俱舍論 義疏通講 · 冊8Abhidharmakośabhāṣya · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 8

Before Reading This Chapter

This is the last chapter of the Abhidharmakośa (the Chapter on Refuting the Grasped Self is an appended discussion and does not stand within the eight chapters). Thirty fascicles have come this far, and what the author has to set out is the last piece of the whole book: the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble treated the result and the Chapter on Knowledge the cause, and this chapter treats the condition — that “absorption” upon which the knowledge that realizes the result depends. The ancient masters state the relation of the three chapters very clearly. Puguang, explaining this, says, “the Chapter on the Worthy and the Noble explains the result, the Chapter on Knowledge explains the cause, and the Chapter on Absorption explains the condition. A condition is remote as compared with a result, and so absorption is explained next”; Fabao, taking another angle, says, “the foregoing Chapter on Knowledge explains the result of absorption that relies upon it, and this Chapter on Absorption explains the cause upon which knowledge relies.” The two take different angles and agree in direction: knowledge does not arise out of nowhere, but stands upon absorption.

The skeleton of the chapter divides into four sections. The first two treat absorption itself — the absorptions relied upon (the four meditative absorptions, the four formless absorptions, the threefold division and the several gates of the eight attainments, and the three concentrations) and the merits that rely upon them (the four immeasurables, the eight liberations, the eight bases of mastery, the ten totalities, and by what these merits are obtained and upon what body they arise). The third section turns about all at once and asks, “what is called the true Dharma? And how long should it abide?” The fourth is the author’s own statement of the purport of his composition, with three stanzas of lament in seven-character lines and one of exhortation to study, closing the whole book.

There is one thing to be said before anything else. This chapter reads like a register of the study of absorption, and the dharma-numbers are astonishingly dense: four, four, eight, eighteen factors, eleven real entities, four portions, eight liberations, eight bases of mastery, ten totalities . . . But what really bears the weight is not the register; it is one question that recurs again and again — on what ground does this dharma count as “one thing”? Why are the eighteen factors only eleven real entities? Why is inner evenness and purity just the faculty of confidence? Why is the pleasure of the first two meditative absorptions pliancy and not the feeling of pleasure? The eight bases of mastery and the three liberations look as though they overlap — where is the boundary? The two densest passages of prose in the whole chapter are doing just this. The register is only the shell; “the measure taken in establishing a dharma” is the bone.

I. The Absorptions Relied Upon

〔1.1〕Meditative Absorption Has Four Stories, and Each Story Has Two Kinds

First ask: why, in treating “absorption,” begin from “meditative absorption” and not from the formless? The reason the treatise gives is of the utmost brevity — “all merits for the most part depend upon meditative absorption, and so the differences of meditative absorption should be adjudicated first.” Merits mostly hang upon meditative absorption, and so this limb is established first.

Meditative absorption has four stories in all, and each story divides into two kinds: meditative absorption as absorption (the kind formed by cultivation) and meditative absorption as birth (the maturational result of being born in that level). The kind that is birth the author disposes of in one sentence — “the entity of meditative absorption as birth has already been spoken of in the Chapter on the World: the fourth has eight, the first three have three each” — because the Chapter on the World long ago laid out the map of those seventeen places. What this chapter is to treat is the kind that is absorption.

What is the entity of meditative absorption as absorption? “Spoken of generally, it is the one-pointedness of mind upon a single object gathered under the wholesome nature, since it has wholesome concentration for its own nature; and if one reckons together with it the accompaniments, it has the five aggregates for its nature.” This sentence is to be read as three layers: first, it is of the wholesome nature — a defiled absorption is not the entity here established; second, it is one-pointedness of mind upon a single object — nothing else than the fact of the mind’s being intent upon a single object of consciousness; third, if one counts in all the mind and mental factors that become present along with it, then it is the five aggregates.

The easy error: to read “it has the five aggregates for its nature” and “one-pointedness of mind upon a single object” as two answers at odds with each other. They answer two questions — the narrow one asks “what is this fact of absorption itself?” and the answer is one-pointedness upon a single object; the broad one asks “what dharmas become present at one entry into absorption?” and the answer is the five aggregates. Abhidharma commonly establishes an entity with such a broad and a narrow account; in reading, first make sure which question is being asked.

In practice: to say in ordinary speech “I entered absorption” is in fact muddled. Here a way of checking is given — first ask whether what you speak of is “of the wholesome nature,” then ask whether your mind really is intent upon a single object, and only last speak of the entire bodily and mental state that became present on that occasion. The three layers cannot be inferred one from another.

〔1.2〕How the Four Stories Are Divided — Not Four Things, but One Thing from Which Factors Have Been Withdrawn Three Times

First ask: since the entity is only one “one-pointedness upon a single object,” whence come the boundaries of the four stories? The treatise’s answer is exceedingly handsome — “what possesses sustained thought, joy, and pleasure is established as the first,” and thereafter “by degrees the preceding factors are left behind and the second, third, and fourth are established”: withdraw sustained thought and the second remains; withdraw joy further and pleasure remains; withdraw all three and it is the fourth. “Following this order, one one-pointedness upon a single object divides into four kinds.”

There is a further sentence here to be noticed: the treatise says “possesses sustained thought, joy, and pleasure” without saying applied thought, and yet at once adds, “by this it has already been made clear that it possesses applied thought too, since they must proceed together, as smoke and fire” — applied and sustained thought certainly go together, like smoke and fire, and to have said sustained thought is to have said applied thought. So the first meditative absorption really has five factors while the stanza adduces only three.

The easy error: to suppose that the four meditative absorptions are four different absorptions. They are not. They are one and the same thing (one-pointedness of mind upon a single object) showing four stages in the adding and subtracting of factors. Once this reading is set up, every table that follows loosens along with it — the table of factors, of feelings, of consciousnesses, of the levels the liberations rest upon: all are graduations on one and the same axis.

In practice: in cultivation this means that “advancing” is not exchanging one dharma for another; it is letting go. From the first to the fourth, the motion is always subtraction, never addition.

〔1.3〕The Gloss on the Two Graphs “Meditative Absorption,” and on What Ground It Alone Holds the Name

The treatise asks itself, “by what sense is the name meditative absorption established,” and answers itself, “because by this one is able, in stillness, to consider examiningly.” It then glosses “examining consideration” — “examining consideration is the sense of knowing as it really is, as when it is said that the mind being in absorption it can know as it really is” — and marks the position of this school: “in this school examining consideration has discernment for its entity.”

First ask: if that is so, then may every concentration be called meditative absorption? The treatise answers, “no; only the excellent is given this name,” and adduces a comparison from ordinary life — “as the world says that what emits light is called the sun, and not that a firefly or a candle may also be called the sun.” Many things emit light, but only the sun is called the sun.

Ask again: on what ground is meditative absorption called excellent? The treatise gives three counts — “among the several concentrations it alone gathers the factors” (it alone has the institution of factors), “calm and insight proceed evenly matched and it can consider examiningly best of all” (calm and insight in even measure), and “it obtains the names abiding in ease in the present life and the pleasant mode of progress” (it has the function of present ease and of an unimpeded progress).

Ask again: on what ground is a defiled meditative absorption also called meditative absorption? The treatise answers, “because it too can carry on a wrong examining consideration.” Pressed further, “then there is the fault of over-extension,” the treatise answers, “because the name is established only within the bounds of what resembles it, as with a spoiled seed and the rest,” and adduces the World-Honored One’s own words that there is an “evil meditative absorption.”

The easy error: to read “a spoiled seed” as a term of disparagement. It is the measure taken in establishing a name — a seed gone bad is still called a seed, because it is within the resembling range of “seed”; only what does not resemble cannot borrow the name. This is a rule of naming in general use throughout Abhidharma.

〔1.4〕Is Absorption Just Mind — the First Disputation of the Chapter

Immediately below the sentence of definition the treatise meets a pressing question. Someone says: since the very state of the mind’s being intent upon a single object may be given the name “concentration,” what need is there to establish a further mental factor? The author answers, “it is a further dharma that makes the mind turn upon a single object that is called concentration; its entity is not the mind itself.” The opponent presses again: mind ceases moment by moment from the outset, and every mind is turning upon some object — what then is concentration for? The author takes it apart in two layers — if you say “concentration is needed to keep the mind from being distracted in the second moment,” then as regards the concentration associated at the same moment it would be useless; and if you say “and it is by this that concentration is established,” why not say straight off that it is by the mind’s own turning upon a single object? The opponent adduces further, “concentration is a factor of the great ground, so every mind ought to be turning upon a single object,” and the author answers, “not so; the concentration in the remaining classes is feeble.”

Here the treatise records the account of one party — “some masters say: the very state in which the mind turns continuously upon a single object is called concentration, since the sūtras call this the training in the higher mind, and the utmost purity and excellence of mind is just the four meditative absorptions.” The identity of this party the ancient masters do mark: Puguang marks it here as the sense of the Sautrāntikas, saying word for word, “some other Sautrāntika masters say: the very state in which the mind turns continuously, before and after, upon a single object is called concentration, and apart from mind it has no separate entity”; and the passage of refutation in the treatise Puguang marks as the author’s citing the Sarvāstivāda sense that “concentration is a mental factor and has a separate entity apart from mind” and setting up a refutation of it. In Puguang no closing sentence is to be found for this passage — this section records the fact as it stands and does not gather it up on his behalf.

The easy error: to suppose that because the author set up a refutation he has already given a verdict. At the end of this passage the treatise passes no sentence closing the case, and neither do the ancient masters’ outlines. The two parties are recorded only; which prevails is not adjudicated.

In practice: the actual divergence in this dispute is a single sentence — is “being intent” a mode of the mind itself, or is there a further dharma that makes the mind be intent? If you take the former, cultivating absorption is tuning the mind; if the latter, cultivating absorption is fostering another power. The two accounts each have their bearing in practice, and the treatise does not choose for the reader.

〔1.5〕The Four Formless Absorptions — the Same in Number and Nature as Meditative Absorption, but with Form Removed from the Accompaniments

First ask: why may the formless be disposed of with the one phrase “it too is thus”? Because “this agrees with meditative absorption in number and own nature, namely four with two each” — the same four stories, the same division into absorption and birth, and the entity likewise the one-pointedness of mind upon a single object gathered under the wholesome nature. Hence the stanza says only “the formless too is thus.”

