by degrees through the low, the middling, and the high grades and reaches its completion, there arises yet another wholesome root, named the wholesome root of summit — and because it is more excellent than heat, a different name is established for it.

Why is it named summit? Among the ‘movable wholesome roots’ (wholesome roots which may advance or retreat and are still liable to waver) this dharma is the most excellent, as the crown is the highest part of a man’s body, and so it is named the wholesome root of summit. Or it may be said that because it stands just at the meeting of the two brinks of advance and retreat, as one stands upon a mountain summit (where not to go forward is to go back), it is therefore called summit.

This wholesome root of summit also, like the wholesome root of heat, observes the four truths in full and cultivates the sixteen modes of apprehension in full.

Treatise (first setting foot and advancing further): Thus the two wholesome roots of heat and of summit, when they first set foot, are the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone.

Question: What is called ‘first setting foot’?

Answer: It is when any one of these wholesome roots first treads the track of the four noble truths with the sixteen modes of apprehension (going through the four truths and sixteen modes of apprehension for the first time), and this is called first setting foot; when afterwards it advances further, it then has all four foundations of mindfulness. As for those that had been obtained before, they do not come to be present again afterwards, since no esteem for them is any longer raised up.

Treatise (the wholesome root of receptivity): When this wholesome root of summit has increased by degrees through the low, middling, and high grades and reaches its completion, there arises yet another wholesome root, named the wholesome root of receptivity — because, in the receiving and allowing of the principle of the four truths (accepting it calmly without repulsion), this is the most excellent. And because the receptivity of this station will not fall back, it is therefore named the wholesome root of receptivity.

This wholesome root of receptivity, whether in setting foot or in advancing further, is the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone, and in this it differs from the two former.

Yet the wholesome root of receptivity also has the three grades, low, middling, and high. The low and middling grades are the same as summit, that is, they observe in full the objects that are the four noble truths and cultivate in full the sixteen modes of apprehension; the high grade is different, observing only the suffering of the desire realm, since it stands close beside the highest worldly dharma.

From this it may be inferred by parity of reasoning that the wholesome roots of heat and the rest are all able to take in full the suffering and the rest (the four truths) of the three realms as their object; this principle is established, since the treatise makes no distinction excluding it.

That is to say, the practitioner of yoga, with regard to the counteracting paths and the rest of the form and formless realms, lessens and abridges by degrees the modes of apprehension and the objects upon each single noble truth, until there is left only a two-moment attention pondering the object that is the noble truth of the suffering of the desire realm — and up to this point is called the station of middling receptivity. From this station, with nothing intervening, there arises an excellent wholesome root of one mode of apprehension and one moment only, and this is called the high grade of receptivity; for after this wholesome root has arisen it does not continue (lasting one moment only).

Treatise (the highest worldly dharma): With nothing intervening after the high grade of receptivity there arises the highest worldly dharma. Like the high grade of receptivity, it too takes the truth of the suffering of the desire realm as its object, cultivating one mode of apprehension and lasting one moment only.

Because it is still with outflows, it is called ‘worldly’; because it is the most excellent, it is called ‘highest.’ This dharma with outflows is the most excellent among all worldly dharmas, and is therefore named the highest worldly dharma. It has the force of human effort, and apart from a homogeneous cause (without needing to depend upon a former dharma of its own class as its cause) it can draw forth the arising of the noble path, and so it is called the most excellent.

Treatise (their entity): Thus the four wholesome roots, heat and the rest, being of the nature of foundations of mindfulness, all have discernment for their entity; and if spoken of together with their attendants, they are all of the nature of the five aggregates. Yet their ‘acquisition’ is to be excepted — otherwise the wholesome roots of heat and the rest belonging to the noble ones (who have relinquished heat and the rest so that they are no longer present) would come to be present once more.

Treatise (present cultivation and future cultivation): Herein, at the first setting foot of the wholesome root of heat: the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking as object the three truths of suffering, origin, and the path is cultivated in the present, and four foundations of mindfulness are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present, and four modes of apprehension are cultivated for the future. The foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the truth of cessation as object is cultivated in the present, and one is cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present, and four modes of apprehension are cultivated for the future. Because this class (the kind of wholesome root belonging to this station) has not been obtained before, only what is of the same portion (of the same station) can be cultivated.

When afterwards it advances further: taking the three truths as object, any one foundation of mindfulness is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future. The foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the truth of cessation as object is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future. Because this class has already been obtained before, what is not of the same portion can also be cultivated.

At the first setting foot of the wholesome root of summit: the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the four truths as object is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future. When afterwards it advances further: taking the three truths as object, any one foundation of mindfulness is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future; the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the truth of cessation as object is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future.

For the wholesome root of receptivity, whether at the first setting foot or in advancing further: the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the four truths as object is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and sixteen are cultivated for the future. Yet when in advancing further the object is abridged, then, following upon the object it omits, that portion of the modes of apprehension is not cultivated either.

The highest worldly dharma: the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking as object the truth of the suffering of the desire realm is cultivated in the present and four are cultivated for the future; any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present and four modes of apprehension are cultivated for the future — because it has no differing portion, and because it resembles the path of seeing.

〔Roots 21–23〕The Several Gates of the Factors Conducive to Penetration — What They Are Formed by · Level · Body · Male and Female · Relinquishing and Retreat

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The characteristics and the entity of the wholesome roots produced have been analyzed; now the sense of their differences ought next to be analyzed. The stanza says:

Stanza: These four factors conducive to penetration are all formed by cultivation; they depend upon six levels, and of them two wholesome roots are said by some to depend on six levels and by others on seven; they arise in dependence upon a body of the desire realm, in the nine places among men and gods; the first three wholesome roots are obtained in both kinds by man and by woman alike (the wholesome root arising in a male body and that arising in a female body), and the fourth is likewise so for a woman’s body. A noble one relinquishes them by losing the level, an ordinary being by the end of life; the first two wholesome roots are relinquished by retreat as well. Those arising in dependence upon a fundamental level will certainly see the truths in this very life. What is obtained again after being relinquished before is not the same as the one before. Both these relinquishings have non-acquisition for their nature.

Treatise (the establishing of the name): These four excellent wholesome roots, heat, summit, receptivity, and the highest worldly dharma, are named the factors conducive to penetration.

Question: On what sense is the name ‘factors conducive to penetration’ established?

Answer: ‘Decision’ means deciding, and ‘discernment’ means discriminating. What is called deciding and discriminating refers to the noble paths — because the noble paths can cut off doubt (deciding) and can distinguish the characteristics of the four truths (discriminating). ‘Factor’ means a portion; the sense of the word is that what these four are conducive to is only the one portion that is the path of seeing, a portion of decisive discernment, whence they get the name ‘factors of penetration.’ These four are able, as cause and condition, to draw forth the factors of decisive discernment, and are conducive to them, whence they get the name ‘conducive to that’ — and so they are called the factors conducive to penetration.

Treatise (formed by cultivation): These four are all formed by cultivation, and not formed by hearing or by reflection, because they belong only to the levels of meditative equipoise (the levels of concentration).

Of the four, the first two (heat and summit) belong to the low grade, since both are still liable to waver and may still be lost. Receptivity belongs to the middling grade, since it surpasses the two former while the highest worldly dharma is above it. The highest worldly dharma alone belongs to the high grade.

Treatise (the levels upon which they depend): These four wholesome roots all depend upon six levels, namely the four meditative absorptions, access concentration, and the intermediate absorption. They are not found in the desire realm, since meditative equipoise is wanting there (the desire realm having no concentration). Nor are they found in the remaining higher levels (the levels of the formless realm), because they belong to the retinue of the path of seeing (and the path of seeing does not depend on the formless); and because the mind of the formless realm does not take the desire realm as its object, while the desire realm is what ought first to be fully known and cut off.

These four wholesome roots can call forth the maturation of the five aggregates of the form realm, serving as a ‘cause of fullness’ (a cause that makes the fruit of retribution abundant), but cannot serve as a cause of projection (a cause that draws forth a whole lifetime of retribution), because they abhor and turn away from the three existences.

That the stanza has the words ‘six or seven’ is in order to display that there are two divergent accounts: namely that as regards the two, heat and summit, the Venerable Ghoṣa says that they depend upon the six former levels together with the desire realm, seven in all.

Treatise (the body upon which they depend): These four wholesome roots arise in dependence upon a body of the desire realm, in the nine places among men and gods, excepting Uttarakuru. The first three wholesome roots arise for the first time in the three continents, and after one is born among the gods they can also continue to be present. The fourth wholesome root can arise for the first time even in the places of the gods, since it has no first and later but only a single moment.

Treatise (male and female): These four wholesome roots arise only in dependence upon a male or a female body. As to the first three, both a male body and a female body obtain both kinds (obtaining both the wholesome root that arises in a male body and that which arises in a female body); as to the fourth, a female body also obtains both kinds. But if one depends upon a male body, one obtains only the wholesome root of a male body, since with regard to a female body one has already obtained cessation independent of discernment (being determined never again to take a female body).

Treatise (relinquishing): When a noble one has obtained these wholesome roots in dependence upon a given level, it is upon losing that level that the wholesome roots are relinquished; the words ‘losing the level’ display his passing on to be born in a higher level. As for an ordinary being, whether he loses the level or not, so soon as he loses the commonality of sentient beings (that is, at the end of life) he must relinquish these wholesome roots.

The first two wholesome roots are relinquished by retreat as well. Relinquishing by retreat at death belongs only to ordinary beings and not to noble ones; relinquishing by losing the level belongs only to noble ones and not to ordinary beings. Receptivity and the highest worldly dharma are not lost by retreat even for an ordinary being.

Treatise (dependence on a fundamental level, and obtaining again): One in whom the wholesome roots of heat and the rest arise in dependence upon a fundamental level (one of the four fundamental meditative absorptions) will certainly come to see the truths in this very life, because his mind of revulsion toward birth and death is exceedingly keen.

If what was relinquished before is afterwards obtained again, what is obtained is certainly not the very one that was relinquished before — just as when the discipline of individual liberation, having been relinquished, is undertaken and obtained again, it too is another new acquisition; because it was not cultivated to ripeness and requires great exertion to accomplish.

If one has obtained the wholesome roots of heat and the rest before and has relinquished them through passing to another life, then upon meeting a master of the dharma who speaks well and can discern the stations, one is able to give rise to summit and the rest; and if one does not meet such a master, one must cultivate again from the original station.

These two relinquishings, ‘losing’ and ‘retreat,’ both have non-acquisition for their nature. Retreat certainly involves the raising of a fault, whereas losing does not necessarily (as when a noble one loses by passing on to a higher level, which is no fault).

〔Root 24〕The Advantages of the Four Wholesome Roots — Heat Certainly Reaches Nirvāṇa · Summit Does Not Cut Off the Wholesome · Receptivity Does Not Fall into the Evil Destinies · The Highest Enters the Certainty of the Noble Path

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): What advantage is there in obtaining these wholesome roots? The stanza says:

Stanza: One who obtains heat will certainly reach nirvāṇa in the end; one who obtains summit will in the end not cut off his wholesome roots; one who obtains receptivity will not fall into the evil destinies; one who obtains the highest worldly dharma is able to enter the certainty of the noble path.

Treatise (heat): Among the four wholesome roots, if one has obtained the wholesome root of heat, then although he may still retreat, still cut off his wholesome roots, still do deeds of immediate retribution, still fall into the evil destinies and so forth, yet he will not go on wandering for long, because he will certainly reach nirvāṇa in the end.

Treatise (a question raised and answered): Question: If that is so, how does it differ from the factors conducive to liberation (which likewise certainly reach nirvāṇa)?

Answer: Because it is without obstruction, because it is near to seeing the truths, and because its modes of apprehension are the same as those of the path of seeing.

Treatise (summit): If one has obtained the wholesome root of summit, then although he may still retreat and so forth, yet the force of its ascendancy makes it certain that he will in the end not cut off his wholesome roots.

Treatise (receptivity): If one has obtained receptivity, then although he relinquishes it at the end of life and still abides in the station of an ordinary being, yet the force of its ascendancy makes him not retreat, not do deeds of immediate retribution, and not fall into the evil destinies.

Yet the stanza says only the one phrase ‘does not fall into the evil destinies’; that he also does not do deeds of immediate retribution may be known by inference from the sense, since one who does deeds of immediate retribution must fall into the evil destinies. That there is no retreat at the station of receptivity has been analyzed above.

That one at this station does not fall into the several evil destinies is because he has already gone far from the actions and afflictions that tend toward the evil destinies. For upon reaching the station of receptivity, he obtains the ‘dharma of not being born’ (being determined never again to be born there) with regard to a portion of destinies, of births, of places, of bodies, of existences, and of afflictions.

‘Destinies’ means the several evil destinies; ‘births’ means birth from an egg and birth from moisture; ‘places’ means the Heaven of Non-Percipient Beings, Uttarakuru, and the place of great Brahmā; ‘bodies’ means the bodies of one congenitally without a sexual faculty, of one whose sexual faculty is incomplete, and of a person of both sexes; ‘existences’ means an eighth existence and the like; ‘afflictions’ means the afflictions abandoned by seeing.

These are obtained, as is fitting to each, at the station of low receptivity and at the station of high receptivity — that is, at the station of low receptivity there is obtained the not being born in the evil destinies, while the rest are obtained only upon the station of high receptivity.

Treatise (the highest worldly dharma): One who obtains the highest worldly dharma, though he still abides in the station of an ordinary being, is nevertheless able to enter the certainty of the noble path (the path of seeing).

Although the stanza does not say ‘apart from relinquishing at the end of life,’ yet since with nothing intervening it enters the certainty of the noble path, it is established by inference from the sense that it has no relinquishing at the end of life.

Question: Why is this one alone able to enter the certainty of the noble path?

Answer: Because it has already obtained cessation independent of discernment with regard to ordinary-being status, and because it is able, like an uninterrupted path, to relinquish ordinary-being status.

〔Root 25〕The Class May Be Turned — the Class of the Śrāvaka May Be Turned · Those Likened to the Qilin’s Horn and the Buddha Have No Turning

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): These four wholesome roots have each three grades, by the difference of the three classes of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and Buddha. When the wholesome root of any one of these classes has already arisen, may it be turned toward another vehicle or not? The stanza says:

Stanza: The class of the śrāvaka may be turned; at the two stations of heat and summit it may be turned to Buddhahood, and at the three stations of heat, summit, and receptivity it may be turned to the other (the pratyekabuddha); the pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn and the Buddha have no turning, since they awaken in a single sitting.

Treatise: For one of the class of the śrāvaka in whom heat and summit have arisen, it is still possible to turn toward unsurpassed perfect awakening; but if he has obtained receptivity there is no principle by which he may become a Buddha, because he has already gone beyond the evil destinies — for a bodhisattva bears the welfare of beings in his heart, and in order to convert sentient beings he must go to the evil destinies, whereas that class which has obtained receptivity cannot be turned back (being determined not to fall into the evil destinies), and so there is certainly no sense in which he may become a Buddha.

At all three stations of heat, summit, and receptivity in one of the class of the śrāvaka, there is the sense that he may be turned into a pratyekabuddha; and since the pratyekabuddha lies outside the vehicle of the Buddha, he is spoken of as ‘the other.’

The words ‘the qilin’s horn and the Buddha’ in the stanza display the pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn (dwelling alone as the qilin has but one horn) and the unsurpassedly awakened one (the Buddha). In neither of these two is there any sense of the wholesome roots of heat and the rest being turned toward another vehicle, because both take the fourth meditative absorption as their support and awaken to the awakening of their own vehicle in a single sitting. The fourth meditative absorption is a concentration unshaken and utterly clear and keen, and is therefore fit to be the support of one likened to the qilin’s horn and of the unsurpassedly awakened one.

The ‘awakening’ here spoken of means the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising, which will be analyzed below, since these are the very nature of awakening. What is called ‘a single sitting’ means that from the wholesome root of heat up to awakening he does not rise from his seat.

Here another account is recorded alongside: some other master says that it is from the contemplation of impurity onward that he does not rise from his seat, up to awakening.

There is another class of pratyekabuddha unlike those likened to the qilin’s horn (namely the pratyekabuddhas who go in a group); that they, after raising the first two wholesome roots (heat and summit) of that class, should turn toward another vehicle is in principle no obstacle.

〔Root 26〕The Factors Conducive to Liberation — Liberation in Three Lifetimes at the Fastest · Formed by Hearing and Reflection · Planted in the Three Continents of Men

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Is there anyone who, first cultivating this practice in this present life, gives rise to the factors conducive to penetration in this same life? Answer: There is not. How then is it? The stanza says:

Stanza: Before this there are first the factors conducive to liberation, and liberation comes in three lifetimes at the fastest; they are formed by hearing and by reflection, extend to all three kinds of action, bodily, verbal, and mental, and are planted in the three continents of the destiny of men.

Treatise: One in whom the factors conducive to penetration arise in this present life must have given rise to the factors conducive to liberation in a former life.

Whoever first plants the factors conducive to liberation gains liberation in three lifetimes at the fastest: that is, in the first life he gives rise to the factors conducive to liberation, in the second life to the factors conducive to penetration, and in the third life he enters the noble state and so on to liberation. It is as with the three different stations of sowing the seed, the shoot’s growing, and the bearing of fruit; and so it is with the three stations of the body’s entering the nature of dharma, of ripening, and of liberation.

It is transmitted that such factors conducive to liberation are formed by hearing and by reflection only, and have all three kinds of action, bodily, verbal, and mental, for their entity. Although as regards what is most excellent they are mental action only, yet the bodily and verbal actions raised up under this resolve and vow also get the name of factors conducive to liberation. If a man gives a single meal or keeps a single precept and the like, and deeply delights in seeking liberation, then, being sustained by the force of his vow, this is called planting the factors conducive to liberation.

The planting of the factors conducive to liberation takes place only in the three continents of the destiny of men, because in the other places revulsion and discerning wisdom are wanting as is fitting to each; and one must meet the appearance of a Buddha in the world to plant this wholesome root. Here another account is recorded alongside: some other master says that meeting a pratyekabuddha will do as well.

