俱舍論 義疏通講 · 冊6Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 6

Before Reading This Fascicle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further Resonances: The Mirror of the Three Commentaries

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

1. The Adjudications and Divergences of the Three Commentaries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations

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

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

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

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

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

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

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

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

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

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

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

4. Coordinates for Parallel Reading

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

Before Reading This Fascicle

The last fascicle finished explaining the two gates of entering cultivation (the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness of the breath), and this one opens with a single sentence of transition — “thus have been explained the two gates of entering cultivation; by these two gates the mind then gains concentration. The mind having gained concentration, what further is to be cultivated?” Concentration is already there, and what remains to be done is one thing only: to raise up observation. This fascicle goes from the first step of raising observation (the four foundations of mindfulness) to the last step of its accomplishment (the highest worldly dharma), then leaps at a bound into the sixteen minds of the path of seeing, and comes to rest at last upon the stream-enterer who returns at most seven times. The end of the stage of preparatory practice and the beginning of the path of seeing are both within this one fascicle, and so it is the pivot of the whole chapter.

Here the three houses of ancient masters let the knife of their outlines fall in one and the same place. Puguang marks, “below, the third, explaining the four foundations of mindfulness. Within it, first the foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic, second the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic”; Fabao marks, “the three stanzas below are the third, explaining the four foundations of mindfulness. The first two stanzas explain the foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic, the last stanza the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic”; Yuanhui marks, “from here the third, explaining the four foundations of mindfulness, divided within into two: first the foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic, second the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic” — three houses dividing their fascicles independently and yet with boundaries wholly the same, and even the two divisions they make agreeing word for word; while Fabao further fastens the stanza count upon it (the first two stanzas the individual characteristic, the last stanza the common), which tallies exactly with the stanza order of Roots 15 to 17 in this fascicle.

One thing more must be said at the outset. This fascicle reads like a diagram of stairs — heat, summit, receptivity, the highest worldly dharma, rung above rung; but what really bears the weight is not the height of the stairs, it is the station fastened to each rung — when there is the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone and when all four foundations of mindfulness, when the four truths are observed in full and when there is left but the single mode of apprehension of the suffering of the desire realm. Let the stations fall into confusion, and the whole diagram is read as an inspirational figure of speech. Hence every passage below must come back to one question: what is taken as object at this moment, and how many things are cultivated.

1. Calm Abiding Accomplished First, and Only Then Has Observation a Footing

First ask: why must it be said at the outset that “in dependence upon the excellent calm abiding already cultivated to fullness, one cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness for the sake of insight”? Will it not do to cultivate observation directly?

The order the treatise gives is hard: calm abiding (śamatha) is that portion whereby the mind rests upon a single object and is not scattered, and insight (vipaśyanā) is that portion whereby one discriminates upon an object and sees its character. If calm abiding is not cultivated to fullness, the discrimination raised by discernment drifts along with its objects, and observation does not become observation at all. Hence the four foundations of mindfulness are not an exercise begun from nothing; they are an exercise joined onto concentration — and this is just where the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness of the breath of the last fascicle come down: those two gates gather the mind in, and only when it is gathered in does the turn come for this gate to put it to use.

The easy error: to read “in dependence upon the calm abiding already cultivated” as a mere polite sentence of transition. It is a sentence of qualification — without it, the whole line of heat, summit, receptivity, and the highest worldly dharma below has nowhere to take root.

In practice: before reading this fascicle make sure of one thing — everything spoken of in it takes place within the levels of meditative equipoise (the levels of concentration). The later statement that the four wholesome roots are “only of the levels of meditative equipoise” and are not found in the desire realm has its root just here.

2. The Individual and the Common Characteristic: Two Ways of Looking at One Object

First ask: in observing body, feeling, mind, and dharmas alike, where lies the difference between the “individual characteristic” and the “common characteristic”?

The treatise divides them very clearly. The individual characteristic is “the several intrinsic natures of body, feeling, mind, and dharmas are called the individual characteristic” — that portion in each which is not shared with anything else: the intrinsic nature of the body is the great elements and derived form; feeling and mind are “just as their names display them” (feeling being the receiving of what is felt, mind the discerning knowledge of an object); and the intrinsic nature of dharmas is “the dharmas remaining when the three are taken away.” The common characteristic is “that all the conditioned are of the nature of impermanence, that all with outflows are of the nature of suffering, and that all dharmas are of the nature of emptiness and non-self” — that portion which is not confined to one thing but runs through many. The individual characteristic is what can be told apart; the common characteristic is what passes through.

The easy error: to suppose that the common characteristic is the four individual characteristics added together. It is not. The observation by individual characteristic sets body, feeling, mind, and dharmas each in its own place; the observation by common characteristic sees impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self upon all four at once — one and the same object, two ways of looking. And it is just because the two ways of looking are used together that there comes to be, further on, the division into “foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic” and “the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic”: the outlines of the three houses of ancient masters are cut along this very line.

In practice: hereafter, whenever one reads that a given observation has “an unmixed object only” or “extends to both mixed and unmixed,” first turn back and ask what kind of characteristic he is using at this moment — the answer usually lies in this very division of individual and common.

3. A Foundation of Mindfulness Has Three Entities: Intrinsic Nature, Conjunction, and Object

First ask: what after all is the entity of a foundation of mindfulness? The treatise says, “the entity of each of these four foundations of mindfulness is threefold”; why should one name require three entities?

Because the angle from which the question is put is threefold. The foundation of mindfulness as intrinsic nature “has discernment for its entity” — asking only what dharma that portion is which observes. The foundation of mindfulness as conjoined “has for its entity discernment together with the remaining dharmas coexisting with it” — reckoning in the feeling, perception, volition, and the rest that arise together with discernment. The foundation of mindfulness as object “has for its entity the dharmas that discernment takes as its object” — reckoning outright the four objects it takes. The three answers do not conflict; they are three measures laid to one and the same thing.

The treatise even adduces a sūtra for this: that sūtra says of the four foundations of mindfulness, “by what do they come to be gathered? by what do they come to cease,” and answers with the gathering and ceasing of food, contact, name-and-form, and attention as making body, feeling, mind, and dharmas gather and cease in order. The treatise adjudges this to be the foundation of mindfulness as object — since what is said to gather and cease is the four objects and not the discernment that observes.

The easy error: to read the three entities as three stages (first cultivating intrinsic nature, then conjunction, then object). They are not an order; they are three ways of reckoning one and the same practice. Paramārtha’s old version renders these three as “the station of mindfulness as intrinsic nature, as associated, and as object-field,” and although the renderings of the second and third members differ, the framework of the threefold division is wholly the same — which shows that this threefold division is the bone of the treatise itself and not an arrangement of the translator.

In practice: hereafter, when one meets the form “such and such has three entities,” first ask whether they are three stages or three measures; what this fascicle exhibits is the latter.

4. Why the Name “Foundation of Mindfulness” Is Established upon Discernment

First ask: since the intrinsic nature is discernment, why does the name contain “mindfulness”?

The treatise first records the Vaibhāṣika masters’ answer: “because in this class mindfulness is preponderant. The sense is that it is by the sustaining force of mindfulness that discernment gets to proceed, as in splitting wood with an axe the cleft is held by the force of the wedge” — the axe is discernment and the wedge is mindfulness; to split wood one must have the wedge hold the cleft open, and discernment must have the sustaining force of mindfulness before it can proceed. The author then gives another account: “in strict principle one should say that it is discernment that makes mindfulness stand fast, and therefore the name foundation of mindfulness is established upon discernment, since following upon what discernment observes it can record clearly” — it is not that mindfulness sustains discernment, but that discernment makes mindfulness able to stand fast. The two accounts stand out together, and the treatise does not declare the former wrong, saying only “in strict principle one should say.”

The easy error: to take this passage for a detail of glossing and skip it. What it settles is where the weight of practice is put: on the Vaibhāṣikas’ account the exertion goes into mindfulness; on the author’s, the exertion goes into the discrimination of discernment, and mindfulness is the result that stands fast in its train. Paramārtha’s version here has “because it is established by the force of mindfulness, as in splitting wood the wedge is firmly held,” the simile agreeing word for word, which shows that the two versions carry the same passage.

In practice: wherever this treatise brings out the words “in strict principle one should say,” it is the author putting forward his own view without concealing its difference from the tenet of the school; when one reads those words one should stop and see just where each of the two accounts, before and after, puts the weight.

5. Order, the Counteracting of the Inversions, and Mixed Objects: Why Four Are Four

First ask: why are the foundations of mindfulness exactly four, and in this order of body, feeling, mind, and dharmas?

The treatise gives two layers of reason. As to the ground of the order: “because what is coarse in the aspect of its object ought to be observed first,” and again because “the several desires and greeds proceed upon this one thing, the body,” so that the observation of the body comes first; and then a chain follows — greed for the body arises from taking delight in feeling, delight in feeling from the mind’s being untamed, the mind’s being untamed from the afflictions not yet cut off, and so feeling, mind, and dharmas come down in that order. As to the ground of the number: “these four foundations of mindfulness counteract, each in its own order, those four inversions of purity, pleasure, permanence, and self; hence there are only four, neither more nor fewer” — body counteracting the inversion of purity, feeling that of pleasure, mind that of permanence, dharmas that of self; the inversions being only four, the foundations of mindfulness are neither more nor fewer.

There is a further layer of opening and closing: the first three have “unmixed objects only,” while the fourth, the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas, “extends to both the mixed and the unmixed” — “if among body and the rest one observes two, three, or four of them together, it is called having a mixed object.” This sentence is the foreshadowing of what follows: the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic and the four wholesome roots all grow out of this foundation of mindfulness on dharmas with mixed objects.

The easy error: to take the order of the four foundations of mindfulness for an ordering by importance. It is an order of counteraction, and also an order of coarse and fine, and not an order of value.

In practice: an order of practice without a reason is mere ritual; here the treatise gives the reason in full — the four inversions are the illness and the four foundations of mindfulness the medicine, one medicine to one illness, and the number is thereby sealed of itself.

6. The Foundation of Mindfulness on Dharmas with a Total Object: Gathering the Four Objects into One

First ask: when the foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic have been cultivated to ripeness, what comes next?

The treatise says, “that practitioner of observation, abiding within the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas whose object is total and mixed, observes together the four objects, body and the rest, and cultivates the four modes of apprehension, namely impermanent, suffering, empty, and non-self.” This is the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic — no longer looking at one object after another, but taking the four objects of body, feeling, mind, and dharmas together and observing them as one, the modes of apprehension cultivated being likewise gathered into the four modes of the common characteristic.

The easy error: to suppose that the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic is a new exercise raised up beside those on the individual characteristic. It is not. It is the same foundation of mindfulness on dharmas, only with its object turned from “unmixed” to “total and mixed”; which is why all three houses of ancient masters outline it as the second of the two divisions of the four foundations of mindfulness, and do not set up a separate division for it.

In practice: this passage is exceedingly short (Root 17 of this fascicle being a single stanza), yet it is the joint of the whole fascicle — the wholesome root of heat in the next passage is precisely what arises out of this foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the common characteristic as a total object, ripening by degrees. Read this section too lightly, and the four wholesome roots turn into four steps sprung out of nowhere.

7. The Wholesome Root of Heat: The Forerunner of the Fire of the Noble Path

First ask: why is the first rung of the four wholesome roots named “heat”?

The treatise says, “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,” and explains the name — “this dharma is named the wholesome root of heat as being like heat, being the forerunner of the fire of the noble path which can burn the firewood of the afflictions.” The afflictions are the firewood, the noble path is the fire, and heat is the warmth that is there when the fire is about to rise and has not yet risen. Hidden in the name is an adjudication: this station is not yet the noble path, but only its forerunner.

The station of heat is long, and so 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.” The sixteen modes of apprehension the treatise here lists truth by truth: four on suffering, “first impermanent, second suffering, third empty, fourth non-self”; four on origin, “first cause, second origin, third production, fourth condition”; four on cessation, “first cessation, second calm, third excellent, fourth escape”; four on the path, “first path, second suitable, third proceeding, fourth deliverance.”

The easy error: to read heat as some warm sensation of body and mind. What the treatise gives is the sense taken from a simile — taking it as the forerunner of fire, not as something felt by touch. Fabao at this section points out expressly the discernment from which heat arises, “this arises from the discernment formed by reflection or the discernment formed by cultivation,” and this too is said with reference to discernment and not to feeling.

In practice: wherever this treatise establishes a name from a physical image (heat, summit, receptivity), first ask which of its senses is taken; the answer is almost always in the sentence of gloss that immediately follows.

8. The Wholesome Root of Summit: That Point on the Brink of Advance and Retreat

First ask: since heat can already observe the four truths in full and cultivate the sixteen modes of apprehension in full, what does the wholesome root of summit add?

The treatise says, “this wholesome root of heat, increasing by degrees through the low, middling, and high grades until it is complete, gives rise to a wholesome root named the wholesome root of summit, and since it is more excellent a different name is further established for it,” and that “this too, like heat, observes the four truths in full and is able to cultivate the sixteen modes of apprehension in full” — what is observed and what is cultivated have not increased; what has increased is the excellence of the station. The gloss of the name is twofold: “among the movable wholesome roots this dharma is the most excellent, as with the crown of a man, and so it is named the wholesome root of summit. Or because it is the very brink between advance and retreat, as with the summit of a mountain, it is called summit.”

The two glosses take different senses. “As with the crown of a man” takes the highest point — among wholesome roots that still waver it is the top; “as with the summit of a mountain” takes the critical edge — standing here, not to advance is to fall back. (Yuanhui in this passage writes the word “heat” with a variant graph, not a different sense; recorded as it stands, without adjudication.)

The easy error: to suppose that summit is steadier than heat. Just the contrary — summit still stands in the rank of “movable wholesome roots” and can still retreat. Real non-retreat waits upon the station of receptivity. The meaning of summit lies not in steadiness but in its being the watershed between the movable and the unmovable.

In practice: in the stations of practice, whatever is called a “summit” is for the most part not a place of security but a place of decision; this gloss of the treatise may be borrowed for reading every technical term of the same type.

9. The Three Grades of Receptivity: From Observing the Four Truths at Large to the Single Suffering of the Desire Realm

First ask: why is receptivity named receptivity? And where lies its real difference from summit?

The treatise glosses the name in two senses: “because among those that can receive the principle of the four truths this is the most excellent” — the former stations too can receive the four truths, and this station is the most excellent; “again, because the receptivity of this station has no falling back, it is named the wholesome root of receptivity” — from here on there is no more falling back. The former sense is said with reference to discernment’s calm reception, the latter with reference to the station’s non-retreat. As to entity, “this wholesome root of receptivity, both in setting foot and in advancing further, is the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas, and herein it differs from the former two”: heat and summit are the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas alone when they first set foot and have all four when they advance further, whereas receptivity is the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas from first to last.

The division into three grades is the crux of this section: “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.” The treatise sets out the intervening course in the finest detail as well — 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 this is called the station of middling receptivity; and from this, with nothing intervening, there arises a high grade of receptivity of “one mode of apprehension and one moment.”

The easy error: to read “lessening and abridging by degrees” as a falling off in the exercise. Just the contrary — this is a gathering in: the fewer the objects and the simpler the modes of apprehension, the more the strength is concentrated, until only the single mode of apprehension of the suffering of the desire realm and a single moment are left, and only then can it join to the highest worldly dharma. The three commentaries each have their own point of view here: Puguang takes the opening and closing of the three grades, Fabao the comparison in establishing the name, Yuanhui both senses of receiving and of non-retreat.

In practice: wherever this treatise speaks of “abridging the object by degrees,” it is a mark of the ripening of preparatory practice and not a mark of slackening retreat; the measure lies in whether what follows is a keener path or a scattered mind.

10. The Highest Worldly Dharma: The Last Rung among Things with Outflows

First ask: since it is still with outflows, on what ground is it called “highest”?

The treatise answers directly: “since this is with outflows it is called worldly, and since it is the most excellent it is called highest. This dharma with outflows is the most excellent among worldly dharmas, and is therefore named the highest worldly dharma.” The reason for its excellence is given too — “it has the force of human effort, and apart from a homogeneous cause it draws forth the arising of the noble path, and so it is called the most excellent”: without depending upon a former dharma of its own class as cause, it can draw the noble path out. Paramārtha’s version here has “apart from a homogeneous cause, by this force it can draw forth the noble path,” the doctrine being wholly the same.

