雜阿含經 義疏通講 · 冊2Saṃyukta Āgama · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 2

The twenty-one discourses of this fascicle open the Connected Discourses on Dependent Arising, Nutriment, the Truths, and the Elements, and the whole fascicle speaks of dependent arising alone. It speaks in several ways. The first four discourses use similes to speak of arising and cessation. Discourses 285 to 287 are the World-Honored One’s own account: “I recall that long ago, before I had attained right awakening, dwelling alone in a quiet place, I gave myself wholly to meditative thought,” and he tells how, before his awakening, he traced the twelve links backward. Discourse 288 is Śāriputra asking and Mahākauṣṭhila answering, with the World-Honored One not present. The discourses in the middle are the World-Honored One addressing the bhikṣus, teaching how to regard consciousness and how to reflect and examine. In the last group, 299 to 303, a certain bhikṣu, a brāhmaṇa, Kātyāyana, Acela Kāśyapa, and Dianmouliu come to ask, and the World-Honored One answers with “when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.”

In this fascicle there is one sentence in which the World-Honored One himself gives the way to read it: “I have found the path of the ancient sages, the ancient sages’ trail, the ancient sages’ track; the ancient sages went by this track, and now I follow after them.” Dependent arising was not made by the World-Honored One: “The Dharma of dependent arising is not made by me, nor made by anyone else.” It is an old road. The World-Honored One walked onto this road and then came back to tell people. From beginning to end, this fascicle is the road he walked and how he told people of it.

I. Planting a Tree, a Lamp, a Mass of Fire (Discourses 283 to 286)

The first four discourses share one pattern: first arising, then cessation, each with a simile. Discourse 283 says: “If toward things bound by the bonds delight, longing, and binding of the mind arise, then craving arises; with craving as condition there is clinging, with clinging as condition existence, with existence as condition birth, with birth as condition old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, distress, and suffering.” The simile is planting a tree: “At first it is small and weak; one tends it and keeps it safe, banks it with dung and earth, waters it in season, keeps it from cold and heat; and with these as causes and conditions the tree afterward grows great.” Delight, longing, and binding of the mind are the dung and the watering. The other way round, “following the contemplation of impermanence, abiding in the contemplation of arising and passing away, of dispassion, of cessation, of letting go, longing does not arise and the mind is not bound, and so craving ceases,” like a tree no longer tended; further, the tree is “cut at the root, its branches lopped, chopped into pieces, split part by part, left to the wind and scorched by the sun, and burned with fire.” Discourse 284 changes one term, “things clung to,” and the chain begins from name and form: “the mind races, chasing after name and form; with name and form as condition the six sense bases, with the six sense bases as condition contact, with contact as condition feeling, with feeling as condition craving.” The tree becomes a great tree, “its roots below deep and firm, banked with dung and earth and watered, so that the tree stands firm and does not decay for an age.”

Discourse 285 is the World-Honored One’s own account. From “what exists so that birth exists? What is the condition for birth?” he traces back to clinging and to craving. At craving he stops, because craving is where work can be done: “toward things clung to delight, longing, and binding of the mind arise, and the desire of craving grows; because that craving exists, clinging exists.” The simile becomes a lamp: “It is like a lamp that burns in dependence on oil and wick; if one keeps adding oil and wick, will that lamp’s light long endure?” And: “If one does not add oil or trim the wick, will not the lamp’s light in future fail to arise, be exhausted, and go out?” Discourse 286 states only the difference, and its simile is a mass of fire: “carrying ten bundles of firewood, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand bundles, heaping them up and setting them ablaze to make a great mass of fire”; “if that mass of fire blazes and one does not add fuel or grass,” the fire goes out.

The four similes say one thing: suffering does not come all at once; it is being fed all the time. What feeds it? Delight, longing, binding of the mind. The tree is grown, the lamp is replenished, the fire is fed with wood. So cessation is first not feeding, not replenishing, not adding; and after not feeding, the discourse goes on to cutting the root, lopping the branches, burning. The craving that feeds must be cut. These four discourses stand at the head of the fascicle and point out first where the whole fascicle’s work is done: at craving.

II. Turning Back at Consciousness (Discourses 287 and 288)

Discourse 287 is the full version of the World-Honored One’s own account. From old age and death he traces back: “because birth exists, old age and death exist; with birth as condition, old age and death exist. So too existence, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense bases, name and form,” until he reaches name and form and asks where name and form come from: “because consciousness exists, name and form exist; with consciousness as condition, name and form exist.” Beyond this he cannot go: “As I was thinking this, I turned back at consciousness and could not go beyond it: with consciousness as condition, name and form; with name and form as condition, the six sense bases.” Consciousness conditions name and form, name and form condition consciousness; here he turns around. Then he traces arising forward once and cessation backward once, down to “when ignorance is absent, formations are absent; when ignorance ceases, formations cease.”

Then comes the path of the ancient sages. “It is as if a man wandering in the wilderness, pushing through the wild in search of a road, suddenly came upon an old road, a place where men of old had walked; he follows it, going gradually forward, and sees an old city, an old royal palace, gardens and bathing pools, clean groves of trees.” He goes and tells the king, and the king goes to dwell there, “prosperous and at ease, its people thriving.” The World-Honored One explains: the path of the ancient sages is the eightfold noble path; “by that path I saw old age, sickness, and death; the arising of old age, sickness, and death; the cessation of old age, sickness, and death; the way to the cessation of old age, sickness, and death.” Link by link he sees the four truths; “in this Dharma I knew for myself and awakened for myself, attaining full right awakening,” and then taught it to the four assemblies.

Discourse 288 is Śāriputra asking Mahākauṣṭhila; through the whole discourse the World-Honored One is absent. Śāriputra asks whether old age and death are “made by oneself? made by another? made by both self and another? made neither by self nor by another, without cause?” Kauṣṭhila answers with the four negations: “yet with birth as condition there are old age and death.” Link by link the questions come down to name and form and to consciousness. Name and form with consciousness as condition, consciousness with name and form as condition: Śāriputra seizes on this and asks: you said before that name and form arise with consciousness as condition, “and now you say name and form are the condition for consciousness; what is the meaning of this?” Kauṣṭhila answers with the three reeds: “It is like three reeds standing on open ground, leaning on one another and so held upright; take one away and the other two do not stand; take two away and the one does not stand.” Consciousness with name and form as condition is like this: “leaning on one another, they grow.”

The “turning back at consciousness” of 287 and the three reeds of 288 arrive at the same place. The World-Honored One, contemplating how future suffering arises from present arising, traces back to consciousness and turns around; Kauṣṭhila says consciousness and name and form are each other’s condition, and to trace further is to turn back. Kauṣṭhila explains with the three reeds: remove one and the other two fall. From here on in this fascicle, consciousness is no longer one link in a chain; it is something that stands only by leaning on name and form. Discourses 289 and 290, which speak of consciousness, go on from here.

III. Better to Bind to the Body than to Consciousness (Discourses 289 and 290)

Discourses 289 and 290 are a pair. “The foolish, unlearned ordinary person is repelled by the body of the four great elements, grows dispassionate toward it, and turns away from it, but not from consciousness.” Why? The body of the four great elements “increases and decreases, is taken up and let go”; it can be seen. Mind, mentation, and consciousness cannot be seen; “through the long night he cherishes them and binds them to a self; whether obtaining or grasping, he says, ‘This is me, this is mine, this is in that.’” The World-Honored One says: “The foolish, unlearned ordinary person would do better to bind self and what belongs to self to the body of the four great elements than to bind self and what belongs to self to consciousness.” The body of the four great elements may yet last ten years, a hundred years; “that mind, mentation, and consciousness changes day and night, hour by hour, moment by moment, arising as one thing and ceasing as another, like a monkey roaming among the forest trees, moment by moment from place to place, catching hold of branches, letting go of one and grasping another.”

How does the learned noble disciple regard consciousness? He regards contact and feeling: “with pleasant contact as condition a pleasant feeling arises; when the pleasant feeling is felt, he knows as it really is that a pleasant feeling is felt; when that pleasant contact ceases, the feeling arisen with pleasant contact as its cause and condition also ceases, is stilled, cooled, quieted, and gone.” Discourse 290 adds a simile: “It is like two sticks rubbed together, which in their meeting give rise to fire; if the two sticks are parted, the fire too goes out.” Feeling is the fire rubbed out of contact; when contact disperses the fire is gone.

Better to bind to the body than to consciousness is said the wrong way round on purpose. To be repelled by the body is easy; to be repelled by consciousness is hard, because consciousness seems to be always there. The World-Honored One’s method is not to look at consciousness directly but to look at contact giving rise to feeling and contact ceasing with feeling ceasing, and from feeling to see the arising and ceasing of consciousness. This is the use of the three reeds of the previous section: consciousness stands by leaning on name and form; on the side of name and form are contact and feeling; begin from that side, and consciousness becomes visible.

IV. The Inner Way of Contact; Reflecting and Examining (Discourses 291 and 292)

In Discourse 291 the World-Honored One asks: “I speak of the inner way of contact; have you taken it up?” One bhikṣu says he has, and “before the Buddha he declared it of himself in such and such a way. Thus and thus the World-Honored One was displeased.” Ānanda asks, and only then does the World-Honored One speak. The inner way of contact is taken up like this: “When the various sufferings that beings have arise, what is the cause of this suffering, what its arising, what its origin, what its contact?” The answer is upadhi, the acquisitions. Where does upadhi come from? From craving. Where does craving come from? “Toward the fair forms the world thinks on, craving arises where they arise, binds where they bind, abides where they abide.” Toward the fair form one “regards it with the notion of permanence, of lastingness, of safety, of health, of self, of what belongs to self,” and craving grows, upadhi grows, suffering grows. The simile is a poisoned pool: by the roadside is a pool of cool water; someone has poisoned it; travelers come, hot and thirsty, and someone tells them, “This is a cool pool, perfect in colour, scent, and taste, but there is poison in it; do not drink.” The thirsty do not believe it; they drink, and “in a moment some die, and some come near to death.” The other way round, toward the fair form one “contemplates it as a disease, as a boil, as a thorn, as a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self,” and craving falls away, upadhi falls away, suffering falls away; the simile is the same pool, and this time he thinks: “I will bear my thirst, eat dried rice, and not take the water to drink.”

Discourse 292 is “reflecting and examining so as rightly to end suffering, to reach the end of suffering.” From suffering one asks upward: “what is the cause of these sufferings, what their arising, what their origin, what their contact?” The answer is clinging; clinging from craving, craving from feeling, feeling from contact, contact from the six sense bases, the six sense bases from name and form, name and form from consciousness, consciousness from formations, formations from ignorance. At every level the same sentence: “he knows as it really is the way to the cessation of the suffering he rides upon, and practises the Dharma that leads there; this is called a bhikṣu heading toward rightly ending suffering, toward reaching the end of suffering.” At ignorance the World-Honored One asks: “If one takes no delight in ignorance and knowledge arises, will one still, with that ignorance as condition, perform meritorious formations, demeritorious formations, or imperturbable formations?” The bhikṣu answers that one will not. The World-Honored One approves, and goes on to speak of feeling after knowledge: “what is felt as feeling bounded by the body, when it is felt as feeling bounded by the body, he knows as it really is; what is felt as feeling bounded by life, when it is felt as feeling bounded by life, he knows as it really is; when the body breaks up and life is about to end, all that is felt in these feelings ceases without remainder.” The simile is a clay pot: “It is like a strong man taking a newly fired clay pot and setting it, still hot, on the ground; in a moment it falls apart, and the heat is wholly gone.”