There is a difference in only one place: “yet among the accompaniments the aggregate of form is here removed, since the formless has no form that turns along with mind.” The broad entity is reduced from five aggregates to four aggregates, because there is there no form that turns along with mind. The two words “four aggregates” in the stanza point to just this.

How are the four stories divided? “Although the entity and mark of one-pointedness upon a single object have no difference, they divide into four kinds by the leaving of the level below at which one takes birth” — the division comes from “leaving the level below.” The treatise glosses the word “leaving” in passing: “that is, by this path one is liberated from the afflictions of the level below, and this is the sense of leaving the defilement of the level below.”

The easy error: to read the four formless as four “places.” Their boundary does not lie in location but in leaving — leaving the fourth meditative absorption establishes the sphere of boundless space, and so on until leaving the sphere of nothingness establishes the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception.

Another point to notice: “these four basic ones together with the preliminary stages of the upper three are named as a whole the removal of the perception of form” — this general name gathers in the four basic absorptions and the upper three preliminary stages, and the preliminary stage of the sphere of boundless space alone is not gathered in, the reason being that it “takes as object the form of the level below and gives rise to a perception of form.” It is still looking back at form, and so does not enter this name. This is one more instance of the chapter’s rule that “in establishing a name one must look at what it actually takes as object.”

〔1.6〕Whether the Formless Realm Has Form at All — the Longest Pressing of the Chapter

This is the first long passage of prose devoted to a single matter hung beneath the four formless absorptions (over eleven hundred characters), and the author uses the whole passage to take one position apart.

Look first at the first round upon the name. Someone says, “because there is no form there at all it is named formless,” and the author points out, “this reason does not hold, since form is allowed to be there” — your reason does not hold, since your party maintains from the outset that there is form there. Whence, then, is the name established? The author establishes instead a more cautious account: “because the form there is subtle it is named formless, just as a thing of faint yellow is also named without yellow.” An exceedingly faint yellow may still be called without yellow: this is naming with respect to a mark, not with respect to existing or not existing.

Next comes the pressing, layer by layer. If there be only bodily and verbal form of discipline there — “body and speech being absent, whence should there be discipline?”; still more, “there being no great elements, whence derived form?” If it be likened to discipline without outflows — “not so; what is without outflows depends upon great elements with outflows.” If a body with faculties of form be allowed there — then “how can it be said that the form there is slight?” If it be said the bodily measure is small — “the fine worms in water and even the ultimate atoms ought also to be called formless.” If it be said the body is exceedingly pure and fine — “the form-body of intermediate existence and of the form realm ought to be called formless.” If it be said that it must be pure and fine to the utmost degree — “then only the summit of existence would obtain the name formless.” Every step takes the opponent’s own measure and carries it to a place where he himself cannot accept it.

Look next at the exchange over proof from scripture. The opponent adduces four passages: lifespan conjoined with warmth; name-and-form and consciousness depending on one another like two sheaves of reeds; name-and-form having consciousness for condition; and the blocking of a consciousness coming and going apart from form and so on down to apart from the formations. The author does not refute them one by one, but first sets up a rule for reading scripture — “this proof does not hold, for one ought to examine and consider” — and then presses each of the four with the same question, “is it said with regard to all realms, or with regard to the desire realm?” If the opponent says, “the sūtra makes no distinction, so one ought not to examine,” the author returns him the fault of over-extension: then the warmth outside ought also to be conjoined with lifespan, and the form and formless realms ought also to have morsel nutriment.

The three passages of scripture the author himself adduces are the positive proof: “the formless liberation is the most still of all, since it goes beyond all forms”; “sentient beings of the formless have gone beyond every perception of form”; and that in speaking of the meditative absorptions he spoke of a class of form while in speaking of the formless he did not. And he turns back to block one line of retreat — if “going beyond the perception of form” is said only relative to the coarse form of the level below, then “the meditative absorptions too go beyond the coarse form of the level below, and of them too it ought to be possible to say ‘apart from form’,” and the meditative absorptions would have to be called the formless realm; and by the same token one ought also to say “apart from feeling and the rest.” Since the sūtra does not speak so, it may be seen that the formless goes beyond form as a whole class, and does not go beyond feeling and the rest. “From this it is decidedly known: in that realm there is no form.”

The easy error: to read this passage as a contest of winning and losing. What it in fact demonstrates is a method: of the opponent’s reason, ask first “does this reason hold for you yourself?”; of the opponent’s scriptural proof, ask first “how far does the range of this passage extend?”; and one’s own conclusion must be able to withstand the counter-inference, “on this showing, would not everything become formless?”

There is also a tail-piece: in the formless realm form has been cut off for many aeons; after death from there one is born in a lower realm — whence comes the form? The treatise answers, “it is produced from mind, not arisen from form” — the maturation cause of the form aroused of old has been perfumed into the mind, and that capability ripens today. It is asked back, “there being no body of form there, upon what does mind turn?”, and the author returns the question: “why should it not turn apart from a body? Because in the levels below it has never been seen.” You say it cannot only because in the levels below you have not seen it; and by the same token, the form realm has no morsel nutriment and yet the body turns, and that too you have not seen.

〔1.7〕Why the Four Formless Are Named as They Are

First ask: are the three names of boundless space and the rest obtained from the space, the consciousness, and the nothingness that are taken as object? The treatise answers, “no” — they are established “at the time of cultivating the preparatory practice, from thinking of boundless space, boundless consciousness, and nothing at all.” The names are established from what is thought in the preparatory practice, and not from what is taken as object at the stage of the result.

For the fourth story another way of naming is used: “the fourth name is established from the dullness and inferiority of perception, that is, having no keen perception it obtains the name non-perception, and having a dull and inferior perception it is called not non-perception.”

Here there is a measure taken with the utmost fineness. The treatise allows that at the time of cultivating the preparatory practice one does think in this way — “perceptions are like a disease, like an arrow, like an abscess; if perception were altogether absent, that would be the same as the darkness of delusion; only in neither perception nor non-perception is it contrary to these, still and fine” — yet the name is not established with reference to that preparatory practice. The reason is that if one asks further, “on what ground does one think so in the preparatory practice?”, the answer must be, “because in that place perception is dull and inferior.” So dullness and inferiority is the proper cause, and the thought of the preparatory practice is only its expression.

In practice: this is a general rule in the study of naming — take the cause, not the condition. One and the same name may be spoken of from several starting points, and what the treatise wants is that last reason behind which one cannot push further.

〔1.8〕The Threefold Division of the Eight Attainments — Savoring, Pure, Without Outflows

The four meditative absorptions plus the four formless: “the basic attainments are eight in all.” Here the treatise lays down the most important measure of the chapter: of every attainment one must ask once more which of the kinds it is. “Of these the first seven possess three kinds each; the attainment of the summit of existence has only two kinds, since this level is dull and inferior and has nothing without outflows.”

The glosses on the three kinds are exceedingly terse. Savoring — “it is what is associated with craving; craving is able to savor, and hence the name savoring; and the attainment, being associated with it, obtains the name of savoring.” Pure — “the name marks a mundane wholesome absorption, since it arises associated with the several bright and pure dharmas such as non-greed.” Without outflows — “it is the absorption beyond the world; craving cannot take it as object, and so it is not an object of savoring.”

The finest thing of all is the relation of savoring to pure: “that object which is savored by what is associated with savoring — this ceases with nothing intervening and that absorption of savoring arises. It is taking the past pure absorption as object that savoring deeply arises; and at that time, though it be called emerging from the absorption savored, with regard to the absorption that savors it is called entering.” What the absorption of savoring savors is precisely the pure absorption that has just ceased. So of one who has entered the absorption of savoring, spoken of as emerging he has emerged from the pure absorption, and spoken of as entering he has entered the absorption of savoring — in one and the same moment, both statements are right.

The easy error: to take “savoring” for greed in general. It is a very particular thing — being greedy for that portion of absorption one has just obtained. The better one cultivates, the more readily it happens, and that is the reason it is established as a class by itself.

In practice: this one measure is the presupposition of every gate that follows in the chapter. Below, in treating first obtaining, mutual production, the cutting off of afflictions, and the objects taken, each gate must first ask, “are you speaking of the savoring, the pure, or the one without outflows?” The answers differ and the conclusions differ altogether.

〔1.9〕The Eighteen Factors of the Four Meditative Absorptions

The register of the factors is itself not hard: the first has five, “first applied thought, second sustained thought, third joy, fourth pleasure, fifth concentration”; the second has four, “first inner evenness and purity, second joy, third pleasure, fourth concentration”; the third has five, “first the equanimity that is a formation, second right mindfulness, third right discernment, fourth pleasure as feeling, fifth concentration”; the fourth has four, “first the purity of the equanimity that is a formation, second the purity of mindfulness, third the feeling that is neither suffering nor pleasure, fourth concentration.”

What is to be noticed are two small notes. First, “concentration and absorption differ in name and are one in entity, and so the sūtra says the mind settled, evenly settled, is called right concentration” — the “absorption” of the stanza is concentration, and they are not two things. Second, the treatise records a transmitted account, “only absorption is both meditative absorption and a factor of meditative absorption; the remaining four factors are factors of meditative absorption and not meditative absorption,” and at once corrects it by the sense as it really is — “as with an army of four limbs, so should the remaining factors of meditative absorption be known to be.” Elephant troops and horse troops are each of them called army; in the same way the remaining factors are themselves meditative absorption.

The easy error: to take a “factor” for a component part of meditative absorption rather than meditative absorption itself. The comparison of the army of four limbs is meant precisely to dismantle this intuition.

〔1.10〕The Eighteen Factors Are Only Eleven Real Entities — the Second Long Prose Passage of the Chapter

This is the densest passage of the chapter (over eleven hundred and ninety characters). First ask: eighteen names — how many things are they in fact? The treatise reckons with the utmost dispatch: the five factors of the first are five real entities; the second adds inner purity for six; the third adds the equanimity that is a formation, right mindfulness, right discernment, and pleasure as feeling for ten; the fourth adds what is neither suffering nor pleasure for eleven. And it appends a fourfold analysis as a check — the first alternative applied and sustained thought, the second inner purity, the third joy, pleasure, and concentration, the fourth the remaining dharmas apart from the foregoing.

What is really laborious is the two problems of “the same name with a different entity.”