In form it is the same as the high grade of receptivity: “taking the truth of the suffering of the desire realm as object, it cultivates one mode of apprehension and lasts one moment only.”

The easy error: to imagine the highest worldly dharma as some long and excellent state. It lasts one moment only. The terminus of the whole preparatory practice with outflows is a cause, one moment long, with nothing intervening after it.

In practice: this section explains why the later text says the highest worldly dharma “has no relinquishing at the end of life” — there is simply no time for life to end, for the next moment is the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering. The higher the station the shorter the time: this is one of the hidden threads of the fascicle.

11. The Entity of the Four Wholesome Roots and What They Cultivate: Four Cultivated in the Present, Sixteen for the Future

First ask: since the four wholesome roots are named foundations of mindfulness, what is their entity?

The treatise says, “being of the nature of foundations of mindfulness they all have discernment for their entity; taken together with their attendants they are all of the nature of the five aggregates. Yet their acquisition is to be excepted, lest the wholesome roots of heat and the rest belonging to the noble ones should come to be present once more” — reckoned with their attendants they are the five aggregates, but “acquisition” must be taken out; otherwise the wholesome roots of heat and the rest that a noble one has relinquished would come to be present again. This little subtraction looks like a trifle, and yet it is made to hold the consistency of what comes before and after.

There follows a long passage of fine accounts of cultivation in the present and cultivation for the future: at the first setting foot of heat, the foundation of mindfulness on dharmas taking the three truths as object is cultivated in the present while four are cultivated for the future, and any one mode of apprehension is cultivated in the present while four are cultivated for the future; taking the truth of cessation as object, one only is cultivated for the future. When it advances further, the modes of apprehension for the future rise to sixteen. The treatise gives the reason itself in two sentences — at the first setting foot, “because this class has not been obtained before, only what is of the same portion can be cultivated”; in advancing further, “because this class has already been obtained before, what is not of the same portion can also be cultivated.”

The easy error: to take this tabular stretch of text for a side branch that may be passed over. It is the treatise’s demonstration of what it means by the word “cultivate”: cultivation in the present is the one actually arising, and cultivation for the future is everything obtained thereby; and whether a thing has been obtained before or not settles how wide the future cultivation is.

In practice: in reading numbers of this kind, first sort out three columns — which truth is the object, how many arise in the present, how many are obtained for the future. Sort the three columns, and the close-packed figures fall at once into rows.

12. The Factors Conducive to Penetration: The General Name of the Four Rungs, and Their Six Levels, Nine Places, Male and Female

First ask: how is the general name “factors conducive to penetration,” covering heat, summit, receptivity, and the highest worldly dharma, taken apart?

The treatise takes it apart word by word: “‘decision’ means deciding, ‘discernment’ means discriminating” — deciding and discriminating refer to the noble paths, since the noble path can cut off doubt (decision) and can distinguish the characteristics of the four truths (discernment). “‘Factor’ means a portion; the sense of the words is to show that what they are conducive to is only one portion, the path of seeing” — what they are conducive to is only this one portion, the path of seeing. The four can draw forth the factors of decisive discernment and are conducive to them, whence they are named the factors conducive to penetration.

Below this each of the several gates has its measure. What they are formed by: “all four are formed by cultivation and not by hearing or reflection, since they belong only to the levels of meditative equipoise.” Grade: the first two are of the low grade (both movable and liable to retreat), receptivity of the middling, the highest worldly dharma alone of the high. Level: they depend upon six levels (the four meditative absorptions, access concentration, and the intermediate absorption); they are not in the desire realm because “meditative equipoise is wanting there,” and not in the higher levels because they “belong to the retinue of the path of seeing.” Maturation: they can call forth the maturation of the five aggregates of the form realm as a cause of fullness but cannot project, “because they abhor and turn away from the existences.” Body: they depend upon a body of the desire realm, in the nine places of men and gods excepting Uttarakuru; the first three wholesome roots arise for the first time in the three continents, and the fourth can arise for the first time in the places of the gods as well, because “it has no first and later but only a single moment.” Male and female: as to the first three, man and woman alike obtain both kinds, and as to the fourth a woman’s body also obtains both, whereas one depending upon a male body obtains only the wholesome root of a male body, because “with regard to a female body he has already obtained cessation independent of discernment.” Relinquishing: a noble one relinquishes only upon losing the level, an ordinary being must relinquish at the end of life, and the first two wholesome roots are relinquished by retreat as well; “the two relinquishings, losing and retreat, have non-acquisition for their nature, and retreat certainly involves the raising of a fault while losing does not necessarily.”

The treatise also honestly leaves room for one divergent account: the “six or seven” of the stanza is “in order to display that there are two divergent accounts,” the Venerable Ghoṣa saying that heat and summit depend upon the six former levels together with the desire realm, seven in all.

The easy error: to take this whole stretch for a table of classifications without asking why it is so divided. Every gate is in fact answering one and the same question — just where these four rungs of wholesome root stand: they stand upon the levels of concentration (what they are formed by, level), upon a body of the desire realm (body, male and female), and upon a position that may still be lost (relinquishing, retreat).

In practice: whenever one meets an “analysis through the several gates” in this treatise, read the gates through in connection with one another and the coordinates of that dharma come out; memorized gate by gate in isolation, they are on the contrary not retained.

13. The Advantages of the Four Wholesome Roots: What Each of the Four Sentences Guarantees

First ask: having obtained these four rungs, what settled guarantee does one obtain at each?

The treatise gives four sentences: “one who obtains heat will certainly reach nirvāṇa; one who obtains summit will in the end not cut off the wholesome; one who obtains receptivity will not fall into the evil destinies; the highest enters the certainty of the noble path.” The force of the four sentences increases by degrees. One who obtains heat, though he may still have “retreat, cutting off the wholesome roots, doing deeds of immediate retribution, falling into the evil destinies and so forth,” yet “will not go on wandering for long, but will certainly reach nirvāṇa in the end” — what is guaranteed is the end, not the course. One who obtains summit, “though he may still retreat and so forth, yet by ascendancy will in the end not cut off his wholesome roots.” One who obtains receptivity, “though he relinquishes it at the end of life and still abides in the station of an ordinary being, yet by ascendancy does not retreat, does not do deeds of immediate retribution, and does not fall into the evil destinies.” One who obtains the highest worldly dharma, “though he abides in the station of an ordinary being, is nevertheless able to enter the certainty of the noble path.”

The treatise also supplies two inferences on behalf of the stanza: the stanza says only “does not fall into the evil destinies,” but since “one who does deeds of immediate retribution must fall into the evil destinies,” the not doing of deeds of immediate retribution is already contained in it; and the stanza does not speak of being apart from relinquishing at the end of life, but since the highest worldly dharma enters the certainty of the noble path with nothing intervening, its having no relinquishing at the end of life is likewise established.

The ground of the receptivity-station’s not falling into the evil destinies the treatise sets out in the finest detail — “upon reaching the station of receptivity, he obtains the dharma of not being born with regard to a portion of destinies, births, places, bodies, existences, and afflictions,” and it then glosses the six word by word: destinies means the several evil destinies; births means birth from an egg and 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; and “at low receptivity there is obtained the not being born in the evil destinies, while the rest are obtained only upon high receptivity.”

The easy error: to read “one who obtains heat will certainly reach nirvāṇa” as meaning that after obtaining heat all goes smoothly. The treatise says expressly that one who obtains heat may still retreat, may still cut off the wholesome, may still do deeds of immediate retribution, may still fall into the evil destinies — what is guaranteed is only that he will not wander for ever. Here the treatise inserts a question: “if that is so, how does it differ from the factors conducive to liberation” (which likewise certainly reach nirvāṇa)? The answer is, “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” — the difference lies in distance and in modes of apprehension, not in the end.

In practice: in reading every saying of the form “he will certainly obtain,” first ask whether what is certain is the end or the course. This section is the clearest place in the whole treatise for telling the two apart.

14. The Turning of Class: Up to Which Rung the Turning May Go

First ask: since each of the three vehicular classes has its own heat, summit, receptivity, and highest worldly dharma, may one change vehicles midway?

The treatise’s answer is a turning with bounds. When heat and summit have arisen in one of the class of the śrāvaka, “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” — and the reason is most interesting: “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.” One who obtains receptivity is determined not to fall into the evil destinies, while a bodhisattva must be able to go to the evil destinies in order to convert beings; and so this good thing, the not falling into the evil destinies, on the contrary blocks up the road to Buddhahood. As for turning into a pratyekabuddha, all three stations of heat, summit, and receptivity may do so, “and since he lies outside the vehicle of the Buddha he is spoken of as ‘the other.’”

For the pratyekabuddha likened to the qilin’s horn and for the Buddha there is no turning, because the two of them “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 so is fit to be their support. The bound of “a single sitting” the author fixes himself as “from the wholesome root of heat up to awakening he does not rise from his seat,” and he records another account alongside — “some other master says: from the contemplation of impurity he does not rise from his seat, up to awakening.”

The easy error: to take “not falling into the evil destinies” as a merit which is simply better the higher it goes. This section exhibits the treatise’s sense of measure: one and the same merit has different consequences in different classes. This is not a judgment of value; it is a structural conflict between station and vow.

In practice: in reading the differences among the three vehicles, note that the treatise never compares them as higher and lower but only sets out the conditions and bounds of each; the sentence “since he lies outside the vehicle of the Buddha he is spoken of as ‘the other’” is especially worth savoring — it is a word of classification, not a word of disparagement.

15. The Factors Conducive to Liberation: Three Lifetimes at the Fastest, and the Three Continents of Men

First ask: what is there before the factors conducive to penetration?

The treatise says, “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,” and “whoever first plants the factors conducive to liberation gains liberation in three lifetimes at the fastest” — in the first life the factors conducive to liberation arise, in the second the factors conducive to penetration, in the third he enters the noble state and so on to liberation. The treatise uses a simile from farming: “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.”

Their entity is “formed by hearing and reflection only, having all three kinds of action for their entity” — 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. So the threshold is not high at all: “if a man gives a single meal or keeps a single precept and the like and deeply delights in seeking liberation, then, sustained by the force of his vow, this is called planting the factors conducive to liberation.” The place is confined to the three continents of the destiny of men, and one must “meet the appearance of a Buddha in the world to plant this wholesome root,” with another account recorded alongside, “some other master says that meeting a pratyekabuddha will do as well.”

The easy error: to suppose that the factors conducive to liberation are a lofty station. They are low enough to be planted with a single meal and a single precept — the point lies not in the size of the deed but in “deeply delighting in liberation” and in “being sustained by the force of a vow.” What settles whether it is a factor conducive to liberation is the vow, not the amount.

In practice: this section fits the lowest step to the stairs of the whole fascicle, and gives besides a very practical measure: an everyday act of giving or of discipline, fastened to the vow of liberation, has already entered this line.

16. The Receptivity to the Cognition of Dharma concerning Suffering: The Gate of the Path of Seeing and the Establishing of Its Name

First ask: what is the first moment after the highest worldly dharma?

The treatise says, “with nothing intervening after the wholesome root of the highest worldly dharma, 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.” The ground of the name is that “in order to show that this receptivity is without outflows, its later homogeneous outflow is adduced as its distinguishing mark” — its later homogeneous result (the cognition of dharma concerning suffering) is used to mark it out; “since it can produce the cognition of dharma and is the cause of the cognition of dharma, 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.

The same moment has a second designation as well: “this very one is named the entry into the certainty of the noble path, and is also named the entry into rightness and determination.” The treatise glosses it word by word — “what the sūtra calls rightness is nirvāṇa”; “‘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 and can decidedly discern the characteristics of the truths, whence the name “determination”; and “on reaching this station, one is said to enter.”

The easy error: to read the “birth” of “separation from birth” as the birth of birth and death. The treatise says expressly, “‘birth’ means the afflictions, or the faculties not yet ripened” — what is separated from is the afflictions and unripeness, not the taking of birth itself.

In practice: that one moment should have three names (the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering, the entry into the certainty of the noble path, the entry into rightness and determination) is because it is at once the first outflowless mind, the terminus of the station of an ordinary being, and the beginning of the noble station. Many names are not prolixity; they are three faces of one thing.

17. By What Ordinary-Being Status Is Relinquished: One Correct Sense and Two Divergent Accounts

First ask: by which dharma, after all, is ordinary-being status relinquished?

The treatise’s correct sense is the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering: “once this receptivity has arisen one gets the name of noble one, and it relinquishes ordinary-being status while in the future” — note “while in the future,” that is, in the station where this receptivity is about to arise and has not yet arisen; and the treatise itself explains the sense as “that is, 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).

Below this two accounts are recorded alongside. The first: “some other master says: it is the highest worldly dharma that relinquishes ordinary-being status,” which the treatise objects to, saying “this principle is not so, because the two of them are alike named worldly dharmas, and because their natures are contrary.” There follows 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” — borrowing the shoulder of an enemy to take an enemy’s life, things of one class being able to harm one another. The second: “some other master says: it is the two of them that relinquish it together, as an uninterrupted path and a path of liberation do.”

The easy error: to read “relinquishing while in the future” as putting the relinquishing off till later. The “future” here is a station of a dharma (the station of not yet having arisen) and not a later point of time. Fail to make this station clear, and the boundary between “the fifteen minds of the path of seeing” and “the sixteenth mind” below will go astray with it. Again, as to the speaker of the sentence “there is no fault in this either, as by the shoulder of an enemy one can take the enemy’s life,” Puguang marks it as “some other master explains,” whereas the momentum with which the treatise connects it is close to the author speaking for himself — this difference of label the fascicle records without adjudicating, for which see the section on further resonances.

In practice: where this treatise records divergent accounts side by side, the objection and the sentence explaining it through often follow hard upon each other; in reading one must hang every sentence back upon its own master, for hang one sentence wrong and the establishing and refuting of the whole passage are reversed.

18. The Course of the Sixteen Minds: The Cognition of Dharma, the Subsequent Cognition, and the Eight Receptivities and Eight Cognitions

First ask: how are the sixteen minds laid out?

One rule walked four times over. Upon each truth, first, taking the desire realm as object, a “receptivity to the dharma” arises, and with nothing intervening after it a “cognition of dharma”; then, taking the two realms of form and formlessness together as object, a “subsequent receptivity” arises, and with nothing intervening after it a “subsequent cognition” — four minds to one truth, sixteen minds to four truths. Hence upon the truth of suffering there are the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering, the cognition of dharma concerning suffering, the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning suffering, and the subsequent cognition concerning suffering, while upon the three truths of origin, cessation, and the path “there are likewise four minds each.” The treatise writes out all sixteen names in full and abridges nothing.

For the names “dharma” and “subsequent” the treatise gives its reason too: “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.” The cognition of dharma is the first realization, and the subsequent cognition is of the same kind, realizing in its train.

The easy error: to suppose that “the cognition of dharma” means a cognition taking “dharmas” as its object, and “the subsequent cognition” a cognition that sorts things into classes. It does not. The cognition of dharma takes the desire realm as object and the subsequent cognition the two higher realms; “subsequent” means resembling what went before. Paramārtha’s old version renders the “outflowless” of this section as “without flow,” which is a difference of rendering-character and not of sense.

In practice: the sixteen minds need not be memorized by force; remember one formula — “one truth, two realms; upon each realm a receptivity and a cognition”; multiply by the four truths, and the sixteen come out of themselves.

19. The Three Kinds of Direct Realization and the Dispute over Simultaneity and Gradualness

First ask: since the sixteen minds arise in order, where is the error in those who maintain “simultaneous direct realization only”?

The treatise is in no haste to declare it wrong, but first sorts out the sense of the word: “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” — which kind of “direct realization” do you mean? Thereupon it establishes three kinds: “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 associated dharmas 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.”

Once they are sorted out the answer comes of itself: at the time of seeing the truth of suffering, “with regard to the noble truth of suffering there are all three kinds of direct realization, and with regard to the other three truths only the direct realization that is the matter done, namely cutting off, realizing, and cultivating.” Hence if simultaneity be said of the direct realization that is seeing, it does not stand — “since among the truths the modes of apprehension are severally different”; and if one were to see all the truths together by the single mode of apprehension of non-self, that would contradict the sūtra’s saying that one “ponders suffering by the mode of apprehension of suffering” and the rest. But if one says simultaneity on the ground that “at the time of seeing one truth one gains mastery with regard to the other truths,” or says simultaneity on the ground that “at the time of seeing suffering one is able to cut off origin, realize cessation, and cultivate the path,” the treatise answers in both cases, “in principle there is no fault either” — because what is spoken of there is in fact the direct realization that is the matter done. As proof from scripture the treatise adduces “the Buddha told the householder: with regard to the four noble truths there is no simultaneous direct realization but necessarily a gradual direct realization,” and says “of sūtras such as this there are three, and each has its own simile.”