Discourse 291 asks only as far as craving; 292 asks as far as ignorance. The two are one kind of questioning: what cause, what arising, what origin, what contact. This is the “inner way of contact”: not one teaching but one way of asking, level by level upward, until the answer is a place where one can act oneself. The bhikṣu in 291 said he had taken it up and the World-Honored One was displeased; the discourse does not say what he said, only that it was “different from what this bhikṣu said.” What the World-Honored One goes on to teach is this way of asking. The simile of the clay pot is the end of this road: knowledge has arisen, the body is still here, feeling is still here, only the heat has gone, and when the body breaks up all of it disperses together.

V. Profound (Discourse 293)

In Discourse 293 the World-Honored One says: “I have crossed over doubt, left perplexity behind, pulled out the thorn of wrong view, and do not fall back. Because my mind clings to nothing, where is there an ‘I’ to teach the Dharma to that bhikṣu?” What he teaches is “the Dharma of the noble ones, beyond the world, that accords with emptiness and follows dependent arising.” But the hearer “still has doubt and perplexity; before, he had the notion of having obtained what he had not obtained, of having gained what he had not gained, of having realized what he had not realized; now, having heard the Dharma, grief and suffering, remorse, confusion, and obstruction arise in his mind.” Why? “This profound matter, namely dependent arising; and doubly profound and hard to see, namely the leaving behind of all clinging, the ending of craving, dispassion, quiescence, nirvāṇa.” Two dharmas: “the conditioned arises, abides, changes, and ceases; the unconditioned does not arise, does not abide, does not change, does not cease.” “Because of the arising of its cause, suffering arises; because of the cessation of its cause, suffering ceases; cutting off all the pathways, ending continuation; when continuation ends, that is called the end of suffering.”

This discourse states the difficulty of the whole fascicle. Dependent arising is profound; nirvāṇa is more profound still. The notion of having obtained what one has not obtained is thinking one has already arrived; on hearing dependent arising one learns one has not, and panics. The World-Honored One’s saying that he himself has “crossed over doubt” is said against that panic: the road can be walked through. This discourse has only one hearer, a certain bhikṣu, and the World-Honored One does not tell him to do anything; he only says where the depth lies.

VI. The Fool and the Wise (Discourses 294 and 295)

Discourse 294 asks: the fool and the wise alike, “covered by ignorance and bound by the condition of craving, obtain this conscious body. Within there is this conscious body, without there is name and form; with these two as causes and conditions, contact arises.” Alike they have the six sense bases of contact; alike they feel pleasure and pain; “among those who practise the pure conduct under me, what difference is there?” The answer: for the fool “ignorance is not cut off and the condition of craving is not exhausted; when the body breaks up and life ends, he takes up a body again”; for the wise “ignorance is cut off and the condition of craving exhausted; because ignorance is cut off and the condition of craving exhausted, when the body breaks up and life ends, he does not take one up again.” The difference lies first in whether ignorance is cut off and craving exhausted in this life, and then falls on the later limit: “takes up a body again” against “does not take one up again.”

Discourse 295 says: “This body is not yours, nor is it anyone else’s. It is the six sense bases of contact, obtained as this body through former practice and wish.” The learned noble disciple contemplates dependent arising: “there are these six classes of consciousness, six classes of contact, six classes of feeling, six classes of perception, six classes of volition; because this exists, there are future birth, old age, sickness, and death”: this is the arising of the world; “because this is absent, the six classes of consciousness are absent”: this is the cessation of the world. “Knowing as it really is the arising and cessation of the world, he sees well, awakens well, enters well.”

The two discourses follow on from 289. What is the conscious body? It is obtained by being covered by ignorance and bound by the condition of craving; it is obtained through former practice and wish. It is not mine, nor anyone else’s. The fool and the wise now share one conscious body; the difference is whether it is cut off in this present life, and it shows at the later limit: taking up a body again or not. Discourse 289 says consciousness is not to be bound to a self; these two discourses say why: this conscious body comes by conditions, and when the conditions are cut off it does not come again.

VII. The Dharma of Causes and Conditions and Dependently Arisen Things (Discourses 296 and 299)

Discourse 296 distinguishes two terms: “What is the Dharma of causes and conditions? When this exists, that exists: with ignorance as condition, formations; with formations as condition, consciousness; and so on in this way until the whole great mass of suffering comes together.” “What are dependently arisen things? Ignorance, formations.” The Dharma of causes and conditions is the principle “when this exists, that exists”; dependently arisen things are ignorance, formations, consciousness, and the rest. The principle was not made by a Buddha: “Whether a Buddha arises in the world or not, this Dharma abides forever; the Dharma abides, the realm of the Dharma; the Tathāgata awakened to it himself, attained full right awakening, and teaches it to people, opening it, showing it, revealing it.” “These dharmas: the Dharma abides, the Dharma is empty, the Dharma is thus, the Dharma is so; the Dharma does not depart from thusness, the Dharma does not differ from thusness; examined, true, real, and not inverted.” Knowing these two, one “does not seek the former limit,” does not ask what I was in the past; “does not seek the later limit,” does not ask whether I will exist in the future; “is not perplexed within,” does not ask where this being comes from and where it goes. Common views are “all cut off, all known, cut off at the root like the crown of a palmyra tree, so that in future ages they become things that do not arise.”

Discourse 299 is a certain bhikṣu asking: “Is the Dharma of dependent arising made by the World-Honored One, or made by someone else?” The answer: “The Dharma of dependent arising is not made by me, nor made by anyone else; whether Tathāgatas arise in the world or not, the realm of the Dharma abides forever; the Tathāgata awakens to this Dharma himself, attains full right awakening, and for all beings analyses and teaches it, opens it and shows it.”

These two discourses and the path of the ancient sages in 287 are one and the same sentence. The road is an old road; the Buddha is one who has walked it. “The Dharma abides, the realm of the Dharma” says the road is always there; “awakens to this Dharma himself” says the Buddha walked to it himself. Discourse 296 says what use it is to know this: one does not go asking about the former and later limits. Those questions are not answered; they are cut off on this principle.

VIII. Great Emptiness; the Teaching by the Dharma and by Its Meaning (Discourses 297 and 298)

Discourse 297 is the Discourse on the Dharma of Great Emptiness. “As for old age and death conditioned by birth: if someone asks, ‘Whose is this old age and death? To whom do old age and death belong?’ and he answers, ‘I am old age and death; old age and death now belong to me; old age and death are me,’” then one who answers so says either “the life-principle is the body” or “the life-principle is one thing and the body another”; “these are one in meaning, though spoken in various ways.” Neither view does the one who practises the pure conduct hold: “toward these two extremes his mind does not follow; he heads rightly for the middle way.” What is the middle way? “The right view of the noble ones, beyond the world, as it really is and not inverted, namely: with birth as condition, old age and death.” Every link is asked in this way: who are the formations? to whom do the formations belong? The answer is always only that with ignorance as condition there are formations. When ignorance is left behind through dispassion and knowledge arises, “as for ‘whose is old age and death? to whom do old age and death belong?’, old age and death are cut off.”

Great emptiness empties the “who.” Old age and death exist; the one who grows old and dies does not. To ask to whom old age and death belong is already to stand within the two extremes, the life-principle is the body and the life-principle is other than the body. Right view says only: with birth as condition, old age and death; it does not say who. This discourse joins dependent arising and not self at one point: it does not speak of a separate not self; when dependent arising is spoken to the end, the question “who” cuts itself off.

Discourse 298 is the teaching of dependent arising by the Dharma and by its meaning. The teaching by the Dharma is one sentence: “when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises: with ignorance as condition, formations, and so on until the whole great mass of suffering comes together.” The teaching by its meaning defines each link in turn. Ignorance is “not knowing the former limit, not knowing the later limit, not knowing former and later limits; not knowing what is within, not knowing what is without, not knowing within and without; not knowing action, not knowing its result, not knowing action and result; not knowing the Buddha, not knowing the Dharma, not knowing the Saṅgha; not knowing suffering, not knowing its arising, not knowing its cessation, not knowing the way,” down to “not awakening as it really is to the six sense bases of contact.” Formations are three; consciousness six classes; name is four aggregates; form is the four great elements; the six sense bases are the six internal bases; contact six classes; feeling three; craving three; clinging four; existence three. Birth is “obtaining the aggregates, obtaining the elements, obtaining the sense bases, obtaining the life-faculty.” Old age is “white hair and bared crown, loosened skin and ripened faculties, weak limbs and bent back, drooping head and groaning, short breath and leaning forward, walking with a staff.” Death is “passing away, moving on, the breaking up of the body, the end of life, the departure of warmth, the extinction of life, the time come to lay down the aggregates.”

The teaching by the Dharma is one sentence; the teaching by its meaning is twelve items. Discourse 297 says do not ask who; 298 says what each link is. Read together: the links are real, each with its definition; the who is empty, and cannot be asked out.

IX. Undeclared, and the Middle Way (Discourses 300 to 303)

In the last four discourses four people come to ask. Discourses 300, 302, and 303 ask the same question, who makes suffering; 301 asks what right view is. In 300 a certain brāhmaṇa asks whether “it is made by oneself and experienced by oneself,” and the World-Honored One says this is undeclared; he asks whether “it is made by another and experienced by another,” and that too is undeclared. The brāhmaṇa asks why, and the World-Honored One answers: “Made by oneself and experienced by oneself falls into the view of permanence; made by another and experienced by another falls into the view of annihilation. Teaching by the meaning and teaching by the Dharma, free of these two extremes, abiding in the middle way, I teach the Dharma, namely: when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.”

In 301 Saṃdha Kātyāyana asks about right view. “The world relies on two things, existence and non-existence, touched by clinging; because it is touched by clinging, it relies either on existence or on non-existence.” “If there is no such clinging, the mind is not bound to its objects by the fetters, does not cling, does not dwell, does not reckon a self: when suffering arises, it arises; when suffering ceases, it ceases. Toward this he has no doubt and no perplexity; he knows it for himself and not through another. This is called right view.” Why? “Seeing and knowing rightly, as it really is, the arising of the world, there is no ‘the world does not exist’; seeing and knowing rightly, as it really is, the cessation of the world, there is no ‘the world exists.’” Seeing arising, one will not say non-existence; seeing cessation, one will not say existence. When this discourse was spoken, Kātyāyana, “not giving rise to the outflows, his mind liberated, became an arhat.”

Discourse 302 is Acela Kāśyapa. The World-Honored One goes into the city for alms in the morning; Kāśyapa meets him on the road and asks three times before the World-Honored One answers. Kāśyapa asks “is suffering made by oneself?”: undeclared; “is suffering made by another?”: undeclared; made by both, made without cause, all undeclared. Kāśyapa asks: then “is there now no such suffering?” The World-Honored One says: “It is not that there is no such suffering; there is this suffering.” Kāśyapa says: then please teach me, “that I may know suffering and see suffering.” The World-Honored One says: “If the feeling and the one who feels were the same, I would say suffering is made by oneself. If the one who feels and the feeling were other, that would be made by another”; neither is said: “free of all these extremes, I teach the middle; the Tathāgata teaches the Dharma: when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.” Kāśyapa, “far from dust and free of stain, attained the pure eye of the Dharma,” took refuge, and not long after he left, “he was gored to death by a cow protecting her calf; at the time of his death his faculties were clear and his complexion bright and pure.” The bhikṣus asked where he had been reborn, and the World-Honored One said: “He has seen the Dharma, known the Dharma, followed the Dharma, and does not take up the Dharma; he has already entered final nirvāṇa; you should go and make offerings to his body,” and declared of him the foremost declaration. In 303 the wanderer of another sect Dianmouliu asks whether suffering and happiness are made by oneself or by another, and the discourse is “set out in full as in the discourse of Acela Kāśyapa above.”