The first: what the “pleasure” of the first two meditative absorptions is. The treatise adjudges, “the pleasure of the first two is gathered under pliancy” — the pleasure of the first two absorptions is not the feeling of pleasure but pliancy. The reasoned proof has three layers: within the first two absorptions there is no faculty of pleasure; there is no bodily feeling of pleasure (within absorption there are no five consciousnesses); there is no mental feeling of pleasure (joy has already been stated to be there, and within one mind two feelings cannot proceed together). Nor may it be said that joy and pleasure become present by turns, since the sūtra says expressly that the first possesses five factors and the second four, which they possess at the same time.

Here the second disputation of the chapter is drawn out. The treatise records, “some say: there is no mental faculty of pleasure at all; the factor of pleasure spoken of in the three meditative absorptions is in every case the faculty of pleasure gathered under bodily feeling.” The ancient masters mark the names of the two parties here — Puguang says word for word, “as to ‘what real virtue is there,’ this is the Sautrāntika masters’ explaining through; ‘some say’ is the Sarvāstivāda masters, who have added in the word ‘mental’ in this sūtra, since the sūtras of the several schools speak only of the body,” and thereafter, in the paired sentence-forms “the Sautrāntika masters say . . .” and “the Sarvāstivāda masters say . . . ,” records the exchange of the two parties: the Sautrāntikas explain through, the Sarvāstivādins counter-question, “what merit is there in calling mind body?”, the Sautrāntikas object again with the fourth absorption where pliancy is redoubled and yet no factor of pleasure is established, and the two parties exchange once more over the ground on which inner evenness and purity obtains its name. Throughout, in Puguang no closing verdict of the kind “the author adjudges” or “I now say it should be said” is to be found — this section records the fact as it stands, as “the exchange of the two parties recorded only,” and does not pass judgment on his behalf.

The one sūtra adduced along this line is clear enough (the Guangji puts the citation in the Sautrāntika master’s mouth, while Saṅghabhadra takes it as the author’s own — both accounts are recorded): “first gladness, second joy, third pliancy, fourth pleasure, fifth concentration” — “this sūtra speaks of pliancy and pleasure separately, and so the pleasure of the first two is not just pliancy.” Here the two parties are directly opposed, and each holds one end of the scriptural proof.

Following upon this dispute the treatise also handles a train of attendant questions: whether, if there is bodily consciousness in absorption, absorption is destroyed (answer: the wind of pliancy is produced from an excellent absorption and conduces in turn to the arising of concentration); whether arousing bodily consciousness is to be called emerging from absorption (answer: for the reason as before, the objection does not hold); whether, within an absorption without outflows, contact and bodily consciousness become without outflows (answer: they do not arise at the same time, and what fault is there in this?). Every question turns upon the core of “within one and the same passage, may the factors be uneven as to outflows and no outflows?”

The second: what inner evenness and purity is. The treatise gives a description first — “this absorption, being far removed from the agitation of applied and sustained thought, proceeds with a pure continuum” — and states its reverse as “like a river rising in waves.” But a description is not enough to establish a real entity, and so someone objects: “if that is so, it would have no entity of its own; how can there be eleven real entities?” The author therefore lands it upon a dharma already had — “therefore it should be said that it is just the faculty of confidence” — and glosses the three graphs word for word: “confidence is the mark of purity, and hence the name purity is established; being apart from an outward even flowing, it is called inner and even; being pure and also inner and even, the name inner evenness and purity is established.”

The treatise also records one party who holds that “inner evenness and purity, concentration, applied thought, and sustained thought have no separate entities,” and sets down their self-defense, “a difference of the stages of mind may also be called a mental factor”; and the author answers, “though there is this principle, it is not the tenet of my school.”

As for “joy is the feeling of joy,” the treatise proves it by two āgamas — “in order and without remainder the five faculties of grief and the rest cease; within the third absorption joy ceases without remainder; in the fourth absorption pleasure ceases without remainder,” and “in the fourth meditative absorption pleasure is cut off and suffering is cut off, and joy and grief have sunk away before.” Since joy ceases in the third and pleasure in the fourth, it may be seen that joy and pleasure are each a feeling of its own, and “hence within the third absorption there is decidedly no faculty of joy; from this it is known that the feeling of joy is joy and not pleasure.”

In practice: what this whole passage gives is a rule one can carry away — when one and the same name turns up in two places, ask first whether in the two places it is one and the same thing. The “pleasure” of the first two absorptions and the “pleasure” of the third are the same in name and different in entity; “joy” and “pleasure” are different in name and different in entity too. An Abhidharma register of real entities is counted out just so, one pass at a time.

〔1.11〕Which Factors Are Wanting in a Defiled Meditative Absorption

First ask: are the factors of meditative absorption fully present in a defiled meditative absorption as well? The treatise answers, “no,” and records two parties.

One party “speaks following the marks”: the first defiled has no “joy and pleasure born of seclusion,” since “it is not born from having left the afflictions”; the second defiled has no “inner evenness and purity,” since “it is disturbed and made turbid by the afflictions”; the third defiled has no “right mindfulness and discernment,” since “it is bewildered by a defiled pleasure”; the fourth defiled has no “purity of equanimity and mindfulness,” since “it is defiled by the afflictions.” This party’s reason is stated factor by factor with regard to the sense of the name — the names of the factors carry “born of seclusion,” “purity,” “right,” and a defiled mind is of course unequal to them.

The other party says: “within the first two defiled there is only no pliancy, and within the latter two defiled only no equanimity that is a formation, since these are gathered under the great wholesome ground.” This party’s reason is stated with regard to the class of the dharma — pliancy and the equanimity that is a formation are factors of the great wholesome ground and are certainly absent from a defiled mind.

The easy error: to suppose that the two parties are disputing over right and wrong. The difference of the two lies in the measure: the former goes by the sense of the factor’s name, the latter by the wholesome nature under which the dharma is gathered. They are recorded together without adjudication.

In practice: a defiled absorption is really an absorption (and so still has the institution of factors); only those several factors are wanting. The use of this for a practitioner is that when a state of absorption becomes present, one should not merely check “is there absorption?” but check “are those particular factors there?”

〔1.12〕Why the Fourth Meditative Absorption Is Called “Unmoving”

First ask: the sūtra says three absorptions have movement and the fourth is unmoving; with regard to what sense is this said? The treatise answers: “the lower three meditative absorptions are called having movement, since they have calamities; the fourth meditative absorption is called unmoving, since it has no calamities.” The calamities are eight — “applied thought, sustained thought, the four feelings, in-breath, and out-breath.”

Here there is a place where sūtra and treatise do not agree in number: the sūtra says only four (“the fourth meditative absorption is not moved by applied thought, sustained thought, joy, and pleasure”), the treatise says eight. Puguang gives two explanations here — one, “yet in the sūtra it is said with an implied sense . . . it is said only with regard to the factors and not with regard to what is not a factor”; two, “the sūtra does not state the principle exhaustively; the treatise states it exhaustively. Thus.” Yuanhui sets up no reconciliation and simply lists the eight names one by one: “the calamities are eight, namely applied thought, sustained thought, grief, suffering, joy, pleasure, out-breath, and in-breath” — from which it is known that “the four feelings” of the stanza are grief, suffering, joy, and pleasure.

At the end of the passage the treatise also records a comparison: “other masters say: the fourth meditative absorption is like a lamp within a closed room, which shines and does not waver.”

The easy error: to read “unmoving” as a stillness in which the mind does not stir at all. It is a register-style definition — only when not one of those eight things is there is it called unmoving. That the definition is given so concretely is precisely so that “unmoving” shall not turn into a feeling.

〔1.13〕The Feelings of One Born in a Level of Meditative Absorption

Meditative absorption as absorption and as birth may not be inferred one from the other: this is a boundary the treatise sets here. “Within meditative absorption as birth the first has three feelings” — the feeling of joy associated with mental consciousness, the feeling of pleasure associated with three consciousnesses, the feeling of equanimity associated with four consciousnesses; the second has joy and equanimity, “there being no feeling of pleasure, since there are none of the remaining consciousnesses and since the gladness of mind is coarse”; the third has pleasure and equanimity; the fourth has the feeling of equanimity alone.

First ask: why has the second meditative absorption no feeling of pleasure? The treatise gives two reasons side by side — there are none of the remaining consciousnesses (hence no bodily feeling of pleasure), and the gladness of mind is still coarse (hence that portion is reckoned under joy).

The easy error: to apply the table of factors of meditative absorption as absorption to the table of feelings of meditative absorption as birth. The two tables ask different questions: the table of factors asks “which factors has this story?”, the table of feelings asks “which feelings become present in one born in this story?” That the treatise expressly sets up here the question “are all the feelings of birth also thus?” and answers “no” is precisely to guard against this confusion.

〔1.14〕How Those Born in the Upper Three Meditative Absorptions See, Hear, Touch, and Speak

First ask: the upper three meditative absorptions have no group of three consciousnesses and no applied or sustained thought; how can the gods born there see, hear, and speak?

The treatise’s way of answering is exceedingly handsome — it is not that there are no consciousnesses, but that those consciousnesses do not belong to that level. “It is not that those born in that level have no eye consciousness and the rest; only they are not affiliated to it”; “the group of three consciousnesses aroused by those born in the upper three levels, and the mind that issues manifest action, are all affiliated to the first absorption.” It is just as one born in an upper level arouses a mind of transformation of a lower level: “that one born above arouses what is below is as with arousing a mind of transformation.”

Of what nature are these borrowed consciousnesses? “These four are unobscured-indeterminate alone.” Why neither defiled nor wholesome? “He does not arouse the defiled of the level below, since he has already left its defilement; he does not arouse the wholesome of the level below, since the lower is inferior.” He can go neither up nor down, and only the middle square is left.

The easy error: to read “borrowing a consciousness” as meaning that an upper level has eye consciousness. It is a question of affiliation, not of existing or not existing.

In practice: this is the clearest instance in the chapter of “name and affiliation must be asked separately” — of one and the same eye consciousness, to ask “is there such a thing?” and to ask “to which level does it belong?” are two questions.

〔1.15〕How the Pure and the Without-Outflows Absorptions Are First Obtained

From here the treatise opens ten gates in a row for analyzing the eight attainments. The first gate is first obtaining.

The rule is of three counts: the pure absorption is obtained “by leaving defilement and by taking birth”; the without-outflows “by leaving defilement alone”; the defiled “by taking birth and by falling back.” The summit of existence is the one exception — “only by leaving defilement, there being no obtaining by birth,” since there is no level above from which one might come down.