〔Roots 27–29〕The Sixteen Minds of the Path of Seeing — the Eight Receptivities and Eight Cognitions · the Three Kinds of Direct Realization of the Noble Truths

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The factors conducive to liberation have now been spoken of above by way of occasion; the order of entering contemplation is what is properly under discussion. Within it the several paths of preparatory practice have been explained, with the highest worldly dharma as their utmost limit; what path, then, is to be said to arise from here? The stanza says:

Stanza: With nothing intervening after the highest worldly dharma, taking the suffering of the desire realm as object, there arises the outflowless receptivity to the cognition of dharma; after the receptivity there arises the cognition of dharma. Next, taking the suffering of the other two realms as object, there arise the subsequent receptivity and the subsequent cognition. Taking the three truths of origin, cessation, and the path as object, four minds arise upon each, likewise so. These sixteen minds are named the direct realization of the noble truths; and direct realization is of three kinds in all, namely the distinction of the direct realization that is seeing, that is taking as object, and that is the matter done.

Treatise (the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering): With nothing intervening after the wholesome root of the highest worldly dharma, and taking as object the noble truth of the suffering of the desire realm, there arises a receptivity to the cognition of dharma comprised within the outflowless. This receptivity is named the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering.

Why is the name so established? In order to display that this receptivity is without outflows, its later homogeneous result (the cognition of dharma concerning suffering) is adduced to mark it out distinctly. This receptivity can produce the cognition of dharma and is the cause of the cognition of dharma, and so it gets the name ‘receptivity to the cognition of dharma’ — as a tree is named from its flower and fruit (the result being spoken of in the cause).

Treatise (the certainty of the noble path): This very receptivity is named the entry into the certainty of the noble path, and is also named the entry into rightness and determination. Because this is the first entry into the certainty of the noble path, and the first entry into rightness and determination.

The sūtra says ‘rightness,’ and this means nirvāṇa. Or it may be said that the word ‘rightness’ is established with reference to the noble paths. ‘Birth’ means the afflictions, or the faculties not yet ripened; the noble path can pass beyond it, and hence it is called separation from birth. The noble path can with certainty tend toward nirvāṇa, or can decidedly discern the characteristics of the truths, and so the noble paths get the name ‘determination.’ On reaching this station, one is said to ‘enter.’

Treatise (the three accounts of the relinquishing of ordinary-being status): Once this receptivity has arisen one gets the name of noble one. It relinquishes ordinary-being status while in the future (in the station of being about to arise but not yet arisen) — that is to say, it is allowed that this receptivity has this function at its future moment of arising, and that no other dharma has it, as with a lamp and with the mark of arising (the lamp dispelling the darkness before it has arrived, the mark of arising producing the dharma while itself in the future).

Here two further accounts are recorded alongside. Some other master says: it is the highest worldly dharma that relinquishes ordinary-being status. (The author objects:) This principle is not so, because the two of them are alike named worldly dharmas, and because their natures are contrary (what is contrary cannot relinquish its like). (A sentence explaining it through:) There is no fault in this either, as by the shoulder of an enemy one can take the enemy’s life (things of one class being able to harm one another). And some other master says: it is the two of them that relinquish it together, as an uninterrupted path and a path of liberation together cut off the afflictions.

Treatise (the course of the sixteen minds): With nothing intervening after this receptivity, and taking the suffering of the desire realm as object, there arises a cognition of dharma, named the cognition of dharma concerning suffering. It should be known that this cognition too is comprised within the outflowless, since the word ‘outflowless’ said above flows on through what follows.

Just as, taking as object the noble truth of the suffering of the desire realm, there arise the receptivity to the dharma of suffering and the cognition of dharma concerning suffering, so next, with nothing intervening after the cognition of dharma and taking as a total object the noble truth of the suffering of the other two realms (the form and the formless), there arises a receptivity to the subsequent cognition, named the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning suffering; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking this same object, there arises a subsequent cognition, named the subsequent cognition concerning suffering.

Because it first realizes and knows the true principle of dharmas, it is named the cognition of dharma; the objects and cognitions after it, because they resemble the former, get the name ‘subsequent’ — for the latter realizes its object following after the former.

Just as, taking suffering as the truth, four minds arise in the desire realm and in the other two realms, namely the receptivity to the dharma, the subsequent receptivity, the cognition of dharma, and the subsequent cognition, so upon each of the other three truths there are likewise four minds. That is, after the foregoing subsequent cognition concerning suffering, next, taking as object the noble truth of the origin of the desire realm, there arises a receptivity to the cognition of dharma, named the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning origin; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking the origin of the desire realm as object, there arises a cognition of dharma, named the cognition of dharma concerning origin. Next, taking as object the noble truth of the origin of the other two realms, there arises a receptivity to the subsequent cognition, named the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning origin; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking this object, there arises a subsequent cognition, named the subsequent cognition concerning origin.

Next, taking as object the noble truth of the cessation of the desire realm, there arises a receptivity to the cognition of dharma, named the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning cessation; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking the cessation of the desire realm as object, there arises a cognition of dharma, named the cognition of dharma concerning cessation. Next, taking as object the noble truth of the cessation of the other two realms, there arises a receptivity to the subsequent cognition, named the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning cessation; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking this object, there arises a subsequent cognition, named the subsequent cognition concerning cessation.

Next, taking as object the noble truth of the path of the desire realm, there arises a receptivity to the cognition of dharma, named the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning the path; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking the path of the desire realm as object, there arises a cognition of dharma, named the cognition of dharma concerning the path. Next, taking as object the noble truth of the path of the other two realms, there arises a receptivity to the subsequent cognition, named the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning the path; and with nothing intervening after this receptivity, taking this object, there arises a subsequent cognition, named the subsequent cognition concerning the path.

Thus in order there are sixteen minds in all, together named the direct realization of the noble truths.

Treatise (the dispute over simultaneity and gradualness): Here another school says this: with regard to the truths there is only simultaneous direct realization. Yet their intent should be further sought out, since the word ‘direct realization’ as they use it is undistinguished (one does not know which kind of direct realization is meant).

Spoken of in detail, direct realization is of three kinds in all, by the distinction of seeing, of taking as object, and of the matter done. Outflowless discernment alone seeing clearly before it the objects that are the truths is called the direct realization that is seeing; this outflowless discernment together with the other minds and mental factors associated with it taking one and the same object is called the direct realization that is taking as object; these dharmas that take an object, together with the other coexisting dharmas not associated with mind, such as discipline and the mark of arising, performing one and the same business, is called the direct realization that is the matter done.

At the time of seeing the truth of suffering, there are all three kinds of direct realization with regard to the noble truth of suffering; with regard to the other three truths there is only the direct realization that is the matter done, namely the three matters of cutting off (origin), realizing (cessation), and cultivating (the path).

If, among the truths, simultaneous direct realization be maintained with regard to the ‘direct realization that is seeing,’ this in principle cannot be so, since among the truths the modes of apprehension are severally different. And if it be said that by the single mode of apprehension ‘non-self’ one sees all the truths together, then one ought not further to see the truth of suffering and the rest by the several modes of apprehension of suffering and the rest; and in that case one would contradict the sūtra. As the sūtra says: the noble disciples ponder suffering by the mode of apprehension of suffering, ponder origin by the mode of apprehension of origin, ponder cessation by the mode of apprehension of cessation, and ponder the path by the mode of apprehension of the path — a discernment of dharmas associated with outflowless attention.

If it be said that this sūtra speaks of the station of the path of cultivation, this too is not so, since the path of seeing is like the path of cultivation herein (both requiring the several modes of apprehension).

If he says further: because at the time of seeing one truth one gains mastery with regard to the other truths, and therefore simultaneous direct realization is spoken of — put in this way there is in principle no fault either. Yet whether, in such a direct realization, there is an arising or a not-arising in between is a matter to be pondered separately.

If he says further: because at the time of seeing suffering one is able to cut off origin, realize cessation, and cultivate the path, and therefore simultaneous direct realization is spoken of — put in this way there is in principle no fault either, since it has been said above that at the time of seeing the truth of suffering there is the direct realization that is the matter done with regard to the other three truths.

If we speak with regard to the direct realization that is seeing, there are in the sūtras plain sentences saying that direct realization is gradual. As the sūtra says: the Buddha told the householder that with regard to the four noble truths there is no simultaneous direct realization but necessarily a gradual direct realization, and so on at length. Of sūtras such as this there are three in all, and each of the three has its own simile.

If it be said that there is a sūtra which speaks thus — that with regard to the truth of suffering alone there is no delusion and no doubt, and none with regard to the Buddha either, and therefore direct realization is simultaneous — this too is no sufficient proof, since that is said with regard to ‘certainly not being actively present,’ or with regard to ‘what must certainly be cut off,’ and is a saying with a hidden intent.

〔First Half of Root 30〕Upon What Level the Sixteen Minds Depend — the Same Level as the Highest Worldly Dharma

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It has been analyzed that direct realization has sixteen minds in full; upon what level, then, do these sixteen minds depend? The stanza says:

Stanza: They all depend upon one and the same level as the highest worldly dharma.

Treatise: Following upon the levels on which the highest worldly dharma depends, it should be known that these sixteen minds depend upon just those levels. The highest worldly dharma depends upon six levels, as was said above.

〔Second Half of Root 30〕The Order of Receptivity and Cognition — the Uninterrupted Path and the Path of Liberation

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): For what reason must there be this order in which receptivity and cognition arise alternately, one before and one after? The stanza says:

Stanza: Receptivity and cognition are, in that order, the uninterrupted path and the path of liberation.

Treatise: Among the sixteen minds, receptivity is the uninterrupted path, because with regard to the ‘acquisition that cuts off the afflictions’ there is nothing that can block it; cognition is the path of liberation, because it has already been liberated from the ‘acquisition’ of the afflictions and arises at the same time as the ‘acquisition’ of release from bondage. That there should be these two in this order is in principle decidedly right — as when men in the world drive out a thief (the uninterrupted path) and afterwards shut the door (the path of liberation).

Treatise (an objection supposed, and the answer): (An objector supposes and says:) If the second (cognition) were merely an uninterrupted path arising at the same time as the acquisition of release from bondage, then at this station there would decidedly arise no ‘cognition of the doubt that has been cut off’ with regard to each single object; and if in the station of the path of seeing receptivity alone cuts off the afflictions, then this would contradict what the treatise itself (the Treatise on the Development of Wisdom and the rest) says of the nine clusters of fetters.

(The author answers:) This objection is not so, because all the receptivities are the retinue of cognition, as the business done by a king’s retinue is called the doing of the king.

〔First Half of Root 31〕The First Fifteen Minds Are the Path of Seeing — Because What Is Seen Has Not Been Seen Before

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): These sixteen minds all see the principle of the truths; may they then all be said to be comprised within the path of seeing? Answer: They may not. How then is it? The stanza says:

Stanza: The first fifteen minds are the path of seeing, because what is seen has not been seen before.

Treatise: From the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering as the first, to the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning the path as the last, there are fifteen moments in all therein, and all are comprised within the path of seeing, because what is seen are truths not seen before. By the time of the sixteenth, the subsequent cognition concerning the path, there is no principle of a truth that is ‘unseen and now seen,’ and it is like reviewing what has been seen before, and so it is comprised within the path of cultivation.

Treatise (question and answer · the unseen of a single moment): Question: But is not the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning the path, which is observed at that time, also a principle of the truth of the path unseen and now seen (why then is it not counted as the path of seeing)?

Answer: Here we speak with regard to the truths and not with regard to moments. It is not that being unseen and now seen for a single moment may be called ‘now seeing a principle of a truth not seen’ — as when in reaping a paddy field there is one plant left, one may not say that this field has not been reaped.

Again, the subsequent cognition concerning the path is comprised within a fruit, and it cultivates at once the eight cognitions and sixteen modes of apprehension, and it relinquishes the path before it, and it arises in continuity; and so, like the rest of the path of cultivation, it is not comprised within the path of seeing.

Treatise (a further objection and the answer): (An objector:) Yet the subsequent cognition concerning the path certainly does not retreat, because it sustains the cutting off of what is cut off by the path of seeing; and by just this it ought to be counted as comprised within the path of seeing.

(The author answers:) This objection is not so, because the fault goes too far (by such reasoning every later-arisen path would become the path of seeing).

Treatise (a question raised and answered): Question: For what reason are those seven cognitions (the seven cognitions among the first fifteen minds) also counted as comprised within the path of seeing?

Answer: Because the seeing of the principles of the truths is not yet complete — that is, because they arise in the midst of a seeing of the principles of the truths that is not yet all-round, and so they too are counted as comprised within the path of seeing.

〔Second Half of Root 31 · Root 32〕One Who Follows through Faith and One Who Follows the Dharma — the Establishing of the Three Approachings

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The difference between the arising of the path of seeing and of the path of cultivation has now been spoken of; next the several noble persons (the several kinds of noble one) ought to be established according to the difference of stations of this path. And first the differences of the several noble ones are established according to the station of the fifteen minds of the path of seeing. The stanza says:

Stanza: They are named one who follows through faith and one who follows the dharma, established by the difference of dull and keen faculties; and if one had the fetters entire before, or had cut off from one grade up to five grades of the afflictions abandoned by cultivation, at this station he is named an approacher to the first fruit; one who has cut off the next grades (the sixth through the eighth) is named an approacher to the second fruit; one who is separated from the defilement of eight levels is named an approacher to the third fruit.

Treatise (the two kinds of noble one): In the station of the path of seeing there are two kinds of noble one: first, one who follows through faith; second, one who follows the dharma; and these two names are established by the difference of dull and keen faculties. Those of dull faculties are named ones who follow through faith, and those of keen faculties are named ones who follow the dharma.

Because his practice follows upon faith he is named ‘following through faith’; and since he has this following through faith he is named ‘one who follows through faith.’ Or it may be said that because by repeated practice of this following through faith it has become his nature, he is named one who follows through faith — since in the former time he believed the words of others and practiced following upon them.

Upon this principle one should explain ‘one who follows the dharma’: since in the former time he perused for himself the sūtras and the other dharmas, and practiced following upon them.

Treatise (the establishing of the three approachings): These same two kinds of noble one are established as three approachers by the difference in how much of the afflictions abandoned by cultivation they have cut off.

That is, of these two kinds of noble one, whoever has not before cut off by the mundane path any of the afflictions to be abandoned by cultivation is named one with the fetters entire; or he may have cut off before from one grade up to five grades of the desire realm — and at this station he is named an approacher to the first fruit, because he is tending toward the first fruit. What is called the first fruit is the fruit of stream-entry, because among all the fruits of the ascetic life this is certainly the first to be obtained.

If he has before cut off six grades of the desire realm, or seven or eight grades, at this station he is named an approacher to the second fruit, because he is tending toward the second fruit. The second fruit is the fruit of once-returning, because among the fruits obtained one after another this is the second.

If he has before become separated from all nine grades of the desire realm, or has before cut off from one grade of the first meditative absorption up to being wholly separated from the sphere of nothingness (separated from the defilement of eight levels), at this station he is named an approacher to the third fruit, because he is tending toward the third fruit. The third fruit is the fruit of non-returning, and the manner of its reckoning is inferred from what was explained above.

〔Root 33〕At the Sixteenth Mind One Abides in a Fruit — the Change of Name to One Resolute through Faith and One Attained through View

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Next the differences of the several noble ones are established at the time of the subsequent cognition concerning the path in the path of cultivation. The stanza says:

Stanza: At the sixteenth mind, following upon the three former approachings, one abides in the three fruits; and one is named one resolute through faith and one attained through view, these too being established by the difference of dull and keen faculties.

Treatise: Those very ones who follow through faith and who follow the dharma, on reaching the sixteenth mind, the subsequent cognition concerning the path, are named ones abiding in a fruit and are no longer named approachers. Following upon the three former approachings, they now abide in the three fruits — that is, he who was formerly an approacher to stream-entry now abides in the fruit of stream-entry, he who was formerly an approacher to once-returning now abides in the fruit of once-returning, and he who was formerly an approacher to non-returning now abides in the fruit of non-returning.

The fruit of the arhat is certainly not obtained here for the first time, because the path of seeing cannot cut off the afflictions abandoned by cultivation, and because the mundane path cannot separate one from the defilement of the summit of existence.

On reaching the station of abiding in a fruit, the two former names are relinquished and two new names are obtained — that is, one is no longer named one who follows through faith or one who follows the dharma, but obtains instead the two names one resolute through faith and one attained through view; and this too is by the difference of dull and keen faculties. Those of dull faculties, formerly named ones who follow through faith, are now named ones resolute through faith; those of keen faculties, formerly named ones who follow the dharma, are now named ones attained through view. Of these two noble ones, in the one faith is preponderant and in the other discernment, and so the separate names one resolute through faith and one attained through view are marked out.

〔Root 34〕Abiding in a Fruit Is Not Approaching — Because the Path of the Higher Fruit Has Not Yet Arisen

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): For what reason is one who had before cut off from one grade up to five grades of the afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation, on reaching the sixteenth mind, the subsequent cognition concerning the path, said only to be in the fruit of stream-entry and the rest, and not said to be an approacher to the later fruit? The stanza says:

Stanza: In the several stations of obtaining a fruit, the path of the higher fruit has not yet been obtained; and because the higher path has not yet arisen, one is named as abiding in a fruit and not as approaching.

Treatise: At the times of obtaining the several fruits, the path of the higher fruit is certainly not yet obtained, and so one abiding in a fruit, so long as the path of the higher fruit has not arisen, is named only as abiding in a fruit and not as approaching the next.

Yet as for those who had before cut off from one grade up to five grades of the afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation, at the time of obtaining the fruit the path of the higher fruit will certainly arise in this very life. From this it may be known: one who had before become separated from the defilement of three meditative absorptions and afterwards entered the path of seeing in dependence upon a lower level will, after obtaining the fruit, certainly be able to draw forth the later path of the higher fruit in his present life. Were it otherwise, it could not be said that a noble one born into a higher level certainly possesses the faculty of pleasure.

〔First Half of Root 35〕In Every Level Fault and Virtue Have Nine Grades Each

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Having thus established the differences of the several noble ones at the station of the sixteen minds, for those who enter upon seeing the truths with the fetters entire, with twofold separation from desire, or wholly separated from desire, next, with regard to the afflictions abandoned by cultivation, the differences of station of the counteracting paths that arise one after another ought to be analyzed. The stanza says:

Stanza: In each single level fault and virtue have nine grades each, low, middling, and high being each divided in three.