The easy error: to read this passage as a contest for victory. The treatise’s way is first to sort out the sense of the word and then to discuss right and wrong: one and the same word “simultaneous” does not stand when it falls upon the direct realization that is seeing, and is allowed when it falls upon the direct realization that is the matter done. The point at issue is not simultaneity or gradualness, but what is being referred to.

In practice: when two parties stand opposed, the first step this treatise exhibits is always to ask, “which of these does your word refer to?”; sort out the word, and most contradictions untie themselves.

20. Upon What Level the Sixteen Minds Depend

First ask: upon what level do these sixteen moments arise?

The treatise answers most sparingly: “following upon the levels on which the highest worldly dharma depends, it should be known that these sixteen minds depend upon just those. It depends upon six levels, as was said above.” That is, the six levels of the four meditative absorptions, access concentration, and the intermediate absorption — the same level as the highest worldly dharma.

The easy error: to suppose that on entering the path of seeing one has changed to a higher level. There is no change. The level depended upon does not change; what changes is whether it is outflowless or not — the highest worldly dharma is the last of what has outflows, the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering the first of what is outflowless, the two of the same level and of different nature.

In practice: short as this section is, it blocks a common imagining: the path of seeing is not a change of place, but a change of path in the same place.

21. Receptivity Is the Uninterrupted Path, Cognition the Path of Liberation

First ask: why must receptivity and cognition arise alternately, one before and one after?

The treatise adjudges it by the two paths: “among the sixteen minds, receptivity is the uninterrupted path, since with regard to the acquisition that cuts off the afflictions there is nothing that can block it. Cognition is the path of liberation, since it has already been liberated from the acquisition of the afflictions and arises at the same time as the acquisition of release from bondage.” Receptivity is what properly cuts off the acquisition of the afflictions, with nothing to block it; cognition is where the acquisition of the afflictions has been shed and it arises together with the acquisition of release. The simile the treatise gives is homely — “as when men in the world drive out a thief and shut the door”: first drive the thief out (the uninterrupted path), then shut the door (the path of liberation).

Below it there is a supposed objection: if the second be merely an uninterrupted path arising together with the acquisition of release from bondage, then at this station there should arise no cognition of doubt already cut off; and if in the station of the path of seeing receptivity alone cuts off the afflictions, that contradicts the nine clusters of fetters spoken of in the treatise itself. 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.”

The easy error: to read “cognition is the path of liberation” as meaning that cognition does not cut off the afflictions. The division of labor the treatise makes is between cutting off and realizing: the proper doing of the cutting is in receptivity, the presence of the acquisition in cognition; and since receptivity is the retinue of cognition, to say “cognition cuts off” is not wrong either — which is precisely the point of the author’s answer to the objection.

In practice: the figure of driving out the thief and shutting the door may be carried straight on into the station of the path of cultivation — the nine grades of uninterrupted and liberation paths of the nine grades of fault and virtue below use the very same structure.

22. The First Fifteen Minds Are the Path of Seeing: The Simile of a Field of Paddy

First ask: since all sixteen minds see the principle of the truths, why are only the first fifteen counted as the path of seeing?

The treatise says, “with the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering for the first and the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning the path for the last, there are fifteen moments in all therein, and all are comprised within the path of seeing, because they see truths not seen. By the time of the sixteenth, the subsequent cognition concerning the path, there is no principle of a truth unseen that is now seen, and it is like reviewing what has been seen, and so it is comprised within the path of cultivation.” The measure is a single one — whether it is “unseen and now seen.”

An objection follows at once: is not the receptivity to the subsequent cognition concerning the path, observed at the sixteenth mind, also unseen and now seen? The treatise answers, “here we speak with regard to the truths and not with regard to moments,” and gives a simile: “as when in reaping a paddy field there is one plant left, one may not say that this field has not been reaped” — one plant left unreaped in a field does not mean the field has not been reaped through. The treatise adds four further reasons: the subsequent cognition concerning the path is comprised within a fruit, it cultivates at once the eight cognitions and sixteen modes of apprehension, it relinquishes the path before it, and it arises in continuity; and so it is like the rest of the path of cultivation.

A further objection: the subsequent cognition concerning the path certainly does not retreat, precisely because it sustains the cutting off of what is cut off by the path of seeing, and so ought to count as the path of seeing. The treatise 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). And a last question: “for what reason are the seven cognitions also 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.”

The easy error: to suppose that the boundary between the path of seeing and the path of cultivation is “whether one has understood.” The treatise’s boundary is whether any truth is left unseen — one truth left unseen and it is the path of seeing, not one truth left and it is the path of cultivation, and this has nothing to do with dullness or keenness of faculty or with the height of station.

In practice: the simile of the paddy field may be turned round for self-examination: in judging whether a thing is finished, look at the whole field and not at the last plant.

23. One Who Follows through Faith and One Who Follows the Dharma: The Difference of Dull and Keen, and the Establishing of the Three Approachings

First ask: how are persons in the station of the path of seeing divided?

The treatise says, “in the station of the path of seeing there are two kinds of noble one, first one who follows through faith and second one who follows the dharma; these two names are established by the difference of dull and keen faculties” — those of dull faculties are named ones who follow through faith, those of keen faculties ones who follow the dharma. The gloss the treatise gives in fine detail: “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,” and again “or because by repeated practice of this following through faith it has become his nature,” such a person “in the former time believing the words of others and practicing following upon them”; while one who follows the dharma is such “because in the former time he perused for himself the sūtras and the other dharmas and practiced following upon them.” One first believed the words of others, the other first perused the sūtras for himself. Fabao here further divides two layers — first explaining “the name of the practice,” then explaining “the person” (practice and person being each a layer), which is a distinction he alone among the three commentaries brings out.

Below this, three approachings are established according to how much of the afflictions abandoned by cultivation was cut off before: he who has not before cut off any affliction by the mundane path is named one with the fetters entire, or he may have cut off from one grade up to five grades of the desire realm, and at this station he is named an approacher to the first fruit; he who has cut off six grades, or seven or eight, is named an approacher to the second fruit; he who has become separated from all nine grades of the desire realm, or has cut off from one grade of the first absorption up to being wholly separated from the sphere of nothingness, is named an approacher to the third fruit. The treatise also explains in passing why the first fruit is first — “that is, the fruit of stream-entry, because among all the fruits of the ascetic life this is certainly the first to be obtained.”

The easy error: to look down upon one who follows through faith as a rung lower. The treatise says only that faculties are dull or keen, and does not say that the fruits are better or worse; the two are alike in the path of seeing, and the three approachings they tend toward are the same as well. Dullness and keenness divide the way in, not the accomplishment.

In practice: in reading this treatise’s adjudication of persons, first sort out which distinctions are of “faculty” and which of “station”; in this section the two cross without infringing upon each other, and it is a good specimen.

24. At the Sixteenth Mind: Approaching Turns into Fruit, and the Names Turn with It

First ask: when the sixteenth mind arrives, what changes?

Two things happen at once. The station changes: “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 as abiding in a fruit and are no longer named approachers” — the former approacher to stream-entry now abides in the fruit of stream-entry, the former approacher to once-returning in the fruit of once-returning, the former approacher to non-returning in the fruit of non-returning. The names change: “on reaching the station of abiding in a fruit the two names are relinquished and two 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 “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” — because “in these two noble ones faith and discernment are each preponderant, and so the separate names one resolute through faith and one attained through view are marked out.”

The treatise also excludes one item in passing: “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.”

The easy error: to suppose that a change of name is a change of person. The person has not changed; what has changed is the station depended upon: in the station of approaching the name is established upon practice (following through faith, following the dharma), and in the station of fruit upon virtue (resolute through faith, attained through view). Paramārtha’s old version here stands exactly opposite to Xuanzang’s in its system of renderings — at the causal station it has “following in accordance with faith” and “following in accordance with the dharma” (the two graphs inverted), and at the fruit station “one who attains through faith and delight,” while the one name “one attained through view” is on the contrary wholly the same in the two versions.

In practice: the technical terms of this treatise are for the most part functions of station; when one reads that a person has different names before and after, first ask whether his station has moved, and then ask why the name has moved with it.

25. Abiding in a Fruit Is Not Approaching: Why He Is Not Straightway Called an Approacher to the Later Fruit

First ask: one who has before cut off from one to five grades of the afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation plainly can go upward when he reaches the sixteenth mind; why then is he named only as abiding in a fruit and not as an approacher to the later fruit?

The treatise’s measure is a single one: “at the times of obtaining the 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.” The name of approaching is fastened to the path of the higher fruit having arisen; where it has not arisen he is not named an approacher — and this has nothing to do with whether he can go upward.

The treatise at once adds a matter of fact: those who had before cut off from one to five grades, “at the time of obtaining the fruit, will certainly give rise to the path of the higher fruit in this very life”; and from this it draws one further conclusion: “from this, 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.”

The easy error: to read “not approaching” as meaning that he cannot go forward. What it says is only the name at this moment — the name is established upon the path actually in course, not upon a capacity for the future.

In practice: here the general rule by which this treatise establishes names appears at its cleanest: the name is fastened to what has already arisen, not to what may yet be had. Read the earlier “approaching” and “fruit” back in the light of this, and everything tallies.

26. The Nine Grades of Fault and Virtue: The Path of the Lowest of the Low Cuts Off the Obstruction of the Highest of the High

First ask: why must the afflictions abandoned by cultivation and the counteracting paths be divided into nine grades, and that with the lowest of the low set against the highest of the high?

The treatise first fixes the two names: “‘fault’ means defect, that is, the obstruction to be counteracted; ‘virtue’ means merit, that is, the path that counteracts.” The afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation have nine grades, and “so likewise it should be for the higher levels up to the summit of existence”; the two counteracting paths, uninterrupted and of liberation, have nine grades each as well. The way of dividing is three multiplied by three — the fundamental three grades each divided into low, middling, and high, yielding 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.

The rule of pairing is crosswise: “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.” The reason the treatise gives quite plainly: the virtue of the highest of the high grades is at first not there at all; and by the time that virtue is there, the fault of the highest of the high grades is long since gone.

Here the treatise sets down three sets of similes one after another: the washing of clothes, “the coarse grime is removed first, and afterwards the fine grime is removed by degrees”; brightness and darkness, “a coarse darkness a small light can extinguish, whereas to extinguish a fine darkness a great light is required”; and again, “as when the many illnesses gathered over a long time are all at once healed by taking a little good medicine,” “as when a great darkness gathered over a long time is extinguished by a small lamp in a single moment.” The last sentence points the theme — “the force of the bright dharmas is strong and the force of the dark dharmas is weak.”

The easy error: to suppose that the strongest path must be used to cut off the heaviest affliction. The treatise says just the contrary. The coarse and heavy afflictions are cut off first by the weakest path, and the finer the affliction the more excellent the path required — because the coarse afflictions are present first while the excellent path is accomplished later. The order is not from strong to weak, but from coarse to fine.

In practice: the three sets of similes are in fact three sayings of one line of reasoning; remember the one sentence “in washing clothes the coarse grime goes first,” and the direction of the pairing of the nine grades will never be remembered backwards.

27. The Stream-Enterer Returning at Most Seven Times: Seven as a Number, and the Dispute over an Eighth Existence

First ask: in the four words “returning at most seven times,” what does each word govern?

The treatise takes them apart word by word: “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.” So the “seven” is seven each among men and gods, and “at most” is an upper bound and not a fixed quota. The name stream-enterer is glossed word by word too: “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.”

The treatise also puts a question to itself: what sense does this name point to? If first obtaining the path is what is named stream-entry, then one in his eighth existence ought also to be named a stream-enterer; if first obtaining a fruit is what is named stream-entry, then one twofold separated and one wholly separated from desire ought also to be named stream-enterers on reaching the subsequent cognition concerning the path. The treatise gathers it up thus: “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 certainly obtained first, and this alone is certainly obtained first.

Below this there is a threefold exchange. The objection: the sūtra says plainly, “there is no place and no room for one whose seeing is complete to have the sense of taking an eighth existence,” and yet seven each among men and gods make twenty-eight births — is this not a contradiction? The answer: “the intent of this sūtra is stated with regard to a single destiny; if one holds fast to the letter, then intermediate existence would have to be nonexistent.” The further objection: then for one who goes upstream to the summit of existence there ought likewise to be no eighth birth within a single destiny. The explaining through: “this is said with regard to the desire realm, and so there is no such fault.” The treatise adduces proof from scripture as well — “because the sūtra says ‘seven among gods and among men,’” and “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.” As to why there is no eighth existence, the reason the treatise gives is that “his continuum, having come this far, must ripen, and the class of the noble path is by its very nature just so,” with the similes of “the seven-step snake and the fourth-day fever”; and again that he “still has seven other fetters remaining, namely the two lower fetters and the five higher fetters,” so that though the noble path is present in the meantime, being held by the force of the remaining actions he does not realize complete quiescence.

The easy error: to take the twenty-eight births and the sūtra’s “no eighth existence” for a hard contradiction. The treatise’s resolution is that the compass differs — the sūtra says seven with regard to a single destiny, the treatise says twenty-eight with men and gods reckoned together. Again, as to who the objector is, Puguang conjectures the Mahīśāsakas and marks his own words “it may be” (a conjectural tone), which the fascicle records without adjudicating, for which see the section on further resonances.

In practice: whenever numbers in sūtra and treatise disagree, first ask whether the compass of the two is the same; this section is the completest specimen in the treatise of the handling of such contradictions.

28. The Quoted Stanza of Seven Characters and the Limit of Suffering: Where the Fascicle Comes to Rest

First ask: at the end of the fascicle a stanza of seven characters to the line is suddenly quoted; what is it to prove?

Above it is said that the stream-enterer is “of the nature not to fall back,” for four reasons — he does not grow the actions that fall back, he goes counter to the growing of such actions and to their fruits, his strong wholesome roots hold his body down, and both his preparatory practice and his intention are pure; and the last sentence is “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.” It is just here that the stanza is quoted as proof: “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.” The same iron, in a lump and small, sinks; beaten into a bowl and great, it floats instead — what settles sinking and floating is not the size of the sin but whether the continuum that bears it is foolish or wise. The text before this block reads “hence there is a stanza that says” and not “the stanza says,” and it does not enter the count of the root stanzas, and so this collection marks it as a quoted stanza; the Taishō gives it as a stanza while the Ming edition gives it as prose, which is a difference of format between editions and has been recorded at item three of the apparatus.

At the last the treatise closes with “the limit of suffering.” Asked on what sense the name is established, it answers, “it is established upon there being no further suffering after this present life, in the sense of making the later suffering not continue. Or the limit of suffering is just nirvāṇa.” Asked further how nirvāṇa can be made, it answers, “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” — to say “make a space” is not to produce a space, but to pull down what was blocking the place. The last sentence is the fascicle’s close: “those in the other stations also have at most seven returning births, yet not with certainty, and so it is not spoken of.”

The easy error: to read “making the limit of suffering” as producing a thing called nirvāṇa. The treatise uses the simile of “making a space” precisely to block that reading — what is made is the removal of an obstruction, not the producing of a dharma.

In practice: the fascicle begins from the question “the mind having gained concentration, what further is to be cultivated?” and comes to rest at “because the obstruction to its acquisition is removed, the word ‘make’ is used”; the beginning is the start of preparatory practice, the close is the exhaustion of obstruction. Those sixteen moments in between are where the whole weight of the fascicle lies.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

The above is the sense of the text of the fascicle itself. Below, a separate section gathers four matters: the adjudications of the three commentaries and their divergences, Saṅghabhadra’s refutations and supplements, the divergences of Paramārtha’s old version, and the coordinates available for reading alongside. A mirror is not the treatise; it is only another way of reading one and the same text; and the accounts are recorded together without adjudication, each returned to its own place.

One. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

One commentary wholly absent from this fascicle. Shentai’s commentary is a fragment, and of its seven extant fascicles only Fascicle Seventeen touches the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble; that fascicle marks itself as “the twenty-fifth fascicle of the treatise,” and what it explains is the fourth unit of this chapter (the series on the six kinds of lineage). A mechanical check over the whole range of this fascicle yields zero occurrences, and the want is marked as it stands, the text of another fascicle not being used to fill it out. So the mirror of this fascicle has only three faces and not four.