Discourses 300, 302, and 303 have one question: who makes suffering. The World-Honored One has one answer: undeclared, and then he teaches dependent arising. Undeclared is not a refusal to answer; it is that the question is wrongly put. To ask whether it is made by oneself requires someone who experiences to be there first: that is the view of permanence. To ask whether it is made by another breaks the one who experiences from the one who makes: that is the view of annihilation. Kāśyapa asks well: then is there no suffering? The World-Honored One says there is suffering. Suffering exists; the maker of suffering does not. This is the middle way. Kāśyapa hears it and sees the Dharma, is killed by a cow on the road, and the World-Honored One says he has already entered final nirvāṇa. This is the last story of the fascicle: a man who asked one question on the road.

X. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle may be read in three parts. The first part is walking: Discourses 283 and 284 use the tree to say how craving feeds suffering until it is great; 285 to 287 are the World-Honored One’s own account of tracing the twelve links backward before his awakening, turning back at consciousness, and walking to the path of the ancient sages; 288 is the conversation of the two venerables Śāriputra and Kauṣṭhila, using three reeds on open ground to say that consciousness and name and form lean on each other. The middle part is the World-Honored One teaching people to walk: better to bind to the body than to consciousness, the inner way of contact, reflecting and examining, the profound, the fool and the wise, this body is not yours, the Dharma of causes and conditions and dependently arisen things, the hypothetical questions and answers of the Discourse on Great Emptiness, the teaching by the Dharma and by its meaning: in 289 to 298 the World-Honored One addresses the bhikṣus throughout. The last part, 299 to 303, is others coming to ask: who made dependent arising, what is right view, who makes suffering. Every answer comes back to one sentence: when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.

Among the twenty-one discourses, the sentence “when this exists, that exists” appears in 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, and 302, seven discourses. The first fourteen discourses say what this sentence contains; the last seven say how this sentence answers questions.

Last, read “the path of the ancient sages.” Dependent arising was not made by the Buddha; it is an old road. The Buddha walked it and came back to speak of it. When he spoke, some who heard panicked, some who heard became arhats, and one who heard was killed by a cow while walking on the road, and the World-Honored One said he had already arrived. The road is always there.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics takes up dependent arising, nutriment, the truths, and the elements beginning in Fascicle 93: “Thus the gathering of the sense bases has been spoken. The gathering of dependent arising, nutriment, the truths, and the elements I shall now speak.” Its summary verse runs: “Establishing; the mass of suffering; contemplation of the truths; gathering the holy teaching; subtle knowledge; the limit of reflection; examination; overestimation; the later profundity.” These nine headings gather Discourses 283 to 293 of this fascicle in order; the second summary verse at the fascicle’s end, “difference; the conventional and the ultimate; so of itself; this one makes, and the rest; great emptiness; together with analysis; self-making last,” gathers 294 to 303 in seven headings. The order of headings follows the order of the discourses.

The heading of establishing is the general outline, and it speaks first of consciousness and name and form as each other’s condition: “Consciousness arisen as result in turn depends on name and form and continues to turn, since it turns in dependence on the eye and the other five supports. Therefore it is said: with name and form as condition, consciousness.” The heading of the mass of suffering glosses the tree of the first four discourses: “establishing the tree of future suffering in nine aspects, able to produce future existence: there are in the world those not wise who, in the present life, perform new actions, like a small tree of suffering.” What feeds the tree? “Depending on the present age, contemplating the taste of craving; depending on the past age, deeply longing in attachment; depending on the future age, fixing the mind wholly in attachment”: these are the discourse’s delight, longing, and binding of the mind, which the treatise distributes among the three times; “forever watering it with the water of greed and craving” is the discourse’s watering. The heading of contemplation of the truths glosses the lamp and the mass of fire: “the things that go with the truth of arising are like the lamp’s wick; the truth of arising itself is like the oil; the truth of suffering is likened to the lamp; persons who are not wise are likened to those who pour in oil and gather wicks.” The mass of fire is “acting at the same time in ways of no benefit to oneself and to immeasurable multitudes of others; for the kindling of the great fire of suffering for oneself and others, the taking in and hearing of wrong teachings first, and then the wrong conduct drawn forth by the wisdom of hearing, reflection, and cultivation, is like heaping up dry firewood, dry grass, and dry cow-dung.” The treatise separates the lamp from the mass of fire: the lamp burns oneself; the mass of fire burns others along with oneself. The same heading glosses the turning back at consciousness of 287: “Contemplating by what the truth of the arising of future suffering comes to be, he knows that present suffering comes to be with the consciousness arisen from former arising as its limit. Knowing that it arises from former arising, he does not go on to contemplate how this comes to be.” Consciousness is the limit; here he turns back. The path of the ancient sages the treatise gives as “I have now realized the right path of former ages, which the sages of old all walked together.”

The heading of gathering the holy teaching glosses the three reeds of 288: “with name and form as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name and form, like bundles of reeds leaning on one another and so standing. Among them, all dependently arisen things are not made by themselves, not made by another, not made by both, not arisen without cause.” Śāriputra’s words of praise for Kauṣṭhila the treatise glosses name by name: “Possessing the knowledge of the teaching, he is called clear in understanding; possessing the knowledge of realization, he is called well tamed; not through another’s condition but awakening to the Dharma himself, he is called fearless; taking nirvāṇa as his object and awakening to it as it really is, he is called one who sees the deathless.” The heading of subtle knowledge glosses 289 and 290: “The body of the four great elements abides for a long time; the mark of constancy can be found, and moment by moment it continues to turn in similar fashion, so that its impermanence is hard to find. The mark of the impermanence of consciousness is coarse and plainly found, for moment by moment its object slips away”; and yet, “though the mark of the impermanence of this consciousness is coarse and easily found in immeasurable kinds, it is still called the most extremely subtle, for its nature is hard to recognize and hard to enter.” The way to enter is the same as in the discourse: “by being able to distinguish the differences of state among the feelings arisen from contact that fall within one’s own continuum, one can enter into the impermanence of consciousness”: beginning from contact giving rise to feeling.

The heading of the limit of reflection glosses 292: “A bhikṣu skilled in the Dharma of dependent arising, by three aspects, can rightly reflect on the three limits and can rightly end suffering”; the three aspects are “the basis of suffering,” “the cause and condition of suffering,” and “the basis of the cause and condition of suffering.” The same heading also glosses the poisoned pool of 291: “with the fire of greed, hatred, and delusion and their burning torment as cause, scorching thirst arises, and so he drinks what is like a sweet drink mixed with poison, the pleasing objects of fair form, and cannot give it up, and his thirsting craving increases all the more.” The upadhi of 291 the treatise gives as “because of thirsting craving there is the future support; because of the future support there are the many sufferings”: the referents correspond but the words differ, and this is only recorded, not matched. The heading of examination glosses the clay pot: “like a potter, he takes the conscious body heated by the fire of the defilements and the steaming of the latent tendencies, the hot-fired pot, and sets it on the utterly cool shore of nirvāṇa, so that it leaves behind all the steaming heat of the defilements; and he makes the conscious body, like the clay, attain coolness in what it depends on.” The end-point of examination is: “in terms of ultimate truth, there is no one who transmigrates and no one who attains nirvāṇa; there is only this: because these dharmas arise, those dharmas are made to arise; because these dharmas cease, those dharmas are made to cease.” The heading of overestimation glosses the doubt of 293: one in training with overestimation “tells others: I have crossed over doubt and cut off the three bonds forever,” the same sentence as the discourse’s “I have crossed over doubt” with a different word; such a person, hearing the noble ones speak of “the profound deliverance from the world, the matters of conditions and dependent arising in forward and reverse order that accord with emptiness, cannot understand what is said and does not enter into it,” and “toward what he has not obtained he has the notion of having obtained it, toward what he has not guarded he has the notion of having guarded it, and so he tells others”: the discourse’s notion of having obtained what one has not obtained the treatise glosses as overestimation, and the bhikṣu of 291 who declared he had taken up the inner way of contact also falls under this heading. The heading of the later profundity glosses “dependent arising is in its nature most extremely profound, and yet there is one who can open it and make it shallow”; what is opened is “the profound dependent arising, the final nirvāṇa, and the difference in nature between the conditioned and the unconditioned that goes with the three marks: the conditioned is impermanent, the unconditioned abides forever,” which is the discourse’s two dharmas.

The heading of difference glosses 294: the difference between fool and wise lies in the two afflictions already cut off in the middle limit, and shows at the later limit: “because these two are cut off, in the future age there is no longer that body followed by consciousness; this is called the difference at the later limit.” The heading of the conventional and the ultimate glosses 295: “through skill in the ultimate, there is no such wrong grasping”; “through skill in the conventional, he leaves behind all adding of what is not real and taking away of what is real”; the discourse’s “sees well, awakens well, enters well” the treatise glosses as the sequence of the three wisdoms of hearing, reflection, and cultivation and of direct realization. The heading of so of itself glosses 296: “by the present age it is called the abiding of the Dharma; by the past age it is called the fixity of the Dharma; by the future age it is called the thusness of the Dharma”; “the Tathāgata, having fully awakened to the real nature of this transmigration, with subtle knowledge brings forth right words and by skilful means opens and shows that it is not born and not made,” which is 299’s not made by me. The heading of this one makes, and the rest, glosses 300: “that this one makes and this one experiences, that another makes and another experiences, should not be declared,” because “cause and result belong together as one, while the formations continue in sequence with earlier and later differing”; “if toward this doctrine one neither accepts nor grasps, but by the practice of the middle way rightly declares it only as cause and result, there is also no fault.” The heading of great emptiness glosses 297: “all is without self, without distinction, and is called emptiness in general, namely the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of dharmas”; “these two, gathered briefly into one, are called in that place great emptiness.” The life-principle is the body and the life-principle is other than the body the treatise glosses as the views the two emptinesses counter: “leaving far behind these two extremes of wrong view and seeing only cause and result is called the practice of the middle way.” The heading of analysis glosses 298: “first the general statement, called the beginning; afterward, on this same point, the further broad showing, called analysis”: the teaching by the Dharma is the general statement, the teaching by its meaning the analysis. The heading of self-making glosses 302 and 303: “that suffering and happiness are made by oneself cannot be posited and cannot be declared; so too made by another, made by both, made by neither and arisen without cause; know that it is likewise,” and “therefore, leaving far behind the three extremes of doctrines of bad causes that come first and the one extreme of the doctrine of no cause that comes last, awakening to the teaching of the practice of the middle way as before, and diligently cultivating right practice, one can end all suffering.” The two things on which the world relies in 301, right view, the treatise does not gloss under a heading of its own in this fascicle; this is only recorded, not matched.

Here ends the first fascicle of the Connected Discourses on Dependent Arising, Nutriment, the Truths, and the Elements. Carrying forward continues in Fascicle 14.