Why must the stanza say the three words “not accomplished at all”? The treatise explains for itself: “in order to block obtaining some portion further when it is already accomplished” — the cases of obtaining the portion conducive to penetration by preparatory practice, and of obtaining the portion conducive to falling back by falling back, are not entered here.

The treatise also demonstrates a check once: taking the portion conducive to falling back of the first meditative absorption as its instance, “it is obtained when one leaves the defilement of the desire realm, relinquished when one leaves the defilement of one’s own level, obtained again when one falls back from having left the defilement of one’s own level, and relinquished again when one falls back from having left the defilement of the desire realm; obtained when one is born into one’s own level from above, relinquished when one is born into a lower level from one’s own” — one and the same absorption, obtained and relinquished on six occasions.

The easy error: to suppose that at the time of “entering into the certainty of the noble path” one first obtains an attainment without outflows. The treatise says expressly, “this is not settled, for one who cultivates in the gradual order has not at that time obtained a basic absorption.”

In practice: what this gate teaches is that a question must be asked whole — having asked “when is it obtained?”, one must at the same time ask “when is it relinquished?”; only when an obtaining and a relinquishing are paired is the place of that dharma in the continuum fixed.

〔1.16〕How Many Attainments Can Arise after One Attainment

The second gate is mutual production. The skeleton is but a few sentences: after the without-outflows there arises the wholesome of one’s own level and of those above and below (the “wholesome” gathering in both the pure and the without-outflows), “yet only as far as the third above and below, since beyond that it is too far and it cannot leap so as to produce the fourth”; after the pure it is likewise, with the defiled of its own level produced besides; after the defiled there arise the pure and the defiled of its own level, together with the pure of the next level below.

The numbers are inferred from these few counts — the first meditative absorption produces six with nothing intervening, the sphere of nothingness seven, the second absorption eight, the sphere of boundless consciousness nine, the third and the four formless ten; and the pure absorption adds in each case the defiled of its own level, making six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven.

The most interesting is the count of producing the pure of a lower level out of the defiled. Someone objects: a defiled dharma cannot rightly know, so how can the pure be produced out of the defiled? The author answers, “it is by the force of a prior vow” — the vow “rather let me obtain the pure below than the defiled above” was made beforehand, and “the force of that prior vow turns along with the continuum.” And he adduces a comparison: “as when one first makes a resolve and then goes to sleep, and at the time appointed is able to wake.”

The easy error: to take the “prior vow” for an attention formed on the spot. It is a power already vowed and still operating within the continuum; it is precisely because the present defiled mind cannot know rightly that one must rely upon the vow made before.

One further boundary: all the foregoing is said with regard to “while in absorption”; at the time of taking birth it is otherwise — “at the time of death, from a pure absorption obtained at birth every defiled arises with nothing intervening, one by one.” That the treatise expressly separates being in absorption from dying is because the rules of the two places are not the same.

〔1.17〕The Four Portions of the Pure Absorption

The third gate is the four portions of the pure. The pure absorption is of four kinds in all — conducive to falling back, conducive to abiding, conducive to advancing, conducive to penetration. “Each level has the four; the summit of existence has only three,” since above the summit of existence there is no level to proceed to and hence no portion conducive to advancing.

The marks of the four are fixed by what they are conducive to: “the portion conducive to falling back is conducive to the afflictions, the portion conducive to abiding is conducive to one’s own level, the portion conducive to advancing is conducive to the upper level, and the portion conducive to penetration is conducive to what is without outflows.” Hence only the fourth portion can produce what is without outflows.

The numbers of their producing one another are two, three, three, one: “the first can produce two, namely those conducive to falling back and to abiding; the second produces three, excepting that conducive to penetration; the third produces three, excepting that conducive to falling back; the fourth produces one, namely itself and not the rest.”

The easy error: to read the four portions as four methods of cultivation. They are four directions of one and the same pure absorption — being alike in absorption, whichever way your continuum is actually tending is the portion you are in.

In practice: this gate exchanges “is my absorption well cultivated?” for a more exact question — which way is my absorption tending? An absorption conducive to the afflictions is a pure absorption too, but it is the portion conducive to falling back.

〔1.18〕The Leaping Attainment

The fourth gate is the leaping attainment. The treatise first sets up a coordinate of six graphs: “going upward is called ascending, returning downward descending; the same class is called even, a different class alternating; the adjacent is called next, passing over one leaping.” Three pairs, six graphs, making a table that may be combined.

The way of cultivation is five steps in ascending order: with outflows over eight levels, ascending and descending, even and next; without outflows over seven levels, ascending and descending, even and next; with and without outflows, ascending and descending, alternating and next; with outflows, ascending and descending, even and leaping; without outflows, ascending and descending, even and leaping — “this is called the fulfilling of the preparatory practice of cultivating the leap.” Last, upon the attainments with and without outflows one performs the ascending and descending, alternating and leaping, and only then is it called the accomplishment of the leaping absorption.

The restrictions are two. First, “the leaping here can pass over only one, since beyond that it is too far and one cannot leap into the fourth.” Second, those who can cultivate it are exceedingly few — “only men of the three continents and those arhats whose liberation does not depend upon circumstance, because they have mastery over absorption and are without afflictions”; those whose liberation depends upon circumstance “though without afflictions have no mastery over absorption,” and those attained through view “though they have mastery over absorption still have remaining afflictions” — each wanting one of the two, and neither able to accomplish it.

The easy error: to think of “leaping” as skipping a grade. It is the ability to change position at will among eight levels already wholly mastered — one must first be able to walk them up and down one grade at a time before there is any talk of passing over one.

〔1.19〕Upon What Body the Several Attainments Arise

The fifth gate is the body relied upon. The general rule is one sentence: “the several attainments arise in dependence upon a body of one’s own level and of the levels below.” Why does an upper level not arouse a lower? The treatise gives five reasons in one breath — “because for an upper level to arouse a lower is of no use, because one has an excellent absorption of one’s own, because the force of the lower is feeble, because it has already been cast away, and because it is fit to be spurned.”

But the general rule has one exception, which the treatise expressly marks with “though the general mark is thus, yet if one speaks in detail” — a noble one born at the summit of existence must arouse the absorption of the sphere of nothingness without outflows. The reasons are three layers: in order to exhaust the remaining afflictions of his own level; because his own level has no noble path he might delight in and arouse; and because the sphere of nothingness is the nearest.

The easy error: to read this exception as a breach of the general rule. It is in fact an application of the general rule — it is precisely because “one’s own level is of no use” that he has no choice but to borrow a noble path from the nearest level below.

〔1.20〕What Objects the Several Attainments Take

The sixth gate is the object taken. The range of the absorption of savoring is the narrowest: “it takes as object only what is with outflows of its own level,” not the level below (whose defilement it has left), not the level above (the level loved being a separate one), not what is without outflows (for taking that as object it would have to become wholesome).

The pure and the without-outflows are the widest: “both can universally take as object the conditioned and unconditioned of their own level and of the levels above and below.” But the treatise at once adds one difference — “an indeterminate unconditioned is not the object of an absorption without outflows”: cessation independent of discernment is an indeterminate unconditioned, and an absorption without outflows does not take it as object.

The wholesome formless absorptions gathered under the basic levels have a column of their own: “they do not take as object the dharmas with outflows of the level below,” while of the dharmas of their own and the upper levels there is none they cannot take; they can take as object what is without outflows of the level below, but only the path of the class of the knowledge of inference and not that of the class of the knowledge of the dharma, nor the cessation of the several dharmas of the level below. As for the preliminary stages of the formless, these on the contrary do take the level below as object, “since their uninterrupted path must take what is below as object” — to cut off the afflictions of the level below one must of course take the level below as object.

The easy error: to suppose that “the formless absorptions do not take the level below as object” is a general rule. The treatise here separates the basic from the preliminary stages, and their directions are exactly opposite. Whether the basic levels look below is one thing; the preliminary stages have no choice but to look.

〔1.21〕Which Absorption Can Cut Off the Afflictions

The seventh gate is cutting off the afflictions. The answer is a single sentence: “what is without outflows can cut off the afflictions, and so can the preliminary stages of the several pure absorptions.”

What is interesting is the way the treatise proves that a basic pure absorption cannot cut off — blocked on three sides: “it cannot cut off the level below, since it has already left its defilement. It cannot cut off its own level, since it is bound by its own. It cannot cut off the level above, since the level above surpasses it.” What is below has already been cut off, one’s own cannot cut off itself, and what is above is stronger than oneself. All three directions are impassable.

Why then can the pure preliminary stages cut off? “Because they can every one of them cut off the afflictions of the next level below” — the office of a preliminary-stage absorption is from the outset to leave the defilement of the level below. And the pure gathered under the intermediate absorption cannot cut off.

In practice: this gate sets right a common misunderstanding — that the deeper the absorption the better it can cut off the afflictions does not hold. Cutting off the afflictions relies upon discernment without outflows, or upon the preliminary stage that stands at the position of “being just about to take one step upward.” The pure absorption of one already sitting at ease within a basic absorption is on the contrary the one that does not cut off the afflictions.

〔1.22〕The Eight Preliminary-Stage Absorptions

First ask: there are eight basic absorptions — where are their eight gateways? The eighth gate asks just this — the preliminary stages.

The treatise answers straightforwardly: “the several preliminary-stage absorptions are eight in number too, because they serve as the gateways of the eight basic absorptions.” In number they correspond one to one with the basic. As to feeling they are all equanimity, for two reasons — “because they proceed by applying effort, and because they have not yet left the dread of the level below”: one is still applying effort and still afraid of the level below, and joy and pleasure cannot be settled upon them. As to nature, all eight preliminary stages are gathered under the pure absorption, “only the first preliminary stage also extending to what is without outflows”; and of the three kinds, none of them has savoring, “since they are the path of leaving defilement.” The treatise adds a further measure: the mind of a preliminary stage may also have the defilement of linking to a new birth, but what is spoken of here is with reference to “blocking out the defilement of absorption.” Another account is also recorded: “access concentration too has something associated with savoring, since before one has aroused a basic absorption one is greedy even for this; and by this access concentration possesses all three kinds.”

The easy error: to regard a preliminary stage as of one kind with a basic absorption, only a grade shallower. A preliminary stage is a gate, not a room — and so its feeling is equanimity alone and does not extend to joy and pleasure. Neither may one infer from “the mind of a preliminary stage has the defilement of linking to a new birth” that a preliminary stage has something associated with savoring: the treatise has itself marked that what is blocked out is the defilement of absorption, and the two point at different things.