Treatise: ‘Fault’ means defect, that is, the obstruction to be counteracted; ‘virtue’ means merit, that is, the path that counteracts.

As it was analyzed above that the afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation have nine grades of difference, so likewise it should be for the higher levels up to the summit of existence. As the obstructions to be cut off have nine grades in each single level, so the uninterrupted paths and the paths of liberation that counteract them have nine grades each as well.

Question: How are fault and virtue each divided into nine grades?

Answer: The fundamental three grades have each low, middling, and high, and these three grades are again each divided into low, middling, and high; and thus fault and virtue are each divided into nine grades, namely the lowest of the low, the middling of the low, the highest of the low; the lowest of the middling, the middling of the middling, the highest of the middling; the lowest of the high, the middling of the high, and the highest of the high.

It should be known that herein the path of the lowest of the low grades has the force to cut off the obstruction of the highest of the high grades; and so on in this way, until the path of the highest of the high grades has the force to cut off the obstruction of the lowest of the low grades. Because the virtues that counteract, of the highest of the high grades and the rest, are at first not there at all; and because by the time these virtues are there, the faults of the highest of the high grades and the rest are already gone.

It is as when clothes are washed: the coarse grime is removed first, and only afterwards is the fine grime removed by degrees. Or again as with darkness that is coarse and heavy, which a small light can extinguish, whereas to extinguish a fine darkness a great light is required. Fault and virtue standing over against each other, it should in principle be so with them too.

Because the force of the bright dharmas is strong and the force of the dark dharmas is weak, a weak path becoming actively present for a single moment is able all at once to cut off the afflictions of the high grades that have been increased by successive transmission since beginningless time. It is as when the many illnesses gathered over a long time are all at once healed by taking a little good medicine; or again as when a great darkness gathered over a long time is extinguished by a small lamp in a single moment.

〔Second Half of Root 35〕The Stream-Enterer Returning at Most Seven Times — the Sense of Seven Returns · the Dispute over an Eighth Existence · the Limit of Suffering

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The nine grades of difference of fault and virtue having been analyzed, next the differences of noble ones ought to be established upon them. Now the several learners in the station of the path of cultivation are together named ones resolute through faith and ones attained through view, and following upon their stations there are again many differences; and first the one who has not yet cut off even a single grade ought to be established. The stanza says:

Stanza: One who has not yet cut off the faults abandoned by cultivation abides in a fruit and returns at most seven times.

Treatise: The several ones who abide in a fruit, so long as they have not yet cut off any of the faults abandoned by cultivation in any level, are named stream-enterers, and take at most seven returning births.

The words ‘seven returns’ display seven births of going and returning, in the sense of seven births each among men and among gods. The word ‘at most’ is to display that the births taken are no more than this, and not that all stream-enterers take seven returns. When the sūtra says ‘at most seven returning births,’ it means that at the most there are seven returning births.

The several outflowless paths are together named ‘the stream,’ since by them as cause one tends toward nirvāṇa; the word ‘entering’ is to display the first arrival and attainment — he enters this stream, and so is named a stream-enterer.

Treatise (question and answer · what the name stream-enterer points to): Question: What sense does this name ‘stream-enterer’ point to?

Answer: If it be said that first obtaining the path is what is named stream-entry, then the name stream-enterer ought to point to one in his eighth existence (one still in the station of approaching who has not yet obtained a fruit); and if it be said that first obtaining a fruit is what is named stream-entry, then one twofold separated from desire and one wholly separated from desire ought also to be named stream-enterers upon reaching the subsequent cognition concerning the path.

Therefore this name stream-enterer points to the first obtaining of a fruit, yet the name is established with reference to ‘that fruit which is first obtained by one who obtains all the fruits one after another.’ Once-returning and non-returning are not fruits certainly obtained first; this alone is certainly obtained first, and so it is named stream-entry.

Question: For what reason does this name not point to one in his eighth existence?

Answer: Because only upon reaching the subsequent cognition concerning the path has one obtained in full the outflowless paths of both approaching and fruit, and obtained in full the outflowless paths of both the path of seeing and the path of cultivation. He arrives at the stream of direct realization having obtained it in full, and so is named a stream-enterer; one in his eighth existence is not so, and therefore the name stream-enterer does not point to one in his eighth existence.

Treatise (the reckoning of twenty-eight for the seven births): That person, from this point on, ties at most seven intermediate existences and seven birth existences among men, and likewise among gods, twenty-eight in all; and because there are seven each among men and gods and so forth, it is said to be at most seven births. It is as with the seven kinds of skill and the seven-leaved tree (both being reckoned by seven). What the Vaibhāṣika masters say is just this.

Treatise (the objection concerning an eighth existence and the answer · a threefold exchange): (An objector:) If that is so, for what reason does a sūtra say that ‘there is no place and no room for one whose seeing is complete to have the sense of taking an eighth existence’ (it plainly says there is no eighth existence, and yet twenty-eight births are reckoned)?

(The answerer:) The intent of that sūtra is stated with regard to a single destiny (no more than seven among men, no more than seven among gods); if one holds fast to the letter, then intermediate existence would have to be nonexistent (intermediate existence not entering the count of births).

(The objector objects again:) If that is so, then for one who goes upstream to the summit of existence there ought likewise to be no eighth birth within a single destiny (whereas he in fact has many births).

(The answerer explains it through:) This is said with regard to the desire realm, and so there is no such fault.

Treatise (proof from scripture and proof from reason): Question: By what is this proved? By scripture or by reason?

Answer: Because the sūtra says ‘seven among gods and among men.’ The sūtra of the Kāśyapīyas plainly and separately says that seven births are taken in the place of men and in the place of gods, and therefore one should not be obstinate here.

If one obtains the fruit of stream-entry in the destiny of men, he attains complete nirvāṇa still in the destiny of men; if he obtains it in the destiny of gods, he attains it still in the destiny of gods.

Treatise (for what reason there is no eighth existence): Question: For what reason does he not take an eighth existence?

Answer: Because his continuum, having come this far, must ripen, and the class of the noble path is by its very nature just so — as with the seven-step snake (whose poison acts within no more than seven steps) and the fourth-day fever (which breaks out within no more than its term).

And again because he still has seven other fetters remaining, namely the two lower fetters and the five higher fetters; and though the noble path is present in the meantime, being held by the force of the remaining actions he does not realize complete quiescence.

Upon reaching the seventh existence, if he meets a time when there is no Buddha-dharma, he obtains the fruit of the arhat while still in the household; and having obtained the fruit he certainly does not remain in the household, but by the very nature of things obtains the marks of a monk. Here another account is recorded alongside: some say that he goes forth into homelessness in one of the other paths.

Treatise (the ground of his being of the nature not to fall back): Question: How is he said to be of the nature not to fall back?

Answer: Because he does not grow the actions that fall back; because he goes counter to the growing of such actions and to their fruits; because his strong wholesome roots hold his body down; and because both his preparatory practice and his intention are pure.

Those who have actions that will certainly make them fall into the evil destinies cannot so much as raise up receptivity, still less obtain stream-entry. Hence there is a stanza that says:

Quoted stanza (seven characters to the line · not a root stanza): The sin done by a fool, though small, still makes him fall into the evil; the sin wrought by a wise man, though great, can still be freed from suffering; as a lump of iron, though small, sinks in the water, while iron made into a bowl, though great, can float.

Treatise (the limit of suffering · the close of the fascicle): Question: The sūtra says that a stream-enterer ‘makes the limit of suffering’; on what sense is the name ‘limit of suffering’ established?

Answer: It is established upon ‘as far as this present life and no suffering thereafter,’ in the sense of making the later suffering not continue. Or it may be said that the limit of suffering is just nirvāṇa.

Question: How can nirvāṇa be made?

Answer: Because the obstruction to its acquisition is removed, the word ‘make’ is used — as when one speaks of ‘making a space,’ meaning the demolishing of a terrace and tower (the thing that blocked the place being pulled down, space itself not being produced).

Those in the other stations also have at most seven returning births, yet not with certainty, and so it is not spoken of.

〔Root 36〕The Approach to and the Fruit of Once-Returning — the Three Conditions of Family-to-Family

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It has already been made out above that the one who “abides in the fruit and has not yet abandoned the defilements abandoned by cultivation” is named the stream-enterer, who at most returns through birth and death seven times. 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. The stanza says:

Stanza: One who has abandoned the third or the fourth grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation, and is yet to undergo three births or two, is named family-to-family. All the way to the abandoning of the fifth grade is called the approach to once-returning; abandon the sixth, and one becomes the fruit of once-returning.

Treatise: It is that stream-enterer who goes on abandoning the defilements abandoned by cultivation. If the three conditions are complete, he is thereupon renamed family-to-family. The first is by “abandoning defilement” — he has abandoned the third or the fourth grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation. The second is by “achieving the faculties” — he has obtained the faculties without outflows that can counteract those defilements. The third is by “undergoing birth” — he is yet to undergo three or two of the existences of the desire realm.

Within the stanza only the first and the third conditions are stated (abandoning defilement and undergoing birth), and the second is not stated. This is because: after the fruit of stream-entry it says “goes on abandoning defilement,” and that already carries within it the layer of sense that “he has achieved the several faculties without outflows that can counteract those defilements”; it can be drawn out by implication, and so need not be set out item by item.

Yet the phrase “three births or two” must still be stated. The reason is: in practice there is advance and there is retreat, and the number of births each undergoes may be fewer than this, or he may undergo none at all, or more than this — it is just because it is not fixed that this slot of “three births or two” must be marked out before he counts as family-to-family.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): Why is there no “family-to-family by abandoning the fifth grade”? Answer: because when the fifth grade has been abandoned, the sixth must be abandoned next. One grade of defilement has no power to obstruct the matter of obtaining a fruit — just as with the one-interval one, since he has not yet crossed out of the desire realm (the full explanation follows below).

It should be known that family-to-family is of two kinds in all. The first is divine family-to-family: within the destiny of the gods of the desire realm he undergoes birth in three families or two and realizes perfect quiescence, whether in one heavenly place or in two or three. The second is human family-to-family: within the destiny of humans he undergoes birth in three families or two and realizes perfect quiescence, whether in one continent or in two or three.

Now for the approach to and the fruit of once-returning. It is that stream-enterer who goes on abandoning the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation one grade at a time, up to the fifth grade; throughout all of this he should be known to be renamed the approach to the fruit of once-returning. If he abandons the sixth grade, he becomes the fruit of once-returning — this one goes up to the heavens once and comes back to the human world once, and then attains parinirvāṇa, and so is called the fruit of once-returning; after this once there is no further birth.

This one may also be called “thin in greed, hatred, and delusion,” because there remain to him only the low grades of greed, hatred, and delusion.

〔Root 37〕The Approach to and the Fruit of Non-Returning — One-Interval

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The difference between the approach to and the fruit of once-returning having been made out, next the approach to and the fruit of non-returning are to be established. The stanza says:

Stanza: One who has abandoned the seventh or the eighth grade, and is yet to undergo one further birth, is named one-interval. This is the third approach; abandon the ninth grade, and one becomes the fruit of non-returning.

Treatise: It is that once-returner who goes on abandoning the remaining defilements. If the three conditions are complete, he is thereupon renamed one-interval. The first is by “abandoning defilement” — he has abandoned the seventh or the eighth grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation. The second is by “achieving the faculties” — he has obtained the faculties without outflows that can counteract those defilements. The third is by “undergoing birth” — he is yet to undergo the one remaining existence of the desire realm.

Within the stanza only the first and the third conditions are stated, and “achieving the faculties” is not stated, for the same reason as before.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): How can one grade of defilement obstruct the obtaining of the fruit of non-returning? Answer: because if that grade is abandoned, one thereupon crosses out of the desire realm. 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.

“Interval” has the sense of an interval that intervenes. That one remaining birth becomes an interval, and so he does not realize perfect quiescence; or else the one remaining grade of the defilements of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation becomes an interval, and so he does not obtain the fruit of non-returning. One who has this single interval is named one-interval.

Just this one who has abandoned the seventh or the eighth grade of the defilements abandoned by cultivation should be known to be named also the approach to the fruit of non-returning.

Here one layer must be added: if someone, before entering upon the seeing of the truths, has already abandoned beforehand the third or fourth or the seventh or eighth grade of defilement, then when he afterwards obtains the fruit, so long as he has not yet cultivated “the path of the later and superior fruit,” he is still not called family-to-family or one-interval — because he has not yet achieved the faculties without outflows that counteract those defilements.

If he abandons the ninth grade, he becomes the fruit of non-returning, and will certainly not come back to be born in the desire realm. This one may also be called “one who has abandoned the five lower fetters.” Although of those five lower fetters two or three must certainly have been abandoned earlier, at this moment they are gathered together and reckoned as abandoned all at once, and so he is called thus.

〔Root 38 · Root 39〕The Seven Kinds of Non-Returner — the Five Who Proceed to the Form Realm

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Upon this stage of non-returning, the sūtras of the several schools establish differences through various gates. Now the marks of those differences are to be made out. The stanza says:

Stanza: Herein there are the four kinds: attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, upon birth, with exertion, and without exertion. There is one kind that goes upstream: if he has the mixed cultivation of the meditative absorptions, he can be born in Akaniṣṭha, and within this there are further the full leap, the half leap, and dying everywhere; the rest can be born at the summit of existence. As for those who proceed to the formless realm, there are four kinds. Besides these there is also one who attains parinirvāṇa in the present body.

Treatise: This non-returner is said in sum to be of seven kinds. First, the differences of those who “proceed to the form realm” are five: first, attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval; second, attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth; third, attaining parinirvāṇa with exertion; fourth, attaining parinirvāṇa without exertion; fifth, going upstream.

These several names all have their derivation. This one attains parinirvāṇa “in the interval,” and so it is said that he is named one who attains parinirvāṇa in the interval. Likewise it should be known: this one attains parinirvāṇa “upon having been born,” this one attains parinirvāṇa “with exertion,” this one attains parinirvāṇa “without exertion,” and so they are named attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth and the rest. This one flows “upward,” and so he is named one who goes upstream.

The one said to “attain parinirvāṇa in the interval” is he who, on his way to birth in the form realm, attains parinirvāṇa while abiding in the stage of intermediate existence. The one said to “attain parinirvāṇa upon birth” is he who, having been born in the form realm, attains parinirvāṇa before long, because he is furnished with the two paths of diligent cultivation and swift advance.

Treatise (a divergent account and the author’s refutation): The parinirvāṇa spoken of here is the one with remainder. (There is another party.) Some other masters say: it extends to the one without remainder as well. The author disallows this on the spot, saying: this is unreasonable, because that one has no mastery over the casting off of his life.

The one said to “attain parinirvāṇa with exertion” is he who, having been born in the form realm, does not let his preparatory effort rest for a long time and attains parinirvāṇa only by much exertion — this one has only the diligent cultivation and no path of swift advance. The one said to “attain parinirvāṇa without exertion” is he who, having been born in the form realm and after a long while, lets his preparatory effort slacken and rest, and attains parinirvāṇa without much exertion — this one lacks the diligent cultivation and yet has the path of swift advance.

Treatise (a divergent account and the author’s refutation): (There is another party.) Some say: the difference between these two lies in this, that the one takes the conditioned and the other the unconditioned noble path as its object, and that they obtain nirvāṇa in that order. The author disallows this on the spot, saying: this account is unreasonable, for the fault is too sweeping.

Treatise: Yet that the sūtras state attaining parinirvāṇa without exertion first and with exertion after — such an order does accord with principle. For the one who has the path of swift advance (without exertion) and the one who has it not (with exertion) can both accomplish the matter of nirvāṇa; and the kind that is obtained without having to use exertion goes more smoothly than the kind that is obtained only by using exertion — and therefore without exertion is stated first.

As for attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth, that one has obtained the swiftest and highest grade of the path, and his latent tendencies are the feeblest, and so he attains parinirvāṇa not long after he is born.

The one said to “go upstream” has the sense of “proceeding upward” — “flowing” and “proceeding” are one in sense. That is to say: 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 he attains parinirvāṇa.

This one who goes upstream divides further into two classes, because “cause” and “result” differ. As to the “cause”: whether he has the mixed cultivation in the meditative absorptions. As to the “result”: whether Akaniṣṭha or the summit of existence is his last destination.

First the class that has the mixed cultivation: if he has the mixed cultivation in the meditative absorptions, he can be born in Akaniṣṭha and there attain parinirvāṇa. This class has three further differences, namely the distinction of the full leap, the half leap, and dying everywhere.

The one said to make “the full leap” is he who, while in the desire realm, has already mixedly cultivated all four meditative absorptions, and afterwards meets with conditions and loses the upper three absorptions; then, taking the relish of the first absorption as his condition, at the end of his life he is born up into the place of 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 out of the place of the Brahmakāyika Heaven 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 said to make “the half leap” is he who from the place of the Brahmakāyika Heaven is born by stages down into the Pure Abodes, until in the middle he is able to leap over one place and be born in Akaniṣṭha — because he leaps but not fully, he is named half leap. (Here one matter is mentioned in passing.) A noble one is certainly not born in the place of the Mahābrahmā Heaven, because it is a place where wrong views arise, and because there one occupies of oneself the position of a single teacher.

The one said to “die everywhere” is he who from the place of the Brahmakāyika Heaven is born by stages and undergoes one birth everywhere in every place, and only at the last is able to be born in Akaniṣṭha — because he has died once in every place, he is named dying everywhere.

Treatise: 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 does not seek what is equal or inferior. And it is just for this reason that the sense of “non-returning” is complete — he certainly does not come back to be born in a place where he has been born before. Not being born even in his own place, how much less will he be born anywhere below it.

It should be known that what has been said above is, of the two classes of those who go upstream, the class that “by the cause of having the mixed cultivation of the meditative absorptions attains parinirvāṇa in Akaniṣṭha.”

The other class, those who have no mixed cultivation in the meditative absorptions, can be born at the summit of existence and there attain parinirvāṇa. That is to say: he had before no mixed cultivation of the absorptions, 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 be born in 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.

Of these two classes of those who go upstream, the former is of the practice of contemplation and the latter of the practice of stilling — because the one delights in discernment and the other in absorption, and thus they differ.