The twenty-two discourses of this fascicle form the second fascicle of the Connected Discourses on Dependent Arising, Nutriment, the Truths, and the Elements. Like the fascicle before it, it speaks of dependent arising, but the manner of speaking has changed. The earlier fascicle was mostly the World-Honored One’s own account and the World-Honored One addressing the bhikṣus. Here five discourses in the first half of the fascicle are conversations: wanderers of another sect question Bhūmija, Bhūmija questions Śāriputra, Ānanda reports to the Buddha, and the Buddha praises Śāriputra, “because he has timely wisdom, when someone comes to ask he can answer as the occasion requires”; Mahākauṣṭhila questions Śāriputra layer by layer; the World-Honored One questions Śāriputra with a verse and Śāriputra is silent three times; Suśīma goes forth secretly as a thief, questions the bhikṣus, questions the World-Honored One; Nārada questions Musīla, Shusheng answers in his place, Ānanda questions Nārada. The middle group, 348 to 350 and 352 to 358, is the World-Honored One addressing the bhikṣus, speaking of “when this exists, that exists,” of the dharma and its arising and cessation, of the forty-four kinds of knowledge and the seventy-seven, of the dharma of increase and decrease; set among them, 351 is a conversation among four venerable ones, Nārada, Musīla, Shusheng, and Ānanda, with the World-Honored One not present. The last group, 359 to 364, is again the World-Honored One addressing the bhikṣus, speaking of reflecting and false imagining and consciousness abiding by grasping, and of the learned bhikṣu, the bhikṣu who teaches the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma.

There is one sentence in this fascicle that is the centre of the whole: “They first know the abiding of the Dharma, then know nirvāṇa.” What Suśīma asked was this: without attaining the dhyānas, how can one declare that one knows for oneself and has realized? The World-Honored One does not answer about dhyāna; he answers about sequence: first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa. What is the abiding of the Dharma? The World-Honored One at once questions Suśīma through the twelve links forward and in reverse, Suśīma answers “so it is” to each, and the World-Honored One says, “This is called first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa.” From beginning to end this fascicle is the several ways of first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, and what kind of person one is once one has known it.

I. Suffering and Happiness Arise from Conditions (Discourse 343)

The wanderers of another sect ask Bhūmija four questions: “Are suffering and happiness made by oneself?” made by another, made by both, made by neither, without cause. To all four Bhūmija answers by citing the World-Honored One: “This is undeclared.” The wanderers ask again: then how does the ascetic Gautama say suffering and happiness arise? Bhūmija answers: “The World-Honored One says that suffering and happiness arise from conditions.” The wanderers go away displeased.

Bhūmija, afraid he has answered wrongly, goes to ask Śāriputra. Śāriputra says he answered rightly, and says why it is right: when those of other sects say suffering and happiness are made by oneself, “those too arise from a cause; to say that they do not arise from conditions, there is no such possibility”; and further, “those too arise conditioned by contact; to say that they do not arise from contact, there is no such possibility.” The four undeclared questions are not a matter of not knowing; the four questions are asked in the wrong place. They ask about a maker; what the World-Honored One answers about is the condition. Whatever one says about self-making or other-making, the present arising of suffering and happiness is feeling conditioned by contact, and this the questioner himself cannot deny.

Ānanda, listening nearby, reports to the Buddha. The Buddha says “Good” twice, praises Śāriputra, “because he has timely wisdom, when someone comes to ask he can answer as the occasion requires,” and tells how long ago, dwelling at the sages’ abode in the hills of Rājagṛha, wanderers of another sect came to ask him with the same words, and “for them I declared it with such meaning, such phrasing, such flavor, as the venerable Śāriputra has said.” At the end Ānanda gives his own understanding: “because there is birth there is old age and death, and not from any other condition,” all the way to ignorance, “when ignorance ceases, formations cease.” Four people speak in this discourse, Bhūmija, Śāriputra, Ānanda, and the World-Honored One, and they speak of one thing, from the one phrase “arise from conditions” to the twelve links. In the last three discourses of the earlier fascicle a brāhmaṇa and Kāśyapa came to ask who makes suffering and the World-Honored One answered that it is undeclared; in the first discourse of this fascicle it is the disciples who answer, and they answer as the Buddha does.

II. What Need Is There to Seek Further? (Discourse 344)

Mahākauṣṭhila asks Śāriputra: what does the learned noble disciple accomplish so as to be “called perfection of view, accomplished in straight view, accomplished in unbreakable purity in the Buddha, having come into the right Dharma, attained this right Dharma, awakened to this right Dharma”? Śāriputra answers in five layers, and at each layer Mahākauṣṭhila asks, “Is there just this, or is there more?” and Śāriputra answers, “There is,” and gives another layer. The first layer is knowing as it really is the unwholesome, the unwholesome roots, the wholesome, and the wholesome roots; the second is nutriment, with its arising, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation; the third is illness, “three illnesses: the illness of desire, the illness of existence, and the illness of ignorance”; the fourth is suffering, with its arising, cessation, and path; the fifth is old age and death down to formations, four sentences for each link, “as analysed in the earlier discourse.”

At the sixth question, “Is there only this, or is there more?” Śāriputra answers no further, and says: “Why do you keep chasing? You will never exhaust these discussions and reach their limit. If the noble disciple has cut off ignorance and knowledge has arisen, what need is there to seek further?” Of the five layers, the first is a separate matter, the four items of the wholesome and unwholesome and their roots, each known as it really is; the second to the fourth are in the pattern of the four truths, nutriment, illness, suffering, each with arising, cessation, and the path; the fifth is the eleven links from old age and death down to formations, each likewise in the pattern of the four truths, ignorance not given its own four sentences but set as the arising of formations. Questioning could go on without end, but the contemplation of what is dependently arisen stops at ignorance; ignorance cut off and knowledge arisen is the limit. The “is there more?” of this discourse may be read together with the earlier fascicle’s “turned back at consciousness”: what they point to differs, one is tracing causes to consciousness and turning back, the other is questioning to ignorance and stopping; both say that the road has a limit, and that it is not that the questions never end.

This discourse is also the first time in the fascicle that nutriment appears. The arising of nutriment is “craving for future existence, together with delight and craving, delighting in this and that,” and the arising of suffering is spoken of with the same craving for future existence, the two sentences differing by a single word. The section is named for dependent arising, nutriment, the truths, and the elements; in this discourse nutriment and the truths are spoken of together.

III. Training and the Reckoning of Dharmas (Discourse 345)

The World-Honored One takes up a verse from the Questions of Ajita in the Pārāyaṇa and puts it to Śāriputra: “Those who have reached the reckoning of dharmas, and those of the several trainings, their bearing and their conduct: explain this to me.” He asks, “What is training? What is the reckoning of dharmas?” Śāriputra is silent through three questions. The World-Honored One changes the way of asking: “The real, Śāriputra!” Śāriputra answers at once: a bhikṣu toward the real “grows weary, becomes dispassionate, and heads toward complete cessation”; it arises from the arising of nutriment, and knowing that the cessation of nutriment is the cessation of the real, “he grows weary, becomes dispassionate, and heads toward complete cessation; this is called training.” The World-Honored One asks again, and Śāriputra answers again: toward what is real one “grows weary, becomes dispassionate, and comes to complete cessation, without arousing the outflows, the mind well liberated”; “this is the dharma of reckoning.” The World-Honored One confirms: “A bhikṣu who toward the real grows weary, becomes dispassionate, and comes to complete cessation: this is called the reckoning of dharmas.”

The difference between training and the reckoning of dharmas lies in the word “heads toward”: one who still heads toward is in training; one who is liberated and no longer heads toward is the reckoning of dharmas. Afterward Śāriputra tells the bhikṣus that he could not answer the World-Honored One’s first question, and that “in a moment the World-Honored One put a question that gladdened me, and I at once understood this meaning,” and that were the World-Honored One to question him for seven nights with different phrasing and different flavor, he could answer for seven nights. A certain bhikṣu thinks this extraordinary and reports it to the Buddha, and the World-Honored One says it is not strange, “because the bhikṣu Śāriputra has entered well into the realm of the Dharma.” The realm of the Dharma here may be read together with the earlier fascicle’s “the Dharma abides, the realm of the Dharma,” that is, the place where the Dharma of dependent arising abides; the treatise, for its part, glosses the realm of the Dharma directly as the names, phrases, and syllables of all things, which is why one who has entered it well can answer in every phrasing and every flavor. Once one has entered, however the question is turned, one can answer. Of his silence at the first question Śāriputra says himself, “I could not answer the World-Honored One’s first question, and so I remained silent”; once the World-Honored One gave him “the real,” there was a place to stand.

IV. Because Three Things Are Not Cut Off (Discourse 346)

The World-Honored One speaks of three things “the world does not love, does not wish for, finds disagreeable”: old age, sickness, and death. Were there not these three things, the Tathāgata would not appear in the world; “because the world has these three things, old age, sickness, and death, which it does not love, does not wish for, and finds disagreeable, therefore the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Fully Awakened One appears in the world.” Then come ten layers of three things: because three things are not cut off one cannot be free of old age, sickness, and death, namely greed, hatred, and delusion; because three things are not cut off one cannot be free of greed, hatred, and delusion, namely the view of the body, clinging to precepts, and doubt; and upward through wrong reflection, frequenting the wrong path, and a slack mind; loss of mindfulness, lack of clear knowing, and a scattered mind; restlessness, unrestraint, and not training in the precepts; lack of faith, being hard to instruct, and slackness; no wish to see the noble ones, no wish to hear the Dharma, and always seeking others’ faults; disrespect, harsh speech, and keeping bad friends; shamelessness, lack of scruple, and heedlessness.

These ten layers are told once in reverse and once forward. In reverse, beginning from shamelessness and lack of scruple, “because of shamelessness and lack of scruple there is heedlessness, because of heedlessness there is disrespect,” step by step to “because one is not free of greed, hatred, and delusion one cannot be free of old age, sickness, and death”; forward, beginning from shame and scruple, “because of shame and scruple there is heedfulness, because of heedfulness there is respect, gentle speech, and keeping good friends,” down to “because one is free of greed, hatred, and delusion one can cut off old age, sickness, and death.” This discourse does not use the names of the twelve links, but it has the same shape: when this exists, that exists; when this does not exist, that does not exist. The root of old age, sickness, and death comes to rest, in the end, on shame and scruple. Dependent arising is not only the twelve links; whatever is such that when this exists that exists, is dependent arising.

V. First Knowing the Abiding of the Dharma, Then Knowing Nirvāṇa (Discourse 347)

Because their offerings had been cut off, the followers of other sects send Suśīma to the World-Honored One’s community “to go secretly to the ascetic Gautama’s community and go forth, hear his Dharma, and come back and expound it widely.” The World-Honored One knows what is in his mind and still tells the bhikṣus to admit him. After half a month a bhikṣu says to him, “We have ended birth and death, pure conduct is established, what was to be done is done, we know for ourselves that there is no further existence.” Suśīma asks: the first dhyāna? the second? the third? the fourth? the peaceful liberations, the form and the formless, realized with the body? To each the bhikṣus answer, “No, Suśīma.” Suśīma says: you have not attained the dhyānas and yet you declare this; what you say is inconsistent. A bhikṣu answers: “I am one liberated by wisdom.”

Suśīma brings this to the Buddha. The Buddha answers: “They first know the abiding of the Dharma, then know nirvāṇa.” Suśīma says he does not understand. The Buddha says: “Whether you understand or not is not the question; for yourself, first know the abiding of the Dharma, then know nirvāṇa.” Suśīma asks for teaching, “so that I may come to know the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma, come to see the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma.” The World-Honored One asks: “Because there is birth there is old age and death; apart from birth there is no old age and death, is that so?” Suśīma answers that it is so; forward to ignorance, and in reverse, “because there is no birth there is no old age and death; apart from the ceasing of birth there is no ceasing of old age and death, is that so?” down to “because there is no ignorance there are no formations; apart from the ceasing of ignorance there is no ceasing of formations.” The World-Honored One asks: knowing and seeing thus, does one have the attainment free of desire and of unwholesome things, down to realization with the body? Suśīma answers no. The World-Honored One says: “This is called first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa.”