In practice: the boundary this gate gives is that eight gates answer to eight rooms, and that only the first gate (access concentration) extends, besides the pure, to what is without outflows, the remaining seven being pure alone.

〔1.22, Appended〕The Intermediate Meditative Absorption

The ninth gate is the intermediate meditative absorption. The treatise first asks whether it differs from the preliminary stages, and answers, “in sense too there is a divergence” — a preliminary stage is for leaving the defilement of the level below and is the cause of entering a basic absorption; the intermediate absorption is not. Then it fixes its position by way of the factors: “among the seven absorptions above there is neither applied nor sustained thought; only the intermediate meditative absorption has sustained thought without applied thought, and so it surpasses the first and has not come up to the second” — higher than the first absorption and not up to the second, whence the name “intermediate.” And for this reason too “there is no intermediate meditative absorption above, since within one level there is no such rising and descending.”

The intermediate absorption possesses all three kinds, savoring, pure, and without outflows, “because it has excellent virtues that may be savored with craving”; it is associated with equanimity alone, “because it proceeds by applying effort,” and hence it is “said to be gathered under the painful mode of progress.” Its maturational result is that “it can draw down the result of the station of Mahābrahmā, and one who cultivates it much becomes a Mahābrahmā.”

The easy error: to take the intermediate meditative absorption for a “level” between the first and the second. It is an excellent stage within the level of the first meditative absorption itself (without applied thought and with sustained thought alone), and so above it there is nothing answering to it.

〔1.23〕The Three Concentrations — Divided by Applied and Sustained Thought

First ask: the attainments having been treated, what then is “concentration”? The treatise adduces a sūtra and establishes three kinds — with applied and sustained thought, with sustained thought alone, with neither — and fixes the levels each is gathered under, one by one: the one with applied and sustained thought is “the concentration associated with applied and sustained thought, gathered under the first meditative absorption and access concentration”; the one with sustained thought alone is “the concentration associated with sustained thought alone, gathered under the level of the intermediate meditative absorption”; the one with neither is “the concentration not associated with applied and sustained thought,” “gathered under everything from the preliminary stage of the second meditative absorption as far as neither perception nor non-perception.”

The three are established on one and the same pattern: first the mark is fixed by applied and sustained thought, then the level by the mark; and the boundaries falling entirely upon applied and sustained thought, there can be only the three stretches of having both, having one alone, and having neither.

The easy error: to confuse these three with the eight attainments above as one table. This set cuts across the levels with respect to the presence or absence of applied and sustained thought; the eight attainments are ranged in a column with respect to the height of the levels; one crosswise and one lengthwise, they are not the same thing. Another easy error is to put the starting point of “neither applied nor sustained thought” at the basic second meditative absorption — the treatise says expressly that the boundary is at its preliminary stage; and as for the stretch with sustained thought alone, only the one level of the intermediate meditative absorption answers to it.

In practice: one and the same level has a position in each of two tables — access concentration, for instance, is on the lengthwise table the gate of the first meditative absorption, and on the crosswise table has applied and sustained thought. To ask what absorption it is, look at the lengthwise table; to ask whether applied and sustained thought are still stirring, look at this crosswise one.

〔1.24〕Emptiness, Wishlessness, and Signlessness

The sūtra speaks besides of three concentrations, and this set is divided with respect to the mode of apprehension of what is taken as object.

Emptiness — “the concentration associated with the two modes of apprehension, empty and not-self.” Signlessness — “the concentration associated with the four modes of apprehension that take the truth of cessation as object”; the origin of the name the treatise glosses with the utmost fineness: “nirvāṇa is apart from ten signs, and so it is called signless,” the ten signs being “the five of visible form and the rest, the two of male and female, and the three marks of the conditioned.” Wishlessness — “the concentration associated with the ten modes of apprehension that take the remaining truths as object,” that is, the ten apart from empty and not-self; and why is it called wishless? “Because impermanence, suffering, and the causes of the origin are fit to be spurned, and the path is like a raft which in the end must be relinquished” — even the truth of the path stands among what is to be relinquished.

Here there is an asymmetry of the first importance: the two signs empty and not-self do not enter wishlessness, and the reason the treatise gives is that “the signs empty and not-self are not what is spurned and relinquished, because they resemble the mark of nirvāṇa.” Spurning and relinquishing are spoken of with regard to what one wishes to get away from, and these two signs, empty and not-self, themselves resemble the mark of nirvāṇa, so that there is no reason for wishing to get away from them.

Each of the three extends to the pure and the without-outflows, “what is gathered under the world extending to eleven levels and what is gathered under the beyond-worldly to nine levels alone”; and that portion of them which is without outflows obtains a name of its own — “the three gates of liberation, because they can serve as the gateway to nirvāṇa.”

In practice: what this set gives is three gateways of what to contemplate. It is absorption alike, but whether one looks at empty and not-self, or at the four signs of the truth of cessation, or at the remaining ten signs, the name that comes out differs. The depth of absorption is governed by the tables above; the direction of absorption by this set.

〔1.25〕The Threefold Redoubled Concentration — Taking Absorption Itself as Object

Then a finer set still: emptiness of emptiness, wishlessness of wishlessness, signlessness of signlessness. “These three concentrations take as object the foregoing emptiness and the rest and apprehend the signs of emptiness and the rest, and so the names emptiness of emptiness and the rest are established” — what they take as object is not a truth but the foregoing absorption itself.

Each of the three apprehends one sign, and the manner of apprehending is very exactly measured. Emptiness of emptiness “takes as object the foregoing concentration of emptiness of the stage beyond learning and apprehends its sign empty” — why apprehend empty and not not-self? “Because the sign empty is more conducive to spurning than the sign not-self.” Wishlessness of wishlessness “apprehends the sign impermanent” — why not suffering and cause? Because what it takes as object is a path without outflows, and those are not signs of what is without outflows; why not the signs of the path and the rest? “Because that is to be spurned and relinquished.” Signlessness of signlessness “takes as object precisely the cessation independent of discernment of the signless concentration of the stage beyond learning,” and apprehends only the sign “still,” not the three signs cessation, excellent, and separation, for three reasons — “because it is confusable with the cessation that is impermanence, because it is of indeterminate nature, and because it is not the result of release from bondage.”

These three are with outflows alone. The reason the treatise gives is exceedingly short and exceedingly weighty — “because they spurn the noble path.” Since they arise out of a spurning of the noble path, they cannot possibly be without outflows. The persons who can arouse them are few as well: “only men of the three continents and those whose liberation does not depend upon circumstance”; and they rest upon eleven levels, “seven preliminary stages excepted, namely the desire realm, access concentration, the eight basic absorptions, and the intermediate absorption.”

The easy error: to suppose that “redoubled” means higher. It means once again — taking the absorption without outflows already accomplished as an object and contemplating it once more, and so falling on the contrary among what is with outflows. Later in order and lower in nature: the two facts are not in contradiction here.

〔1.26〕The Four Kinds of Cultivating Concentration

The last set is the four cultivations divided with respect to purpose: for obtaining the ease of the present life, for obtaining superior knowledge and vision, for obtaining discriminating discernment, for the everlasting exhaustion of the outflows.

The answering cultivations are: cultivating the several wholesome meditative absorptions (the “wholesome” gathering in both the pure and the without-outflows), cultivating the purified supernormal knowledge of the divine eye, cultivating the several wholesome things of preparatory practice of the three realms and the wholesome without outflows, and cultivating the vajra-like concentration.

Here the treatise twice handles a case of “the sūtra speaks of one only, while in principle it extends in truth to the rest.” First, the sūtra speaks only of the first meditative absorption as obtaining an abiding in present ease, and the treatise says, “adducing the first so as to show the rest, in principle it extends in truth to the remaining”; and it adds a word on why “abiding in the ease of a later life” is not spoken of — “because the ease of a later life is not an abiding that is settled, since one may fall back, or be born above, or attain final nirvāṇa, and then one does not abide.” Second, of the vajra-like concentration the sūtra speaks only of the fourth meditative absorption, and the treatise says, “in principle the cultivation of this extends in truth to all the levels,” while the reason the sūtra speaks only of the fourth is that “the transmitted account is that the World-Honored One spoke with reference to his own.”

In practice: this set is the closing of the whole section on the absorptions relied upon, and is also the set that lies closest to the motive of practice — why are you cultivating this absorption? Four answers, four roads. With this the side of absorption is finished, and below we turn to the merits that arise in dependence upon absorption.

II. The Merits That Rely upon Them

〔2.1〕The Four Immeasurables — the Third Long Prose Passage of the Chapter

Fascicle Twenty-Nine turns about as soon as it opens its mouth: “thus the absorptions relied upon have been spoken of; next are to be adjudicated the merits that arise in dependence upon absorption. Among the several merits, the immeasurables are adjudicated first.”

First ask: why are they called “immeasurable”? The treatise gives three reasons — “because they take immeasurable sentient beings as object, because they draw forth immeasurable merit, and because they draw down an immeasurable result.” The object taken is immeasurable, the merit drawn forth is immeasurable, and the result drawn down is immeasurable.

Ask again: why are there only four kinds? “Because they counteract four obstructions that are much practiced.” The four obstructions are “hatred, harmfulness, want of gladness, and greed for desire together with hatred”; loving-kindness counteracts hatred, compassion harmfulness, sympathetic joy want of gladness, and equanimity greed for desire and hatred.

The entity must be stated in two layers, broad and narrow. Broadly, “the entity of the first two of the four is non-hatred”; finely, “in principle it should in truth be said: compassion is non-harming, sympathetic joy is just the feeling of joy, and equanimity is just non-greed”; and if the retinue be counted in too, “they have the five aggregates for entity.” The treatise also handles a small objection: if equanimity has non-greed for its nature, how can it counteract hatred? Answer: “the hatred counteracted here is drawn forth by greed,” with the addition that “in principle it should in truth take the two dharmas for entity.”

The modes of apprehension are four sentences that are best of all to remember: “how may the classes of sentient beings obtain such ease?” — entering loving-kindness; “be freed from such suffering?” — entering compassion; “that they should obtain ease and be freed from suffering, is that not a joy!” — entering sympathetic joy; “even, even, with no distinction of dear and hostile” — entering equanimity.