Treatise (an objection set and answered): That these two classes of those who go upstream should attain parinirvāṇa within a lower level does not appear to contravene principle; why then is it said that they “take Akaniṣṭha and the summit of existence for their last place”? Answer: because beyond those two there is no place to proceed to — just as the stream-enterer at most returns through birth seven times (an upper limit, not a saying that he must reach it).

These five spoken of above are named the non-returners who “proceed to the form realm.”

The differences of those who “proceed to the formless realm” are four kinds: that is, while in the desire realm they have already become free of craving for the form realm, and at the end of their life here they are born into the formless realm. The differences within this are only four, because they are divided according to the differences of “attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth.” These four together with the five above make six kinds of non-returner.

Besides these there is one further kind, who proceeds neither to the form realm nor to the formless, but abiding in this very place is able to attain parinirvāṇa, and is named attaining parinirvāṇa in the present life. Together with the six above, this makes seven.

〔Root 40〕The Nine Kinds of Non-Returner — Three Kinds Each Divided into Three

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Among the five non-returners who “proceed to the form realm” there is yet another gate that displays their differences. The stanza says:

Stanza: Those who proceed to the form realm are of nine kinds, namely three kinds each divided into three. Because action, defilement, and faculty are distinct, there come to be three threes, nine differences in all.

Treatise: That is, the five non-returners who proceed to the form realm are first established in sum as three, and each of these is further divided into three, and so there come to be nine kinds.

Which three? Attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, upon birth, and going upstream, because these differ (attaining parinirvāṇa with exertion and without exertion being both gathered into attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth).

How is it said that the three kinds are each divided into three? First, attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval divides into three kinds: attaining parinirvāṇa swiftly, not swiftly, and after a long time — these three are displayed by the simile of the three sparks. Attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth also divides into three kinds: namely, attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth, with exertion, and without exertion reckoned all together; these three all attain parinirvāṇa after having been born, and so all should be named attaining parinirvāṇa upon birth. Among those who go upstream there are also three kinds: because the leap, the half leap, and the rest differ.

Yet these three sets of three are all alike divided according to attaining parinirvāṇa swiftly, not swiftly, and after a long time, and so when set over against one another they are not confounded.

These three kinds and nine kinds of non-returner have their differences of swift, not swift, and long in coming because action, defilement, and faculty differ. Their being first constituted as three kinds is by the difference of having done and increased “action to be experienced upon its raising,” “action to be experienced in the next life,” and “action to be experienced in a later life”; and in that same order it is by the difference in the active presence of the low, middle, and high grades of defilement, and by the difference of the high, middle, and low faculties — these three each according as it fits.

Analyzed still more finely: it is likewise because action, defilement, and faculty differ that each kind has three distinctions, and so there come to be nine kinds. That is to say: of the first two kinds (in the interval and upon birth) and the third kind (going upstream), the first two are each constituted as three kinds by the differences of defilement and faculty, and not by a difference of action; while the latter one (going upstream) is also divided into three kinds by the difference of “action to be experienced in a later life.” Hence it is said that “those non-returners who proceed to the form realm come, by the distinctness of action, defilement, and faculty, to the differences of three threes.”

〔Root 41〕The Seven Destinies of Good Men

Treatise (the author poses a question to himself): If that is so (there being nine kinds among those who proceed to the form realm), why then does the Buddha in the sūtras of the several schools say that there are only seven destinies of good men? The stanza says:

Stanza: The seven destinies of good men are established because those who go upstream are not further distinguished. They practice the good and do not practice the evil, and they have a going upward and no coming back again.

Treatise (the author’s own answer): The three kinds of attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval, the three kinds upon birth, and going upstream reckoned as one — the sūtra establishes the seven destinies of good men in accordance with this. Although those who go upstream are of three kinds, since all of them have the dharma of “going upstream” they are named going upstream; and because in this respect their sense is the same, they are for the time being established as one.

Treatise (the second round of question and answer): Why are the destinies of good men established in accordance with these seven 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 likewise practice wholesome actions, and in this there is no difference (so that practicing the good cannot alone mark them off). 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 either. Therefore the destinies of good men are established in accordance with these seven alone.

Treatise (the third round of question and answer): If that is so, why does a sūtra say “what is a good man? He is one who has achieved the right view of one in training,” and so on at length? Answer: the other ones in training, if spoken of by another gate, may also be said to have the nature of good men — for the several ones in training have all obtained, with respect to the five evils, the discipline of “never doing them,” and their unwholesome defilements too are for the most part abandoned. But the name “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.”

〔Root 42〕The Noble Ones Who Have Undergone Birth — Not Going to Another Realm · Not Sharpening the Faculties · Not Falling Back

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Do those who stand in the noble stage and have undergone birth also have these marks of difference? Answer: they do not. How then is it? The stanza says:

Stanza: A noble one who has undergone birth in the desire realm will not go on to be born in any other realm. This class, and those who are born up into the upper realms, have neither the sharpening of the faculties nor falling back.

Treatise: If one who stands in the noble stage has undergone birth in the desire realm, then he will certainly not go on to be born in the form or the formless realm — for having realized the fruit of non-returning, he is settled upon attaining parinirvāṇa in the present body. If he is a noble one who has undergone birth in the form realm, then the principle of his being born up into the formless realm is admitted, just as with the one who “proceeds to the form realm and goes at the extreme to the summit of existence.”

Treatise (a doubt from the testimony of scripture, and the explaining through): Yet Śakra, lord of the gods, once spoke thus: “I have heard that there are gods named Akaniṣṭha, and when I afterwards fall away I shall be born there.” (He had already obtained stream-entry; how could he speak so?) The Vaibhāṣika masters explain it through thus: it is because Śakra did not comprehend the marks of the Abhidharma; and the reason the Buddha did not forbid him was to make him glad.

Treatise (the author asks and answers himself): Just this one who has undergone birth in the desire realm, and those noble ones who have from here been born up into the upper realms, certainly have neither the sharpening of the faculties nor falling back. 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? Answer: because they certainly have neither. And why do they certainly not have them? Answer: 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.

Treatise (the author asks and answers himself · a supplementary explanation by the Vaibhāṣika masters): Why is it that one in training who has not yet become free of craving for desire does not have the matter of “attaining parinirvāṇa within the stage of intermediate existence”? Answer: 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 yet of the feeblest.

The Vaibhāṣika masters make a further explaining through, 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 — namely, he should still go on abandoning the two classes of defilement, the unwholesome and the indeterminate; he should still go on realizing the second and the third fruits of the ascetic life; and he should still cross over the dharmas of the three realms all together; whereas abiding in the stage of intermediate existence there is no such capability.

〔Root 43〕The Mixed Cultivation of the Meditative Absorptions — Which Is Cultivated First · How It Counts as Accomplished · Why It Is Cultivated

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes · three questions): It was said above that one who goes upstream takes the mixed cultivation of the meditative absorptions as his cause and can proceed to Akaniṣṭha. Then, first, which absorption should he cultivate mixedly first? Second, by what stage may one know that the mixed cultivation is already accomplished? Third, and for what reason is the mixed cultivation of the absorptions undertaken? The stanza says:

Stanza: The fourth meditative absorption is cultivated mixedly first. Its accomplishment is by “the mixing of a single thought-instant.” It is for the sake of birth, of ease in the present dharma, and of blocking a falling back into the defilements.

Treatise: Whoever would cultivate the four meditative absorptions mixedly must cultivate the fourth absorption mixedly first. Because that concentration is the most capable of all, and because among the several practices of ease it is the most excellent.

One who thus cultivates the several absorptions mixedly is either an arhat or a non-returner. He must first enter the fourth absorption and let many thought-instants of mind without outflows be present in succession; from here he draws forth many thought-instants of mind with outflows, and then again many thought-instants of mind without outflows are present. Turning about back and forth in this way, the later stretches grow shorter by degrees, until at the last there remain only two thought-instants without outflows, which then draw forth two thought-instants with outflows as present, and with nothing intervening two thought-instants without outflows arise again — this is called the “completion of the preparatory effort” of the concentration of mixed cultivation.

Further on, from a single thought-instant without outflows alone he raises a single thought-instant with outflows as present, and with nothing intervening a single thought-instant without outflows arises again. In this way that one middle moment with outflows is mixed in by the two moments without outflows before and after it — and only this is called the “completion of the fundamental” of the concentration of mixed cultivation.

(This set of three moments has a correspondence.) The first two moments are like the uninterrupted path, and the third moment is like the path of liberation.

The mixed cultivation of the fourth absorption being thus finished, riding upon this momentum he is also able, each according as it fits, to cultivate the lower three absorptions mixedly.

Again: if one has first cultivated the several absorptions mixedly in this way in the three continents of the human destiny of the desire realm, then even if he afterwards falls away from them and is born into the form realm, he is still able to cultivate the absorptions mixedly as he did before.

Treatise (the answer to the third question): The mixed cultivation of the absorptions is for the sake of three conditions: first, for the sake of birth; second, for the sake of ease in the present dharma; third, for the sake of blocking a falling back into the arising of the defilements.

As for the non-returner: those of keen faculties among them do it for the sake of ease in the present dharma and of birth in the Pure Abodes; those of dull faculties do it also for the sake of blocking a falling back — because they fear falling back. Cultivating mixedly in this way makes “the concentration associated with relish” the more remote.

As for the arhat: those of keen faculties do it for the sake of ease in the present dharma; those of dull faculties do it also for the sake of guarding against a falling back into the arising of the defilements.

〔First Half of Root 44〕Why the Pure Abodes Are Only Five Places

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The mixed cultivation of the absorptions is for the sake of birth in the Pure Abodes. Then why are the places of the Pure Abodes only five? The stanza says:

Stanza: Because the mixed cultivation has five grades, the places of birth are the five Pure Abodes.

Treatise: Because the mixed perfuming and cultivating of the fourth meditative absorption has five grades, the Pure Abodes are only five places.

Which five grades? Namely the differences of the low grade, the middle grade, the high-high grade, the surpassing-high grade, and the utmost grade.

Herein: for the first grade only three minds need be present for it to be accomplished — namely, first raising one without outflows, next raising one with outflows, and after that one without outflows. The second grade has six minds, the third nine, the fourth twelve, the fifth fifteen. Cultivating the absorptions mixedly in five grades in this way, one draws down the five Pure Abode heavens in that same order.

It should be known that here it is “the force of what is without outflows perfuming and cultivating what has outflows” that makes it draw down the Pure Abodes.

Treatise (a divergent account recorded alongside): (There is another party.) Some other masters say: it is by the dominance in order of the five, confidence, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, that the five Pure Abodes are drawn down. (The text of the treatise sets this account alongside without adding a refutation.)

〔Second Half of Root 44〕The Bodily Witness

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The sūtras say that among the non-returners there is one named the bodily witness. In dependence upon what superior quality is the name “bodily witness” established? The stanza says:

Stanza: A non-returner who has obtained the absorption of cessation is renamed the bodily witness.

Treatise: To have “the acquisition of the absorption of cessation” is what 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 thereupon renamed the bodily witness. That is to say: this non-returner witnesses by his “body” a dharma resembling nirvāṇa, and so is named the bodily witness.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): Why is he said to be named the “bodily” witness alone? Answer: because at that time mind is already absent, and because it arises in dependence upon the body.

(Here the author brings out a further explanation.) Speaking as the principle really is, one should say thus: he rises from the absorption of cessation and obtains what he had not obtained before, the quiescence of a body possessed of consciousness, and he 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 therefore named the bodily witness. It is because the acquisition and the cognition are present that the quiescence of the body is witnessed.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): The sūtras say that there are eighteen who are in training. Why is the bodily witness not stated among them? Answer: because the “cause depended upon” is wanting.

What is called the cause depended upon? It is the three trainings without outflows together with their fruit — the differences among those in training are established precisely in dependence upon those. And 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 that.”

Treatise (the numbers of the fine analysis): The differences of the non-returner, in their coarse aspect, are as stated; if analyzed finely, they may come to several thousand kinds. How is this to be understood?

Take attaining parinirvāṇa in the interval for an instance. Established by “faculty,” it comes to three kinds, because the low, middle, and high faculties differ. Established by “level,” it comes to four kinds, because proceeding to the first absorption and the rest differs. Established by “lineage,” it comes to six kinds, because the lineage liable to falling back and the rest differ. Established by “place,” it comes to sixteen kinds, because the Brahmakāyika Heaven and the rest differ. Established by “freedom from the defilement of a level,” it comes to thirty-six kinds, because from “bound by all the bonds of the form realm” up to “freed from the eight grades of defilement of the fourth absorption” there are just so many stages.

If one establishes them by combining the four — place, lineage, freedom from defilement, and faculty — they come in all to two thousand five hundred ninety-two. How is this reckoned? Take one place: therein the lineages are six; and each single lineage, divided again by the gate of freedom from defilement, comes to nine kinds — that is, in whatever level, reckoning from being bound by all the bonds up to being freed from eight grades. Thus six times nine makes fifty-four; then sixteen places times fifty-four makes eight hundred sixty-four; then multiplying it by the faculties (three grades) makes three times as much, and so it comes in all to two thousand five hundred ninety-two.

(Here there is a convention for the reckoning.) 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 — this is so that the counts of freedom from defilement may come out even for every level.

In this way it is so up to those who go upstream as well. The five kinds reckoned together, the accumulated number comes in all to twelve thousand nine hundred sixty.

〔Root 45 · Root 46〕The Approach to Arhatship and the Vajra-like Concentration

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The differences of the third approach and the third fruit having been made out, next the fourth approach and the fourth fruit are to be established. The stanza says:

Stanza: Among the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the upper 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, all is named the approach to arhatship. The ninth uninterrupted path is named the vajra-like concentration; the acquisition of the exhaustion of the outflows arises together with the knowledge of exhaustion, and one becomes the worthy fruit of one beyond training.

Treatise: It is that non-returner who goes on abandoning the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the form and the 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.

Within this approach to arhatship just spoken of, 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. (One must take note.) It is not said that it has broken all of them to exhaustion — it is said that it has the capability of breaking them all.

Among the uninterrupted paths able to abandon defilement, the one associated with this concentration is the most excellent of all (and so the vajra alone is taken as its simile).

Treatise (the first account): The vajra-like concentration is said to be of many kinds. That is, when the uninterrupted path that abandons the ninth grade of defilement at the summit of existence arises, since it extends to a dependence upon nine levels, this concentration is said, when divided by the differences of “cognition,” “mode of apprehension,” and “object,” to have fifty-two kinds as gathered under access concentration. Namely: the subsequent cognition concerning suffering and the subsequent cognition concerning origination take the suffering and the origination of the summit of existence as object, each associated with four modes of apprehension, making eight; the cognition of dharma concerning cessation and the cognition of dharma concerning the path are each associated with four modes of apprehension, making eight; the subsequent cognition concerning cessation takes the cessation of the eight levels as object, each one associated with four modes of apprehension, making thirty-two together; the subsequent cognition concerning the path takes the path of the eight levels as object, with four modes of apprehension in all, making four — 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. As access concentration gathers fifty-two, so it should be known are the intermediate absorption and the four absorptions. The sphere of boundless space has twenty-eight, the sphere of boundless consciousness twenty-four, the sphere of nothingness twenty — because in dependence upon the formless realm there is no cognition of dharma, nor any subsequent cognition concerning cessation that “takes the cessation of a lower level as object”; while as for taking the counteracting path of a lower level as object, since paths of the same class are causes of one another, that is still reckoned in.

Treatise (the second account): (There is another party.) Some say: this concentration, divided by the differences of cognition, mode of apprehension, and object, has eighty kinds as gathered under access concentration. That is, the subsequent cognition concerning the path also has four modes of apprehension severally for the path of each of the eight levels, and by this it exceeds the former account by twenty-eight. As access concentration gathers eighty kinds, so it should be known are the intermediate absorption and the four absorptions. The sphere of boundless space has forty, the sphere of boundless consciousness thirty-two, the sphere of nothingness twenty-four.

Treatise (the third account): There are also those who hold: the vajra-like concentration, divided by the differences of cognition, mode of apprehension, and object, has in all one hundred sixty-four kinds as gathered under access concentration. That is, the subsequent cognition concerning cessation takes the cessation of the eight levels as object in two ways, “severally as object” and “all together as object,” each associated with four modes of apprehension, and by this it exceeds the first account by one hundred twelve. As access concentration gathers one hundred sixty-four, so it should be known are the intermediate absorption and the four absorptions. The sphere of boundless space has fifty-two, the sphere of boundless consciousness thirty-six, the sphere of nothingness twenty-four.

(The author gathers it up.) If one analyzes further by lineage, faculty, and the rest, still more kinds come to be; this should be pondered out as principle requires.

Treatise: 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 acquisition of the exhaustion of those defilements” together with the knowledge of exhaustion that proceeds along with it. The vajra-like concentration is the last uninterrupted path among those that abandon defilement; that from which the knowledge of exhaustion arises 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.

Thus, as soon as the knowledge of exhaustion has arisen, one becomes the fruit of the arhat beyond training — because one has obtained the dharma of “the worthy fruit of one 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.” That is to say, from this time on he should only do what benefits others, and he is one to whom all who have defilement should make offerings — the name “arhat” is established in accordance with this sense. (The remaining senses may be known accordingly.)

Treatise (a question posed and answered): The four approaches and three fruits made out above are all named those 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 are certainly three: first, the higher discipline; second, the higher mind; third, the higher discernment — having discipline, concentration, and discernment for their own entity.

Treatise (an objection set and answered): If that is so, an ordinary being too ought to be named one in training. Answer: not so. Because an ordinary being has not yet 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. It is just for this reason that the Well-Gone One says the word “training” twice over. As in a sūtra where the Buddha addresses Danpa: “Training in what should be trained in, training in what should be trained in — such a one alone do I call one in training.” This is so that one may understand that it is only “training in what is rightly to be trained in without any falling away” that is named being in training, and therefore the Bhagavat says the word “training” a second time.

Treatise (an objection set and answered): When a noble one abides in his intrinsic state (and not in preparatory effort), how is he then called one in training? Answer: because the intention to train is not yet fulfilled — like a traveler who rests a while and is still upon the road. Or else because the dharmas of training constantly follow along after him.

What are the dharmas of training? They are the dharmas without outflows and conditioned of one who is in training. What are the dharmas of one beyond training? They are the dharmas without outflows and conditioned of one who is beyond training.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): Why is nirvāṇa not named training? Answer: because one beyond training and an ordinary being achieve it as well. And why is it not named beyond training? Answer: because one in training and an ordinary being achieve it as well.