What the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is, this discourse answers for itself: it is those twelve links forward and in reverse to which Suśīma answered “so it is” one by one. It is not dhyāna, it is not realization with the body; it is knowing the establishment of cause and effect in dependent arising. Arhats liberated by wisdom are without the four dhyānas and yet their outflows are ended; the World-Honored One does not say how their outflows ended, only the sequence: first know the abiding of the Dharma. One who knows the abiding of the Dharma knows what nirvāṇa is, and then, “alone in a quiet place, intent in reflection, dwelling heedfully, apart from the view of self, without arousing the outflows, the mind is well liberated.” Hearing this far, Suśīma, “far from dust and free of stain, attained the pure Dharma-eye,” and then confesses. The World-Honored One accepts his confession and gives a simile: a king punishes a criminal, “pierced with three hundred spears,” and then says, “Even this is bearable; but to go forth secretly as a thief within the right Dharma and discipline, to receive and hold the Dharma as a thief and expound it to others, brings suffering many times greater than that.” At this point “the outflows of the wanderer Suśīma were ended and his mind set free.”

Two things in this discourse are remarkable. One is that Suśīma attains the pure Dharma-eye before his confession, and all the World-Honored One gave him was the question and answer on the twelve links, nothing else: the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is itself seeing the Dharma. The other is that his outflows end after he hears the simile of the three hundred spears; he came to steal the Dharma, and hearing of the offence of stealing the Dharma, his outflows end. This is first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa: once the abiding of the Dharma is known, then “alone in a quiet place, intent in reflection, dwelling heedfully,” and nirvāṇa comes after.

VI. The Lion’s Roar, Welcome, and the Learned Noble Disciple (Discourses 348 to 350)

Discourse 348 says: “The Tathāgata has accomplished the ten powers and attained the four fearlessnesses; he knows the abode of former Buddhas, can turn the Brahmā wheel, and in the great assembly roars the lion’s roar, saying: ‘When this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises; that is, conditioned by ignorance, formations…’” The content of the lion’s roar is dependent arising. By this “true teaching made manifest, cutting the stream of birth and death,” a son of good family should go forth in right faith, until “skin, sinew, and bone remain while flesh and blood dry up; if he has not yet attained what should be attained, he does not abandon earnest diligence.” Slackness and dwelling in distress give rise to all manner of unwholesome things; one who is diligent and delights in dwelling alone “attains the foremost field of the teaching.” This discourse ties diligence to dependent arising: since the Tathāgata roars the lion’s roar with dependent arising, those who hear should strive in this way.

Discourse 349 says: “Welcome, bhikṣus! Well gone forth, well gained your own good, through long ages, from time to time, born in a holy place,” with faculties complete, neither foolish nor dull, and meeting a Buddha in the world teaching the Dharma, which is “when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises.” “What is hard to attain has been attained,” and so one should train for one’s own good, the good of others, the good of both.

Discourse 350 says that the learned noble disciple does not think, “Because what exists does this exist? Because what arises does this arise? Because what does not exist does this not exist? Because what ceases does this cease?” but knows “when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises; that is, conditioned by ignorance, formations.” The learned noble disciple is not one who does not ask; he has already known, and so asks no more. In these three discourses the World-Honored One is at Rājagṛha and speaks the same sentence each time: 348 says the Buddha roars with it, 349 says those who hear it are fortunate, 350 says those who have heard it and know it ask no further. They are a gloss on 347: once the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is there, questioning stops.

VII. Seeing the Water without Touching It (Discourse 351)

Nārada asks Musīla: apart from faith, inclination, hearsay, reasoned reflection, and acceptance of a view after pondering, does “right knowledge and vision of one’s own arise” that because there is birth there is old age and death? Musīla says it does. He asks again: with such knowledge and vision of one’s own, does one know “the cessation of existence, quiescence, nirvāṇa”? Musīla says one does. Nārada asks: then you are an arhat whose outflows are ended? Musīla is silent, and silent through three questions. Shusheng answers in his place: I say that with the cessation of existence there is quiescence, nirvāṇa, “and yet I am not an arhat whose outflows are ended.” Nārada says this is inconsistent. Shusheng gives a simile: “It is like a well by the roadside in the wilderness, with no rope and no bucket by which to draw its water. A traveller comes, pressed by heat and thirst, circles the well in search of a way, finds no rope and no bucket, looks closely at the well water, knows and sees it as it is, yet does not touch it with the body.” Ānanda asks Nārada what he makes of it, and Nārada says, “The venerable Shusheng has spoken the real well; what more is there to say?”

This discourse is the reverse of 347. What Suśīma asked was: without attaining concentration, how can one declare the ending of the outflows? What is asked here is: knowing nirvāṇa, how can one not have ended the outflows? The answer is the same line: first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa; to have known that nirvāṇa is the cessation of existence, quiescence, is to have seen the water, not to have touched it. One who has seen the water has truly seen it, not heard of it, which is what “apart from faith, apart from inclination, apart from hearsay” means; but to have seen it and to have drunk it are two things. Four venerable ones converse and the World-Honored One is not present; Musīla is silent through three questions and asks Shusheng to answer for him; Shusheng gives a simile and Nārada accepts it.

VIII. What Makes an Ascetic or a Brāhmaṇa an Ascetic or a Brāhmaṇa (Discourses 352 to 354)

Discourse 352 says: ascetics and brāhmaṇas who “do not know the dharma as it really is, and do not know as they really are the arising of the dharma, the cessation of the dharma, and the path leading to the cessation of the dharma” are not ascetics or brāhmaṇas, are not counted among ascetics or brāhmaṇas, and cannot “see the Dharma and know for themselves and realize.” What is the dharma? “That is, not knowing as it really is the dharma of old age and death, and not knowing as they really are the arising of old age and death, the cessation of old age and death, and the path leading to the cessation of old age and death,” and so for birth, existence, clinging, craving, feeling, contact, and the six sense bases. Those who know these as they really are are ascetics and brāhmaṇas. Discourse 353 puts it another way: not knowing the six sense bases as they really are, “and yet knowing contact as it really is, there is no such possibility,” and so for feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, old age and death. Discourse 354 puts it yet another way: not knowing the six sense bases as they really are, “and yet wishing to cross beyond contact, there is no such possibility.” After the three discourses comes an abridgement: “As with old age and death, so down to the six sense bases, three discourses. And as with old age and death, so down to formations, three discourses, likewise spoken.”

These three discourses apply the pattern of Śāriputra’s answer in 344 to the definition of ascetics and brāhmaṇas. An ascetic or a brāhmaṇa is not a name, not an appearance; it is knowing the Dharma of dependent arising as it really is in the pattern of the four truths. Discourses 353 and 354 say that if the earlier link is not known the later cannot be known, cannot be crossed beyond; this is the other face of “first knowing the abiding of the Dharma” in 347: knowing has a sequence, and it begins from the six sense bases.

IX. Fully Knowing, the Forty-Four Kinds of Knowledge, the Seventy-Seven, and Increase and Decrease (Discourses 355 to 358)

Discourse 355 says, “one should fully know old age and death, fully know the arising of old age and death, the cessation of old age and death, and the path leading to the cessation of old age and death,” down to formations. Four sentences for each link: old age and death is “conditioned by birth there is old age and death”; its arising is the arising of birth; its cessation is the cessation of birth; its path is the eightfold noble path; formations are “the three formations: bodily formations, verbal formations, and mental formations”; their arising is the arising of ignorance; their cessation is the cessation of ignorance; their path is the eightfold noble path. Discourse 356 counts this: eleven links, four each, “there are forty-four kinds of knowledge.” Discourse 357 counts another way: seven for each link, “the knowledge that birth conditions old age and death, and the knowledge that nothing else does; the knowledge that in the past birth conditioned old age and death, and the knowledge that nothing else did; the knowledge that in the future birth will condition old age and death, and the knowledge that nothing else will; and the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma—the knowledge, through abandoning, that it is impermanent, conditioned, arisen from what the mind takes as object, a thing that is exhausted, that changes, that is let go of in dispassion, that ceases,” eleven links making “the seventy-seven kinds of knowledge.”

In the seventy-seven kinds of knowledge the name “knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma” appears for the second time. In 347 Suśīma asked for the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma and the World-Honored One answered him with the twelve links forward and in reverse; in 357 the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is one of seven. The first six are knowing that this link conditions that one, in each of the three times knowing that it does so and that nothing else does; the seventh is knowing that this knowing itself is “impermanent, conditioned, arisen from what the mind takes as object, a thing that is exhausted, that changes.” The knowledge that knows dependent arising is itself within dependent arising. This sentence is the fine print of “first knowing the abiding of the Dharma”: the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is not having the twelve links by heart; it is knowing the cause of each in each of the three times, and knowing that this knowing too is impermanent.

Discourse 358 speaks of the dharma of increase and the dharma of decrease: “when this exists, that exists; when this arises, that arises; that is, conditioned by ignorance, formations; conditioned by formations, consciousness; down to the whole great mass of suffering comes together: this is called the dharma of increase”; “when this does not exist, that does not exist; when this ceases, that ceases; that is, when ignorance ceases, formations cease; down to the whole great mass of suffering ceases: this is called the dharma of decrease.” An abridgement follows: the dharma of arising, of change, of coming together, and of cessation are the same. This is the one sentence spoken under six names.

X. Reflecting and False Imagining; the Learned, the Teacher of the Dharma, Practice in Accordance with the Dharma (Discourses 359 to 364)

Discourses 359 to 361 say the same thing, each adding a step. 359: “If one reflects, if false imagining arises, that fetter makes consciousness abide grasping at an object; because consciousness abides grasping, there is in the future birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, distress, and suffering.” 360 adds, between the abiding of consciousness and birth and old age, “enters into name and form.” 361 adds further: “because it enters name and form, there is coming and going; because there is coming and going, there is birth and death.” The reverse side of all three is “if one does not reflect, does not falsely imagine, there is no fetter and no consciousness abiding by grasping.” What reflecting and false imagining are, the discourse does not explain; it says only that they make consciousness abide by grasping at something. The earlier fascicle said one “would do better to bind self and what belongs to self to the body of the four great elements than to bind self and what belongs to self to consciousness”; where consciousness is bound is where it grasps. These three discourses speak the twelve links from the abiding of consciousness, and join with the consciousness-nutriment among the four nutriments of 344.

Discourses 362, 363, and 364 share one form: the World-Honored One names a term, the bhikṣus say to the Buddha, “The World-Honored One is the root of the Dharma, the eye of the Dharma, the support of the Dharma,” and ask him to teach, and the World-Honored One teaches. The learned bhikṣu is one who “hears of old age, sickness, and death, and gives rise to the dharma of weariness, dispassion, and complete cessation,” down to formations; the bhikṣu who teaches the Dharma is one who “speaks of old age, sickness, and death, and gives rise to the dharma of weariness, dispassion, and complete cessation,” down to formations; practice in accordance with the Dharma is “toward old age, sickness, and death, weariness, dispassion, and heading toward complete cessation,” down to formations. Learned does not mean having heard much, teaching the Dharma does not mean saying much, practice in accordance with the Dharma does not mean heading toward some particular dharma; all three are weariness, dispassion, and complete cessation toward the twelve links. In 345 Śāriputra answered that training is “grows weary, becomes dispassionate, and heads toward complete cessation”; by the end of the fascicle this phrase has become the common definition of three names, the learned, the teacher of the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma. The fascicle begins from training and ends at practice in accordance with the Dharma.