Whether they are inverted — this question is of the first importance. The four immeasurables cannot really make others obtain ease; are they not then inverted? The treatise gives three counts: it is only “a wish and desire that they should obtain ease” (not an adjudging that they have obtained it); “that disposition is not inverted” (the intent itself is not inverted); “they arise associated with a perception of resolve” (they are an attention through resolve from the outset, not a settled cognition). And a step further back: even granting they were inverted, one may not say that they are therefore not wholesome (they arise associated with the wholesome roots), nor that they draw forth evil (they can counteract hatred and the rest).

The easy error: to suppose that cultivating loving-kindness is imagining that others are happy, and that since the imagination is not true it is a delusion. The treatise’s answer is that the efficacy of this class of attention lies not in whether what it takes as object is true, but in what it can counteract.

Whether they can cut off the afflictions — the treatise states it very clearly: they cannot. The reasons are three counts — “because they are gathered under a basic meditative absorption with outflows, because they arise associated with an attention through resolve, and because they take all sentient beings universally as object.” What they can do is “at the stage of preparatory practice to hold down hatred and the rest,” or “to make what has already been cut off yet further removed.” Really to cut off the afflictions relies upon another road: in the desire realm and access concentration one arouses a resembling loving-kindness and the rest, “and when by this one has held down hatred and the other obstructions, one draws forth and produces the path that cuts off, and can cut off the several afflictions”; the afflictions being cut off, it is at the stage of leaving defilement that one obtains the basic four immeasurables. At that stage, “even meeting with a strong condition, one is not overborne by hatred and the rest.”

How loving-kindness is cultivated — this is a rare passage in the whole treatise that is step by step and can be put into practice. One first thinks upon the ease one has oneself received, or hears of the pleasures received by Buddhas, bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas, and makes the vow, “may all sentient beings alike receive such pleasure.” If the afflictions are strong and the mind cannot be moved, one divides sentient beings into seven classes — three of the dear, high, middle, and low; one of those in between; three of the hostile, low, middle, and high. One first gives rise toward the high dear to a sincere resolve of giving ease, then toward the middle and the low dear; the three classes of the dear being made even, one proceeds in order to those in between, then the low, middle, and high hostile; “by the force of repeated cultivation one becomes able to give rise toward the high hostile to a wish of giving ease equal to that toward the high dear.” This being made irreversible, one makes the object grow wide by degrees — “one town, one country, one quarter, and all worlds, so that the mode of apprehension of giving ease is everywhere full” — and only this is called the accomplished cultivation of the immeasurable of loving-kindness.

The treatise also appends a reminder about one’s bent: “one who as regards sentient beings delights to seek their virtues can make the absorption of loving-kindness be accomplished quickly; one who delights to seek their faults cannot” — the reason being that even one who has cut off the wholesome roots has virtues that may be set down, and even a pratyekabuddha of the rhinoceros-horn kind has faults that may be picked out; virtues and faults are both to be found, and the difference lies only in which you are in the habit of seeking.

Compassion and sympathetic joy may be known by comparison; the cultivation of equanimity runs the other way — “one begins the cultivation from those in between,” and by degrees becomes able to give rise toward the high dear to an even mind equal to that toward those in between.

The body relied upon and accomplishment: “these four immeasurables can be aroused by men and not by the others; as one obtains any one of them, three are necessarily accomplished. Those born in the third absorption and the like alone fail to accomplish sympathetic joy.”

〔2.2〕The Eight Liberations

First ask: which are the eight liberations? The treatise lists them: with perception of form within one contemplates forms without; without perception of form within one contemplates forms without; the pure liberation, realizing it with the body and dwelling in its full attainment; the four formless absorptions as the next four; and the absorption of the cessation of feeling and perception as the eighth.

Entity: the first three “have non-greed for their nature, because they are the near counteragent of greed”; that the sūtra says “perception” and “contemplation” is because “perception and contemplation are strong.” Of the three, “the first two proceed upon the impure mark, making the several modes of apprehension of the livid and the rest,” and the third “proceeds upon the pure mark, making the mode of apprehension of what is pure and bright.” Together with their accompaniments all have the five aggregates for nature.

The levels relied upon: the first two “extend, each of them, to the first two meditative absorptions,” because they must counteract the greed for visible color of the desire realm and the first meditative absorption; the third “rests upon the latter absorption, since it is apart from the eight calamities and its mind is clear and pure.” The remaining levels too have resembling liberations that are not established as such, “because they are not dominant.”

The next four have the wholesome of the four formless absorptions for their nature — “not the indeterminate and the defiled, since these are not liberation; nor the unconcentrated wholesome, since its nature is feeble and inferior.” Here the treatise also distinguishes the preliminary stage from the uninterrupted path: the path of liberation of a preliminary stage also obtains the name of liberation, but the uninterrupted path does not, “because it takes the level below as object; only when one turns his back on the level below is it called liberation.”

The eighth is just the absorption of cessation. Why does it obtain the name of liberation? “Because one turns his back in spurning feeling and perception and thereupon arouses this, or because one turns his back in spurning all that has an object at all”; and another account is “because it liberates from the obstruction to absorption.” The mind before entering it is called “exceedingly subtle” — “the mind that formerly counteracted perception is already called subtle, and this one is more subtle still, and so it is called exceedingly subtle.” In emerging, “one either arouses the pure mind of absorption of the summit of existence, or is able to arouse the mind without outflows of the sphere of nothingness”; the mind of entering is with outflows alone, while emerging extends to both with and without outflows.

The objects taken: the first three take the sphere of visible form of the desire realm alone as object, “the object of two being repugnant and of one lovely”; the next four take each of them the truths of suffering, origin, and cessation of their own and the upper levels, the path of the class of inference of all levels, and cessation independent of discernment and space, as their objects.

The treatise also answers two questions of “why is it not so.” Why has the third meditative absorption no liberation? “Because within the third absorption there is no greed for visible color, and because one is disturbed by the excellent pleasure of one’s own level.” Why are the third and the eighth alone said to be “realized with the body”? “Because among the eight these two are the most excellent, and because within the two realms each of them stands at the border” — one at the border of the form realm and one at the border of the formless.

For what is the pure liberation cultivated — the treatise answers very considerately: “for the sake of making the mind for a while glad. The foregoing contemplation of the impure makes the mind sunken and sad; now one cultivates the contemplation of the pure, to rouse and set it going so that it be glad.” And there is also a purpose of checking: “for the sake of knowing examiningly one’s own capability” — only if, contemplating the pure mark, the afflictions do not arise, is the impure liberation cultivated before to be reckoned accomplished.

The easy error: to take the eight liberations for eight stages of fruition. They are a training in turning the back and casting away, and the treatise says expressly that the two conditions for cultivating them are “in order that the several afflictions already cut off be yet further removed” and “in order to obtain excellent mastery over absorption.”

〔2.3〕The Eight Bases of Mastery

The register of the eight bases of mastery overlaps to a high degree with the eight liberations — the first two as the first liberation, the next two as the second, the latter four as the third. And so the treatise sets up the question itself: “if that is so, what difference is there between the eight bases of mastery and the three liberations?”

The answer is the most finely wrought sentence of contrast in the chapter: “in the foregoing cultivating of the liberations one can only cast away and turn from; in the latter cultivating of the bases of mastery one can master what is taken as object, contemplating as one pleases, and the afflictions in the end do not arise.” Liberation can only turn away and not look; a base of mastery can face it and hold it down — one contemplates as one pleases and the afflictions never arise.

The easy error: to read the “mastery” of “base of mastery” as height of state. It refers to the power of governance over what is taken as object — the same livid corpse, the same pure visible form; at the stage of liberation one dodges, at the stage of mastery one can look at it with sovereign ease.

〔2.4〕The Ten Totalities

The totalities are ten — earth, water, fire, wind, blue, yellow, red, white, with the addition of the sphere of boundless space and the sphere of boundless consciousness. The origin of the name is that “in every place one contemplates universally with no gap at all, and so they are called totalities.”

The first eight are “as the pure liberation”: their own nature is in every case non-greed; together with their accompaniments they have the five aggregates for nature; they rest upon the fourth meditative absorption; and they take as object the visible form of the desire realm. Here the treatise records a divergent account: “other masters say: only the totality of wind takes as its object the wind element among the tangibles” — because wind is not a visible form, this party singles it out. The latter two have “in that same order the two purified formless absorptions of space and consciousness for their own nature, and take as object the four aggregates of their own level.”

At the end of the passage the treatise gives the order of the three gates of merit: “from the several liberations one goes into the several bases of mastery, and from the several bases of mastery into the several totalities, because each latter arises as more excellent than each former.”

In practice: read the three gates together and they are one line — turning away, holding down, filling everywhere. From dodging, to being able to face, to being able to spread over every place. This is where the chapter strings the scattered merits into an order.

〔2.5〕By What the Three Gates of Merit Are Obtained · Upon What Body They Arise

How obtained: the eighth liberation is as already adjudicated (namely the absorption of cessation); the rest “extend to two ways of obtaining, namely obtaining by leaving defilement and obtaining by preparatory practice, because there are those that have been practiced before and those that have not.” What has been cultivated before is obtained of itself upon leaving defilement; what has not must rely upon preparatory practice.

The body relied upon: “the four formless liberations and the two formless totalities arise, each of them, in dependence upon a body of any of the three realms; the rest can be aroused by men alone.” And there is an addition: “by the force of the teaching, both ordinary beings and noble ones are able to make them present” — these merits are not the noble ones’ alone; an ordinary being too can arouse them in dependence upon the teaching.

The easy error: to take the “two ways of obtaining” for two parallel roads. They are two ways of obtaining one and the same merit in two kinds of person, and the line falls at whether it was cultivated before this life.

〔2.6〕By What Condition Those Born in the Two Upper Realms Arouse Absorption

The last gate asks about the condition for arousing absorption. The treatise gives three conditions: the force of cause (“having drawn near and repeatedly cultivated them in former times, this serves as the cause of their arising”); the force of action (having formerly done an action to be experienced in a later life that draws down birth in an upper level, the maturation being about to arise, its force draws forth the absorption); the force of the nature of things (“when the receptacle world is about to be dissolved, sentient beings of the levels below by the nature of things are able to arouse the meditative absorptions of the upper levels,” because at that time all wholesome dharmas increase by the force of the nature of things).

The assignment of the three conditions is very exactly made: those born in the two upper realms who arouse the formless absorptions do so “by the force of cause and the force of action, and not by the force of the nature of things,” the reason being that “the Anabhraka Heaven and the rest are not destroyed by the three catastrophes” — the force of the nature of things is a matter of the three catastrophes and the aeon of dissolution, and where they cannot reach it is of no use. Where one born in the form realm arouses meditative absorption, all three conditions are present. As for one born in the desire realm arousing an absorption of an upper level, “it should be known that in every case it is by the force of the teaching.”