Treatise: 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. That is to say: from the approach “for the sake of realizing the fruit of stream-entry” up to “the fruit of arhatship realized.” Although the names are eight, the entities are only five: namely, abiding in the four fruits, together with the approach to the first fruit; because the approaches to the latter three fruits are not apart from the preceding fruit.

This is said with regard to one who obtains the fruits “in due order.” If one who is doubly free of craving or wholly free of craving abides within the path of seeing, he is then named the approach to the fruit of once-returning or to the fruit of non-returning, and is not gathered under the preceding fruit — just as it was said above that the path of cultivation is of two kinds, “with outflows” and “without outflows,” and differs accordingly.

〔First Half of Root 47〕By What Path the Defilement of What Level Is Left Behind

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): By what kind of path is the defilement of what level left behind? The stanza says:

Stanza: The defilement of the summit of existence is left behind by the path without outflows alone; the rest are left behind by the two paths.

Treatise: Only the path without outflows can free one from the defilement of the summit of existence, and a path with outflows cannot. Why? Because above this there is no further mundane path; and because a level cannot counteract that level itself; and because the defilements of that very level increase by attachment right here.

(Here there is a general rule.) If those defilements still increase by attachment with respect to this path, then this path certainly cannot counteract those defilements; if this path has the power to counteract those defilements, then those defilements certainly do not increase by attachment with respect to this path. Therefore the path of a level does not counteract that level itself.

As for freedom from the defilement of the other eight levels, it extends to both kinds of path — because both the mundane and the supramundane path can free one from them.

〔Second Half of Root 47〕How Many Acquisitions of Release from Bondage There Are

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Since freedom from the defilement of the eight levels extends to the two paths, how many acquisitions of release from bondage are there in each case? The stanza says:

Stanza: When a noble one by the two paths becomes free of the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the eight levels, each can draw forth two acquisitions of release from bondage.

Treatise: 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 are able to draw forth both acquisitions of release from bondage in full. Becoming free of those defilements by a path without outflows is likewise — because what the two paths do is the same.

Treatise (a divergent account and the author’s refutation): (There is another party.) The explanation of some other masters runs thus: when one becomes free of those defilements by a path without outflows, by what is it known that an acquisition of release from bondage with outflows arises as well? By this, that “there is a casting off of the acquisition without outflows and yet the defilements are still not achieved.” That is to say: when a noble one in training becomes free of those defilements by a path without outflows, if he did not draw forth “an acquisition of release from bondage with outflows that counteracts them alike,” then when, having by the noble path become fully free of the eight levels, he sharpens his faculties in dependence upon a meditative absorption, he would at that moment cast off all at once the several dull noble paths he had before and obtain only the keen noble path of the fruit gathered under that absorption — and thus the release from bondage in respect of the defilements of the upper levels ought all to be unachieved, and he ought thereupon to achieve those defilements over again.

The author disallows this on the spot, saying: this proof is unreasonable. Why? Because that noble one, even if he had no acquisition of the abandonment with outflows, would still not achieve the defilements of the upper levels — as with “sharpening the faculties after becoming separated from the summit of existence,” and with “an ordinary being not achieving the lower defilements when he is born upward.”

That is to say: as when, having become separated from the defilement of the level of the summit of existence, one afterwards sharpens his faculties in dependence upon a meditative absorption, the acquisition of the abandonment without outflows having been cast off all at once, and the release from bondage of that level having no acquisition with outflows either, yet the defilements of that level are not achieved. And again, as when an ordinary being is born into the second absorption and the rest, although he casts off the acquisitions of the abandonment of the defilements of the desire realm and the rest, he does not achieve the defilements of the desire realm and the rest. Here too it should be so. Therefore that does not amount to a proof.

Treatise (what follows by implication): Since it is said that a noble one, becoming free by the two paths of the defilements abandoned by cultivation in the eight levels, can in each case draw forth two acquisitions of release from bondage, it follows by implication that: an ordinary being, using a path with outflows, can raise only an acquisition of abandonment with outflows; and that 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, can draw forth only an acquisition of abandonment without outflows.

〔Root 48〕By the Path of Which Level the Defilement of Which Level Is Left Behind

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): By the path of which level is the defilement of which level left behind? The stanza says:

Stanza: The path without outflows of access concentration can free one from every level. The paths of the other eight levels free one from their own level and from the levels above. A path with outflows frees one only from the level next below.

Treatise: If the several paths without outflows are gathered under access concentration, they can free one from the defilement of the desire realm up to that of the summit of existence. As for 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 level and of the levels above, and cannot free one from the levels below — because those below have already been left behind.

The several paths with outflows, on the other hand, can all of them free one only from the level next below, and not from their own level and the rest. Because the defilements of their own level increase by attachment right here; because their force is feeble; and because (the upper levels) have already been left behind.

〔Root 49〕Whether the Path of Liberation Too Belongs to the Neighboring Stage

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Of the several who in dependence upon a neighboring stage become free of the defilement of a lower level, the uninterrupted paths are all gathered under the neighboring stage; is the path of liberation also of the neighboring stage? Answer: it is not. How then is it? The stanza says:

Stanza: In depending upon a neighboring stage to become free of the defilement of a lower level, the last path of liberation of the first three levels either enters the fundamental absorption or remains in the neighboring stage; that of the five levels above enters the fundamental absorption alone.

Treatise: The neighboring stages upon which the several paths depend are eight, namely the neighboring stages of the four meditative absorptions and the neighboring stages at the lower edge of the four formless spheres. Those from which one becomes free 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 levels, at the moment when the ninth path of liberation is present, one either enters the fundamental absorption or remains within the neighboring stage. When the five neighboring stages above each free one from the defilement of the level below, at the moment when the ninth path of liberation is present one must enter the fundamental absorption, and does not remain within the neighboring stage.

Why? Because the neighboring stage and the fundamental absorption are equal in respect of “the faculty of equanimity” (this being so of the formless spheres and the upper two absorptions); whereas the neighboring stages and the fundamental absorptions of the lower three absorptions differ in respect of “the faculty of feeling” (the neighboring stage having the feeling of equanimity, the fundamental absorption the feelings of joy and pleasure).

Some are unable to enter the fundamental absorption, because turning into a different feeling is somewhat difficult; yet at the time of becoming free of the lower defilement one must be delighting in what is above (and so the greater number are able to enter). If the feelings do not differ, one must enter the fundamental absorption.

〔Root 50〕What the Mundane Path Takes as Object · What Modes of Apprehension It Makes

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Of the supramundane paths, the uninterrupted and the liberation paths were said above to take the object-field of the four truths and to make the sixteen modes of apprehension, and this follows of itself by principle. What then does the mundane path take as object, and what modes of apprehension does it make? The stanza says:

Stanza: The mundane uninterrupted and liberation paths take, in that order, the lower level and the upper level as object, making the three modes of apprehension of coarseness, suffering, and obstruction, and the three modes of apprehension of calm, sublimity, and escape.

Treatise: 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.” That is to say: the several 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 several liberation paths take as object the dharmas with outflows of that 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” — this being because it has much coarse heaviness able to do one harm; and because it is not a going forth, it is said to be named “obstruction” — this being because it can obstruct one’s crossing out of one’s own level, as the thick wall of a prison can obstruct a man from going out.

As for the three, calm, sublimity, and escape, they are to be explained by reversing this.

〔Root 51〕What Cognition Arises After the Knowledge of Exhaustion

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): The incidental discussion being finished, we should come back and make out the main sense. What cognition arises with nothing intervening after the knowledge of exhaustion? The stanza says:

Stanza: For those of the unshakable lineage, after the knowledge of exhaustion the knowledge of non-arising must arise. For the rest, either a knowledge of exhaustion arises or the right view of one beyond training. This right view of one beyond training every worthy fruit has.

Treatise: 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 with nothing intervening, 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.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): For those of the unshakable lineage spoken of above, does no right view arise? Answer: right view does arise, only it was not stated — because every worthy fruit has this. That is to say: for one of the dharma of the unshakable, after the knowledge of non-arising a knowledge of non-arising arises, or else the right view of one beyond training arises.

〔Root 52〕The Nature of the Ascetic Life and the Fruits of the Ascetic Life — Eighty-Nine

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes · three questions): The four fruits spoken of above — whose fruits are they? Answer: these four should be known to be the fruits of the ascetic life. Then, first, what is the nature of the ascetic life? Second, what is the entity of these fruits? Third, how many differences of the stages of the fruit are there in all? The stanza says:

Stanza: The pure path is the nature of the ascetic life. The conditioned and the unconditioned are its fruit. These fruits are eighty-nine, namely the paths of liberation and the cessations through discernment.

Treatise: 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. As a sūtra says: “because he is able to strive and to still away the several evil and unwholesome dharmas,” and so on at length up to “therefore he is named an ascetic.”

An ordinary being cannot proceed with finality toward nirvāṇa without “a different destination,” and therefore is not a true ascetic.

The conditioned and the unconditioned are the fruits of the ascetic life. The sūtras say that the differences of these fruits are four; but speaking as the marks of dharmas really are, and reckoning by stage, they are eighty-nine, all having the paths of liberation and the cessations through discernment for their nature. That is to say: for the everlasting abandoning of the defilements abandoned by seeing there are eight uninterrupted paths and eight paths of liberation; for the everlasting abandoning of the defilements abandoned by cultivation there are eighty-one uninterrupted paths and eighty-one paths of liberation.

The several uninterrupted paths are only the nature of the ascetic life (and not its fruit); the several paths of liberation, on the other hand, are also the entity of the “conditioned fruit” of the ascetic life, because they are the homogeneous result and the result of human effort of those uninterrupted paths. Each single cessation through discernment is only the entity of the “unconditioned fruit” of the ascetic life, because it is the result of release from bondage and the result of human effort of those uninterrupted paths. Thus they make up eighty-nine kinds.

〔Root 53〕Why Only Four Fruits Are Established — the Five Causes

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): If that is so, why does the World-Honored One not state all eighty-nine? Answer: the fruits are indeed many, and the principle by which they are not all stated is given in the stanza:

Stanza: By five causes four fruits are established — casting off the path once obtained, obtaining a superior path, gathering the several abandonments together, obtaining the eight cognitions, and cultivating the sixteen modes of apprehension all at once.

Treatise: If a stage of the path of abandoning is complete in the five causes, the Buddha in the sūtras establishes it as a fruit.

Which five causes? The first is “casting off the path once obtained,” namely because one casts off the path of the fruit and the path of the approach obtained before. The second is “obtaining a superior path,” namely because one obtains the superior path gathered under the fruit. The third is “gathering the abandonments together,” namely because by one single acquisition one obtains the several abandonments. The fourth is “obtaining the eight cognitions,” namely because one obtains the four cognitions of dharma and the four subsequent cognitions. The fifth is “being able to cultivate the sixteen modes of apprehension all at once,” namely because one is able to cultivate all at once the sixteen modes of apprehension of impermanence and the rest.

At the stages of the four fruits these five causes are all complete, and at the other stages they are not, and therefore the Buddha does not state (the others).

〔Root 54〕Why the Two Fruits Obtained by a Mundane Path Are Also Called Fruits of the Ascetic Life

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): 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 (once-returning and non-returning) also gathered under the fruits of the ascetic life? The stanza says:

Stanza: The abandonment obtained by a mundane path is mixed with what is obtained by the noble path, and is upheld by an acquisition without outflows, and so is also named a fruit of the ascetic life.

Treatise: When one obtains those two fruits by a mundane path, 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 in among them, and the whole makes one fruit — because they are obtained by one and the same “acquisition of the path of the fruit.”

It is for this reason that a sūtra says: “What is the fruit of once-returning? It is the abandoning of the three fetters and being thin in greed, hatred, and delusion.” “What is the fruit of non-returning? It is the abandoning of the five lower fetters.” (The three fetters are what is abandoned upon the path of seeing, and this is just the sense of being mixed with the right seeing.)

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 (and so lose the fruit), it too obtains the name of the entity of a fruit of the ascetic life.

〔Root 55 · Root 56〕The Other Names of the Nature of the Ascetic Life — Brahminhood · the Wheel of Brahmā · the Wheel of Dharma

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Has this nature of the ascetic life any other names? Answer: it has. How is it? The stanza says:

Stanza: What is called the nature of the ascetic life is also named brahminhood, and is also named the wheel of Brahmā — because it is turned by the true Brahmā. Within it the path of seeing alone is said to be named the wheel of Dharma, because in swiftness and the rest it resembles a wheel, or because it is complete with spokes and the rest.

Treatise: That is, the true nature of the ascetic life spoken of above is also said in the sūtras to be named the nature of brahminhood, because it can drive away the several defilements.

This same thing 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” — since a sūtra says that the Buddha is also named Brahmā, also named quiescent, also named cool.

Within this very thing, in dependence upon the path of seeing alone, the World-Honored One in some places says that 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.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): How does the path of seeing resemble it? Answer: because in “swift proceeding” and the rest it resembles that wheel. That is to say: 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.

Treatise (a divergent account recorded alongside): (There is another party.) 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 so is named a wheel. That is to say: 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.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): How is it known that the wheel of Dharma is the path of seeing alone? Answer: because when the path of seeing arose for Kauṇḍinya and the rest, it was then said that “the true wheel of Dharma has been turned.”

Treatise (a question posed and answered): What are the three turnings and the twelve modes of apprehension? Answer: “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.

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” is stated — just as one says “the two dharmas” and “the seven-place skill” and the like (raising one so as to cover the rest).

By these three turnings are displayed, in that order, the three: the path of seeing, the path of cultivation, and the path beyond training. What the Vaibhāṣika masters say is just this.

Treatise (the author objects to himself and concludes): If that is so, then the three turnings and twelve modes of apprehension are not the path of seeing alone, and how can it be said that “the name of the wheel of Dharma is established upon the path of seeing alone”? Therefore one should only say: 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; only thus does it accord with correct principle.

Treatise (a question posed and answered): What is meant by three turnings? Answer: because there is a turning through three rounds. What is meant by being complete in twelve modes of apprehension? Answer: because the three rounds go through the four noble truths. That is to say: “this is suffering, this is origination, this is cessation, this is the path”; “this should be fully comprehended, this should be everlastingly abandoned, this should be realized, this should be cultivated”; “this has been fully comprehended, this has been everlastingly abandoned, this has been realized, this has been cultivated.”

Treatise (a question posed and answered): What is meant by “turning”? Answer: because by this body of dharma-teaching it goes into the continuum of another and makes him understand the sense. Or else, all the noble paths are the wheel of Dharma, because they turn within the body of one who is to be trained. When the path of seeing arises in another’s continuum, it has already reached the first step of “turning,” and so it is named already turned.

〔Root 57〕Which Fruit of the Ascetic Life Is Obtained in Dependence upon Which Realm

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): Which fruit of the ascetic life is obtained in dependence upon which realm? The stanza says:

Stanza: The first three fruits are obtained in dependence upon a body of the desire realm alone; the last fruit (arhatship) extends to bodies of all three realms. Why are the first three obtained in the desire realm alone — and above all, why is the third fruit (non-returning), which is already free of craving for desire, still not obtained in dependence upon an upper realm? Because in the upper realms there is no path of seeing: there is there no right hearing, no taking a lower level as object, and no disgust, and because there is a sūtra for testimony.

Treatise: The first three fruits are obtained only in dependence upon a body of the desire realm; the obtaining of arhatship is in dependence upon bodies of all three realms.

Of the first two fruits, since they have not yet become free of craving for desire, to say that they are not obtained in dependence upon an upper realm is reasonable enough. But why is the third fruit (non-returning) also not obtained in dependence upon an upper realm? Answer: by both principle and the testimony of teaching.

What is the principle? Because in dependence upon a body of an upper realm there is no path of seeing; and it is not that one “who has already become free of craving for desire before he has left the path of seeing” may have the principle of realizing the fruit of non-returning by leaping (there being no path of seeing, there is no way to realize it by leaping).

Treatise (a question posed and answered): Why is there certainly no path of seeing in the upper realms? Answer: first, because within the formless realm there is no right hearing; second, 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; third, because there is there no feeling of suffering and so no disgust arises — and without disgust arising the path of seeing cannot be obtained.

And what is the testimony of teaching? It is by what a sūtra says. A sūtra says: “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.” This word “penetrate” refers to the path of seeing alone, because it is the first preparatory effort for realizing perfect quiescence. By this sentence it is known that the path of seeing is certainly absent in the upper realms.

〔Root 58 · First Half of Root 59〕Arhats Are of Six Kinds — Liberation Dependent on Circumstance and Liberation Not Dependent on It

Treatise (taking up the question from what precedes): It has already been said above that an arhat of the lineage that is the dharma of the unshakable, after the first knowledge of exhaustion (the knowledge that arises when the afflictions have been cut off entire), goes on to give rise to the knowledge of non-arising (the knowledge that the afflictions will never arise again). Now it must be asked: do arhats, among themselves, also have differences, as the fruit of the stream-enterer and those other stages have? The answer: they do. What are the differences? The stanza says:

Stanza: Arhats are of six kinds in all, that is, ranged from the dharma of falling back all the way to the dharma of the unshakable. The first five are all produced from those of the class of one resolute through faith, and are together named liberation dependent on circumstance. The last is called liberation not dependent on circumstance, and is produced from those of the former class of one attained through view.

Treatise: In the sūtras it is said that arhats, because of difference of lineage, are of six kinds: first the dharma of falling back, second the dharma of deliberation, third the dharma of guarding, fourth the dharma of abiding, fifth the dharma of being able to reach, sixth the dharma of the unshakable.

Of these six kinds, the first five are all produced from the lineage of “one resolute through faith” at the former stage of training (one resolute through faith being the class of noble person in whom confidence predominates and whose faculties are the duller). These five, taken together, are further named “the liberation of mind that is cherished and dependent on circumstance” — because they must constantly cherish and guard the merits they have obtained, and because their minds have indeed been liberated from the afflictions; so the name is established out of these two senses joined.

These same five are also called “liberation dependent on circumstance.” Why so? Because they must wait until the season and the conditions are complete before they can enter absorption and be liberated, and so are called “liberated upon awaiting the circumstance”; and only because the first word is elided is it abbreviated to liberation dependent on circumstance. Such a way of speaking by elision is like people’s calling a jar that holds butter simply a butter jar (properly one should say “a jar holding butter,” and dropping the first word makes it a butter jar). As for what circumstance must be awaited, it means that the supports must be sufficient, the body free of illness, the place at ease, and other such excellent conditions must come together, and only then can he enter absorption.