One and the same outline division, the three houses agreeing wholly while what they fasten to it differs. On the outline of the four foundations of mindfulness the three houses adjudge the twofold division “individual characteristic / common characteristic” word for word, which is the strongest single witness of the ancient masters in this chapter; yet Fabao alone fastens the stanza count upon it (“the first two stanzas explain the foundations of mindfulness on the individual characteristic, the last stanza the foundation of mindfulness on the common characteristic”), while Puguang and Yuanhui give only the names of the divisions. The outline being the same and what is fastened to it differing in detail, both are recorded without adjudication.

The discernment from which the wholesome root of heat arises. Fabao alone marks “this arises from the discernment formed by reflection or the discernment formed by cultivation,” which Puguang and Yuanhui do not give here. This is not a contradiction among the three houses but a further layer supplied by Fabao alone; yet what he supplies borders precisely upon the treatise’s later question of what is “not formed by hearing or reflection” (whence the discernment of this station comes, and to what forming this station itself belongs, being two questions), and the two are worth looking at together.

One variant graph. Yuanhui in the section on the wholesome root of heat writes the graph for “heat” in a variant form, where Puguang and Fabao write the usual form. A variant writing of the graph, not a different sense; recorded as it stands, without adjudication.

In establishing the name of receptivity, each house takes one sense. Puguang takes the opening and closing of the three grades (“receptivity has three grades; the low and the middling are the same as summit, observing the four truths in full and cultivating the sixteen modes of apprehension — this is said in general terms”), Fabao takes the comparison in establishing the name (“the wholesome roots of the former stations can also receive the principle of the four truths; this is the most …” — the former stations too can receive, and this is the most excellent), and Yuanhui takes both senses (“since it receives the four truths and is the most excellent. Again, since there is no retreat …”). What each takes is within the text of the treatise; only the point of view differs.

In explaining the name of the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering, the coverage of the three commentaries is unevenly divided. Yuanhui has here the sentence that comes closest to a pure explanation of the name — “as for the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering: the dharma of suffering is the dharma of the truth of suffering, and the receptivity takes the dharma of suffering as its object, whence it is named the receptivity to the dharma of suffering”; within the range of this fascicle no independent sentence of pure explanation of the name is found in Puguang, what may be hung upon him being an extension appended to the dispute over “relinquishing ordinary-being status” — “when the highest worldly dharma reaches the station of abiding, the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering is at its very moment of arising and, not yet accomplished, he is not called a noble one.” ⇒ For one and the same technical term the coverage of the three commentaries is uneven; recorded as it stands, the text of another section not being used to fill out the want here.

The speaker of the sentence “there is no fault in this either.” This is the place in the fascicle where the marking of speakers most needs care. The treatise’s sentence “there is no fault in this either, as by the shoulder of an enemy one can take the enemy’s life” is, in the momentum of its connection, close to the author speaking for himself; whereas Puguang marks it as “some other master explains: though the highest worldly dharma and ordinary-being status are alike worldly, since their natures are contrary it can relinquish ordinary-being status, and there is no fault in this either.” The two are at variance, and it is recorded without adjudication — it may be that Puguang uses “some other master” as a general designation for the divergent accounts of the Mahāvibhāṣā, and is not setting up a third tenet. The vernacular layer of this fascicle assigns no speaker to this sentence, which runs in the same direction.

In glossing one who follows through faith, Fabao alone divides two layers. Puguang gives “because his practice follows upon faith, he is called following through faith. That person has this following through faith …” and Yuanhui gives “by the dullness or keenness of the faculties these two names are established. He of dull faculties is named one who follows through faith, since in the former time he followed …,” both explaining straight through; whereas Fabao expressly divides two layers — “this explains the name of the practice. ‘He who has this following through faith is called one who follows through faith’ explains the person.” The name of the practice and the name of the person are each a layer, a distinction which among the three commentaries Fabao alone points out; and turning back to the treatise’s two sentences, “is named following through faith” and “is named one who follows through faith,” it is indeed so, the one explaining the dharma and the other the person.

Who the objector concerning an eighth existence is. Puguang marks, “it may be an objection of the Mahīśāsakas, who hold that seven births are taken by men and gods together,” using “it may be” to express his own conjecture and not a definite ascription; and on the answering side he expressly marks “the answer of the Sarvāstivādins.” Fabao sets up no separate label sentence by sentence in this passage. ⇒ As to who the objector is, only Puguang’s conjecture is recorded, and no definite ascription is made on his behalf; the treatise itself does not say who the objector is.

Three places “without an express mark” are not a want of explanation. The supposed objection concerning the uninterrupted and liberation paths of receptivity and cognition, the answering sentence to the question why the seven cognitions too are comprised within the path of seeing, and the second answering sentence in the dispute over an eighth existence — at all three Puguang writes continuously with the text of the treatise and sets up no separate label of question and answer. This is the form of the commentary and not a blank in it; it is of a different nature from Shentai’s “wholly wanting for this fascicle,” and the two may not be listed together.

Two. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations and Supplementary Explanations

Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises do not name this chapter “Analysis of the Worthy and the Noble”: the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle has “Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble, chapter six” and the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine “Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble, chapter seven” — search the two treatises with the Kośa’s chapter name and one will never find them.

Two word-for-word citations, both on the establishing of names. Within the range of this fascicle the places where Saṅghabhadra says “the Sūtra-master” and reports Vasubandhu word for word are only two in all, and both fall upon the establishing of a technical term. The first is the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering: Saṅghabhadra first sets up his own explanation, “it is the counteragent of the obstruction to the arising of that cognition, and so it is further named the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering,” then recites Vasubandhu’s explanation, “the Sūtra-master here explains it thus: in order to show that this receptivity is without outflows, its later homogeneous outflow is adduced as its distinguishing mark; since it can produce the cognition of dharma and is the cause of the cognition of dharma, it gets the name receptivity to the cognition of dharma, as a tree is named from its flower and fruit,” and thereupon puts forward his own view. What is at issue is the ground on which the name is established — Saṅghabhadra fastens it to what is counteracted (the counteragent of the obstruction to the arising of that cognition), Vasubandhu to the later homogeneous result (adducing the later homogeneous outflow as a distinguishing mark). The two accounts are recorded together, and neither is judged to prevail.

The second is the uninterrupted and liberation paths: Saṅghabhadra poses the question, “again, on what ground is the counteragent that cuts off called the uninterrupted path, and the cognition arising at the same time as the acquisition of release from bondage called the path of liberation?”, and then recites, “the Sūtra-master explains: because with regard to the acquisition that cuts off the afflictions there is nothing that can block it, it is named the uninterrupted path; because it has been liberated from the acquisition of the afflictions and arises at the same time as the acquisition of release from bondage, it is named the path of liberation.” Here he merely reports and then sets out separately, and this section records only his citing sentence and its location.

An honest negative proposition. In the passage of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine corresponding to this fascicle the two characters for “the Sūtra-master” have zero occurrences; yet it does have coverage of the same doctrine (technical terms such as the receptivity to the cognition of dharma concerning suffering all occurring there). ⇒ This is a difference of the explicit and the implicit, and one may not infer from it that the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine says nothing on this passage. All that the negative proposition can prove is one thing: that Saṅghabhadra in this passage of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine did not use the designation “the Sūtra-master” to name Vasubandhu.

The scarcity of debate in this fascicle is itself a fact. Compared with the other units of this chapter, the places in this fascicle where Saṅghabhadra cites word for word are exceedingly few, and there is no direct refutation. What this fascicle treats is the doctrinal laying out of the foundations of mindfulness, the wholesome roots, and the order of the path of seeing, and not a focus of controversy over Sarvāstivāda tenets — this is recorded as it stands, no judgment being made on its behalf as to why.

Three. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Old Version

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury of Abhidharma, in the passage corresponding to this fascicle, forms a system of its own: its chapter name is “Analysis of the Persons of the Fruits of the Noble Path, chapter six,” wholly different from Xuanzang’s “Analysis of the Worthy and the Noble, chapter six,” and Paramārtha divides this chapter into three fascicles where Xuanzang divides it into four. In form, Xuanzang gives “the stanza says / the treatise says,” the whole stanza set out first, whereas Paramārtha gives “the verse says / the explanation says,” embedding the explanation line by line — so that Xuanzang’s sixteen blocks of root stanza in this fascicle appear in Paramārtha’s version as a number of short verses scattered about.

The renderings form a system of their own. Foundation of mindfulness becomes station of mindfulness, conjoined becomes associated, object becomes object-field, the wholesome root of heat becomes the practice of warmth, without outflows becomes without flow, the mind gains concentration becomes having already gained concentration. These differences run through the whole passage and are not occasional.

The most concrete set of systematic differences lies in the names of the persons of the path of seeing. At the causal station Xuanzang has “one who follows through faith” and “one who follows the dharma,” Paramārtha “following in accordance with faith” and “following in accordance with the dharma” — the two graphs inverted; at the fruit station Xuanzang has “one resolute through faith,” Paramārtha “one who attains through faith and delight.” And the one name “one attained through view” within the same set is on the contrary wholly the same in the two versions. ⇒ Within a set of four names three differ and one is wholly the same, which is an exception within a systematic difference of rendering, recorded as it stands.

The two closest passages. The first is the simile of splitting wood with a wedge in the establishing of the name foundation of mindfulness: Xuanzang, “the sense is that it is by the sustaining force of mindfulness that discernment gets to proceed, as in splitting wood with an axe the cleft is held by the force of the wedge” ‖ Paramārtha, “because it is established by the force of mindfulness, as in splitting wood the wedge is firmly held” — the simile agreeing word for word. The second is the establishing of the wholesome root of heat: Xuanzang, “it is the forerunner of the fire of the noble path which can burn the firewood of the afflictions” ‖ Paramārtha, “it can burn the firewood of the afflictions, being before the fire of the four noble paths.” At these two places the two versions have hardly any difference of compass.

Instances of differing compass. In the gloss of the wholesome root of summit, Xuanzang sets out the two explanations “as with the crown of a man” and “as with the summit of a mountain” in the very sentence establishing the name, whereas Paramārtha places the glosses in another sentence; in the counteracting of the four inversions, Xuanzang states it directly in prose while Paramārtha gives the verse first and then explains; in the closing sentence of the fascicle, Xuanzang sets out “not with certainty” first and “and so it is not spoken of” after, while Paramārtha’s order of sentences is just the reverse. ⇒ All are differences of order and not of doctrine, and no judgment of merit is made between the two versions.

Four. Coordinates for Reading Alongside

What it joins to before is Unit 1. The first sentence of this fascicle takes over the two gates of entering cultivation word for word — “thus have been explained the two gates of entering cultivation; by these two gates the mind then gains concentration.” The concentration accomplished by the contemplation of impurity and mindfulness of the breath is the footing of the four foundations of mindfulness of this fascicle; between Unit 1 and Unit 2 there is no break, and they are two stretches upon one line.

What it joins to after is Unit 3. This fascicle closes upon “abiding in a fruit and returning at most seven times,” saying expressly “those in the other stations also have at most seven returning births, yet not with certainty, and so it is not spoken of”; and the next fascicle opens at once upon the approaching and the fruit of once-returning after the cutting off of the afflictions abandoned by cultivation — the blank left by the last sentence of this fascicle is precisely where the next begins.

What it joins to crosswise is the Chapter on the Latent Tendencies. The nine grades of fault and virtue used in the first half of Root 35 of this fascicle rest upon the division of the nine grades of afflictions abandoned by cultivation established in the Chapter on the Latent Tendencies; this fascicle says only “as was already analyzed before, the nine grades of difference among the afflictions of the desire realm abandoned by cultivation — so likewise it should be for the higher levels up to the summit of existence,” and does not establish it afresh, taking over the measure of the earlier chapter directly. If in reading this section the division into nine grades seems to come out of nowhere, go back to the Chapter on the Latent Tendencies and its root is found.

What runs lengthwise through the whole chapter is the word “station.” From the first setting foot and the later advancing of heat, to the three grades low, middling, and high of receptivity, to the first fifteen and the sixteenth of the sixteen minds, to abiding in a fruit and approaching — every establishing of a name and every adjudication of persons in this fascicle has its measure in the station and not in the height of an attainment. This is the most portable measure the chapter affords.

As for the coordinates by which this fascicle might be read alongside the Yogācāra line, no word-for-word anchor with adjudicated warrant has been obtained on this occasion; it is left wanting, awaiting supply, and nothing is cited conjecturally from memory.

Before Reading This Fascicle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII. The Mixed Cultivation of the Meditative Absorptions

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

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

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

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

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

VIII. The Pure Abodes Are Only Five

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

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

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

IX. The Bodily Witness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XII. After the Knowledge of Exhaustion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XV. In Dependence upon Which Realm They Are Obtained

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further Resonances: The Mirror of the Three Commentaries

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

1. Where the Three Commentaries Diverge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations and Supplementary Explanations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Coordinates for Parallel Reading

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

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

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

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

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

Before Reading This Fascicle

The preceding fascicle carried the four approaches and four fruits as far as the arhat; this fascicle, at its very first word, overturns a habitual impression — that having realized arhatship does not mean that everyone is exactly alike. The first sentence of the treatise takes up what precedes very tightly: “as was said above, an arhat of the unshakable lineage, after the first knowledge of exhaustion, gives rise to the knowledge of non-arising. Do arhats, like the stream-enterer and the rest, have differences among them?” This one question opens the gate of the whole fascicle: among arhats there are six kinds of lineage; some must await the season and its conditions before they can enter absorption, others have it present as they wish; some may fall back, others assuredly do not.

The three ancient commentators let the knife of the outline fall in the same place here, and their numbering is word for word the same. Puguang marks: “below, the fifth, explaining the six kinds of lineage. Within it: first, the six arhats; second, whether the six lineages come earlier or later; third, falling back from lineage and from fruit; fourth, the lineages of those in training and of ordinary beings; fifth, the difference of the three fallings back; sixth, the marks of the time of falling back from a fruit; seventh, the differences in the refining of the faculties; eighth, the nine persons beyond training.” Yuanhui has: “from here the fifth, explaining the six kinds of lineage, and within it eight: first the six arhats, second whether the six lineages come earlier or later, third falling back from lineage and from fruit, fourth the lineages of those in training and of ordinary beings, fifth the difference of the three fallings back, sixth the marks of the time of falling back from a fruit, seventh the differences in the refining of the faculties, eighth the nine persons beyond training” — hardly a character apart from Puguang. Fabao, on the other hand, gathers the first three into one and so has six: “below, the fifth of the main text, explaining the six kinds of lineage. First, the six kinds of arhat; second, the six kinds among those in training and ordinary beings; third, the difference of the three kinds of falling back; fourth, the time of the six fallings back from a fruit and the rest; fifth, the differences in the refining of the faculties; sixth, the nine kinds of those beyond training.” The three houses divided their fascicles independently, and yet the boundary agrees wholly with Xuanzang’s — from which it is plain that this cut was not forced upon the text by later hands.

There is one further thing in this fascicle rarely met with in this book: of the seven fascicles of Shentai’s commentary that survive, only Fascicle Seventeen belongs to the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble, and it happens to cover the content of this fascicle entire — at its head it marks of itself, “from here below, the fourth, seven and a half lines of stanza explaining the six kinds of lineage. Within it the first one and a half lines of stanza explain the arhat,” and at its end, the four alternatives of disgust and dispassion once explained, it closes. This is therefore the first unit in the whole book for which all four houses are present; wherever below the four are set out together, it is expressly marked.

What must be said first is this: the longest stretch of prose in this fascicle is not about numbered dharmas but is one long exchange — whether the fruit of the arhat can in the end be fallen back from. Within this stretch four houses hold different opinions, the Sautrāntikas, the Elder, the Masters of Distinction, and the Sarvāstivāda school itself; the author too plainly declares where he stands, and yet in the end he still concludes by returning to his own school with “the Vibhāṣā masters state it as settled: the fruit of the arhat too admits of falling back.” The knack of reading this stretch is to keep asking, “who is speaking now?” — and every section below marks it out.

I. Arhats Divide into Six Kinds: Liberation Dependent on Circumstance and Liberation Not Dependent on It

First ask: since all alike have cut off the afflictions entire, what difference can there still be among arhats? The treatise answers directly — the difference lies not in what has been cut off but in the faculties one is born with. “In the sūtras it is said that the arhat, because of difference of lineage, is 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.” The first five are all produced from the line of “one resolute through faith” (in whom confidence predominates and the faculties are duller) at the stage of training, and are together named the liberation of mind that is cherished and dependent on circumstance; the sixth is produced from the line of “one attained through view” (in whom discernment predominates and the faculties are keener), and is named the unshakable liberation of mind.