In practice: this gate takes apart “why does someone suddenly become able to enter absorption?” into three sources that differ from one another — cultivated for, brought along by action, forced out by the season. The three may not be run together, nor may one of them be used to explain another.

III. The Abiding of the True Dharma in the World

〔3.1〕What the True Dharma Is · How Long It Abides

First ask: eight whole chapters of dharma-gates have been expounded — for what? The author gathers it up himself: “the various dharma-gates analyzed above are all for the sake of spreading and upholding the true Dharma of the World-Honored One.” And then he raises two questions — “what is called the true Dharma? And how long should it abide?”

The answer to the first question is a twofold division: “the entity of the true Dharma of the World-Honored One is of two kinds, first teaching and second realization. Teaching is the sūtras, the discipline, and the Abhidharma; realization is the factors of awakening of the three vehicles.” Teaching is the three baskets; realization is the factors of awakening of the three vehicles.

The answer to the second question is not a length of time but a condition: “as there are those able to uphold and rightly to expound it, the true teaching-Dharma of the Buddha abides in the world; as there are those able rightly to practice according to the teaching, the true realization-Dharma of the Buddha abides in the world. Hence, according to the measure of time that these three persons abide in the world, one may know the measure of time that the true Dharma abides.” How long the true Dharma abides hangs not upon a number of years but upon whether those three kinds of person are still there — those able to uphold, able to expound rightly, and able to practice according to the teaching.

As for the number of years, the treatise merely sets down the old account and marks it as a divergent one: “the general saying of the holy teaching is that it abides one thousand years alone; another explanation says that the realization-Dharma abides one thousand years alone, while the time the teaching-Dharma abides exceeds even this.” Puguang here marks it expressly, “setting out a divergent account”; and Fabao adds a further layer of the reason of order — “it is through the teaching that realization is obtained, and so the teaching-Dharma is explained first.”

The easy error: to read the thousand years as a term prophesied. The weight of the treatise plainly lies on the sentence before it — the account by condition. The number of years is a divergent account cited from elsewhere; the condition is the author’s answer.

In practice: this passage moves the reader from “will the Dharma perish?” to “am I among those three kinds of person?” Upholding, expounding, practicing — with any one of them, the true Dharma abides a portion longer.

IV. The Purport of the Treatise’s Composition

〔4.1〕Whom I Follow in Speaking · Who Is Qualified to Adjudicate the Dharma

First ask: this treatise being composed as gathering in the Abhidharma, by what principle then is the Abhidharma explained? The first closing stanza answers: “the principle argued in Kaśmīra is established; I mostly follow them in explaining the Abhidharma; if there is any small disparagement, that is my fault; the right principle for adjudicating the dharma rests in the Sage.”

The prose unfolds it sentence by sentence: “the principle of the Abhidharma argued by the Vaibhāṣika masters of the country of Kaśmīra is well established, and I mostly follow them in explaining the tenets of the Abhidharma; if there is any small disparagement, that is my own fault. Those able to adjudicate the right principle of the dharma are the World-Honored One alone, together with the great noble disciples of the Tathāgatas.”

These four sentences are to be read one by one. The first is affiliation — what I follow is the doctrine already established by the Kaśmīra line. The second is measure — the two words “mostly follow” leave room, and it is not a following in all things. The third is owning the fault first — wherever there is disparagement, the fault is mine and not theirs. The fourth is rendering honor — those really qualified to settle the right principle of the dharma are the World-Honored One and the great noble disciples alone.

The easy error: to read the third sentence as a courtesy. It is the composer’s placing of himself: the author knows full well that there are places in his book divergent from the Vaibhāṣikas, and yet he does not put those places as “I am right and they are wrong” but as “if there is any disparagement, that is my fault.” The line between adjudicating and not adjudicating is drawn at “the Sage.”

In practice: this stanza is the declaration of form for the whole book and the key to reading this treatise — wherever in the treatise one meets two accounts recorded together and not adjudicated, look back at this sentence and it is plain: not to adjudicate is not vagueness; it is deliberately leaving the seat of adjudication to the World-Honored One.

〔4.2〕The World-Eye of the Great Master Has Long Since Closed — Three Stanzas of Lament and One Sentence of Exhortation

In the last three stanzas in seven-character lines the author no longer discusses the dharma and speaks only of the state of the world.

The first speaks of the decline of the teaching-Dharma: “the world-eye of the great Master has long since closed, and those fit to bear witness are for the most part scattered and gone; the true principle is not seen and there is none to check it, and by mean speculation the holy teaching is thrown into confusion.” The ancient masters assign it sentence by sentence here: Puguang marks what follows as “the lament and the exhortation to study,” divided into “lamenting the persons” and “exhorting to the dharma,” and explains the first two lines as “the upper line laments the Tathāgata, the lower line laments the disciples,” glossing further, “the great Master of the three realms is the eye of the world.” Fabao explains the three graphs “has long since closed” with a date — “it is toward a thousand years since the great Master’s nirvāṇa, and so it says long closed.” Read the four lines together and they are one chain of cause and effect: the eye closes → those who realize are scattered → none can adjudicate → mean speculation throws the holy teaching into confusion.

The second speaks of the decline of the realization-Dharma: “he who awakened by himself has returned to the excellent stillness, and those who upheld that teaching have for the most part perished after him; the world is without refuge and has lost the several virtues, and with no hook to check delusion, delusion turns at its own will.” The figure “no hook to check delusion” is exceedingly weighty — the afflictions are like a maddened elephant, which there was from the outset a hook to check, and now the hook is gone.

The third is the exhortation to study: “since you know that the lifespan of the Tathāgata’s true Dharma is sinking away by degrees and is now as though it had reached the throat, and since this is the very time when the force of these afflictions increases, you should seek liberation and not be heedless.” The three graphs “as though it had reached the throat” are the last comparison of the whole treatise — life is in the gullet, and only one breath is left.

Only when these three are read together with the one before does the intent of the whole treatise’s closing appear. The one before says “the right principle for adjudicating the dharma rests in the Sage”; these three say that the Sage has passed away and those fit to bear witness are scattered. Put together they are a sentence never said outright: the one who could adjudicate is no longer here, and so you should all the more go and practice yourself, rather than wait for an adjudicator to appear. The last line, “one should seek liberation and not be heedless,” is not a formula of exhortation; it is the conclusion of this whole stretch of reasoning.

The easy error: to read these four stanzas as a piece of feeling appended at the end of the book. They are formal passages with outlines to rest upon — the ancient masters uniformly outline them as the two sections “the purport of the treatise’s composition” and “the lament and the exhortation to study,” a part of the structure of the whole treatise and not an appendix.

In practice: reading the dharma-numbers of thirty fascicles this far, the author with his own hand pushes the reader out of the book — the dharma-gates have been analyzed to the end, the true Dharma is sinking away, and the force of the afflictions is increasing; what is to be done at this very moment is not to read it once more but to go and seek liberation.

Further Resonances: A Mirror of Three Commentaries

What is recorded below is the adjudication and the divergences of the ancient masters, of the earlier translation, and of the two treatises of the disputation, upon this chapter. Recorded together without adjudication.

1. The Three Commentaries Each Divide the Chapter Differently at the Chapter Level

The four boundaries the three of them mark are entirely the same (the absorptions relied upon, the merits that rely upon them, the abiding of the true Dharma in the world, the purport of the treatise’s composition), and yet the number of their divisions differs. Puguang and Yuanhui both make a threefold division at the chapter level — the merits of absorption, the abiding of the true Dharma, the purport of the composition — and open the merits of absorption below into the two of relied upon and relying. Fabao at the head of the chapter says himself that it is twofold — “the main text of this chapter has two: first the absorption upon which the virtues rely, second the merits of the remaining kinds” — yet the outline numbers of his own text run all the way to a fourth (second, the merits relying on absorption; third, the time the Dharma abides; fourth, the purport of the treatise). One and the same commentator using two divisions, recorded without adjudication.

The widest gap in the subdivision beneath the eight attainments: Puguang and Yuanhui make only the twofold division of general and separate explanation, while Fabao alone opens twelve — the difference of the three, pure and the rest; how many factors each possesses; the unmoving; how many feelings; the borrowing of consciousness; the two ways of obtaining; mutual production; the body relied upon; the object taken; cutting off the afflictions; the preliminary stages; and the intermediate absorption. The order of gates used in the main text above fits this line of Fabao’s most closely.

2. Why Pliancy and the Equanimity That Is a Formation Are Each Assigned to Two Levels — the Two Commentaries Rest upon Different Reasons

To one and the same question the two commentaries give different reasons. Puguang answers by adducing the Mahāvibhāṣā, taking strength of function and what is counteracted — “in the first and second, pliancy is strong in function, and by its nature lifting up, it counteracts torpor; in the third and fourth, the equanimity that is a formation is strong in function, and being sunken and still, it counteracts restlessness” — with the addition, “in order to counteract the five consciousnesses and the coarse heaviness of the body they draw forth, pliancy is established in the first absorption.” Yuanhui sets up his own question and answer, taking the object of the relinquishing — “the third absorption relinquishes the utmost joy and the fourth the utmost pleasure, and so the equanimity that is a formation is established; and since the first two do not establish it, pliancy is established.”

In the same place Yuanhui also sets up two questions in a row, supplying two reasons the prose of this treatise does not reach: that confidence extends to all levels and yet is established as a factor only in the second meditative absorption is because “the arising of a dominant pure confidence must depend upon a great joy, and the second meditative absorption has an excellent joy”; and that discernment extends to all levels and yet only in the third absorption is discernment established as a factor is because there is there a feeling of pleasure and it is feared one may cling to it. The two commentaries each make a line of their own, recorded together without adjudication.

3. The Sūtra Says Four Calamities and the Treatise Says Eight — Puguang’s Two Reconciliations

This treatise says the calamities are eight, while the sūtra says only the four of “not moved by applied thought, sustained thought, joy, and pleasure.” Puguang gives two explanations: one is the implied sense — “yet in the sūtra it is said with an implied sense: the fourth meditative absorption is not moved by applied thought, sustained thought, joy, and pleasure. It is said only with regard to the factors and does not speak of what is not a factor” (the sūtra speaks only of the factors, and in-breath and out-breath are not factors and so are not listed); the other is “the sūtra does not state the principle exhaustively; the treatise states it exhaustively. Thus.” Yuanhui sets up no reconciliation and simply lists the eight names — “namely applied thought, sustained thought, grief, suffering, joy, pleasure, out-breath, and in-breath” — thereby making good that “the four feelings” of the stanza are grief, suffering, joy, and pleasure. The presence or absence of a reconciliation differs in the two, and it is recorded only, without adjudication.