The sixth, the lineage that is the dharma of the unshakable, the stanza calls “the last” (the one ranged at the end). This one is further named “the unshakable liberation of mind” — because he does not fall back or waver, and because his mind is already liberated; the name is established out of these two senses joined. He is likewise called “liberation not dependent on circumstance,” because he can be liberated without awaiting the season. That is to say, the concentration he means to enter becomes present just as he wishes, without waiting for excellent conditions to come together.

Here the treatise gives besides another angle for establishing the names: one may also establish the two names, liberation dependent on circumstance and liberation not dependent on circumstance, by dividing them as “liberation for a time” and “liberation once for all” — because for the first five there is still a time when they may fall and sink, whereas for the last there is no such time. This sixth is produced from the lineage of “one attained through view” at the stage of training (one attained through view being the class of noble person in whom the force of discernment predominates and whose faculties are the keener).

Treatise (the next question): Are the lineages possessed by the six kinds of arhat explained above had from the first, or got only afterward? The answer: it is not fixed. How is that? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 59〕Some Are the Lineage Had from the First, Some Are Got Afterward by Refining the Faculties

Stanza: Some are the lineage had from the first, and some are got afterward by cultivating the practice that refines the faculties.

Treatise: The lineage that is the dharma of falling back must be had from the first; the five beginning with the dharma of deliberation may also be got only afterward. That is: there are those who from the first are of the nature of the dharma of deliberation; and there are those who were of the nature of the dharma of falling back and afterward, by cultivating the refining of the faculties, turned into the dharma of deliberation. And so on up to the dharma of the unshakable, all of which may be stated according to this same principle.

The treatise then explains the sense of the six names one by one:

As for the dharma of falling back, it means that such a person, on meeting some slight condition, falls back from the merits he has obtained — the few beginning with the dharma of deliberation are not so.

As for the dharma of deliberation, it means that such a person deeply fears to fall back and lose, and therefore constantly deliberates upon slaying himself (laying down his life before he has fallen back, so as not to fall and sink).

As for the dharma of guarding, it means that such a person gladly wards and guards for himself the merits he has obtained.

As for the dharma of abiding, it means that such a person, so long as he is apart from a strong condition of falling back, can avoid falling back even without warding himself especially; yet if he is apart from strong preparation, neither will he make any further advance.

As for the dharma of being able to reach, it means that the very nature of such a person is capable of cultivation, that he is apt at cultivating the practice that refines the faculties, and that he can swiftly reach the dharma of the unshakable.

As for the dharma of the unshakable, it means that such a person assuredly will not fall back and lose.

These six kinds of lineage were already distinguished at the former stage of training: the first and the second both lack “constant preparation” and “reverent preparation” (the former being unbroken exertion, the latter being careful and earnest exertion), and are divided into the two, the dharma of falling back and the dharma of deliberation, only because their faculties differ as keen and dull. The third, the dharma of guarding, has constant preparation only; the fourth, the dharma of abiding, has reverent preparation only; the fifth, the dharma of being able to reach, has both kinds of preparation and yet is still of dull faculty; the sixth, the dharma of the unshakable, is of keen faculty and has both kinds of preparation complete.

It must be noted: one who is called of the lineage of the dharma of falling back does not assuredly fall back; and so on up to one called the dharma of being able to reach, who is not assuredly able to penetrate. These names are established only with regard to “there being such a possibility.” Therefore the six kinds of arhat are all found in all three realms.

Here the treatise records besides one position held: if someone were to maintain that one called the dharma of falling back must fall back and one called the dharma of being able to reach must be able to reach, then he would maintain that in the desire realm all six are complete, whereas in the form realm and the formless realm there are only the two, the dharma of abiding and the dharma of the unshakable — because those in the two upper realms do not fall back and lose, need not slay themselves, need not ward themselves, and do not cultivate the refining of the faculties, so that there are only two.

Treatise (the next question): This being so, among the six kinds of arhat, who falls back and from what? Is what is fallen back from the lineage, or the fruit? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 60〕Four Fall Back from Lineage · Five from the Fruit — and in Neither Case from What Was Had from the First

Stanza: There are four who fall back from lineage and five who fall back from the fruit; and what is fallen back from is in neither case the portion originally had from the first.

Treatise: For the lineage that is the dharma of the unshakable there is assuredly no principle of falling back. The five before it all admit of falling back. Among these five, the last four (the dharma of deliberation, of guarding, of abiding, and of being able to reach) may fall back from “lineage”; the dharma of falling back alone has no principle of falling back from lineage, because this lineage is already the lowest grade, and there is nowhere further to fall back to.

As for falling back from the “fruit,” all five admit of it; yet although all admit of falling back, what is fallen back from is in no case the portion originally had from the first. What does this mean? —

If he is one at the stage beyond training, then from the lineage in which he abode at the former stage of training he will assuredly not fall back, because that lineage was made by the path of training and the path beyond training doubly, and is the most firm.

If he is one at the stage of training, then from the lineage in which he abode at the former stage of an ordinary being he likewise will assuredly not fall back, because that lineage was made by the mundane path and the supramundane path doubly, and is firm in the same way.

But from the four lineages beginning with the dharma of deliberation, newly got by cultivating the refining of the faculties after he came to abide at this stage, from that portion of lineage there is a possibility of falling back.

One who at the former stage already abode in the lineage of the dharma of deliberation and the rest will likewise assuredly not fall back from the fruit he has obtained; only one who was formerly of the lineage of the dharma of falling back admits of falling back from a fruit. And again, no one at all falls back from a fruit obtained formerly; only a fruit obtained afterward admits of falling back — so it is settled that there is no such thing as “falling back from the fruit of the stream-enterer.”

From this principle a table of falling back may be set out: at the stage beyond training, the lineage that is the dharma of falling back has three roads before it — first, advancing his faculties; second, falling back to abide at the stage of training; third, abiding at his own station and entering final nirvāṇa. The lineage of the dharma of deliberation has four, the first three the same as above with the addition of “falling back to abide in the lineage of the dharma of falling back.” The remaining three, the dharma of guarding, the dharma of abiding, and the dharma of being able to reach, have in order five, six, and seven — it should be known that each later one increases by one over the one before. And again, if the four beginning with the dharma of deliberation fall back to abide at a stage of training, they can fall back only to the station corresponding to their own and to no other; were it otherwise, they would have obtained a more excellent lineage, and that ought to be called advance and not falling back.

Treatise (below follows the longest exchange in this fascicle — whether the fruit of the arhat can in the end be fallen back from)

Question (raised by the author against himself): For what reason is it settled that there is no such thing as falling back from a fruit obtained formerly?

Answer (the Sarvāstivādins): Because the afflictions abandoned through seeing arise “resting on no entity.” Resting on no entity means that the view of a real person (the view of self, which holds that there is an “I”) turns in dependence upon the locus of the imagined “I,” and that all the afflictions abandoned through seeing have this view of self for their root; and since the entity of the “I” never existed at all, it is said to arise in dependence upon “what is not there.” Arising in dependence upon what is not there, then once it is cut off by noble discernment there is assuredly no principle of its ever falling back.

Objection (raised by the author against himself): If that is so, then it ought to be said that this affliction arises “taking what is not there as its object.”

Answer: It does not take what is not there as its object. For the object upon which it rests is still the four truths (only that it rests upon them otherwise than as they really are).

Pressing (raised by the author against himself): But among the afflictions, which one does not in this way rest upon the objects of the truths otherwise than as they really are (on what ground, then, is it said of the afflictions abandoned through seeing alone that they rest on no entity)?

Explanation (the author): Though all are otherwise than as things really are, there is still a difference. For the afflictions abandoned through cultivation each have their real “entity” — namely the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the rest; upon the object at which they rest, such an aspect is not absent. Whereas the afflictions abandoned through seeing hold that there is an “I” and the like, and upon the objects that are the four truths no aspect of an “I” or the like is to be found at all; and just because the entity upon which they rest is not there, they differ from those abandoned through cultivation.

The treatise then states this same matter again from several angles:

First, among the objects that are form and the rest, the view of self falsely superimposes an “I” that is an agent, an experiencer, a master, and so turns; but in truth no real self-nature is to be found. The extreme view and the rest arise following upon this view of self, and so all together are called “afflictions resting on no entity.” As for greed, hatred, pride, and delusion abandoned through cultivation, they turn upon objects such as form only by way of defiled attachment, aversion (setting oneself against), self-exaltation (thinking highly of oneself), and not understanding (being benighted), and so all together are called “afflictions resting on an entity.”

Second, the afflictions abandoned through seeing hold, upon the principle of the four truths, that there is an “I” and what belongs to “I,” and the view of annihilation and the view of permanence and the rest; yet within the four truths there is not the slightest thing that is an “I” or the like. Greed and the rest abandoned through seeing likewise arise taking this as their object, and so all are named afflictions resting on no entity. The afflictions abandoned through cultivation take form and the rest to be fine or foul; yet upon the objects that are form and the rest the distinctions of fine and foul are not wholly absent, and so they may be named afflictions resting on an entity.

Third, the afflictions abandoned through seeing arise from being deluded about the principle of the four truths, and so are named as resting on no entity; the afflictions abandoned through cultivation arise from being deluded about coarse and evident things, and so are named as resting on an entity. The principle of the four truths is real and dependable, and may serve as a standard to rest upon; and since the discernment of the noble person has directly realized this principle, there is assuredly no principle of falling back. Things, on the other hand, are shifting and unreal, with no fixed standard to rest upon, and so after those afflictions deluded about things have been cut off there remains the possibility of falling back through the losing of mindfulness.

Fourth, it may also be said: the afflictions abandoned through cultivation do not arise by way of examination, for their nature is benighted; whereas the afflictions abandoned through seeing do arise by way of examination, for their nature is to reckon and deliberate. A noble person, not examining coarse and evident things, may through the losing of mindfulness give rise to affliction; but once he has examined, it will not be so — just as, upon a rope or the like, one may on the instant mistake it for a snake (which one would not do upon looking closely). Therefore, as to the afflictions abandoned through cultivation, a noble person still admits of falling back and giving rise to them, whereas the afflictions abandoned through seeing do not arise on the instant — for once a noble person examines, he sees the principle of the truths. Therefore for the noble person, as to what is abandoned through seeing, there is assuredly no principle of falling back.

The Sautrāntika masters say (and the author here takes up their account by his appraisal): From the fruit of the arhat too there is no falling back. — And the author then sets down one sentence: what they say accords with principle.

Question (raised by the author against himself): How is it known to be so?

Answer (the Sautrāntikas): It may be known from two sides, from noble scripture and from correct reasoning.

Pressing (raised by the author against himself): How is it from noble scripture?

Answer (the Sautrāntikas, adducing sūtras in evidence): The sūtra says: bhikṣu, only affliction cut off by noble discernment is called really cut off. Another sūtra says: I say that one in training ought to be heedful, but I do not say so of the arhat. And though there is besides a sūtra that says: the Buddha told Rejoicing (Ānanda), I say that gain and honor and the rest do obstruct even the arhat — yet that speaks only of falling back from the pleasant abiding in the present dharma (the ease of absorption in the present life), and does not say that he falls back from the fruit of the arhat. The sūtra says besides: the unshakable liberation of mind has been witnessed with the body, and I say it as settled that there is no cause or condition whatever by which he could fall back from this.

Citing and explaining through an objection (the Sautrāntikas): If someone says that the arhat does fall back, on the ground that the sūtra speaks of a “liberation cherished and dependent on circumstance” — this much I too grant. But one ought to examine what it is that he falls back from: is it the fruit-nature of worthiness, which is without outflows, or is it the meditative absorptions and the rest, which are with outflows? In truth what he falls back from is the concentration of those fundamental meditative absorptions, which becomes present only upon awaiting the season, and so it is called liberation dependent on circumstance; and because in order to gain the pleasant abiding in the present dharma he longs again and again for it to become present, it is therefore called “cherished.” Here the treatise records besides one account: this absorption is a place of savoring that is cherished; whereas the fruit-nature liberation of the arhats accompanies them constantly and never departs, and so should not be called “dependent on circumstance”; and since he no longer longs for it, neither is it called “cherished.”

Objecting in return (the Sautrāntikas): If the fruit-nature of worthiness admitted of falling back, then why does the World-Honored One speak only of the pleasant abiding in the present dharma he has realized as admitting in principle of being fallen back from (and not of the entity of the fruit)? From this alone it may be proved that the fruit-nature liberation of the arhats must be unshakable. Yet through the fault of disturbance by gain and honor and the rest, there truly are those who fall away from mastery over the pleasant abiding in the present dharma they have obtained — those are the ones of dull faculties; one of keen faculty does not fall away. Therefore from there being or not being falling back with regard to the pleasant abiding in the present dharma obtained, the names dharma of falling back and dharma of not falling back are got. As for the remaining kinds, the dharma of deliberation and the rest, one may think them out on this same principle.

Question (raised by the author against himself): What is the difference among the three names — not falling back, abiding, and unshakable?

Answer (the Sautrāntikas): What is not got by refining the faculties is called not falling back; what is got by refining the faculties is called unshakable. The excellent attainments raised by these two kinds of person have no principle of falling back even on meeting a condition of falling back. As for the person of the dharma of abiding, he can avoid falling back only from the merits in which he already abides, and cannot draw forth any further excellent merits; and if he should draw them forth, from that portion he may still fall back. This is the difference among the three, not falling back, abiding, and unshakable.

Explaining through a passage of sūtra (the Sautrāntikas): As for the affair of Godhika (the name of a certain bhikṣu) — he, formerly at the stage of training, savored too deeply the taste of the absorption of liberation dependent on circumstance, and being besides of dull faculties fell back and lost it again and again, whereupon he deeply reproached himself in disgust and took a knife and slew himself. And because he had no clinging whatever to body and life, at the time of his death he on the contrary obtained the state of an arhat and forthwith entered final nirvāṇa. So Godhika too did not fall back from and lose the fruit of the arhat (what he fell back from was the absorption at the stage of training, not the fruit).

Adducing a sūtra in evidence (the Sautrāntikas): Moreover, in the Sūtra of the Increase by Ten it is said thus: there is one dharma that is to be aroused, namely the liberation of mind that is cherished and dependent on circumstance; there is one dharma that is to be realized, namely the unshakable liberation of mind. — Now, if the fruit-nature of worthiness were itself called the liberation of mind cherished and dependent on circumstance, then why should the fruit of worthiness be spoken of a second time in this Sūtra of the Increase by Ten? And again, nowhere at all is the fruit of the arhat called “to be aroused”; it is called only “to be realized.” And again, the sūtra says that the fruit of worthiness comprised under dull faculties is called “to be aroused” — for the sake of showing what principle? If for the sake of showing that he is able to make it arise, then the others, of keen faculties, ought most of all to be able to make it arise; if for the sake of showing that he ought to make it arise, then the others, of keen faculties, ought most of all to arouse it. Therefore liberation dependent on circumstance is not the fruit-nature of worthiness.

Objection (the Sarvāstivādins): If that is so, then why does the sūtra say that liberation dependent on circumstance is the fruit of worthiness?

Answer (the Sautrāntikas): That is said of a certain class of the fruit of worthiness who, because their faculties are sluggish, must await the season before absorption can become present; the name liberation dependent on circumstance is established with regard to that portion of him, and the contrary is called liberation not dependent on circumstance.

Adducing the teaching of the treatises in evidence (the Sautrāntikas): The Abhidharma (the treatises on direct engagement with dharmas) also says thus: the latent tendency of desirous greed arises from three grounds — first, that the latent tendency of desirous greed has not been cut off and not been fully understood; second, that the dharmas conformable to it are now present; third, that improper attention toward those dharmas is now arising. (From which it appears that for an affliction to arise the causes and conditions must be complete; and since the noble person has already cut off the cause, it arises no more.)

Pressing in reproach (raised by the author against himself): If someone says that this is stated only with regard to arising when the causes and conditions are complete (implying that it might arise even when they are not complete), then let it be asked: what dharma is there that arises without its causes and conditions being complete? — Thus far the argument from noble scripture.

Question (raised by the author against himself): How is it from correct reasoning?

Answer (the Sautrāntikas): If the arhat has already given rise to the counteracting path that makes the afflictions never arise again, then he ought not to fall back and give rise to affliction again; and if the arhat has not yet given rise to such a path at all, then he has not yet uprooted the seeds of the afflictions forever, and he ought not to be called one whose outflows are exhausted; and if his outflows are not exhausted, on what ground is he called worthy of offerings (an arhat)? — Thus far the argument from correct reasoning.

Adducing a sūtra again in objection (the Sarvāstivādins): If that is so, then you must explain the Sūtra of the Simile of the Charcoal. That sūtra says: the learned noble disciples, whether walking or standing, will also at some places and at some times, through the losing of mindfulness, give rise to evil and unwholesome thoughts. And what this sūtra speaks of is precisely the fruit of the arhat — for the sūtra goes on to say: the mind of that noble disciple through the long night inclines toward seclusion, and so on at length, right up to his entering nirvāṇa. And in other sūtras this “inclining toward seclusion” and the rest is called the power of the fruit of worthiness. This sūtra says besides: he has already forever vomited forth all the dharmas conformable to outflows and has obtained coolness — and from these several sentences it may be settled that he is the arhat.

Explaining the sūtra through (the Sautrāntikas): Truly, the one spoken of afterward is the arhat; but at that time of walking and standing, before he had penetrated it well, such a thing was possible. That is to say: one in training, while walking and standing, may through the losing of mindfulness give rise to affliction; but once he has become one beyond training, there is no principle of its arising. The former passage is spoken with regard to the stage of training, and so there is no fault in it.

Concluding by returning to his own school (the Vibhāṣā masters): The Vibhāṣā masters, however, state it as settled: the fruit of the arhat too admits of falling back.

Treatise (the next question): Is it only the lineage of the arhat that is of six kinds? Have the rest also six kinds of lineage? And granting that they have, can they all cultivate the refining of the faculties? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 60〕Those in Training and Ordinary Beings Likewise Have Six · but the Faculties Are Not Refined on the Path of Seeing

Stanza: Those in training and ordinary beings (worldlings) likewise have six kinds of lineage; but the refining of the faculties is not cultivated at the stage of the path of seeing.