The name “liberation dependent on circumstance” calls for care. It does not mean “a temporary liberation” but “liberation upon awaiting the time” — “they are also called liberation dependent on circumstance, because it must await the time and because there is liberation. The first word being elided, one says it as one says ‘a butter jar.’” Fearing a misreading, the treatise adds an instance of elision on purpose: a jar that holds butter is called for short a butter jar, the first word being dropped. And what is the time awaited? “That is, only when the supports, the freedom from illness, the place, and other such excellent conditions come together can he enter absorption” — supports, body, and place must meet before absorption can be entered at all. On this simile the glosses of the four houses agree wholly: Puguang has “as one says ‘a butter jar’: in full one should say ‘a jar holding butter,’ but the initial character ‘holding’ being elided one says merely ‘a butter jar,’” while Shentai has “as the world says in full ‘this is made a butter jar,’ the initial words ‘this is made’ being elided, one says merely a butter jar.”

The easy error: to take the six as six grades of “higher and lower power.” Higher and lower they do indeed have, but the criterion the treatise hangs them upon is the faculties and preparation, not the amount of affliction cut off — the afflictions cut off by all six kinds of arhat are the same. In practice: when you come to the long stretch on “falling back” further on, remember that what is fallen back from is never the exhaustion of outflows but absorption and lineage — establish this point first, and that dispute becomes legible.

II. Is a Lineage Had from the First, or Refined into Afterward?

First ask: are these six lineages fixed at birth, or cultivated into being? The treatise answers, “it is not fixed,” and adjudges it with one stanza — “some are the lineage had from the first, some are got afterward by refining the faculties.” Taken finely: the dharma of falling back must be had from the first; the five from the dharma of deliberation on may also be got afterward. So there are those who are of the nature of the dharma of deliberation from the start, and there are those who were of the nature of the dharma of falling back and afterward refined the faculties and turned into the dharma of deliberation, and so on up to the unshakable.

All six names are figures of speech, not serial numbers. The treatise gives a gloss for each in turn: the dharma of falling back is “that on meeting the slightest condition he falls back from what he has obtained — not so with the dharma of deliberation and the rest”; the dharma of deliberation is “that, fearing to fall back and lose, he constantly deliberates upon slaying himself”; the dharma of guarding is “that he gladly wards and guards what he has obtained”; the dharma of abiding is “that apart from a strong condition of falling back he can avoid falling back even without warding himself, and apart from strong preparation he also makes no further advance”; the dharma of being able to reach is “that his nature is capable, he is apt at refining the faculties, and he swiftly reaches the unshakable”; the dharma of the unshakable is “that he assuredly does not fall back.” Yuanhui lists the glosses of all six in full, and of the four houses is the handiest for a beginner — “first, the dharma of falling back: on meeting the slightest condition he falls back from what he has obtained. Second, the dharma of deliberation: fearing to fall back and lose, he constantly deliberates upon slaying himself. Third, the dharma of guarding: he wards and guards the dharma he has formerly obtained.”

These six take shape already at the stage of training. The treatise gives a table of their arrangement: the first and the second both lack constant preparation and reverent preparation, and are divided into two only because the faculties differ as keen and dull; the third, guarding, has constant preparation only; the fourth, abiding, has reverent preparation only; the fifth has both and yet is still of dull faculty; the sixth is of keen faculty and has both complete. The easy error: to take the name for the destiny. The treatise expressly blocks it — “one of the lineage that is the dharma of falling back does not assuredly fall back, and so on up to one of the dharma of being able to reach who is not assuredly able to reach; these names are established only with regard to there being such a possibility.” In practice: these names are established with regard to “possibility,” not to necessity; and the sentence below, “therefore the six arhats are found in all three realms,” holds good only on the strength of this point.

III. Four Fall Back from Lineage, Five from the Fruit — and What Is Fallen Back From Is Never the Portion Had from the First

First ask: among the six, who falls back? And is it the lineage or the fruit that is fallen back from? The stanza answers, “four fall back from lineage, five from the fruit, and not from what was first.” The unshakable assuredly does not fall back; the first five all admit of it. Of these, the last four may fall back from lineage; the dharma of falling back alone has no lineage to fall back from — because it is already at the lowest grade. From the fruit, all five may fall back.

The pivot lies in the two words “not from what was first.” The treatise explains it in three layers: for one at the stage beyond training, the lineage in which he abode at the former stage of training will not be fallen back from, because it was made doubly, by the path of training and the path beyond training; for one at the stage of training, the lineage in which he abode at the former stage of an ordinary being will not be fallen back from either, because it was made doubly, by the mundane and the supramundane path; only the four lineages beginning with the dharma of deliberation, newly got afterward by refining the faculties, admit of being fallen back from. From this a hard conclusion is drawn — “so it is settled that there is no falling back from the fruit of the stream-enterer.”

The easy error: to read “the arhat may fall back” as “he may fall back into being an ordinary being.” The treatise’s reckoning runs precisely the other way: one beyond training of the dharma of falling back has three roads before him (advancing his faculties, falling back to abide at the stage of training, abiding at his own station and entering final nirvāṇa), the dharma of deliberation four, and the rest in order five, six, and seven; and moreover “if the four beginning with the dharma of deliberation fall back to abide at a stage of training, they return to abide at the corresponding station and at no other” — even his falling back goes only to the station that answers to himself. In practice: this section is really drawing a map of the boundaries of falling back; and once the boundaries are drawn clearly, one knows what ground the great dispute of the next section is fought over.

IV. Why the Stream-Enterer Assuredly Does Not Fall Back: Resting on No Entity and Resting on an Entity

First ask: on what ground is it said that the afflictions abandoned through seeing, once cut off, do not arise again? The reason the Sarvāstivādins give is a single sentence — “because what is abandoned through seeing rests on no entity”; and Puguang marks who is speaking: “the Sarvāstivādins answer. Because what is abandoned through seeing rests on no entity, there is assuredly no principle of falling back.” Resting on no entity means that the view of self turns in dependence upon the imagined “I,” and that all the confusions abandoned through seeing have this view for their root; “since the entity of a self does not exist, it is called resting on no entity, and since there is no entity there is assuredly no principle of falling back.”

The treatise at once raises an objection against itself: does that not amount to saying that this affliction “takes what is not there as its object”? Answer: no — for the object upon which it rests is still the four truths, only that it rests upon them otherwise than as they really are. Pressed again: which of the afflictions does not rest upon the truths otherwise than as they are? The answer lies in a difference: the afflictions abandoned through cultivation each have their real thing (the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the rest), whereas those abandoned through seeing conjure an “I” upon the four truths out of nothing. The treatise states the same matter again from three angles, and gives at last a simile — “just as, upon a rope or the like, one may on the instant take it for a snake”: in haste one may see a rope as a snake, but never once one has examined; the afflictions abandoned through cultivation are benighted and arise without waiting for examination, and so a noble person may still lose mindfulness and fall back into them; the afflictions abandoned through seeing are of the nature of reckoning, and one examination brings the truths in sight, and so they assuredly do not return.

The easy error: to take “resting on no entity” for “the object is a sheer nothing.” The treatise has itself blocked that reading. In practice: this passage gives a usable criterion — an attachment built upon a fictitious object never returns once it is seen through; an inveterate habit built upon a real thing must still be guarded against after it has been seen through. In practice the work each requires is different from the start.

V. The Sautrāntika Account and the Author’s Declaration of Where He Stands

First ask: in this dispute, on which side does Vasubandhu himself stand? The text of the treatise has only one sentence — “the Sautrāntika masters say: from the state of an arhat too there is no falling back. What they say accords with principle.” The four words “what they say accords with principle” look light, and yet the ancient commentators unanimously take them for the author’s open declaration. Puguang says it most fully: “below, the Sautrāntikas explain falling back and not falling back with regard to the four fruits. The author’s intent sides with the Sautrāntikas, and so he says that what they say accords with principle”; Fabao changes the wording to “the author by his appraisal takes up the Sautrāntika explanation”; and Shentai is terser still, in four words — “the author appraises it, saying: what they say accords with principle.”

The Sautrāntika argument runs along two roads. Puguang marks the speaker sentence by sentence: “‘by scripture and by reasoning’: the Sautrāntikas answer”; “‘how is it by scripture’: the pressing.” Along the road of scriptural testimony he cites three passages: that affliction cut off by noble discernment is called really cut off; that the Buddha says one in training ought to be heedful and does not say so of the arhat; and that the Buddha told Ānanda that gain and honor and the rest obstruct even the arhat, yet “does not say that he falls back from the fruit of the arhat, but only that he falls back from and loses the pleasant abiding in the present dharma.” Along the road of reasoning there is a dilemma: if the counteracting path has already arisen, he ought not to fall back into affliction; if the path has not arisen, 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?”

The easy error: to suppose that the author’s declaration amounts to the treatise’s changing its school. It does not — at the end of this fascicle it still concludes by returning to its own school with the account of the Vibhāṣā masters. In practice: whenever in reading this treatise you meet with words like “what they say accords with principle” or “this is best,” hold two things in mind at once: here is where the author’s inclination lies, and the conclusion of his own school is still to come. That the two stand together is precisely the form of this book.

VI. How to Read the Liberation Cherished and Dependent on Circumstance: What Is Fallen Back From Is Absorption, Not the Fruit

First ask: since the sūtra does speak of a “liberation cherished and dependent on circumstance,” is that not an admission that the arhat falls back? The Sautrāntika answer is not to deny the text but to ask one question, “what is it that he falls back from?” — “but one ought to examine what it is that he falls back from: is it the fruit-nature of worthiness, or the meditative absorptions and the rest?” Puguang marks this as the Sautrāntikas citing and explaining through an objection: “‘if it be said that there is falling back, and so it is not called cherished’: the Sautrāntikas cite the objection and explain it through.” The answer is: what is fallen back from is the concentration of the fundamental meditative absorptions, which becomes present only upon awaiting the season, and so is named liberation dependent on circumstance; and because he longs for it again and again for the sake of the pleasant abiding in the present dharma, it is named “cherished.”

The treatise at once records another account besides: “some say: this absorption is a place of savoring that is cherished; whereas the fruit-nature liberation of the arhats accompanies them constantly, and so should not be called ‘dependent on circumstance’; and since he no longer longs for it, neither is it called ‘cherished.’” — which assigns both words, “circumstance” and “cherished,” to the side of absorption with outflows. Then the Sautrāntikas object once more: if the fruit-nature could be fallen back from, why does the World-Honored One speak only of the pleasant abiding in the present dharma as able to be fallen back from? Puguang quotes their words as: “the Sautrāntikas object in return. If it be said that the fruit-nature of worthiness, which is without outflows, admits of being fallen back from and lost even by one of dull faculties, then why does the World-Honored One speak only of the pleasant abiding in the present dharma, the absorptions with outflows that have been realized, as admitting in principle of being fallen back from, and not of what is without outflows? By this it is proved that the fruit-nature of the arhat must be unshakable.”

The easy error: to read the names “the dharma of falling back” and “the dharma of not falling back” as bearing on whether the fruit-station can be fallen back from. The treatise here gives the source of the naming itself — it is established with regard to “there being or not being falling back with regard to the pleasant abiding in the present dharma obtained.” In practice: hereafter, whenever you meet the words “so-and-so fell back and lost,” first ask in three layers: was it the fruit, the absorption, or the present enjoyment that was fallen back from? Confound the three and this whole stretch becomes unreadable.

VII. The Difference among the Three Names: Not Falling Back, Abiding, and Unshakable

First ask: not falling back, abiding, unshakable — they all sound like not falling back; where is the difference? The treatise closes the matter with one question and answer: “what is the difference among not falling back, abiding, and unshakable? What is not got by refining the faculties is called not falling back; what is got by refining the faculties is called unshakable.” Puguang marks both parties to this exchange — “‘what is the difference among not falling back, abiding, and unshakable’: the question”; “‘what is not got by refining the faculties’ down to ‘the difference among the three’: the Sautrāntikas answer. Not falling back is got by one’s own nature and not through refining the faculties; what is got by refining the faculties is called unshakable.”

The dividing line among the three runs thus: not falling back is got by one’s own nature and not through refining the faculties; unshakable is got through refining the faculties. The excellent attainments raised by these two do not fall back even on meeting a condition of falling back. The dharma of abiding, however, can only avoid falling back 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” — he has enough to hold what he has and not enough to open new ground.

The easy error: to take the dharma of abiding for another name of the dharma of the unshakable. The treatise has already parted them expressly: abiding is “holding fast what one already has,” unshakable is “not losing even what is newly got.” In practice: the three names are in fact three degrees of stability — stable from the first, stable by cultivation, and stable only where one stands. To judge for oneself which of the three one belongs to is more useful than remembering the names.

VIII. The Affair of Godhika: What Was Fallen Back From Was Absorption, Not the Fruit

First ask: Godhika took a knife and slew himself — is that not iron proof that an arhat falls back from the fruit? The treatise explains it through thus: he “formerly at the stage of training savored the liberation dependent on circumstance to excess,” 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 arhatship and forthwith entered final nirvāṇa — so “Godhika too did not fall back from and lose the fruit of the arhat.”

The ancient commentators here mark a divergence between two readings. Fabao records it most clearly: “the author explains the sūtra through. The Sarvāstivādins hold that Godhika fell back from the fruit of worthiness and obtained it again. On the Sautrāntika position, Godhika fell back repeatedly at the stage of training and deeply reproached himself and the rest, and at the time of his death obtained the fruit of the arhat.” Puguang likewise marks this passage as “the Sautrāntikas again explain a sūtra through.” That is to say, of one and the same affair the Sarvāstivādins read a falling back from the fruit and a regaining of it, while the Sautrāntikas read repeated falling back at the stage of training and the obtaining of the fruit at death.

The easy error: to suppose that explaining a sūtra through means altering it. The Sautrāntikas altered not one character of the text; what they altered was “which portion it was that he fell back from.” In practice: in reading biographical scriptural testimony, first part “the fact” from “the adjudication of the fact” — and this passage is the clearest demonstration of it in the whole fascicle.

IX. The Three Objections from the Sūtra of the Increase by Ten and the Sarvāstivādins’ Challenge

First ask: how is it proved that liberation dependent on circumstance is not the entity of the fruit of worthiness? The Sautrāntikas adduce the Sūtra of the Increase by Ten — “one dharma is to be aroused, namely the liberation of mind that is cherished and dependent on circumstance; one dharma is to be realized, namely the unshakable liberation of mind” — and at once raise three objections: first, if the fruit of worthiness were itself the liberation of mind cherished and dependent on circumstance, why should the fruit of worthiness be spoken of twice over in this sūtra? Second, nowhere at all is the fruit of the arhat called “to be aroused”; it is called only “to be realized.” Third, the sūtra says that the fruit of worthiness comprised under dull faculties is called “to be aroused”: if this is to show that he is able to arouse it, then one of keen faculties is the more able; if it is to show that he ought to arouse it, then one of keen faculties the more ought to. The conclusion is that “liberation dependent on circumstance is not the fruit-nature of worthiness.” Puguang marks its character as “the Sautrāntikas adduce a sūtra to prove that the fruit-nature of worthiness is not liberation dependent on circumstance.”

The Sarvāstivādins at once return an objection: “‘if that is so, then why is liberation dependent on circumstance said to be the fruit of worthiness’: the Sarvāstivādins object. If liberation dependent on circumstance is not the entity of the fruit of worthiness, why is liberation dependent on circumstance said to be the fruit of worthiness?” The Sautrāntikas answer: that name is established with regard to a class of the fruit of worthiness whose faculties are dull and who must await the season before absorption becomes present, and the contrary of it is called liberation not dependent on circumstance; Puguang marks, “‘that is, there is a fruit of worthiness’ down to ‘is called liberation not dependent on circumstance’: the Sautrāntikas answer,” and Fabao marks the same, “the Sautrāntikas answer. The name is established on the ground of awaiting or not awaiting the circumstance for obtaining absorption.”

The easy error: to take “to be aroused” and “to be realized” for synonymous turns of phrase. The whole of the Sautrāntikas’ second objection is built upon the division of labor between these two words. In practice: in reading argument that rests on scriptural testimony, note that what the arguer rests upon is very often a division of labor among terms rather than a doctrinal assertion — this is one of the forms of argument most used in this treatise.