4. The Number of Classes in Cultivating Loving-Kindness — Puguang Records a Finer Division Alongside

This treatise says that in cultivating loving-kindness there are seven classes (three of the dear, one in between, three of the hostile). Puguang here records alongside the division of another line: “if one follows the Correct Principle, in cultivating each of the four immeasurables there are nine classes, the middle being opened into three besides.” Yuanhui does not alter the number of classes but supplies the measure for the three classes of the hostile — “the middle hostile is one who takes away one’s own life or the goods on which it depends; the low hostile is one who takes away the life of a friend or the goods on which it depends” — which the prose of this treatise does not give. The seven classes and the nine are recorded together, without adjudication.

5. Beneath the Three Gates of Liberation, Puguang Has a Further Table

The treatise says that the portion of the three concentrations which is without outflows is called the three gates of liberation. Besides the gloss on the name Puguang brings out a further table, fixing one by one what each takes as object — “if emptiness is with outflows it takes all dharmas as object; if emptiness is without outflows it takes the truth of suffering alone as object. Wishlessness can take as object the truths of suffering, origin, and path. Signlessness takes the truth of cessation alone for its object” — with the addition of a sentence of position, “dharmas with outflows are not true gates of liberation, since standing by nature within the world they run counter to liberation.” Yuanhui in the same place stops at the gloss on the name. A difference of fullness, recorded only, without adjudication.

6. The Assignment of the Four Closing Stanzas — Fabao Alone Makes a Line of His Own

The outlines of Puguang and Yuanhui are nearly word for word the same, both making the twofold division “lamenting the persons, exhorting to the dharma,” and opening it further into “properly lamenting the persons, restating the lament.” Fabao makes a line of his own, reading it as an assignment of three stanzas — “below there are three stanzas, the third of the main text, exhorting to study, the section of dissemination” — and assigning them one by one, “the first stanza laments the teaching-Dharma, the next laments the realization-Dharma, the third exhorts to seek the realization-Dharma”; and he brings out besides one sentence dating it, “at the time the author composed the treatise, within nine hundred years after the Buddha’s nirvāṇa, both the teaching and the realization of the true Dharma were about to perish.” Fabao also gives a concrete explanation of the three graphs “has long since closed” — “it is toward a thousand years since the great Master’s nirvāṇa, and so it says long closed.” The three are recorded together, without adjudication.

7. The Threefold Division into Preface, Main Doctrine, and Dissemination — the Ancient Masters Themselves Record Two Explanations Together

Into which of the three divisions of the whole treatise the two great passages at the end of this chapter (the abiding of the true Dharma, the purport of the composition) fall, the ancient masters have two explanations, and Puguang himself records both. The first explanation reckons the section of the main doctrine all the way to the Chapter on Refuting the Self, the section of dissemination beginning from the end of that chapter; by this explanation, “though the lament and exhortation at the end of the Chapter on Absorption stand before the main doctrine, they are also called main doctrine.” The second explanation stops the main doctrine at the Chapter on Absorption — “from the end of the Chapter on Absorption, ‘the various dharma-gates analyzed above’ onward, the whole is called dissemination” — and the Chapter on Refuting the Self, standing after the dissemination, is also called dissemination. Puguang restates the two explanations within the chapter as well, saying word for word, “if the three divisions of preface, main doctrine, and dissemination, then by the former explanation . . . and again by the former explanation . . .” Yuanhui at the same boundary adjudges the second explanation word for word — “from here, the second of the main text, the abiding of the true Dharma; if the sense be set out by three divisions, what follows is the section of dissemination.”

By the second explanation, the sentence “the various dharma-gates analyzed above” is the starting point of the section of dissemination of the whole treatise. This is a boundary far larger than the number of its characters. The two explanations stand together in the ancient transmission and Puguang himself does not adjudicate; this section records them as they stand, and the choice belongs to the translator.

8. Shentai’s Commentary Is Wholly Wanting for This Chapter

Shentai’s Commentary on the Abhidharmakośa is a fragment, and the seven fascicles extant do not include this chapter. On actual search, the four graphs “the Chapter Analyzing Absorption” and the first stanza of this chapter, “meditative absorption is of four, each of two,” both yield zero. The want is marked as it stands, and the text of other fascicles is not made to stand for it. Only the general conspectus of the whole treatise in his first fascicle still records the phrase “the Chapter on Absorption, thirty-nine lines,” which agrees with the stanza count of this treatise — but that is the text of a general table, not a passage-by-passage commentary on this chapter, and may not be made to stand for commentary.

9. The Divergences of Paramārtha’s Earlier Translation

Paramārtha’s Expository Treatise on the Treasury of Abhidharma makes a line of its own upon this chapter, and even the chapter title differs — he gives “the Chapter Analyzing Samāpatti,” a full transcription without translation of the sense, while Xuanzang renders the sense as “absorption.” To search Paramārtha’s version with Xuanzang’s chapter name will never find it. The two versions divide their fascicles differently too: this chapter in Paramārtha occupies exactly one whole fascicle and the Chapter on Refuting the Self as Spoken of begins at the head of the next, so that Paramārtha’s version has no chapter boundary in mid-fascicle; Xuanzang’s version has this chapter across two fascicles and changes chapters in mid-fascicle.

The renderings make a line of their own. One-pointedness upon a single object he gives as “of a single class”; the five aggregates as “the five skandhas”; applied and sustained thought as “awareness and observation”; without outflows as “without flow”; savoring as “relishing the savor”; the feeling of joy as “the faculty that suits the mind”; calamity as “fault”; the bases of mastery as “masteries entered”; the totalities as “totalities entered.” Even the transcriptions of absorption divide into two words — the chapter title uses “samāpatti” and the entity of absorption “samādhi,” and in one place besides he records the transcription of meditative absorption, “dhyāna.” The two words teaching and realization he gives as “the true teaching” and “the true attainment through practice,” with the transcription “adhigama” appended; and the names of the three baskets Xuanzang renders by sense (the sūtras, the discipline, the Abhidharma) while Paramārtha transcribes them (sūtra, vinaya, abhidharma).

One divergence of opening and gathering. For the reason the four immeasurables obtain their name, Xuanzang gives three counts (an immeasurable object, immeasurable merit drawn forth, an immeasurable result drawn down) and Paramārtha only two (taking immeasurable living beings as object, drawing down an immeasurable maturational result), leaving out the item “drawing forth immeasurable merit.” Recorded together without adjudication.

One place where the conclusion agrees and the fullness differs. That the pleasure of the first two meditative absorptions is pliancy and not the feeling of pleasure — on this conclusion the two versions agree, and Paramārtha gives, “in the first and second absorptions, pliancy is called pleasure.” But Xuanzang’s version records a long exchange below it, and Paramārtha’s opening and gathering differ from it; the passage-by-passage correspondence has not yet been collated in detail, and the fact is recorded as it stands.

The place that matters most is a divergence of attachment. The four closing stanzas in seven-character lines at the end of this chapter are attached to the end of the Chapter on Absorption by Xuanzang’s version, by the separate edition of the root stanzas, by Puguang, and by Yuanhui; Paramārtha’s version, however, places “the world-eye of the great Master has closed . . . seek release and be not heedless” at the head of the fascicle of the Chapter on Refuting the Self as Spoken of. One and the same set of stanzas, and the two versions attach it to different chapters. This collection has already adjudged to follow the three commentaries (attaching it to the end of the Chapter on Absorption), and the divergent attachment is recorded together without adjudication.

10. Saṅghabhadra’s Refutations in His Two Treatises

Saṅghabhadra’s two treatises use the stanzas of this treatise and compose a separate prose exposition, and so they too have a “Chapter Adjudicating Absorption.” In the chapter numbers of the two treatises there is one difference: the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle gives “the Chapter Adjudicating Absorption, the eighth,” the same as this treatise; the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine gives “the Chapter Adjudicating Absorption, the ninth,” the chapter number moved back by one — this is the form of the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine throughout (its Chapter on Knowledge is likewise the eighth where this treatise has the seventh), and is not peculiar to this chapter. The opening prose of the chapter in the two treatises is word for word the same.

Within the range of this chapter the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle speaks of “the Sūtra-master” (that is, the author of this treatise) in four places. The first is the question and answer he sets up for himself upon one-pointedness upon a single object — “here the Sūtra-master raises a question and answer of his own: what is called one-pointedness upon a single object? It is being intent upon a single object”; the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine has a word-for-word counterpart. The second is the factor of pleasure — “the Sūtra-master here adduces another’s account for the sake of argument, namely that there is decidedly no mental faculty of pleasure; the factor of pleasure spoken of in the three meditative absorptions” — Saṅghabhadra marking the party the author had adduced as “another’s account adduced for the sake of argument.” The third is the place where his refutation is most explicit — “the bodily feeling of pleasure. Hence it is known that pleasure is not just pliancy; the refutation of this is as before with what the Sūtra-master adduced. Yet what he says, that if it were pliancy in entity it should be called by the name pliancy, this account is contrary to principle” — where Saṅghabhadra says outright “contrary to principle.” The fourth is a statement of background — “the Sūtra-master here sets out his own original intent” — citing the very ground of composition stated in the first closing stanza.

In the second, third, and fourth places no counterpart is found in the Treatise Revealing the Doctrine — it is an abridgment of the Treatise Conforming to Correct Principle, far briefer in extent, and such abridgment is the constant of its form; it is recorded as a zero result as it stands, and the text of other places is not made to stand for it.

There is one further fact of form: neither treatise takes in the four closing stanzas in seven-character lines at the end of this chapter (the four graphs “the great Master’s world-eye” yield zero in both). Those four are the author’s own statement of purport and his lament, and a separately composed treatise of course does not take them. Recorded as it stands, without adjudication.

In every place above where two parties stand opposed, the two parties are recorded only and which prevails is not adjudicated. What Saṅghabhadra establishes and on what principle, what the author establishes and on what principle, this section has done its best to make clear; as to which is right and which wrong, that is not in this section, and not in this piece.