Treatise: The lineages of those in training and of ordinary beings are also of six kinds — because the six kinds of the fruit of worthiness have these for their antecedents. But at the stage of the path of seeing there is assuredly no such thing as refining the faculties, because at this stage there is no room whatever to raise that preparation. Only at the stage of one resolute through faith and at the stage of an ordinary being can the refining of the faculties be cultivated, just as at the stage beyond training.

As the sūtra says: I say that of the pleasant abidings in the present dharma comprised under the four kinds of higher mind (the four meditative absorptions) that are realized thereby, any one whatever admits of falling back; but as to the unshakable liberation of mind that has been obtained and witnessed with the body, I say it as settled that there is no cause or condition by which one could fall back from that.

Treatise (the next question): Since the dharma of the unshakable does not fall back, how is it said that a person of the dharma of the unshakable falls back from the pleasant abiding in the present dharma? The stanza says:

〔Root 61〕Falling Back Is of Three Kinds · The Buddha Has Only the Falling Back from Enjoyment

Stanza: It should be known that falling back is of three kinds — from what has been obtained, from what has not been obtained, and from enjoyment. The Buddha has only the last; one of keen faculties has one of them, the middling class two, and the last, of dull faculties, three.

Treatise: It should be known that the fallings back are three in all: first, falling back from what has been obtained, that is, falling back from and losing the excellent merits already obtained; second, falling back from what has not been obtained, that is, being not yet able to obtain excellent merits; third, falling back from enjoyment, that is, that the excellent merits already obtained are not present.

Among these three, the World-Honored One has one only, the falling back from enjoyment — because the merits he possesses are so many that they cannot possibly all be present at one and the same time (whence this portion of “not being present”). The remaining arhats of the dharma of the unshakable have two, the falling back from enjoyment and the falling back from what has not been obtained, because there are merits more excellent than his own that he has not yet obtained. The remaining five lineages may have all three, because they may still fall back from and lose the merits they have obtained.

Taking it in the sense of “falling back from enjoyment,” to say that one of the dharma of the unshakable falls back from the pleasant abiding in the present dharma involves no fault of contradiction.

Here the treatise records besides one account: those who maintain that there is no falling back at all say this — all liberations without outflows are named unshakable; and as for why a sixth kind is separately established and called the dharma of the unshakable, let it be explained through in the manner set out above, and this ought not to be made an objection.

Treatise (the next question): Since arhats are granted to fall back from a fruit, will they, having fallen back, undergo birth again? And again, will they at the time of falling back do the deeds they would not do while abiding in the fruit? The answer: they will not. For what reason? The stanza says:

〔Root 62〕One Who Falls Back from a Fruit Assuredly Does Not Die in the Interval · Nor Does He Do What Is Contrary to the Fruit

Stanza: Everyone who falls back from a fruit assuredly obtains it again and does not die in the interval; and the deeds he would not do while abiding in the fruit he does not do at the time of falling back either, since conscience and shame predominate.

Treatise: There is no case of dying in the interval after falling back from a fruit, because within a moment after falling back he assuredly obtains it again. As the sūtra says: bhikṣus, you should know that the learned noble disciples such as these, though they fall back and lose right mindfulness, are very soon able again to make the afflictions they have fallen into be exhausted, sunk away, ceased, and departed. Were it not so (were one who falls back to keep falling back until death), then the fruit obtained by cultivating the holy life would not be a secure place that may be entrusted with confidence.

And again, those deeds contrary to the merit of the fruit that ought not to be done at the stage of abiding in the fruit, he assuredly will not commit even at a time of temporary falling back, since conscience and shame predominate. This is just as a strong man, though he stumbles, does not fall wholly prostrate upon the ground.

Treatise (the next question): As said above, there is a refining of the faculties that obtains the state beyond training and a refining of the faculties that obtains the state of training. Now at the very time of refining the faculties, how many uninterrupted paths and how many paths of liberation are there in each case? Under what nature are they comprised? Upon what does one cultivate them? The stanza says:

〔Roots 63 and 64〕The Path of Refining the Faculties · The Body and the Level upon Which It Rests

Stanza: At the stage beyond training, refining the faculties takes nine uninterrupted paths and nine paths of liberation, because of long habituation. At the stage of training, only one of each. What is cultivated is in every case without outflows, and the body upon which it rests is only the three continents of the human destiny. The levels upon which the stage beyond training rests are nine, while the stage of training rests upon six levels only — because at the time of relinquishing a fruit and of the path of the excellent fruit, what is obtained is only the path of the fruit.

Treatise: For one who seeks a more excellent lineage and cultivates the refining of the faculties, at the stage beyond training the turning of each single lineage takes nine uninterrupted paths and nine paths of liberation, just as when he first realized the fruit of the arhat. Why so? Because that nature of dull faculty was made by long habituation and cannot be made to turn by any small exertion; and because what is made by the path of training and the path beyond training is firm from the start. At the stage of training, on the other hand, the turning of each single lineage takes only one uninterrupted path and one path of liberation, just as when he first obtained the first fruit — because the case is the contrary of that stated above (there having been no long habituation). As for the path of preparation, at every stage there is only one.

Uninterrupted paths and paths of liberation such as these are in every case comprised only under the nature without outflows. For a noble person assuredly has no principle of turning his faculties by a path with outflows — a path with outflows has no such dominant force.

By “what it rests upon” are meant the body it rests upon and the level it rests upon. As to the body it rests upon, it is only the three continents of the human destiny (Videha in the east, Jambudvīpa in the south, Godānīya in the west), because in the other places there is no falling back (and where there is no falling back there is no turning of faculties either). As to the level it rests upon, the stage beyond training extends to nine levels — namely access concentration, the intermediate absorption, the four fundamental meditative absorptions, and the first three formless absorptions; the stage of training has only six levels, that is, the last three (the three formless absorptions) being taken away.

Why so? Because one who turns his faculties may have the two things of “relinquishing a fruit” and “the path of the excellent fruit,” and what is obtained is only the path of a fruit and not a path of approach. Since there is no fruit of one in training that is comprised under a formless level (the fruits of one in training being comprised only under the desire realm and the form realm), one in training refining his faculties can rest only upon six levels.

Treatise (the next question): How many kinds in all are the persons (pudgalas) at the stage beyond training? And by what do their differences arise? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 65〕Seven Kinds of Śrāvaka and Two Kinds of Awakened One · Nine Persons by the Nine Grades of Faculty

Stanza: Seven kinds of śrāvaka together with two kinds of Buddha; their difference is established by the nine grades of faculty.

Treatise: The noble persons who stand at the stage beyond training are nine in all, namely seven kinds of śrāvaka and two kinds of awakened one. The five spoken of above beginning with the dharma of falling back, together with the dharma of the unshakable divided into two (one got by refining the faculties, one had from the first, there being a difference of earlier and later), make up seven kinds of śrāvaka. The pratyekabuddha and the great awakened one (the Buddha) are called the two kinds of awakened one. Through the difference of the nine grades of faculty, from the lowest of the low up to the highest of the high, the noble ones beyond training come to have nine differences.

Treatise (the next question): At the stages of training and beyond training there are seven kinds of noble person, and all noble persons are comprised herein: first one who follows through faith, second one who follows the dharma, third one resolute through faith, fourth one attained through view, fifth one who witnesses with the body, sixth one liberated through discernment, seventh one liberated in both parts. On what are these seven established? And how many are their “entities” besides? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 65 · First Half of Root 66〕The Seven Noble Persons Are Established by the Four Gates of Preparation · Faculty · The Absorption of Cessation · Liberation — but the Real Entities Are Only Six

Stanza: By preparation, by faculty, by the absorption of cessation, and by liberation they come to be seven; but of these seven the real entities are only six, because on each of the three paths — the path of seeing, the path of cultivation, and the path beyond training — there are two names.

Treatise: By difference of “preparation” the first two kinds are established — that is, in dependence upon their having formerly cultivated preparation toward the sense they sought, the one following another’s teaching and the other following the dharma itself, the two names one who follows through faith and one who follows the dharma are established.

By difference of “faculty” the next two kinds are established — that is, in dependence upon dull faculty and keen faculty, upon the predominance of confidence and the predominance of discernment, they are named in order one resolute through faith and one attained through view.

By “the obtaining of the absorption of cessation” the name one who witnesses with the body is established — because he has witnessed the absorption of cessation with his body.

By difference of “liberation” the last two kinds are established — that is, in dependence upon being freed from the obstruction of the afflictions by the force of discernment alone, one liberated through discernment is established; in dependence upon obtaining the force of absorption as well and being freed from the obstruction to liberation, one liberated in both parts is established.

Thus the names are seven, but the real entities are only six. For on the path of seeing there are two kinds of noble person, namely one who follows through faith and one who follows the dharma; these two persons, on reaching the path of cultivation, are given two other names, one resolute through faith and one attained through view; and on reaching the stage beyond training they are given two names again, liberation dependent on circumstance and liberation not dependent on circumstance (so that with two on each of the three paths there are only six entities).

It should be known besides how the numbers are opened out among them: one who follows through faith becomes, as reckoned by faculty, three kinds (low, middling, high); as reckoned by lineage, five kinds (the five beginning with the dharma of falling back); as reckoned by path, fifteen kinds (the eight receptivities and seven knowledges); as reckoned by freedom from defilement, seventy-three kinds (from one wholly bound to one already free of the defilement of eight levels); and as reckoned by the body it rests upon, nine kinds (the three continents of the human destiny together with the six heavens of the desire realm). If faculty, lineage, path, freedom from defilement, and the body it rests upon are multiplied one into another, they come together to one hundred forty-seven thousand eight hundred twenty-five kinds. As for the rest, one who follows the dharma and so on, they may be thought out on this same principle.

Treatise (the next question): What is meant by being liberated in both parts and by being liberated through discernment? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 66〕Obtaining the Absorption of Cessation Is Called Liberated in Both Parts · The Rest Are Called Liberated through Discernment

Stanza: Liberated in both parts is established by obtaining the absorption of cessation; the rest are called liberated through discernment.

Treatise: Those among the arhats who have obtained the absorption of cessation are named liberated in both parts — because by the two forces of discernment and of absorption they have been liberated both from the afflictions and from the obstruction to absorption (the obstruction to liberation). The rest, who have not yet obtained the absorption of cessation, are named liberated through discernment — because by the force of discernment alone they have been liberated as to the obstruction of the afflictions.

Treatise (the next question, in transition): As the World-Honored One said: with the five afflictions cut off and no longer able to draw one along, he is not yet to be called “one full in training.” By how many causes, then, do the stage of training and the stage beyond training each obtain the name “full” alone among those at the same stage? The stanza says:

〔Root 67〕The Fullness of One in Training Is by the Three, Faculty, Fruit, and Absorption · The Fullness of One beyond Training Only by the Two, Faculty and Absorption

Stanza: One in training is called full by the three causes of faculty, fruit, and absorption; one beyond training obtains the name of fullness only by the two causes of faculty and absorption.

Treatise: One in training alone obtains the name “full” at the stage of training by three causes complete, namely faculty, fruit, and absorption. Taken severally —

There is one in training who obtains the name of fullness by faculty only, namely one attained through view who is not yet free of the defilement of the desire realm.

There is one in training who obtains the name of fullness by fruit only, namely one resolute through faith who has become a non-returner but has not yet obtained the absorption of cessation.

There is one in training who obtains the name of fullness by faculty and fruit, namely one attained through view who has become a non-returner but has not yet obtained the absorption of cessation.

There is one in training who obtains the name of fullness by fruit and absorption, namely one resolute through faith who has obtained the absorption of cessation.

There is one in training who alone obtains the name of fullness by all three causes complete, namely one attained through view who has obtained the absorption of cessation.

There is no one in training who obtains the name of fullness by absorption only, or by faculty and absorption only (since one in training must have this portion that is a fruit).

As for those beyond training, at the stage beyond training they alone obtain the name of fullness by the two, faculty and absorption — at the stage beyond training there is no fullness that is “not a fruit,” and so no separate item of obtaining fullness through fruit is established. Taken severally: there is one who is named full by faculty only, namely one of liberation not dependent on circumstance who has not yet obtained the absorption of cessation; there is one who is named full by absorption only, namely one of liberation dependent on circumstance who has obtained the absorption of cessation; and there is one who alone is named full by both complete, namely one of liberation not dependent on circumstance who has obtained the absorption of cessation.

Treatise (the next question · below, a great division of its own is opened): Spoken of at large, the differences among the paths are measureless and boundless — the mundane path, the supramundane path, the path of seeing, the path of cultivation, and the rest. If they are to be spoken of in brief, how many paths will comprise them all? The stanza says:

〔Root 68〕All Paths, Spoken of in Brief, Are Only Four

Stanza: It should be known that all paths, spoken of in brief, are only four, namely the path of preparation, the uninterrupted path, the path of liberation, and the path of further advance.

Treatise: The path of preparation is that after which the uninterrupted path arises. The uninterrupted path is that which can cut off the obstruction to be cut off. The path of liberation is the path that arises first after the obstruction to be cut off has been liberated from. The path of further advance is the paths other than these three.

What is the sense of “path”? It is the road that leads to nirvāṇa, since riding upon it one can go to the city of nirvāṇa. Or else: the path is what seeking rests upon, since resting upon it one seeks the fruit that is nirvāṇa.

Then how can the path of liberation and the path of further advance be called paths? Because they are of a class with the path and can turn into the higher grade; or because the force of each earlier one reaches to each later one; or because they can lead one to enter nirvāṇa without remaining support.

Treatise (the next question): The path is elsewhere given the name “penetrating progress,” because it can penetrate and go on toward nirvāṇa. How many kinds of this penetrating progress are there, and on what are they established? The stanza says:

〔Root 69〕The Four Modes of Penetrating Progress — Pleasant and Painful · Slow and Swift

Stanza: Penetrating progress is of four kinds. Pleasant penetrating progress rests upon the fundamental meditative absorptions, painful penetrating progress upon the remaining levels; slow and swift are divided by the dullness or keenness of the faculties.

Treatise: The sūtra says that penetrating progress is of four kinds in all: first painful and slow penetrating progress, second painful and swift penetrating progress, third pleasant and slow penetrating progress, fourth pleasant and swift penetrating progress.

If a path arises in dependence upon the four fundamental meditative absorptions it is named pleasant penetrating progress — because it gathers in the factors, calm and insight are equal, and it turns spontaneously (without labor). If a path arises in dependence upon the formless absorptions, access concentration, or the intermediate absorption, it is named painful penetrating progress — because it does not gather in the factors, calm and insight are unequal, and it must turn with labor. Among these, in the formless absorptions insight is little and calm much, while in access concentration and the intermediate absorption insight is much and calm little.

Within these two, pleasant and painful penetrating progress, one of dull faculties is named slow and one of keen faculties is named swift. Because these two practices penetrate slowly upon their objects, they are named slow in penetrating; the contrary of this is named swift in penetrating. Or else: the penetrating progress raised by a sluggish person is named slow penetrating progress, and the swift is the contrary of this.

Treatise (the next question): The path is also named the factors of awakening. How many kinds are these, and what are their name and sense? The stanza says:

〔Root 70〕The Thirty-Seven Factors of Awakening · Awakening Is the Knowledge of Exhaustion and the Knowledge of Non-Arising

Stanza: The factors of awakening are thirty-seven, namely the four foundations of mindfulness and the rest. Awakening is the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising; they conduce toward this, and so are named factors.

Treatise: The sūtra says that the factors of awakening are thirty-seven, namely the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right abandonings, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven limbs of full awakening, and the eight limbs of the noble path.

The knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising are called awakening. According as the one who awakens differs, three awakenings are separately established: first the awakening of a śrāvaka, second the awakening of a pratyekabuddha, third unsurpassed awakening. Because ignorance and the sleep of ignorance have both been forever cut off, and because he knows as it really is that “what was to be done has been done, and is not to be done again,” these two knowledges are called awakening.

These thirty-seven dharmas conduce toward awakening, and therefore all are named factors of awakening.

Treatise (the next question): Are the entities of these thirty-seven dharmas each different? The answer: they are not. How is it, then? The stanza says:

〔Root 71〕The Real Entities of the Thirty-Seven Dharmas Are Only Ten

Stanza: Of these the real entities are only ten, namely discernment, diligence, absorption, confidence, mindfulness, joy, equanimity, pliancy, and moral discipline and applied thought as entity.

Treatise: Though the names of these factors of awakening are thirty-seven, the real entities are only ten, namely discernment, diligence, and the rest. Taken severally —

The four foundations of mindfulness, the faculty of discernment, the power of discernment, the limb of awakening that is the discernment of dharmas, and right view have discernment for their entity.

The four right abandonings, the faculty of vigor, the power of vigor, the limb of awakening that is vigor, and right vigor have diligence for their entity.

The four bases of supernormal power, the faculty of absorption, the power of absorption, the limb of awakening that is absorption, and right absorption have absorption for their entity.

The faculty of confidence and the power of confidence have confidence for their entity.

The faculty of mindfulness, the power of mindfulness, the limb of awakening that is mindfulness, and right mindfulness have mindfulness for their entity.

The limb of awakening that is joy has joy for its entity; the limb of awakening that is equanimity has equanimity as a formation for its entity; the limb of awakening that is pliancy has pliancy for its entity; right speech, right action, and right livelihood have moral discipline for their entity; and right intention has applied thought for its entity.

Reckoned thus, the real entities of the factors of awakening are only ten — that is, upon the five faculties and five powers beginning with confidence there are added the five, joy, equanimity, pliancy, moral discipline, and applied thought.

Here the treatise records besides one account: the Vibhāṣā masters say that the real entities are eleven, because bodily action and verbal action are not mingled with each other, and so moral discipline is divided into two, the remaining nine being as before.

Treatise (the next question): The three names, foundation of mindfulness, right abandoning, and base of supernormal power, have no separate ascription (their entities comprising all preparatory wholesome dharmas whatever); why then are they alone said to be discernment, diligence, and absorption? The stanza says:

〔Root 72〕The Three Groups Beginning with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Are Named According to What Predominates

Stanza: The four foundations of mindfulness, the four right abandonings, and the four bases of supernormal power are said to be discernment, diligence, and absorption according to the portion that predominates; in truth they are all the preparatory wholesome dharmas.