X. The Sūtra of the Simile of the Charcoal and the Return to His Own School

First ask: the Sūtra of the Simile of the Charcoal says expressly that a noble disciple, while walking or standing, may through the losing of mindfulness give rise to evil and unwholesome thoughts — is that not falling back from the fruit of worthiness? This objection is raised by the Sarvāstivādins. Puguang marks it plainly: “‘if that is so, then you must explain’ down to ‘is the arhat’: the Sarvāstivādins again adduce a sūtra in objection,” and Fabao likewise marks, “the Sarvāstivādins adduce a sūtra in defense.” The Sautrāntikas’ explaining through is: the one who “has already forever vomited forth all the dharmas conformable to outflows and has obtained coolness” is the arhat, whereas the losing of mindfulness and the arising of thoughts belong to the stage of training, before he “had penetrated it well” — “the former passage is spoken with regard to the stage of training, and so there is no fault in it.” Puguang marks this as “the Sautrāntikas explain the sūtra through,” and Fabao has, “the Sautrāntikas note that the later text cites ‘he has already forever vomited forth all the dharmas conformable to outflows and has obtained coolness’; by this later text he is the arhat.”

The wide dispute being thus finished, the treatise concludes by returning to its own school in a single sentence: “the Vibhāṣā masters state it as settled: the fruit of the arhat too admits of falling back.” Puguang marks here, “the wide dispute being finished, he concludes by returning to his own school.”

The easy error: to take the return to his own school for the author’s own final judgment. Having said above that “what they say accords with principle,” and here concluding that there is falling back, the two stand together without contradiction — and this is precisely the form of the treatise, “he sets up the Sarvāstivāda sense, and wherever there is a one-sided place refutes it with the Sautrāntika sense.” In practice: meeting an ending of this two-sided kind, what a reader has to do is not to take a side for the ancients but to hold fast the grounds of each of the two parties. The adjudication of the schools belongs to a weighing of doctrine, and is not for a reader’s momentary opinion.

XI. Those in Training and Ordinary Beings Also Have Six · but the Faculties Are Not Refined on the Path of Seeing

First ask: are the six kinds of lineage the arhat’s alone? They are not. The stanza answers, “those in training and ordinary beings likewise have six; refining the faculties is not on the path of seeing,” and the reason is of the simplest: since the six kinds of the fruit of worthiness have these for their antecedents, the antecedents naturally have six kinds too.

The point lies in the second half of the line. At the stage of the path of seeing the faculties assuredly cannot be refined, “because at this stage there is no room to raise the preparation” — the path of seeing is swift, and there is no time to raise the preparation for refining the faculties. So the faculties can be refined only at the stage of one resolute through faith and at the stage of an ordinary being, just as at the stage beyond training. Yuanhui fills it out clearly: “but on the path of seeing there is assuredly no refining of the faculties, because the path of seeing is swift and there is no room to raise the preparation for refining the faculties.” The treatise then adduces a sūtra in evidence: of the pleasant abidings in the present dharma comprised under the four kinds of higher mind, any one whatever admits of falling back, whereas of the unshakable liberation of mind “I say it as settled that there is no cause or condition by which one could fall back from this.”

The easy error: to suppose that refining the faculties is an exercise that may be taken up at any time. It has a limit of station — it cannot be cultivated on the path of seeing. In practice: reading this together with the earlier passage on falling back, one finds that the treatise’s attitude toward the stages of practice is very concrete: what can be done at what station cannot be stated in general terms.

XII. Falling Back Is of Three Kinds: From What Is Obtained, from What Is Not Obtained, from Enjoyment

First ask: since the dharma of the unshakable does not fall back, how is it said that he falls back from the pleasant abiding in the present dharma? The treatise’s solution is first to divide the word “falling back” into three — “first, falling back from what is obtained, that is, falling back from the excellent merits already obtained; second, falling back from what is not obtained, that is, being unable to obtain excellent merits; third, falling back from enjoyment, that is, the excellent merits already obtained not being present.”

The division made, each has his own portion. The World-Honored One has only the falling back from enjoyment, because his merits are so many that they cannot all be present at once; the dharma of the unshakable has two, from enjoyment and from what is not obtained, because there are merits more excellent than his own not yet obtained; the remaining five may have all three. Whereupon “taken 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” — the contradiction dissolves in a fine division of the term.

The easy error: to read “the Buddha too falls back” as the Buddha’s losing something. The treatise says it very plainly: his kind is only “not being present.” In practice: the treatise’s way of dissolving contradictions is demonstrated here at its cleanest — first ask how many senses the word has, then ask which sense each person occupies. Hereafter, when two sentences of scripture seem to conflict, this move will often serve.

Here the treatise records besides an account of those who hold that there is no falling back: “all liberations without outflows are called unshakable,” which it closes with “explain it through as above; it should not be made an objection,” recording it without adjudication.

XIII. One Who Falls Back Assuredly Obtains It Again, and Does Not Do What Is Contrary to the Fruit

First ask: having fallen back, will he go on falling back until death? The treatise answers that he will not — “there is no dying in the interval after falling back from a fruit, because within a moment after falling back he assuredly obtains it again.” The scriptural testimony is: the learned noble disciples, though they fall back and lose right mindfulness, “are very soon able again to make what they have fallen into be exhausted, sunk away, ceased, and departed”; were it otherwise, “the fruit of cultivating the holy life would not be a secure place that may be entrusted with confidence” — a fruit of the holy life that might be lost past return would not amount to a place one could entrust oneself to.

The second question is finer: will he at the time of falling back do the deeds he would not do while abiding in the fruit? The treatise answers that he will not, on the ground that conscience predominates — “since conscience predominates, even at a time of temporary falling back he assuredly does not commit them, just as a strong man, though he stumbles, does not fall prostrate.” Yuanhui explains the two sentences together very fully: “in every falling back from a fruit, within a moment he assuredly obtains it again, and there is none who dies without obtaining it… Moreover the deeds he does not do while abiding in the fruit he assuredly does not commit even at the time of falling back from the fruit, since conscience and shame predominate — just as a strong man, though he stumbles, does not fall prostrate.”

The easy error: to read the simile of the strong man as “he will not stumble.” The point of the simile is that even having stumbled he does not go down altogether — tripping and sprawling are two different things. In practice: this section is really adding a safety rail to the great dispute that precedes it — even granting that there is falling back, both its extent and its duration are locked shut.

XIV. How Many Paths Does Refining the Faculties Take: Nine Uninterrupted and Nine of Liberation

First ask: how much labor does it cost to turn a lineage once? The stanza answers, “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, one.” At the stage beyond training the turning of each nature takes nine uninterrupted paths and nine paths of liberation, as many as when the fruit of the arhat was first obtained; at the stage of training only one uninterrupted and one of liberation, as when the first fruit was first obtained. The reason is that “that dull-faculty nature comes of long-continued habituation, and a small exertion cannot make it turn” — dullness of faculty was habituated over long aeons and is not to be flipped over at one effort.

Its nature and what it rests upon: these paths are “in every case comprised only under the nature without outflows,” because “a noble person assuredly has no principle of turning his faculties by a path with outflows.” The body it rests upon is only the three continents of the human destiny, “because in the other places there is no falling back”; as for the level it rests upon, the stage beyond training extends to nine (access, the intermediate, the four meditative absorptions, and the three formless), and the stage of training only to six (the last three being taken away), because “there is no fruit of one in training comprised under a formless level.”

The easy error: to suppose that refining the faculties is taking up a new set of exercises. The treatise says it is “as when he obtained the fruit of worthiness” — the same path is used, only walked once again. In practice: this section gives a very solid reminder — the faculties one is born with can be turned, but at a cost equal to the original realizing of the fruit. Knowing the cost, one will not think refining the faculties too light a thing.

XV. The Nine Kinds of Noble Person at the Stage beyond Training

First ask: how many kinds of person are there in all at the stage beyond training? The stanza answers, “seven śrāvakas and two Buddhas; the difference is by the nine faculties.” The treatise explains: the five beginning with the dharma of falling back, with the unshakable divided into two (got by refining the faculties and had from the first, there being an earlier and a later), make seven kinds of śrāvaka; the pratyekabuddha and the great awakened one are called the two awakened ones, making nine persons in all. And the reason the nine are nine is “through the difference of the nine grades of faculty, the lowest of the low and the rest.”

Here is a good instance of gathering and dividing. Puguang adduces Correct Principle to prove the nine and the six against each other: “but another sūtra says that those beyond training are nine, from the first, the dharma of falling back, to the last, liberated in both parts. Their dharma of not falling back is comprised in our dharma of the unshakable; their two liberations are comprised within our six; and so the Abhidharma says there are only six” — the sūtra says nine, the treatise says six, and this is no contradiction but a difference of gathering and dividing.

The easy error: to read the nine persons as nine grades of higher and lower. Their difference lies in the faculties, not in the amount of affliction cut off. In practice: in reading numbered dharmas one often meets the same set of facts opened out into different numbers (six, seven, nine); and this passage gives the criterion — first ask by which gate this set has been divided; change the gate and the number changes.

XVI. The Seven Noble Persons: Four Gates Open Out Seven, the Real Items Being Only Six

First ask: how many kinds of noble person are there in all at the stages of training and beyond training, and on what are they divided? The treatise lists seven names — one who follows through faith, one who follows the dharma, one resolute through faith, one attained through view, one who witnesses with the body, one liberated through discernment, one liberated in both parts — and gathers them under four gates: “by difference of preparation the first two kinds are established”; “by difference of faculty the next two kinds are established”; “by the obtaining of the absorption of cessation the name one who witnesses with the body is established”; “by difference of liberation the last two kinds are established.”

Seven names but six items. The treatise at once explains: on the path of seeing there are the two persons, one who follows through faith and one who follows the dharma; on reaching the path of cultivation two other names are established, one resolute through faith and one attained through view; and on reaching the stage beyond training two names again, liberation dependent on circumstance and liberation not dependent on circumstance — so that “though the names are seven, the separate items are only six,” the stanza showing the reason by “since on each of the three paths there are two.” This is one person changing his name three times at three stages, not seven different persons.

The treatise also demonstrates in passing a multiplying of numbered dharmas: one who follows through faith becomes three as reckoned by faculty, five by lineage, fifteen by path, seventy-three by freedom from defilement, and nine by the body he rests upon; and the five multiplied together “come together to one hundred forty-seven thousand eight hundred twenty-five kinds.”

The easy error: to take the seven noble persons for seven classes of people unrelated to one another. In practice: this section together with the one before it is the place where this fascicle teaches most concentratedly “the difference between a name and an item” — names may be established gate by gate, but of items there are only so many. Whenever one reads the numbered dharmas of Abhidharma, first ask whether it is a name or an item.

XVII. Liberated in Both Parts and Liberated through Discernment

First ask: all being arhats alike, why is there a division into both parts and discernment? The criterion is a single one — whether the absorption of cessation has been obtained. “Those arhats who obtain the absorption of cessation are called liberated in both parts, because by the force of discernment and of absorption they are liberated from the afflictions and from the obstruction to liberation”; “the rest, who have not obtained the absorption of cessation, are called liberated through discernment, because by the force of discernment alone they are liberated from the obstruction of the afflictions.” What is meant by “both” is that discernment and absorption are both there; and the obstructions departed from are two as well — the obstruction of the afflictions and the obstruction to liberation (the obstruction of absorption).

Yuanhui puts this layer more penetratingly: “those among the six kinds of arhat who obtain the absorption of cessation are called liberated in both parts, for first by the force of discernment they are liberated from the obstruction of confusion, and further they obtain the absorption of cessation and are liberated from the obstruction of absorption, and hence are called ‘both’; ‘the rest are called liberated through discernment’… because by the force of discernment alone they are liberated from the obstruction of the afflictions, and not being free of the obstruction of absorption they cannot be called ‘both.’”

The easy error: to suppose that liberated through discernment means “liberated but not thoroughly.” As to the obstruction of the afflictions the two are alike; the difference lies in the obstruction of absorption. In practice: this point explains why the treatise, in speaking of merits, again and again singles out the absorption of cessation — it is the measuring rod by which the inside of the stage beyond training is divided.

XVIII. What Is Meant by “Fullness”

First ask: at the same stage of training, why is one man alone called full? The treatise answers, by three causes — faculty, fruit, and absorption. “One in training alone obtains the name of fullness at the stage of training, and that by three causes complete, namely faculty, fruit, and absorption.” The treatise then ranges five combinations one by one: by faculty only (one attained through view, not yet free of the defilement of desire); by fruit only (one resolute through faith who is a non-returner but has not obtained the absorption of cessation); by faculty and fruit (one attained through view who is a non-returner but has not obtained the absorption of cessation); by fruit and absorption (one resolute through faith who has obtained the absorption of cessation); and by all three complete (one attained through view who has obtained the absorption of cessation). And it says expressly that at the stage of training there is no obtaining the name of fullness “by absorption only” or “by faculty and absorption only.”

Beyond training there is one cause less. “Those beyond training alone obtain the name of fullness at the stage beyond training by the two, faculty and absorption,” because at the stage beyond training there is no fullness that is “not a fruit,” and so no separate item of fullness through fruit is established. Yuanhui here gives the most memorable table of correspondences: “first, fullness through faculty, that is, being of keen faculty; second, fullness through fruit, that is, having attained the non-returner; third, fullness through absorption, that is, having obtained the absorption of cessation.”

The easy error: to read “fullness” as the fullness of perfect Buddhahood. The fullness here is completeness as compared with others at the same station, not an ultimate sense. In practice: this section is the first place in the fascicle where the three variables of faculty, fruit, and absorption are set side by side and combined — and the later analyses of the four paths, the four modes of penetrating progress, and even the thirty-seven limbs all use the same manner of thinking.

XIX. All Paths, Spoken of in Brief, Are Only Four

First ask: the road of cultivation has a thousand threads; can it be gathered into a few? The treatise answers, into four: “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 that which 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.” These four names are established with regard to four positions in the single business of cutting off obstruction — before the cutting, the cutting itself, the first arising after the cutting, and the rest.

The treatise at once glosses the sense of “path”: “what is the sense of ‘path’? It is the road to nirvāṇa, because riding upon it one can go to the city of nirvāṇa,” and a further explanation, “or else the path is what seeking rests upon, because resting upon it one seeks the fruit that is nirvāṇa.” And since a path means what can cut off, how do liberation and further advance also get the name of path? The treatise gives three reasons: that they are of a class with the path and turn into the higher grade; that the force of each earlier one reaches to each later; and that they can lead one to enter nirvāṇa without remaining support.

The easy error: to see the four paths as four stretches of time. They are divided with regard to functional position within one and the same cutting off of affliction, and are not the names of four stages. In practice: with this rod in hand, one may hereafter ask of any passage on the cutting off of affliction, “which of the paths is this?” — and the later parts of the treatise, in analyzing what is with and without outflows and in analyzing the levels, use it again and again.

XX. The Four Modes of Penetrating Progress: Pleasant and Painful by the Level, Slow and Swift by the Faculties

First ask: bound alike for nirvāṇa, why do some walk with labor and some with ease? The treatise sets out four modes of penetrating progress — painful and slow, painful and swift, pleasant and slow, pleasant and swift. There are two criteria: which level one rests upon and which faculties. “A path arising in dependence upon the four fundamental meditative absorptions is called pleasant penetrating progress, because it gathers in the factors, calm and insight are equal, and it turns spontaneously”; one arising in dependence upon the formless, access, or the intermediate absorption is called 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 insight is less and calm greater, and in access and the intermediate insight is greater and calm less — unbalanced at both ends. As for slow and swift, “dull faculty is named slow, keen faculty swift.”

The easy error: to read “painful” as undergoing suffering. The painful here is labor in walking the path, meaning that calm and insight are unequal and one must force oneself; it has nothing to do with painful feeling. In practice: this section really gives a very serviceable table for self-examination — whether calm and insight are in balance decides whether the road goes smoothly; whether the faculties are keen or dull decides whether it goes fast. Neither can stand in for the other.

XXI. The Thirty-Seven Factors of Awakening and the Sense of “Awakening”

First ask: why are the thirty-seven limbs of the path called factors of awakening? The treatise first lists the names — 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, the eight limbs of the noble path — and then glosses the sense: “the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising are called awakening,” and “the thirty-seven dharmas conduce toward awakening, and therefore all are called factors of awakening.” So “factor” has the sense of conducing toward, not the sense of a part.

Awakening is again divided into three according to the person. The treatise says that “according to the one who awakens, three awakenings are separately established: first the awakening of a śrāvaka, second the awakening of a pratyekabuddha, third unsurpassed awakening”; and that they are called 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” — the one being the cutting off entire, the other the knowing for oneself that the work is finished. These two sentences answer exactly to the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising.