XI. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle can be read through 347. First knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa, is the outline of the whole. The first five discourses are how the abiding of the Dharma is known: Bhūmija says it arises from conditions, Śāriputra says feeling conditioned by contact, Mahākauṣṭhila asks up to ignorance as the limit, Śāriputra says weariness, dispassion, and heading toward cessation toward the real, the World-Honored One says the ten layers from shame and scruple to old age, sickness, and death. 347 says for itself that the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is the twelve links forward and in reverse. 348 to 350 say the Buddha roars with it, those who hear are fortunate, those who know ask no more. 351 says one may know nirvāṇa without having touched it with the body. 352 to 358 say that ascetics and brāhmaṇas are defined by it, that fully knowing, the forty-four kinds of knowledge, and the seventy-seven are counted by it, that increase and decrease are named by it. 359 to 364 say that one enters the twelve links from the abiding of consciousness, and that the learned, the teacher of the Dharma, and practice in accordance with the Dharma are defined by weariness, dispassion, and complete cessation.

Among the twenty-two discourses, “when this exists, that exists” appears in 348, 349, 350, and 358, four discourses; “knows as it really is” clusters in 344 and 352 to 354, with 355 turning to “fully know”; “weariness, dispassion, and complete cessation” is in 345, 362, 363, and 364. The earlier fascicle said what this road is; this fascicle says what kind of person walks on it: one liberated by wisdom, one who has seen the water without touching it, the learned noble disciple, the ascetic and the brāhmaṇa, the learned bhikṣu, the bhikṣu who teaches the Dharma, the one who practises in accordance with the Dharma.

Last, read Suśīma. He came to steal the Dharma, the World-Honored One knew it and admitted him all the same; he asked about concentration, the World-Honored One answered about sequence; he heard the twelve links and saw the Dharma; he confessed; he heard of the offence of stealing the Dharma and his outflows ended. This is how the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is given: whether you understand or not is not the question, “for yourself, first know the abiding of the Dharma, then know nirvāṇa.”

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The third summary verse of Fascicle 94 of the Compendium of Topics runs: “The condition of contact; perfection of view; the real; understanding; not delighting; the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma; diligence; the place of birth, and so on, last.” Its eight headings gather Discourses 343 to 350 of this fascicle; the fourth summary verse, “the cessation of existence; if śramaṇas or brāhmaṇas; knowledge of feeling; transmigration; together with coming and going; the Buddha’s forward and reverse, last,” gathers 351 to 361 in six headings; from the fifth summary verse at the fascicle’s end, “establishing; together with causes and conditions; examining the meaning of nutriment; the very many faults; defilement, and so on, last,” the treatise passes to the nutriment discourses of Fascicle 15, and for the three discourses 362 to 364 of this fascicle it has no separate heading; they are reached through the “turning toward the right Dharma” spoken of under the heading of perfection of view. The order of headings follows the order of the discourses.

The heading of the condition of contact glosses Bhūmija’s answer in 343: against those who hold to no cause or a wrong cause, the disciple has “in brief three kinds of unerring declaration: first, the declaration that opens one’s own teaching; second, the declaration that overcomes the teaching of others; third, the declaration of defilement and purification with and without grasping.” Bhūmija’s answer, “arise from conditions,” is the declaration that opens one’s own teaching: “that is, all suffering and happiness arise from conditions; this is the position of our teaching.” Śāriputra’s answer about feeling conditioned by contact is the declaration that overcomes the teaching of others: “in every case feeling arises from contact; what use is there in falsely positing self-making, other-making, and the rest? If feeling with contact as cause were not found present, to seek another cause might be clever; but since feeling with contact as cause is found present, to seek another cause is not clever.” The heading of perfection of view glosses 344: “If one abandons no cause and wrong cause and attains right view regarding the five kinds of cause among things arisen from causes, this is called perfection of view.” The treatise gathers the discourse under five causes, grouped differently from its five layers, the discourse’s first layer being split into the treatise’s first two causes and its nutriment standing third: “first, the cause of the bad destinies, namely all that is unwholesome and the unwholesome roots; second, the cause of the good destinies, namely all that is wholesome and the wholesome roots; third, the cause that makes consciousness abide in the stations of consciousness, namely the four nutriments; fourth, the cause of defilement in this life and the next, namely all the outflows; fifth, the cause of purification, namely the truths and dependent arising.” The discourse’s “illness” the treatise renders as the outflows. “What need is there to seek further?” the treatise renders: “contemplating the matter of dependent arising up to ignorance as its limit; beyond this there is no further contemplation of the causes of dependent arising; by this contemplation alone one’s own aim is fulfilled.” The discourse’s perfection of view, accomplishment in straight view, and unbreakable purity in the Buddha the treatise explains: “by these three conditions, in order, one is said to turn toward, draw near to, and rightly realize the right Dharma.”

The heading of the real glosses 345: the real is “in brief three kinds of thing truly quiescent in this life, which continue to turn as objects of knowledge until the life span is wholly stilled,” namely “first, the six sense bases; second, contact conditioned by the six sense bases; third, feeling conditioned by contact”; training and the reckoning of dharmas the treatise renders: “while one in training is rightly practising toward them, the nature of training is established; one beyond training reflects thus: all of mine is exhausted and will not be exhausted again; because it is chosen by the knowledge of exhaustion and of non-arising, it is called the dharma of choosing”—the reckoning of dharmas is the dharma of choosing. The heading of understanding glosses Śāriputra’s being able to answer for seven nights in different phrasing and flavor: “arhats who possess understanding have in brief six kinds of declaration of what they understand,” declaration by other modes, without other modes, of knowledge, of cutting off, in sum, and in detail. The heading of not delighting glosses 346: “there are three things which the world loves and delights in, spoken with regard to what is within: first, strength; second, fine form; third, life,” and what harms these three is sickness, old age, and untimely death; the discourse’s ten layers of three things the treatise gathers into wrong practice and right practice in the three trainings: “when one practises rightly in the three trainings, one can pass beyond these three things.”

The heading of the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma glosses 347: “by the increased power of the training in higher wisdom one attains the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma and the knowledge of nirvāṇa. Taking these two knowledges as support, when one has first turned through the training in the four kinds of perfect seclusion, the mind is liberated from all afflictions, one attains arhatship, and becomes one liberated by wisdom.” The knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma is: “having heard the unerring teaching that accords with the conditioned nature of dependent arising, one who is still at the stage of an ordinary person can, with regard to the stages of cause and effect in dependently arisen formations, reflect rightly as it really is with the attention produced by hearing, reflection, and cultivation, and with fine wisdom enter into and trust that suffering is truly suffering, arising truly arising, cessation truly cessation, the path truly the path; all such fine knowledge regarding the things established as cause and effect is called the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma.” The knowledge of nirvāṇa is: relying on the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma, “toward suffering and its arising one abides in the thought of aversion, toward cessation, nirvāṇa, one gives rise to the thought of quiescence,” and “such fine knowledge is called the knowledge of nirvāṇa.” The treatise says the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma can be attained while still at the stage of an ordinary person, which fits the discourse, where Suśīma hears the twelve links forward and in reverse and sees the Dharma. The heading of diligence glosses 348: “what is the perfect readiness of the great teacher? The Tathāgatas have accomplished the ten powers and the four fearlessnesses”; the perfect readiness of the holy teaching is “to open and show all dependent arising, forward and reverse, and quiescent nirvāṇa”; one who is diligent “can accomplish his own aim, the aim of others, and the aim of both.” The heading of the place of birth glosses 349: “with the four perfections one can be born in a holy place. If one who possesses these perfections practises rightly in the well-taught Dharma and discipline, he is called one who has come well and gone forth well”; the four perfections are “perfection of higher aspiration; second, perfection of faculties; third, perfection of knowledge; fourth, the perfection of meeting a Buddha arisen in the world in that holy place.” At the end of the same heading the treatise glosses 350, the learned noble disciple who does not think so: those who contemplate dependent arising have “in brief two things that make for doubt. What are the two? First, having taken up the teaching of no cause; second, having taken up the teaching of a wrong cause”; “if learned noble disciples keep away from these two untrue teachings and rightly contemplate transmigration, by this cause they attain firm certainty, have no doubt, and inwardly realize the real.”

The heading of the cessation of existence glosses 351: “those in training who have seen the track, although with regard to the cessation of existence, quiescent nirvāṇa, they do not follow others’ faith and the inner noble eye of wisdom can see for itself, still they cannot realize it by touching it with the body”; the simile of the well the treatise gives as “although with the fleshly eye he sees in the well the clear, cool, fine water free of all dirt, and a vessel for drawing it is at hand, still his body has not touched this water”—the treatise’s well has a vessel, the discourse’s well has “no rope and no bucket”; the words differ and are only recorded, not reconciled. The heading of if śramaṇas or brāhmaṇas glosses 352 to 354: those whom the world calls ascetics and brāhmaṇas “are only ascetics and brāhmaṇas in the conventional sense, not in the ultimate,” because “they cannot know as they really are the defiled things and the causes of defiled things, nor know as they really are their cessation and the practice leading to their cessation.” The heading of knowledge of feeling glosses the counts of 355 to 357: “upon the eleven links the four truths are established, and upon these, truth by truth and link by link, forty-four matters are set up”; by the feelings arisen from contact with knowledge forty-four matters of feeling are taught, by the wisdom arisen from contact with knowledge forty-four matters of knowledge; the seventy-seven kinds of knowledge are “because the thorough knowledge of the three times differs, because the certain thorough knowledge spoken of before differs, and because the impermanence of the apprehending knowledge included under the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma differs, one should know that seventy-seven kinds of matters of knowledge are set up”—the treatise says plainly that the seventh knowledge is the impermanence of the apprehending knowledge included under the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma, which fits the discourse’s “and the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma—the knowledge that it is impermanent, conditioned.” The heading of transmigration glosses the increase and decrease of 358: “first, because the cause is augmented; second, because the result arises; third, because the result accumulates. All this gathered into one is called, in sum, the increase, the arising, and the coming together of things. By the cessation of cause and result, as fits, one should know it is called decrease, cessation, and vanishing.” The heading of coming and going glosses 359 to 361: “there are in brief two defilements: first, the defilement of karma and craving; second, the defilement of false views,” and “because the defilement of karma and craving is what makes, it is called what thought makes; because the defilement of false views arises from wrong reckoning, it is called what reckoning holds to”—the discourse’s reflecting is what thought makes, its false imagining is what reckoning holds to; the ordinary person, “because of these objects, having given rise to defilements of mind in the four stations of consciousness, gathers future existence and circles in coming and going without release,” those in training “make no new karma and take no pleasure in future existence,” and those beyond training have “no defilement of mind in the stations of consciousness and no future existence to be gathered, none at all.” The heading of the Buddha’s forward and reverse glosses how the Buddhas of the past and the present Buddha “having reflected rightly on the Dharma of dependent arising, realized unsurpassed right and full awakening,” and closes the section.

The greatest key the treatise gives to this fascicle is the heading of the knowledge of the abiding of the Dharma: that knowledge is attained at the stage of an ordinary person and is the fine wisdom produced by hearing, reflection, and cultivation; the knowledge of nirvāṇa arises in dependence on it. The discourse says “first knowing the abiding of the Dharma, then knowing nirvāṇa”; the treatise makes clear that the “first” is possible for an ordinary person and that the “then” arises in dependence on it, both knowledges belonging to the training in wisdom. Why arhats liberated by wisdom end their outflows without the four dhyānas, the discourse does not say; the treatise says such a person has “the excellent samādhi included in the threshold of the first dhyāna as support,” a threshold concentration and not a root dhyāna, and then takes the two knowledges as support.