Treatise: The three groups of wholesome dharmas beginning with the four foundations of mindfulness, taken as to real entity, comprise all preparatory wholesome dharmas whatever; and yet, according to the wholesome root that predominates within their own class, they are said in order to be discernment, to be diligence, and to be absorption.

Question: For what reason is the name “foundation of mindfulness” established upon discernment? The Vibhāṣā masters say thus: discernment is held by the force of mindfulness and so abides upon its object (whence it takes its name from mindfulness). But in truth of principle, it is by discernment that mindfulness is made to abide upon the object — because only one who sees as things really are can note them clearly; and this has been established at length in the section on the foundations of mindfulness.

Question: Why is diligence named “right abandoning”? Because at the stage of properly cultivating abandoning and cultivating, this force of diligence can cut off indolence. Or it is named “right excelling,” because among the properly holding and spurring on of body, speech, and mind, this is the most excellent.

Question: For what reason is the name “base of supernormal power” established upon absorption? Because the various wondrous merits rest upon it.

Here the treatise records besides one account and at once refutes it: certain other masters say that “the supernormal” is precisely absorption and “the base” means the four dharmas of desire and the rest. — Then he ought to say that the real entities of the factors of awakening are thirteen (since desire and mind must be added, two more). And moreover he contradicts what the sūtra says. As the sūtra says: I shall now expound for you the bases of supernormal power and the rest; “the supernormal” means the enjoyment of the various supernormal domains, being able to divide one into many, and so on at length; “the base” means the four concentrations of desire and the rest. From this it appears that the Buddha here calls the result produced by absorption the supernormal and calls the concentration produced by desire and the rest the base (and does not call absorption the supernormal).

Question: For what reason are the five dharmas beginning with confidence first spoken of as faculties and afterward named powers? Because these five dharmas are divided as earlier and later according to the low and the high grade; and again according to whether they can or cannot be overborne.

Question: Why is the sequence of confidence and the rest ranged just so? Because with regard to cause and effect he first raises a mind of confidence and, for the sake of the fruit, cultivates the cause; next he raises vigor; through vigor mindfulness abides upon its object; through the holding force of mindfulness the mind thereupon obtains absorption; and because the mind has obtained absorption he can know as things really are. Such, then, is the sequence of confidence and the rest.

Treatise (the next question): Which factor of awakening, then, should be said to predominate at which stage? The stanza says:

〔Root 73〕The Seven Groups of Factors of Awakening Predominate in Order

Stanza: At the stage of initial undertaking, at the stage of the factors conducive to penetration, and at the stages of the path of cultivation and the path of seeing, the seven groups beginning with the foundations of mindfulness should be known to predominate in order.

Treatise: At the stage of initial undertaking he can examine and illumine in detail the four objects beginning with the body, and the function of discernment is excellent, and so the foundations of mindfulness are said to predominate.

At the stage of the dharma of warmth he can realize excellent merits differing from his own class, and the function of diligence is excellent, and so the right abandonings are said to predominate.

At the stage of the dharma of the summit he can hold fast excellent wholesome roots and go toward the merit of not falling back, and the function of absorption is excellent, and so the bases of supernormal power are said to predominate.

At the stage of the dharma of receptivity he assuredly does not fall and sink, and the wholesome roots are firm and gain the sense of predominance, and so the faculties are said to predominate.

At the stage of the highest worldly dharma he is not overborne by the afflictions or by worldly dharmas and gains the sense of not being overborne, and so the powers are said to predominate.

At the stage of the path of cultivation he has already drawn near to the stage of awakening, and the function of aiding awakening is excellent, and so the limbs of awakening are said to predominate.

At the stage of the path of seeing he turns swiftly, and the function of penetrating progress is excellent, and so the limbs of the path are said to predominate.

Yet in the sūtras they are spoken of according to the increase of number, seven (the limbs of awakening) being spoken of first and eight (the limbs of the path) afterward; this is not the sequence of cultivation. Among the eight limbs of the noble path, right view is both the path and a limb of the path, while the rest are limbs of the path and not the path; among the seven limbs of awakening, the discernment of dharmas is both awakening and a limb of awakening, while the rest are limbs of awakening and not awakening. Thus far what the Vibhāṣā masters say.

Here the treatise records besides one account: there are certain other masters who do not refute the sequence stated in the sūtras but establish the foundations of mindfulness and the rest in accordance with it. They say — when the practitioner is about to practice, his mind runs scattered over many objects, and so he first cultivates the foundations of mindfulness in order to subdue his mind. Hence the sūtra says: these four foundations of mindfulness can bind the mind upon its objects, and properly dispel the mindfulness that rests upon indulgence. Therefore the foundations of mindfulness are spoken of first.

By this momentum diligence thereupon grows; and in order to accomplish four matters he properly spurs on and holds his mind, and so the right abandonings are spoken of as second.

Through vigor the mind is without grief or regret, and thereupon he is capable of cultivating and mending an excellent absorption, and so the bases of supernormal power are spoken of as third.

With an excellent absorption for their support, confidence and the rest are made a dominant condition for the supramundane dharmas, and thereby the five faculties are spoken of as fourth.

The sense of a faculty being established, he can properly subdue and dispel the present activity of what is to be counteracted and draw forth the noble dharmas, and thereby the five powers are spoken of as fifth.

At the stage of the path of seeing the limbs of awakening are established, because he awakens to and knows the four noble truths as they really are. Extending to the two stages of the path of seeing and the path of cultivation, the limbs of the path are established, because in both he goes straight to the city of nirvāṇa. As the sūtra says: one who has cultivated the eight limbs of the path to completion has also cultivated to completion the four foundations of mindfulness and so on up to the seven limbs of awakening. And the sūtra says: bhikṣus, you should know that the one who “proclaims words as they really are” is a simile for expounding the four noble truths, and the one who “makes them go out swiftly by the original road” is a simile for making people cultivate the eight limbs of the noble path. From this it is known that the eight limbs of the path are spoken of as extending to the two stages of seeing and of cultivation.

Thus far the sequence stated according to the stages at which each predominates; as for the truth of the principle, it should be as stated above.

Treatise (the next question): Among these thirty-seven dharmas, how many extend to what is with outflows and how many are without outflows? The stanza says:

〔Root 74〕The Seven Limbs of Awakening and the Eight Limbs of the Path Are Only without Outflows · The Rest Extend to Both

Stanza: The seven limbs of awakening and the eight limbs of the path are without outflows throughout; the three fours (the four foundations of mindfulness · the four right abandonings · the four bases of supernormal power) and the five faculties and five powers all extend to both kinds.

Treatise: Among these, the seven limbs of awakening and the eight limbs of the noble path are only without outflows, because they are established only at the stages of the path of cultivation and the path of seeing. In the world too there are dharmas such as right view; and yet those do not obtain the name of limbs of the noble path. The rest all extend to what is with outflows and what is without outflows.

Treatise (the next question): How many of these thirty-seven dharmas are there at each level? The stanza says:

〔Roots 75 and 76〕The Increase and Decrease of the Thirty-Seven Dharmas at the Several Levels

Stanza: The first meditative absorption has them all; the level of access excepts joy (the limb of awakening); the second meditative absorption excepts applied thought; the third and fourth and the intermediate absorption except two. The first three formless levels except the three limbs of moral discipline and the first two; the desire realm and the summit of existence except the limbs of awakening and the limbs of the path.

Treatise: In the first meditative absorption all thirty-seven are complete. At the level of access the limb of awakening that is joy must be excepted, because at a threshold level one turns by exertion and one still has misgivings about the dharmas of the level below. In the second meditative absorption right intention must be excepted, because in that meditative absorption there is no longer applied thought. For this reason these two levels have thirty-six each. In the third meditative absorption, the fourth meditative absorption, and the intermediate absorption, joy and applied thought are both excepted, and each has thirty-five. At the first three formless levels the three limbs of moral discipline (right speech, right action, right livelihood) must be excepted, and joy and applied thought excepted as well, and each has thirty-two. In the desire realm and at the summit of existence the limbs of awakening and the limbs of the path must be excepted, and each has twenty-two, because there is nothing without outflows there.

Treatise (the next question, in transition): When the factors of awakening arise, the purities of realization are assuredly obtained. How many kinds of these are there? At what stage are they obtained? What dharma is their real entity? Are they with outflows or without? The stanza says:

〔Roots 77 and 78〕The Four Purities of Realization

Stanza: The purities of realization are of four kinds, namely toward the Buddha, toward the dharma, toward the Saṅgha, and toward the noble moral discipline. On seeing the first three truths one obtains the purity of realization toward the dharma and that of moral discipline; on seeing the truth of the path one obtains besides those toward the Buddha and the Saṅgha. “The dharma” means the whole of the three truths together with the path of a bodhisattva or a pratyekabuddha. They have the two, confidence and moral discipline, for their entity, and all four are without outflows only.

Treatise: The sūtra says that the purities of realization are four in all: first the purity of realization toward the Buddha, second toward the dharma, third toward the Saṅgha, fourth the purity of realization that is the noble moral discipline.

Now at the stage of the path of seeing, when he sees the first three truths (suffering, origin, cessation), with each truth he obtains only the purity of realization toward the dharma and that of moral discipline; and only at the stage of seeing the truth of the path does he obtain besides those toward the Buddha and the Saṅgha — that is to say, at that time he obtains the purity of realization also toward the dharmas beyond training that make a Buddha, and toward the dharmas of training and beyond training that make a śrāvaka Saṅgha. The stanza’s word “besides” is meant to show that at the time of seeing the truth of the path he likewise obtains the purities of realization toward the dharma and toward moral discipline.

Yet the dharma in which he has confidence is, in brief, of two kinds: the particular and the general. The general extends to all four truths; the particular is only the whole of the three truths together with the path of a bodhisattva or a pratyekabuddha — and so on seeing all four truths he obtains the purity of realization toward the dharma. As for the moral discipline beloved of the noble ones, it is simultaneous with direct realization, and so at all times it is never obtained but simultaneously.

Because the objects of his confidence differ, they are named four; but it should be known that the real entities are only two — the three purities of realization toward the Buddha and the rest have confidence for their entity, and the purity of realization that is the noble moral discipline has moral discipline for its entity, so that there are only two. Thus all four are without outflows only, because a dharma with outflows is not a purity of realization.

In what sense is the name “purity of realization” established? Because he awakens to and knows the principle of the four noble truths as it really is, it is called “realization”; and the three jewels in which he has confidence and the excellent śīla (moral discipline) are both named “pure,” because they are apart from the stain of unbelief and the stain of breaking moral discipline. Purity got through realization — so the name purity of realization is established.

Thus far the sequence stated as it arises within contemplation, and so it is said that the sequence within contemplation is such. What then is the sequence in which they arise on emerging from contemplation? That is: at the stage of emerging from contemplation, he first has confidence that the World-Honored One is perfectly and fully awakened; next, that within the true dharma and discipline it is well spoken; last, that the noble stage is of excellent conduct. Right confidence in the three jewels is just like a good physician, a good medicine, and one who nurses the sick. Because the mind is pure he gives rise to pure śīla, and therefore śīla is spoken of as fourth — pure confidence must be complete before this becomes present, just as illness is removed only when the three conditions are met. Or else these four are just like a guide, a road, fellow merchants, and the vehicle one rides.

Treatise (the next question, in transition): The sūtra says that at the stage of training one accomplishes eight limbs, and that at the stage beyond training one accomplishes ten limbs complete. For what reason is it not said that at the stage of training there are right liberation and right knowledge? And what are the entities of right liberation and right knowledge? The stanza says:

〔Roots 79 and 80〕Right Liberation and Right Knowledge

Stanza: Since one in training still has bonds remaining, he has no limb of right liberation or of right knowledge. Liberation is unconditioned, namely resolve and the cessation of confusion; the conditioned portion is a limb of one beyond training, namely the two aggregates of liberation. Right knowledge is as was said above of awakening, namely the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising.

Treatise: At the stage of training there are still bonds remaining that have not been liberated from, and so there is no limb of liberation. It is not that one may be called liberated by being apart from some small portion of the bonds; nor that a knowledge of liberation may be established where there is no entity of liberation. One beyond training has already escaped the bonds of the afflictions, and can besides give rise to the two knowledges that know liberation; and only through the manifestness of these two may these two limbs be established. One in training is not so, and therefore accomplishes eight limbs only.

The entity of liberation is of two kinds, namely conditioned and unconditioned. Conditioned liberation means the resolve of one beyond training; unconditioned liberation means the cessation of all confusion. Conditioned liberation is named a limb of one beyond training, because the name “limb” must be established upon what is conditioned.

The liberation comprised under a limb is again of two kinds, namely the liberation of mind and the liberation through discernment spoken of in other sūtras. It should be known that these two are the aggregates of liberation.

Objection: If that is so, then it ought not to be as the sūtra says — what is called the supreme purity of liberation? It is the mind’s being liberated in becoming free of the defilement of greed, and its being liberated in becoming free of the defilement of hatred and of delusion (from which it appears that the aggregate of liberation is not resolve alone).

Answer: With regard to the aggregate of liberation, what is not yet complete is made complete, and what is already complete is, for the sake of holding it fast, cultivated with desire and diligence and the rest; and so the aggregate of liberation is not resolve alone (this being said with regard to the portion that is cultivation).

Objection: If that is so, then what after all is it? Here the treatise records besides one account: certain other masters say that by the force of true knowledge greed, hatred, and delusion are dispelled, and that this very being of the mind apart from stain is called the aggregate of liberation.

Thus far has been stated the entity of right liberation. As for the entity of right knowledge, it is as was said above of “awakening,” namely the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising spoken of above.

Treatise (the next question): In which time is the mind properly liberated, that one speaks of “the liberation of the mind beyond training”? The stanza says:

〔First Half of Root 81〕The Mind beyond Training Is Liberated from Obstruction at the Very Time of Its Arising

Stanza: When the mind beyond training arises, it is at that moment liberated from obstruction.

Treatise: As this treatise says, the first mind beyond training, at the very time of its arising in the future, is liberated from obstruction. What is meant by obstruction? It is the “acquisition” of the afflictions — because that can block this mind from arising.

At the stage where the vajra-like concentration is properly ceasing, that acquisition is properly being cut off, and so the first mind beyond training, at the stage of properly arising, is properly liberated; at the stage where the vajra-like concentration has already ceased, that acquisition has already been cut off, and so the first mind beyond training, at the stage of having already arisen, is named already liberated.

Those minds beyond training that have not yet arisen, and mundane minds as well, are at that time likewise named liberated; but here it is the one that is settled to arise that is spoken of, because at that time it is properly proceeding in the present time.

Question: From what are the mundane minds liberated? Answer: from that same obstruction which blocks the mind from arising.

Objection: At the stage where it is not yet liberated, does this mundane mind then not arise?

Answer: Although it does arise then, it is not as it is now.

Question: What is it like then?

Answer: Then it is together with the acquisition of the afflictions; whereas if it arises hereafter, there will be no acquisition of confusion together with it.

Treatise (the next question): At which stage does the path make the obstruction to arising be cut off? The stanza says:

〔Second Half of Root 81〕Only at the Stage of Properly Ceasing Does the Path Cut Off That Obstruction

Stanza: The path, only at the stage of properly ceasing, makes that obstruction be cut off.

Treatise: To say “the stage of properly ceasing” shows that it stands in the present; to say “properly arising” shows that it is in the future time. Therefore the path can cut off obstruction only at the time of properly ceasing, and at the other stages it assuredly has no function of cutting off obstruction. In this it is unlike liberation, which may extend to what has not yet arisen — because what has arisen and what has not are alike in point of being apart from obstruction (whereas with the cutting off of obstruction it is not so).

Treatise (the next question): The sūtra says that there are three elements, namely the element of abandoning, the element of dispassion, and the element of cessation. What are their entities? And what are their differences? The stanza says:

〔Root 82〕The Three Elements of Abandoning · Dispassion · Cessation

Stanza: These three elements are said to be unconditioned. The element of dispassion is dispassion toward craving only; the element of abandoning is the abandoning of the remaining fetters; the element of cessation is the cessation of those things in which the latent tendencies increase by attachment.

Treatise: The three elements beginning with abandoning are the unconditioned liberation spoken of above, divided out to be severally their entities. To say “the element of dispassion” is to mean dispassion toward the one fetter of craving only; to say “the element of abandoning” is to mean the abandoning of the remaining fetters; to say “the element of cessation” is to mean the cessation of those remaining things in which the latent tendencies of craving and the rest increase by attachment. Thus the three elements spoken of in the sūtra are the unconditioned liberation.

Treatise (the next question): If a thing can be an object of disgust, must one assuredly be able to become dispassionate toward it? The answer: it is not so. How is it, then? The stanza says:

〔Root 83〕The Four Alternatives Distinguishing Disgust and Dispassion (the End of the Chapter)

Stanza: Disgust is the discernment that takes suffering and origin as its object; dispassion takes the four truths as its object and can cut off confusion; the two, set against each other, are by turns wider and narrower, and so they should make four alternatives.

Treatise: Only the receptivities and knowledges that arise taking the two truths of suffering and origin as their object are called disgust; the rest are not. As for the receptivities and knowledges arising with the objects of the four truths, all that can cut off confusion obtain the name “dispassion.” The two differ in width and narrowness, and so they make four alternatives —

The first alternative, disgust and not dispassion: the receptivities and knowledges that take suffering and origin as their object without causing confusion to be cut off, since their object is a thing to be disgusted with and yet they cannot bring freedom from defilement.

The second alternative, dispassion and not disgust: the receptivities and knowledges that take cessation and the path as their object and can cause confusion to be cut off, since their object is a thing to be delighted in and yet they can bring freedom from defilement.

The third alternative, both disgust and dispassion: the receptivities and knowledges that take suffering and origin as their object and can cause confusion to be cut off.

The fourth alternative, neither disgust nor dispassion: the receptivities and knowledges that take cessation and the path as their object without causing confusion to be cut off.

It should be known besides: for one among them who becomes free of the defilement of desire first and sees the truths afterward, among all the dharma-receptivities and knowledges he has, those comprised in the path of preparation, the path of liberation, and the path of further advance do not cause confusion to be cut off — because the confusion has already been cut off, and because those paths are not the counteragent that cuts off.