The easy error: to take the factors of awakening for a term belonging to the Mahāyāna alone. Here the three awakenings expressly extend to all three vehicles, and the awakening meant is just the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising. In practice: hold fast the point that “awakening = the knowledge of exhaustion and the knowledge of non-arising,” and the treatise will use it once more further on when it speaks of the entity of right knowledge — “as for the entity of right knowledge, it is as was said above of awakening.” Before and after, it is one rod.

XXII. Thirty-Seven in Name, but Only Ten in Real Entity

First ask: are the thirty-seven dharmas thirty-seven different things? The treatise answers that they are not — “though the names of these factors of awakening are thirty-seven, the real entities are only ten, namely discernment, diligence, and the rest.” It then subsumes them item by item: discernment comprises eight (the four foundations of mindfulness, the faculty and the power of discernment, the limb of awakening that is the discernment of dharmas, right view); diligence comprises eight (the four right abandonings, the faculty and the power of vigor, the limb of awakening that is vigor, right vigor); absorption comprises eight (the four bases of supernormal power, the faculty and the power of absorption, the limb of awakening that is absorption, right absorption); confidence comprises two; mindfulness comprises four; and the rest — joy, equanimity, pliancy, moral discipline (right speech, right action, right livelihood), and applied thought (right intention) — one each. The total, then, is the five faculties and five powers beginning with confidence, with joy, equanimity, pliancy, moral discipline, and applied thought added on top.

Yuanhui numbers the ten items one by one and lists what each comprises, the handiest of all for a beginner: “though the names are thirty-seven, the real entities discussed are only ten: first discernment, second diligence, third absorption, fourth confidence, fifth mindfulness, sixth joy, seventh equanimity, eighth pliancy, ninth moral discipline, tenth applied thought.”

The treatise at once records a divergent account alongside: “the Vibhāṣā masters say there are eleven, for 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” — opening moral discipline into the discipline of bodily action and of verbal action. The two accounts are recorded together, without adjudication.

The easy error: to read the subsuming as meaning that “the thirty-seven are a fiction.” The names are not fictions — one and the same discernment functions differently at different stations, and so different names are established. In practice: this is the most typical demonstration in the treatise of “many names, few items”; read numbered dharmas without asking after the entities and the numbers will lead you by the nose.

XXIII. Why the Foundations of Mindfulness Are Called Discernment, the Right Abandonings Diligence, and the Bases of Supernormal Power Absorption

First ask: since the entities of the three groups beginning with the four foundations of mindfulness comprise all preparatory wholesome dharmas whatever, why does each hang upon a single name? The stanza answers, “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.” The treatise explains: these three groups of wholesome dharmas “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, diligence, and absorption” — the name is established upon the portion that predominates, not upon the whole.

Each of the three names has its own gloss. For the name “foundation of mindfulness,” the Vibhāṣā masters say “discernment is held by the force of mindfulness and so abides,” while the author gives another correct explanation — “in truth of principle it is by discernment that mindfulness is made to abide upon its object, because only one who sees as things really are can note them clearly.” Puguang marks the difference between the two: “the answer: discernment is named a foundation of mindfulness, the name taken from its cause… the author’s correct explanation: discernment is named a foundation of mindfulness, the name taken from its result.” The name “right abandoning” is given because this 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.” And the name “base of supernormal power” is given “because the various wondrous merits rest upon it.”

At the bases of supernormal power the treatise refutes one account with its own hand. Certain other masters say that “the supernormal is precisely absorption, and the base is desire and the rest”; the treatise refutes them with two objections: that then the entities of the factors of awakening would be thirteen (desire and mind being added), and that this contradicts what the sūtra says — the sūtra saying expressly that “here the Buddha calls the result of absorption the supernormal, and calls the concentration produced by desire and the rest the base.”

The easy error: to read this section as a study of terms. What it really demonstrates is a general rule — the name of a numbered dharma is for the most part taken from the portion that predominates. In practice: whenever you meet a numbered dharma whose name and item seem not to answer to each other, first ask “from which portion is this name taken?”, and most often it will come clear.

XXIV. Why Confidence and the Rest Are First Faculties and Then Powers · and Why the Sequence Is What It Is

First ask: the same five dharmas — why called faculties first and powers afterward? The treatise answers with two senses: “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.” At the low grade they are named faculties, at the high grade powers; while they can be overborne they are named faculties, when they cannot be overborne, powers.

Ask again: on what ground is the sequence confidence, vigor, mindfulness, absorption, discernment ranged just so? The treatise gives a chain of cause and effect: “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” — confidence rises and practice follows, practice endures and mindfulness and absorption follow, mindfulness and absorption come and the real is seen. So this sequence is not a convenience of listing but the actual order of practice.

The easy error: to see faculties and powers as two different sets of dharmas. They are two intensities of the same five. In practice: this point may be used as a self-examination — if there is confidence without vigor, or vigor without mindfulness, the chain breaks just there; the order of the five is itself a checklist for the course of training.

XXV. The Seven Groups of Factors of Awakening Predominate in Turn by Station

First ask: are the thirty-seven limbs cultivated all at once, or in order? The stanza answers, “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.” The treatise assigns them station by station: at the stage of initial undertaking the function of discernment is excellent, and so the foundations of mindfulness predominate; at the stage of warmth the function of diligence is excellent, and so the right abandonings predominate; at the stage of the summit the function of absorption is excellent, and so the bases of supernormal power predominate; at the stage of receptivity the wholesome roots are firm, and so the faculties predominate; at the stage of the highest worldly dharma he is not overborne by afflictions or by worldly dharmas, and so the powers predominate; at the stage of the path of cultivation he is near to awakening, and so the limbs of awakening predominate; at the stage of the path of seeing he turns swiftly, and so the limbs of the path predominate.

What matters is the reminder the treatise adds next: the sūtras “speak according to the increase of number, seven first and eight after; this is not the sequence of cultivation” — the text ranges them by increasing number (the seven limbs of awakening before, the eight limbs of the path after), and this is not the order of practice. The treatise also distinguishes in passing two pairs of name and item: among the eight limbs of the path, right view is both the path and a limb of the path; among the seven limbs of awakening, the discernment of dharmas is both awakening and a limb of awakening.

Here the treatise records a divergent account alongside: certain other masters, not refuting the sequence of the sūtras, state it in accordance with them, beginning from the foundations of mindfulness that subdue the mind and going on through the faculties, the powers, the limbs of awakening, and the limbs of the path, and adducing two sūtras in evidence. The two accounts are recorded together, and the treatise turns to what follows with “such being the sequence stated according to the stages at which each predominates, as for the truth of the principle it should be as stated.” Yuanhui’s plain explanation of this passage may be consulted — “at this stage of initial undertaking he can examine and illumine in detail the four objects beginning with the body, and since the function of discernment is excellent, the foundations of mindfulness are said to predominate.”

The easy error: to read “predominate” as “only this group is cultivated.” Predominating is a function’s standing out, not the others’ being left uncultivated. In practice: this section gives a map of the shifting center of gravity in training — with the same thirty-seven limbs, the place where effort belongs differs at different stages.

XXVI. Which Extend to What Is with Outflows, and Which Are without Outflows Only

First ask: are all thirty-seven limbs dharmas without outflows? The stanza answers, “the seven limbs of awakening and the eight limbs of the path are without outflows throughout; the three fours and the five faculties and powers all extend to both kinds.” The treatise explains the reason: the seven limbs of awakening and the eight limbs of the noble path are “established only at the stages of the path of cultivation and the path of seeing” — their very establishing is bound to the noble stations; and as for right view and the like being found in the world too, “yet those do not obtain the name of limbs of the noble path.” The rest — the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right abandonings, the four bases of supernormal power, and the five faculties and five powers — extend to what is with and what is without outflows.

Yuanhui unfolds the stanza’s abbreviations one by one: “‘three fours’ means first the four foundations of mindfulness, second the four right abandonings, third the four bases of supernormal power; ‘the five faculties and powers’ means the five faculties and the five powers” — just the place where a reader is apt to stick in reading the stanza.

The easy error: to suppose that whatever is called a factor of awakening is without outflows. Quite the contrary: most of them extend to both. In practice: this point makes one thing clear — one and the same dharma is with outflows when cultivated at an ordinary station and without outflows when raised at a noble one; the name does not change while the nature turns with the station.

XXVII. The Increase and Decrease of the Thirty-Seven Limbs at the Several Levels

First ask: are the thirty-seven limbs complete at every level? The treatise answers that only the first meditative absorption has them complete, the rest each having something taken away: at the level of access the limb of awakening that is joy is 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 is excepted, “because in that meditative absorption there is no longer applied thought” — these two levels have thirty-six each. In the third and fourth meditative absorptions 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 are excepted together with joy and applied thought, and each has thirty-two. The desire realm and the summit of existence except the limbs of awakening and the limbs of the path, and each has twenty-two, “because there is nothing without outflows there.”

The easy error: to read the subtraction as meaning that the path cannot be accomplished at that level. What is subtracted is the limb that level does not have (a level without applied thought naturally has no right intention), not that the path cannot be accomplished. In practice: in reading this section one should reckon as one goes — thirty-seven less one gives thirty-six, less one again thirty-five, thirty-seven less five gives thirty-two; these numbers are themselves the method of verification. Yuanhui’s explanation of the numbers level by level may be read alongside.

XXVIII. The Four Purities of Realization

First ask: what is meant by a purity of realization? The treatise first lists the four — toward the Buddha, toward the dharma, toward the Saṅgha, and the noble moral discipline; and then glosses the name: “because he awakens to and knows the principle of the four noble truths as it really is, it is called realization,” while “the three jewels in which he has confidence and the excellent śīla are both called pure, because they are apart from the stain of unbelief and the stain of breaking moral discipline.” So a purity of realization is a pure confidence got through realization, not confidence of an ordinary sort.

The order of obtaining has its niceties. At the stage of the path of seeing, on seeing each of the first three truths he obtains only the purity of realization toward the dharma and that of moral discipline; only at the stage of seeing the truth of the path does he obtain besides those toward the Buddha and the Saṅgha. The dharma in which he has confidence is again divided as general and particular — 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. The real items are only two: the three, Buddha, dharma, and Saṅgha, have confidence for their entity, and the noble moral discipline has moral discipline for its entity; and all four are without outflows only, “because a dharma with outflows is not a purity of realization.”

The treatise also states the order in which they arise on emerging from contemplation: first he has confidence that the World-Honored One is perfectly and fully awakened; next that the true dharma and discipline are well spoken; last that the noble stage is of excellent conduct; and finally, because the mind is pure, pure śīla is given rise to, and so śīla is spoken of as fourth. The treatise gives two similes — the three jewels as a good physician, a good medicine, and one who nurses the sick; or as a guide, a road, fellow merchants, and the vehicle one rides.

The easy error: to take the four purities of realization for four kinds of confidence to be cultivated. They are four portions accomplished of themselves after the truths are seen, and the order too is a sequence on the side of the fruit. In practice: to examine oneself by the four similes is the handiest way — with physician, medicine, and nurse, if any one of the three is lacking the illness is not removed; and moral discipline is the medicine one can take oneself.

XXIX. Right Liberation and Right Knowledge: Why They Are Not Established at the Stage of Training

First ask: the sūtra says that one in training accomplishes eight limbs and one beyond training ten; why are right liberation and right knowledge not established at the stage of training? The treatise answers: “at the stage of training there are still bonds remaining that have not been liberated from, and so there is no limb of liberation” — adding a sentence of blocking: “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 escaped the bonds and can besides give rise to two knowledges that know liberation, and “only through the manifestness of these two may these two limbs be established.”

The entity of liberation is twofold. “The entity of liberation is twofold, conditioned and unconditioned. Conditioned liberation is the resolve of one beyond training; unconditioned liberation is the cessation of all confusion.” The name “limb” must be established upon what is conditioned, and so conditioned liberation is named a limb of one beyond training; and the liberation comprised under a limb is again the liberation of mind and the liberation through discernment spoken of in other sūtras, that is, the aggregates of liberation.

Here the treatise raises an objection against itself and records a divergent account: since the sūtra says “the mind is liberated in becoming free of the defilement of greed, and liberated in becoming free of the defilement of hatred and delusion,” it appears that the aggregate of liberation is not resolve alone. The treatise answers with the portion that is cultivation (what is not complete being made complete, what is complete being cultivated with desire and diligence for the sake of holding it fast); and records besides an account of certain other masters — “by the force of true knowledge greed, hatred, and delusion are dispelled, and this very being of the mind apart from stain is called the aggregate of 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.”

The easy error: to see the difference between eight limbs and ten as a difference in the quantity of merit. The difference is in whether a limb can be established at all, and whether it can depends on whether the bonds are exhausted. In practice: this section and section XXI interlock head and tail — awakening is the knowledge of exhaustion and of non-arising, and right knowledge is the knowledge of exhaustion and of non-arising too; the net of terms in this treatise bites into itself at every point.

XXX. The Mind beyond Training Is Liberated from Obstruction at the Very Time of Its Arising

First ask: in which time exactly is the mind liberated? The treatise adduces the account of this treatise itself: “the first mind beyond training, at the time of its arising in the future, is liberated from obstruction.” And the obstruction meant is the “acquisition” of the afflictions — “because that can block this mind from arising.” Whereupon there is a pair of correspondences: at the stage where the vajra-like concentration is properly ceasing, that acquisition is properly being cut off, and 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 the first mind beyond training, at the stage of having already arisen, is named already liberated.

The treatise at once adds three questions: minds beyond training not yet arisen, and mundane minds, are at that time also named liberated, only that here it is the one settled to arise that is spoken of, “because at that time it is properly proceeding in the present time.” From what are mundane minds liberated? From that same obstruction which blocks the mind from arising. At the stage where it is not yet liberated, does this mind then not arise? The answer: “although it does arise then, it is not as it is now” — the difference being that then it was “together with the acquisition of the afflictions,” whereas if it arises hereafter there will be “no acquisition of confusion together with it.”

The easy error: to imagine “liberation” as the mind’s escaping out of somewhere. What is liberated from here is the acquisition of the afflictions, that blocking; the obstruction is removed and the mind is able to arise. In practice: this section demonstrates the fineness of the treatise’s analysis of times and stages — properly arising, already arisen, and not yet arisen each have their name, and to confound one with another is to be wrong throughout. Yuanhui’s explanation may be read alongside.

XXXI. The Path Cuts Off Obstruction Only at the Stage of Properly Ceasing

First ask: at which stage does the path cut off obstruction? The stanza answers, “the path, only at the stage of properly ceasing, makes that obstruction be cut off.” The treatise explains the wording: “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” — so the path can cut off obstruction only at the time of properly ceasing, and at the other stages there is no function of cutting off obstruction.

The treatise also draws a contrast on purpose: in this it is unlike liberation. Liberation 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”; but the cutting off of obstruction is not so, and lasts a single moment only. Fabao adduces Correct Principle to add a further layer: “although the minds of one in training are also liberated from obstruction at the stage of arising, the treatise speaks only of the first mind beyond training being liberated at the time of its arising, because it goes by the liberation realized in cutting off without remainder.”

The easy error: to see the cutting off of obstruction and liberation as two ways of stating one and the same thing. The treatise here parts them expressly — the cutting off of obstruction is confined to the stage of properly ceasing, whereas liberation extends to what has arisen and what has not. In practice: this is the most finely analyzed section in the fascicle, and its value lies not in its conclusion but in its method: the different sides of one and the same matter each have their own time and stage.

XXXII. The Element of Abandoning, the Element of Dispassion, the Element of Cessation

First ask: the sūtra speaks of three elements — abandoning, dispassion, cessation; what are their entities? The treatise answers, “the three elements beginning with abandoning are the unconditioned liberation spoken of above, divided out to be severally their entities” — that is, the unconditioned liberation spoken of before divided into three portions. The division is: “as for the element of dispassion, it is dispassion toward craving only. As for the element of abandoning, it is the abandoning of the remaining fetters. As for the element of cessation, it is the cessation of the remaining things in which the latent tendencies of craving and the rest increase by attachment.”

So the three are not three different unconditioned things, but one and the same unconditioned liberation with three names established according to what is counteracted — dispassion said with regard to craving, abandoning with regard to the remaining fetters, cessation with regard to the things in which the latent tendencies increase by attachment.