Here ends the second fascicle of the Connected Discourses on Dependent Arising, Nutriment, the Truths, and the Elements. Carrying forward continues in Fascicle 15.

Phalguna asks: “World-Honored One, who feeds on this consciousness?” The World-Honored One answers: “I do not say there is one who feeds on consciousness. If I said there were one who feeds on consciousness, you should ask this; I say consciousness is a nutriment.” The forty-two discourses of this fascicle speak of nutriment in the first fourteen and of the truths in the last twenty-eight. Nutriment is what nourishes what; the truths are what is to be known of what; and on neither side does the World-Honored One say there is anyone, only dharma and dharma. The four nutriments have no one who feeds, and the four noble truths have no knower waiting outside to know them; what there is, is consciousness abiding and consciousness not abiding, unbroken comprehension and its not yet being attained. The whole fascicle has one urging, repeated again and again: “One who has not yet attained unbroken comprehension of the four noble truths should strive with skilful means, give rise to heightened desire, and train in unbroken comprehension.”

I. Final Nirvāṇa in This Very Life (Discourse 365)

The World-Honored One asks first, the bhikṣus request him to speak, and only then does he answer. Final nirvāṇa in this very life is not a matter for after death; it is “if a bhikṣu, with regard to old age, sickness, and death, is weary of them, free of desire for them, and brings them to cessation, does not give rise to the outflows, and his mind is well liberated, this is called a bhikṣu attaining final nirvāṇa in this very life.” This sentence is the tail of the discourse on practice in accordance with the Dharma in the previous fascicle and the head of this one: the previous fascicle said that one who is weary of, free of desire for, and brings to cessation the twelve links is practising in accordance with the Dharma; this discourse says that such a person is called one who attains final nirvāṇa in this very life. Set at the head of the fascicle, it names the destination first, and only then speaks of the road.

II. What the Buddha Vipaśyin Saw (Discourses 366 to 370)

Discourse 366 tells what the Buddha Vipaśyin saw before he attained right awakening: “all the world enters birth and death, born of itself and ripening of itself, perishing of itself and sinking of itself,” and beings do not know as it really is the way out beyond old age and death. He asks layer by layer, and when he reaches clinging, the manner of answering changes: not ‘because there is craving there is clinging’, but “clinging is relishing, attachment, and longing for things, increased by craving conditioned by contact”; clinging is attachment to and longing for things, nourished by contact and craving. Then comes the simile of the lamp wick, in brief. The six Buddhas speak alike. Discourses 367 and 368 are the method: “meditative reflection, inwardly stilling the mind,” or cultivating the measureless samādhi; and what comes of cultivating them? “These dharmas, impermanent, conditioned, with outflows, become manifest as they really are”: from old age and death down to the formations, the arising, the cessation, and the path to cessation of each link become manifest. The fruit of meditative reflection is not concentration but manifestation. Discourses 369 and 370 are the Buddha Vipaśyin and the present Buddha, each beneath the tree of awakening for seven days, “contemplating the twelve links of dependent arising in reverse and in order,” rising to speak a verse: “forever free of all doubts, he knows the dharmas born of causes and conditions.” The five discourses stand together to make clear where final nirvāṇa in this very life comes from: this is how the Buddhas saw, and this is how the bhikṣus cultivate.

III. What Is the Cause of These Four Nutriments (Discourse 371)

The four nutriments sustain beings, enabling them to remain in the world, held and nourished. Asked where they come from, the answer is craving; craving from feeling, feeling from contact, contact from the six sense bases. Traced forward again: “the arising of the six sense bases is the arising of contact, the arising of contact is the arising of feeling, the arising of feeling is the arising of craving, the arising of craving is the arising of nutriment,” and because of the arising of nutriment there is the arising of birth, old age, sickness, and death. This discourse sets nutriment within the twelve links: nutriment comes after craving and is what craving nourishes. The twelve links themselves have no link called nutriment; when the World-Honored One speaks of nutriment he takes the fruit of craving out and speaks of it on its own. Craving wants things, and what it gets is nutriment.

IV. I Do Not Say There Is One Who Feeds on Consciousness (Discourse 372)

Phalguna stands behind the Buddha fanning him and asks six times; six times the World-Honored One does not answer first but first corrects his question. “World-Honored One, who feeds on this consciousness?” — “I do not say there is one who feeds on consciousness. If I said there were one who feeds on consciousness, you should ask this; I say consciousness is a nutriment.” What should be asked is through what condition there is the nutriment of consciousness, and the answer is that “it brings about future existence and makes continued birth; because there is existence there are the six sense bases, and conditioned by the six sense bases there is contact.” Then “for whom is there contact,” “for whom feeling,” “for whom craving,” “for whom clinging,” “for whom existence,” and the World-Honored One says in turn “I do not say there is one who contacts,” “I do not say there is one who feels,” “I do not say there is one who craves,” “I do not say there is one who clings,” “I do not say there is one who exists,” each time changing “for whom” into “through what condition is there.” Six questions, six corrections: the questioner changes six times who the one is, and the one answering six times refuses the one. In the last answer the World-Honored One sets out the whole chain in order and in reverse. This discourse is the pivot of the fascicle: nutriment has no one who feeds, contact has no one who contacts, all the way to existence having no one who exists. The word “nutriment” in the nutriment of consciousness is the one most likely to make a person suppose there is someone eating consciousness; the World-Honored One says consciousness is a nutriment, not anyone’s food.

V. Contemplating the Four Nutriments (Discourse 373)

Each of the four nutriments is given a simile and a cutting off. Morsel food is like the couple crossing the wilderness who ate their son’s flesh: “whenever one eats morsel food, one should contemplate it thus”; once it is contemplated, “with full knowledge of the abandoning of morsel food, craving for the five strands of sense pleasure is cut off.” Contact is like a cow with its skin stripped off alive, eaten by insects wherever it goes; “with full knowledge of the abandoning of contact, the three feelings are cut off.” Mental intention is like a fire without smoke or flame beside a city, which the wise, knowing of it, avoid from afar; “when mental intention is cut off, the three cravings are cut off.” Consciousness is like a captured robber receiving three hundred spears, told in brief, following the discourse on Suśīma in the previous fascicle; “with full knowledge of the abandoning of consciousness, there is full knowledge of the abandoning of name-and-form.” Four cuttings off: craving for the five sense pleasures, the three feelings, the three cravings, name-and-form. Contemplating the four nutriments is not refusing to eat; it is eating as one eats one’s son’s flesh, knowing it is to cross the wilderness, not taking its taste. Full knowledge of the abandoning is not the abandoning of food; it is the abandoning of craving for food, the abandoning of what food nourishes.

VI. The Station of Consciousness and the Western Wall (Discourses 374 to 378)

Discourse 374 states the mechanism: “if a bhikṣu has delight and craving for these four nutriments, the station of consciousness grows; because the station of consciousness grows, it enters name-and-form,” because it enters name-and-form the formations grow, future existence grows, and the whole great mass of suffering arises; without craving and delight “consciousness does not abide and does not grow,” and does not enter name-and-form. Discourse 375 compresses this into one sentence: with craving and delight there is grief and there is defilement. Discourses 376, 377, and 378 are three similes saying one thing. A mansion has windows east and west, and the sun rising in the east shines upon the western wall; and if there were no western wall? “It would shine upon empty space, with nothing to grasp at.” Without craving and delight for the four nutriments, “consciousness has no place to abide.” A painter who wishes to paint upon empty space cannot, because “that empty space is not form, offers no resistance, and cannot be seen”; a painter can paint upon form, and “wishing to paint something apart from form” he cannot. The station of consciousness is sunlight with a wall to shine on, paint with a form to cling to; without craving and delight the wall is gone and the form is gone, the light is still there and the colours are still there, only there is nowhere for them to abide. These five discourses turn the ‘no one who feeds’ of 372 into a practice: not finding someone who does not eat, but leaving consciousness without a wall.

VII. The Three Turnings and Twelve Aspects (Discourse 379)

The World-Honored One addresses the five bhikṣus. Each of the four truths is spoken three times. The first time, “a dharma never heard before, to be rightly reflected upon; at that time there arose vision, knowledge, understanding, and awakening,” is this is suffering, this is arising, this is cessation, this is the path; the second time is “the noble truth of suffering, known, is to be known further,” arising is to be abandoned, cessation realized, the path cultivated; the third time is known and gone out from, abandoned and gone out from, realized and gone out from, cultivated and gone out from. Three turnings and twelve aspects, and at each aspect vision, knowledge, understanding, and awakening arise. The World-Honored One says: “had I not given rise to vision, knowledge, understanding, and awakening in these three turnings and twelve aspects of the four noble truths,” I could not have gained escape and release among the assemblies of gods, māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brāhmaṇas, nor realized awakening for myself. When he has spoken, Kauṇḍinya and eighty thousand gods attain the purity of the Dharma-eye. The World-Honored One asks twice, “have you understood the Dharma?”; Kauṇḍinya answers that he has understood, and Kauṇḍinya answers that he has understood. “Because the venerable Kauṇḍinya has understood the Dharma, he is therefore called Ājñāta Kauṇḍinya”: one person, two names, and the second name is given for understanding the Dharma. The earth deities call out, and the gods call out heaven by heaven up to the Brahmā world: “the hosts of gods increase, the hosts of asuras diminish.” “Therefore this discourse is called the Discourse on Turning the Wheel of the Dharma.” This is how the wheel turns: the World-Honored One knows for himself, speaks it to five, one understands first, and the gods call it out up to the Brahmā world. The twenty-eight discourses on the truths in this fascicle have this one as their source; every one after it lies within these four sentences and twelve aspects.

VIII. Nine Discourses on the Four Noble Truths (Discourses 380 to 388)

Discourse 380 says only that there are four noble truths, and gives their four names. Discourse 381 says that one who has not yet attained unbroken comprehension should cultivate unbroken comprehension, “giving rise to heightened desire, with effort and ability, right mindfulness and right knowledge.” Discourse 382 gives the four tasks of the four truths: “to be known and understood,” “to be known and abandoned,” “the noble truth of the cessation of suffering is to be known and realized,” “to be known and cultivated.” From 383 on, “to be” is changed to “has been,” and then it is said who the person is who has known, understood, abandoned, realized, and cultivated: 383 says he “cuts off craving and desire, turns away the bonds, has unbroken comprehension of conceit, and reaches the end of suffering”; 384 says he “is called an arhat”; 385 says he has “completed pure conduct, wholly pure and clean, and is called a superior person”; 386 says he has lifted the crossbar, levelled the moat, crossed the perilous places, is freed from the bonds, and has raised the noble banner; 387 explains those five phrases itself: the crossbar is the five lower bonds, “ignorance is called the deep moat,” the perilous places are the boundless round of birth and death, the bonds are craving, and “that the conceit of self has been cut off and known is called raising the noble banner”; 388 says he “has cut off the five factors, is endowed with the six, guards the one, relies on the four,” has set aside the several truths, left the four crossroads, his mind well liberated and his wisdom well liberated, a superior person. Nine discourses in one mould: there are four truths, four things are done with regard to them, and this is what the person is called. The names grow longer towards the end, and they speak of the same person. The “to be” of 382 and the “has been” of 383 onward are exactly the second and third turnings of 379.