The easy error: to read the three elements as three places or three stages. They are the names of three divisions of one unconditioned dharma. In practice: this section carries on the line of “many names, few items” from before — one entity, with different names established according to what is counteracted. This is the third of the treatise’s standing ways of establishing names (the first two being by what predominates and by the station in the sequence).

XXXIII. The Four Alternatives of Disgust and Dispassion (the End of the Chapter)

First ask: if one can be disgusted, must one be able to become dispassionate? The treatise answers that one need not, and adjudges it by four alternatives. There are two criteria: disgust takes only suffering and origin as its object — “only the receptivities and knowledges arising with suffering and origin as their object are called disgust; the rest are not”; dispassion extends to all four truths and is measured by the ability to cut off confusion — “among the receptivities and knowledges arising with the four truths as their object, all that can cut off confusion obtain the name of dispassion.” The one limits the object and the other limits the function, and their widths and narrownesses cross, and so four alternatives are made.

The four alternatives are: taking suffering and origin as object without cutting off confusion, disgust and not dispassion; taking cessation and the path as object and cutting off confusion, dispassion and not disgust; taking suffering and origin as object and cutting off confusion, both disgust and dispassion; taking cessation and the path as object without cutting off confusion, neither disgust nor dispassion.

At the end the treatise adds an instance: for one who becomes free of the defilement of desire first and sees the truths afterward, among his dharma-receptivities and knowledges all that are 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 they are not the counteragent that cuts off.”

The easy error: to read disgust and dispassion as a relation of feeling to result. What the treatise sets up is two different criteria (object and function), and the four alternatives are only the exhaustive crossing of the two. In practice: the fourfold method is the tool most used in Abhidharma — when two concepts are tangled, first establish the criterion of each and then set out four alternatives, and the relation declares itself. That the whole chapter closes with it hands the reader over to the gate of knowledge in the next chapter.

Further Resonances: The Mirror of the Four Commentaries

The above is the sense of the text of this fascicle itself. Below a separate section is set up, gathering four matters: the adjudications of the four houses and where they differ; Saṅghabhadra’s refutations and restatements; the divergences of Paramārtha’s earlier translation; and coordinates for parallel reading. A mirror is not the treatise, but only another way of reading the same passage; both are recorded without adjudication, and each is left in its own place.

1. Where the Four Houses Differ

This unit is the first in the whole book for which all four houses are present. Shentai’s commentary is a fragment: of the four fascicles on the Chapter of the Worthy and the Noble only Fascicle Seventeen survives, and it happens to cover this fascicle entire; for the other three units Shentai is wholly wanting, and the want is marked as it stands and not filled out with text from another fascicle. Shentai’s fascicle heads itself “Chapter Six, Analysis of the Worthy and the Noble, part three” while marking what it explains as “Fascicle Twenty-Five of the treatise,” and at its end bears the title “Commentary on the Abhidharmakośa, Fascicle Twenty-Five” — the fascicle numbers at head and end differ in three ways, and are recorded as they stand without adjudication.

The manner of the outline divides in two. Puguang’s eight subsections and Yuanhui’s are almost word for word the same; Fabao gathers the first three into one and so has six, his layers being the wider; Shentai sets up no general outline table but establishes an outline of question and answer passage by passage (citing what precedes, question, answer, pressing, adducing the stanza in answer, explaining the stanza). On the extent of “the eight matters of the chapter of the six lineages” itself the four houses do not differ at all; what differs is the coarseness or fineness of the outline. Shentai’s form is the oldest, his outline not yet settled into eight matters ranged side by side — this is a difference of form, not an omission.

Shentai leaves an independent piece of evidence for the stanza count. He marks of himself “from here below, the fourth, seven and a half lines of stanza explaining the six kinds of lineage” — seven and a half lines being exactly one hundred fifty characters, answering exactly to Root 58 through the first half of Root 65. This is a further piece of evidence for the stanza count passage by passage, lying outside the interlinear notes of the root-stanza edition.

On the author’s declaration the four houses use three forms of words and mean one thing. Puguang has “the author’s intent sides with the Sautrāntikas, and so he says that what they say accords with principle”; Fabao has “the author by his appraisal takes up the Sautrāntika explanation”; Shentai has “the author appraises it, saying: what they say accords with principle.” The three differ in fullness of wording and agree wholly in the criterion. Shentai has besides one turn of phrase worth noting: he cites Correct Principle directly and calls Vasubandhu “the Sūtra-master,” where Puguang and Fabao say “the Sautrāntikas” and “the author” — a slight difference in the angle of designation, one and the same person being meant. The same happens at the refutation of the entity of the bases of supernormal power: Puguang has “the author refutes the other masters,” Shentai “the Sūtra-master refutes them, saying.”

Yuanhui does not touch the schools at all in the dispute over falling back from a fruit. In this passage he explains only the doctrinal sense of the stanza text itself — “the lineage that is the dharma of the unshakable assuredly has no principle of falling back; and among the five before it, the one lineage of the dharma of falling back alone assuredly does not fall back, since it stands lowest” — neither marking the names of Sautrāntika and Sarvāstivādin nor adducing an assignment of schools. Set against Puguang’s marking of the school sentence by sentence and Fabao’s tabulating of three schools, it is in this passage that the characters of the three houses are most clearly parted. Recorded without adjudication.

Fabao alone sets out a table of three schools on falling back from a fruit. “He sets forth the Sarvāstivāda position. According to the Treatise on the Wheel of Tenets: for the Mahāsāṃghikas and the rest, the fruit of the stream-enterer admits of falling back and the fruit of worthiness does not. For the Sautrāntikas, neither the stream-enterer nor the fruit of worthiness falls back. For the Sarvāstivādins, the stream-enterer does not fall back and the fruit of worthiness does.” Puguang at the same place also adduces the Treatise on the Wheel of Tenets, in a single line of narrative. The assignments of the three schools in the two commentaries agree wholly, and Fabao’s table shows the outline the better. This belongs to the ancient masters’ adducing another treatise to settle an assignment of schools, and is not in this treatise, and so is recorded in this section.

Two instances of a one-character difference. In the simile of the butter jar, Puguang and Fabao make the character elided “holding,” while Shentai makes it two words, “this is made” — “as the world says in full ‘this is made a butter jar.’” And at the four alternatives of disgust and dispassion, Shentai reads “are called ‘condition’” where Puguang and Yuanhui read “disgust.” Both are recorded as they stand without adjudication, and not emended by conjecture.

On the three accounts of the Mahāvibhāṣā the three commentaries agree wholly. At the passage on the entities of the thirty-seven limbs, Fabao adduces: “the Mahāvibhāṣā, Fascicle Ninety-Five, has three accounts: one account agrees with this treatise; one account opens moral discipline into two and takes eleven dharmas as the entities; one master opens it into three, namely right speech, right action, and right livelihood. This treatise states them gathered, taking ten dharmas as the entities,” and what Yuanhui adduces runs the same way. The three houses have no divergence, differing only in fullness.

At the four purities of realization and at the three elements, all three commentaries adduce Correct Principle by way of supplement. Fabao adduces “the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle says: with regard to what dharmas, and how, does one obtain the purity of realization toward the dharma? With regard to suffering alone: penetrating that there are only dharmas and no real sentient being, one gives rise to settled confidence”; and at the three elements, “Correct Principle, Fascicle Seventy-Two, says: as to the entity of the three elements, taken provisionally they differ, but taken as real things there is no difference at all.” This belongs to the commentators’ supplementing with another treatise what this treatise leaves unstated; there is no divergence of doctrine, and it is recorded only.

2. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations and Restatements

Neither of Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises gives this chapter the name “Chapter, Analysis of the Worthy and the Noble” — the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle has “Chapter Six, Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble,” and the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine “Chapter Seven, Adjudication of the Worthy and the Noble,” the chapter number moved back by one. To search these two treatises by the Kośa’s chapter name must yield a zero.

The dispute over falling back from a fruit is the one place in this unit where three parties stand as a tripod. Saṅghabhadra cites Vasubandhu word for word and examines him: “now, upon examination, the Sūtra-master has not established his position well. One ought to press the inquiry: as to the two middle fruits obtained by a mundane path, has the seed of the confusion that obstructs them really been uprooted, or not? If it really has been uprooted and yet falling back is admitted, then falling back from the state of an arhat is established.” He separately marks two further houses: “therefore the Elder maintains that there is no falling back from and losing the fruit of the arhat, though he has neither reasoning nor scripture for it”; “the Masters of Distinction say this: on no noble path whatever is there falling back, and so the confusion cut off never arises again.” ⇒ The Sūtra-master, the Elder, and the Masters of Distinction all three maintain that there is no falling back, and only the Sarvāstivāda school itself maintains that there is. The lines of reasoning of the three are not the same (Vasubandhu appraising and taking up the Sautrāntikas’ two proofs from scripture and reason, the Elder saying flatly that there is neither reasoning nor scripture, and the Masters of Distinction pushing the range to every noble path), and Saṅghabhadra refutes them one by one and so returns to his own school. Recorded only, without adjudication.

In one place what Saṅghabhadra refutes is not Vasubandhu. On the reason “resting on no entity,” Saṅghabhadra adduces a passage of “certain other masters” who extend the reason of there being no falling back from the confusion abandoned through seeing to the confusion abandoned through cultivation and bound to the summit of existence, and then adjudges, “what they say is contrary to principle, since the force of the paths differs.” What is refuted is that extension and not Vasubandhu’s own sense. That one and the same gloss should be extended by different persons to different conclusions is here an instance.

In two places he only restates without setting up a divergent view. In the passage of the Sūtra of the Increase by Ten, Saṅghabhadra cites Vasubandhu’s own sentences word for word with no word of direct refutation to be found; and so likewise in the passage refuting the entity of the bases of supernormal power. This belongs to restatement of the recording kind, and is noted.

In one place what he appraises is the angle of interpretation and not the conclusion. At the Sūtra of the Simile of the Charcoal, Saṅghabhadra says, “examining the Sūtra-master’s intent, he takes it that in this sūtra the stage of training is spoken of first and the stage beyond training afterward; now one ought to examine carefully whether this may be relied on as settled — whether it is the word of the World-Honored One or the Sūtra-master’s own intent.” What he questions is whether the outline order “training first, beyond training afterward” issues from the sense of the sūtra itself or from Vasubandhu’s arrangement. What is contested is the reading, not the conclusion.

The entity of the aggregate of liberation is also restated. Saṅghabhadra reports Vasubandhu’s intent as “it is not resolve alone that obtains the name of this aggregate. If so, what is it? By the force of true knowledge greed and hatred and delusion can be forever dispelled, and the mind’s being apart from stain is called the aggregate of liberation,” agreeing with the same passage as recorded by Fabao and by Shentai.

One honest negative proposition. Within the range corresponding to this unit, the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine shows no sentence citing “the Sūtra-master” word for word. But all that this zero can prove is one thing — that within this range that treatise does not use the designation “the Sūtra-master”; it cannot be inferred from it that the treatise has no divergent view here. The Treatise Revealing the Doctrine is by form the terser, and word-for-word citation of the Sūtra-master is not what it cares for.

3. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury forms a system of its own over the passage answering to this fascicle, and is besides the most evenly matched stretch of scene among all the fascicles yet collated — the six kinds of arhat, the earlier and later of the lineages, falling back from lineage and from fruit, the six lineages of those in training and of ordinary beings, the three kinds of falling back, the refining of the faculties, the nine kinds of those beyond training, the seven noble persons, fullness, the four paths, the thirty-seven limbs, the four purities of realization, right liberation and right knowledge, the three elements, and the four alternatives of disgust and dispassion — passage by passage the order answers.

Not one of the six lineage-names agrees wholly. Paramārtha has “first the dharma of falling and sinking, second the dharma of self-slaying, third the dharma of watching and guarding, fourth the dharma of abiding unshaken, fifth the dharma of being fit to penetrate, sixth the dharma of the indestructible.” What calls for care is the fourth, “the dharma of abiding unshaken” — what it answers to is Xuanzang’s dharma of abiding, not the dharma of the unshakable; Xuanzang’s dharma of the unshakable appears in Paramārtha as “the dharma of the indestructible.” The glosses of the two texts make it clear: Paramārtha’s fourth reads, “if a person is apart from the strongest cause and condition of falling and sinking, then although he does not constantly watch, he will assuredly abide in what he has obtained”; his sixth reads, “as for the dharma of the indestructible, such a person assuredly does not fall and sink as the former do.” To go by the look of the words and equate Paramārtha’s “dharma of abiding unshaken” with Xuanzang’s “dharma of the unshakable” is the pitfall most easily stepped into in this stretch.

One difference of glossing that runs through the whole passage. Xuanzang’s “possessed of an entity / resting on no entity” is throughout Paramārtha’s “possessed of kind / without kind” — “because the confusion abandoned through seeing is without kind,” expanded as “this self upon which they rest is assuredly nowhere at all, and so it is said to be without kind.” The doctrinal content indicated is wholly the same, the characters used wholly different.

The author’s declaration is plainer in Paramārtha. Xuanzang has “what they say accords with principle”; Paramārtha has “this sense is truly admissible” — which corroborates exactly Puguang’s marking, “his intent sides with the Sautrāntikas.”

The crossing of the names of the three elements is the one place in this fascicle that most calls for care. Xuanzang establishes the element of dispassion, the element of abandoning, and the element of cessation; Paramārtha establishes “the element of cessation, the element of freedom from desire, and the element of utter removal.” Compared by the context of the glosses, the correspondence is crossed: Xuanzang’s element of dispassion (dispassion toward craving) answers to Paramārtha’s element of freedom from desire (the cessation of desire); Xuanzang’s element of abandoning (abandoning the remaining fetters) answers to Paramārtha’s element of cessation (the cessation of the remaining confusions); Xuanzang’s element of cessation (the cessation of those things) answers to Paramārtha’s element of utter removal (the cessation of the other kind). Both texts have a name reading “the element of cessation,” and the two indicate different things — pair them by the look of the words and they must be mismatched.

The order of the list of ten things differs in the two texts. Xuanzang begins with discernment, Paramārtha with “confidence, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, joy, equanimity, and pliancy, moral discipline, and awakening,” beginning with confidence; and again Xuanzang’s diligence, absorption, and applied thought appear in Paramārtha as vigor, concentration, and awakening. The difference in order may reflect a difference in the recitational transmission upon which the two texts rested; this is not forced to an explanation here, but honestly recorded as a difference of transmission between the two.

There are besides several smaller divergences that may be read alongside: the personal name Godhika appears in Paramārtha as “the pure-lived Qutijia”; the sūtra title Sūtra of the Increase by Ten as Sūtra of the Ten Increases; the path of further advance as the path of further increase; the jewel of the Saṅgha as “the assembly of disciples in whom one has confidence.” In form, Xuanzang gives the whole stanza first and the prose after, while Paramārtha embeds his explanation sentence by sentence, so that one stanza of Xuanzang’s often appears in Paramārtha as two verses stated separately — as at all three of “those in training and ordinary beings likewise have six,” “the fullness of the one in training and the one beyond training,” and “the four alternatives of disgust and dispassion.” Both are recorded without adjudication.

4. Coordinates for Parallel Reading

What this fascicle establishes is a map of the differences within the noble persons. Its frame has only two variables: the keenness or dullness of the faculties, and whether absorption has been obtained. By these the six kinds of lineage are divided, the nine kinds of those beyond training are divided, the four gates of the seven noble persons are opened out, the fullness of the one in training and the one beyond training is adjudged, and the slowness or swiftness of the four modes of penetrating progress is settled. Having read the fascicle through and looking back, one finds that the treatise has not ranked arhats high and low at all — the afflictions cut off are one and the same portion, and what differs is only the supports and the speed with which one arrived there.

The second line for parallel reading is name and item. Thirty-seven names have only ten entities; seven noble persons have only six items; the three elements are only three portions of one unconditioned liberation — three times over this fascicle demonstrates one and the same technique: establishing a name by the portion that predominates, by the station in the sequence, and by what is counteracted. Whoever reads the numbered dharmas of Abhidharma asking first “is this a name or an item?” will most often not be led by the nose by the numbers.

The third line is left for the next chapter. The whole chapter closes with the four alternatives of disgust and dispassion, and the receptivities and knowledges those four alternatives employ are exactly what the next chapter, “Analysis of Knowledge,” will take up as its own subject. The last sentence of this fascicle says of “one who becomes free of the defilement of desire first and sees the truths afterward” that his dharma-receptivities and knowledges do not cause confusion to be cut off — and by that it has already drawn the reader’s eye away to the gate of knowledge.