IX. The Great King of Physicians (Discourse 389)

A good physician has four qualities: “first, he knows the disease well; second, he knows well the source of the disease; third, he knows well the cure for the disease; fourth, he knows well that once the disease is cured it will not recur in the future.” The Tathāgata is the great king of physicians, and his four virtues are knowing the four truths as they really are. The difference lies in what is cured: “that good physician of the world does not know as it really is the cure for birth as the root,” nor does he know as it really is the cure for the root of old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress, and suffering; the Tathāgata knows these as they really are. A good physician cures diseases; the great king of physicians cures birth. The four truths set out as disease, source, cure, and no recurrence is the plainest reading of the four truths: suffering is the disease, arising its cause, cessation its removal, the path its not recurring.

X. An Ascetic among Ascetics (Discourses 390 to 393)

Ascetics and brāhmaṇas who do not know the four truths as they really are, “these are not ascetics among ascetics, not brāhmaṇas among brāhmaṇas,” and cannot see the Dharma, know it for themselves, and bear witness to it; those who know them as they really are are ascetics among ascetics. Discourse 391 changes the word: “not counted among ascetics, not counted among brāhmaṇas.” Discourse 392 changes it to “not freed from suffering” and freed from suffering, and at its end lists seven pairs of difference: leaving the evil destinations, falling away from the precepts, the dharma beyond the human, the field of merit, the great teacher, passing beyond suffering, being freed from suffering; “the discourses above are to be repeated thus, each followed by a verse,” and the verse says that one who does not know suffering cannot pass beyond the mass of suffering, and one who knows as it really is attains final liberation. Discourse 393 counts from the other end: “if a son of good family with right faith leaves home for the homeless life to train in the path, all that he should know is the dharma of the four noble truths”; the stream-enterer knows the four truths, the once-returner, the non-returner, one whose outflows are ended, the pratyekabuddha know the four truths, and “if one attains unsurpassed right awakening, that is because of knowing all of the four noble truths.” From one newly gone forth to one who has become a Buddha, seven ranks of people, and what they know is the same four truths. What makes an ascetic an ascetic is not the robe or the name but whether he knows these four things.

XI. Six Similes (Discourses 394 to 399)

Six discourses, six similes. “Just as when the sun rises the sign of light appears first, so too does the complete ending of suffering have a sign that goes before? It is knowing the four noble truths.” Knowing the four truths is the sign that goes before the ending of suffering, like the light before dawn. If sun and moon did not appear the stars would not appear, “the world would be ever dark, without light, nothing but the long night, and the whole great darkness of suffering would appear in the world”; when the Tathāgata appears in the world and teaches the four truths, “wisdom alone, undivided, appears in the world.” As sunrise destroys the dark, the noble disciple attains the Dharma-eye together with unbroken comprehension, the three bonds are cut off, he is called a stream-enterer, not subject to falling into evil destinations, certain of right awakening, bound for seven rebirths; though there be sorrow and suffering in between, “let that noble disciple, secluded from desire and from evil and unwholesome states, with initial and sustained thought, with the joy and ease born of seclusion, dwell having fully attained the first dhyāna,” and the World-Honored One “does not see one dharma in that noble disciple left uncut that could make him be born again in this world; this is the great benefit of the noble disciple attaining the Dharma-eye.” Discourse 397 gives the order: to have unbroken comprehension of the truth of the path without yet having unbroken comprehension of suffering, arising, and cessation, “there is no such possibility,” like taking khadira leaves to make a vessel to hold water; first the three truths and then the truth of the path, “this is well said.” Discourse 398 says that one who does not know is like a ball of cotton blown by the wind, who “always looks to the faces of others, always follows what others say”; one who knows is like an Indra pillar, who “does not look to the faces of others, does not follow the words of others.” Discourse 399 says that one who knows is like a stone pillar sixteen cubits long with eight cubits set in the ground: “when he comes to the places of debate, nothing can bend him.” The six similes say three things about knowing the four truths: it is the sign that goes before, it is light, it is a pillar. The sign comes first, the light is there only when a Buddha appears in the world, and the pillar stands by itself.

XII. The Head-Cloth, the Three Hundred Spears, Fully and Evenly Awakened (Discourses 400 to 402)

In 400 the World-Honored One first sets out a saying people in the world commonly use: when one’s head-cloth is on fire, one should give rise to heightened desire to put it out at once; then he overturns it himself: “Do not speak so! Set aside the head-cloth, and give rise to heightened desire for the four noble truths.” A head-cloth on fire is a small matter; “burning through the long night in the hells, among animals, and among hungry ghosts” is the fire. Discourse 401 speaks of a man of a hundred years who suffers three hundred spears every day and then hears the Dharma and attains unbroken comprehension: would he accept it? He would, because the suffering of the long night is greater, and “he would not take three hundred spears for his whole life to be great suffering.” Discourse 402 says that “being fully and evenly awakened to the four noble truths, one is called the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One.” Read together: the fire on the head-cloth is no emergency and the three hundred spears are no suffering, because there is one thing greater than both; and the Tathāgata is the Tathāgata because he has finished that one thing.

XIII. The Leaves in the Hand, Shooting a Hair, the Blind Turtle (Discourses 403 to 406)

In 403 the World-Honored One says that I and you, with regard to the four truths, “being without knowledge, without vision, without conforming awakening, without conforming acceptance, have had to be driven through birth and death for the long night”; “knowing and entering accordingly, one cuts off the floods of existence” and takes no further existence. The verse says that one wades through birth and death for the long night because one has not seen the noble truths. In 404, in the Śiṃśapā grove, he takes leaves in his hand: “the Dharma I have seen for myself and have definitely taught to others is like the leaves in my hand,” and what I have not taught is like the leaves of the great forest. What is taught is “that Dharma which brings benefit in meaning, benefit in the Dharma, benefit for pure conduct, knowledge, wisdom, right awakening, heading toward nirvāṇa”; what is not taught is not unknown, but of no benefit. In 405 Ānanda sees the Licchavi youths sending every arrow through the keyhole and thinks it hard; the World-Honored One says it is harder to split a hair into a hundred parts and shoot one part, “but it is not so hard as giving rise to knowledge as it really is of the noble truth of suffering; that is very hard indeed.” The verse: “to contemplate each aggregate of suffering as not self is as hard.” In 406 the blind turtle and the floating log: “the blind turtle and the floating log, though they may miss each other, may yet meet. For the foolish ordinary person drifting through the five destinations to regain a human body for a while is harder than that.” Why? They “do not act for the good, do not act by the Dharma, do not act wholesomely, do not act truthfully.” The four discourses are four difficulties: the difficulty of knowing (the leaves in the hand and the great forest), the difficulty of knowing the four truths (shooting the hair), the difficulty of obtaining a human body (the blind turtle), and the cost of not knowing (being driven for the long night). The fascicle stops at the blind turtle: the human body has been obtained, and one who has not yet attained unbroken comprehension of the four truths should strive with skilful means.

XIV. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle can be read through 372 and 379. Discourse 372 says that nutriment has no one who feeds; 379 says the four noble truths in three turnings and twelve aspects. The first fourteen discourses are nutriment: 365 names the destination first, 366 to 370 tell how the Buddhas saw dependent arising, 371 sets nutriment after craving, 372 says there is no one who feeds, 373 gives the four nutriments, four contemplations, and four cuttings off, 374 to 378 speak of consciousness abiding and not abiding. The last twenty-eight are the truths: 379 is the source, 380 to 388 are nine names of one who knows the truths, 389 speaks of the four truths as medicine, 390 to 393 of the ascetic and the seven ranks of people, 394 to 399 of six similes, 400 to 406 of seven urgings.

Nutriment and the truths join at 372 and 374: with delight and craving for the nutriment of consciousness, consciousness abides; when consciousness abides it enters name-and-form; when it enters name-and-form there is existence; and in all of this there is no one. The four truths are the same: in the three turnings and twelve aspects there is no knower, only vision, knowledge, understanding, and awakening arising; the arhat, the superior person, and the noble one of the nine discourses are names for a person who has done four things, not a person who was there before the doing. The term “unbroken comprehension” appears in the first fourteen discourses only in 366, of the contemplation of dependent arising, and from 381 on recurs throughout the section on the truths: to know the four truths is not to know four names but to comprehend without a break, without a gap, directly. The World-Honored One’s urging grows more pressing through this fascicle: the head-cloth, the three hundred spears, the leaves in the hand, shooting the hair, the blind turtle. The reason for the urgency is one: the human body is hard to obtain, the four truths can be known, and once they are known one drifts no more.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The summary verse at the end of Fascicle 94 of the Compendium of Topics, “establishing; together with causes and conditions; examining the meaning of nutriment; the very many faults; defilement, and so on, last,” gathers Discourses 371 to 378 of this fascicle in five headings; the summary verse of Fascicle 95, “the reasoned; inclusion; the truth of arising; attainment; characteristics; the basis; function; obstacles; faults; black ripening, and so on; the great meaning; finally, what is hard to obtain,” gathers 379 to 406 in twelve headings; for 365 to 370 the treatise has no separate heading, and they are referred to where the text allows. The order of the headings follows the order of the discourses.

The heading of establishing glosses “held and nourished” in 371: “there are four kinds of dharma which in the present life most nourish the faculties and the great elements,” strength, joy and ease, concentrated hope, and the faculties and great elements themselves, each having morsel food, contact, mental intention, and consciousness as its nutriment. The heading of examining the meaning of nutriment glosses 372, and is the treatise’s most pertinent passage for this fascicle: “only a dharma drawing on a dharma is called the meaning of nutriment”; as to who feeds on the nutriment of consciousness, “know that this question is an unreasoned question”; as to who is the cause and condition able to feed on the nutriment of consciousness, that is a reasoned question, “because it can bring one to enter into the principle of dependent arising”; all the way to existence, “there is no one who contacts, and so on up to no one who exists, who could do the contacting, and so on up to having existence.” The discourse says “I do not say there is one who feeds on consciousness”; the treatise says why: a dharma once arisen does not abide, there is no self that could feed or be fed on, and to say there is one who feeds is to follow the speech of the world, in terms of conventional truth, not of ultimate truth. The heading of the very many faults glosses the three similes of 373: “one should contemplate morsel food as the thought of one’s son’s flesh, and not be attached to it,” the sense bases of contact “like a skinless cow,” and mental intention with outflows “like a portion of fire”; the treatise first speaks of three sufferings through three nutriments, and then says, “through the causes and conditions of these three nutriments there arises, as has been said, the inner suffering that depends on consciousness; therefore, bhikṣus, one should contemplate the nutriment of consciousness as the piercing of three hundred spears”; the simile for consciousness is the same in treatise and discourse, only the treatise sets it after the three nutriments, as that on which the three sufferings depend. The heading of defilement and the rest glosses the delight and craving of 374 to 378: delight is the concentrated hope that is the cause and condition of the nutriment of mental intention, and craving is the defiled attachment that is the cause and condition of the nutriment of contact accompanied by pleasant feeling; “these two defilements in the present life can defile” consciousness, “causing it to settle in the four stations of consciousness and to increase the seeds of future existence”; what the discourse calls the growth of the station of consciousness, the treatise calls the future fault of the two defilements of delight and craving. The same heading has a counterpart to the two similes of the mansion and the painter: for one who has not cut off delight and craving, the body with consciousness that the six sense bases comprise “is like a tower whose six windows can give” “the sunlight of defilements that take objects as their condition a place to enter and rest”; Māra paints that person with desirable objects, “like the ground, which can be a surface for the painting of all kinds of defilements”; for one who has cut off delight and craving it is “like empty space,” “not a surface for the painting of all kinds of defilements”; the discourse’s western wall and empty space are the treatise’s ground and empty space, the discourse’s painter is the treatise’s Māra, different in words and the same in simile.

The heading of the reasoned opens the section on the truths: “if, with regard to the knowledge of the truths, one does not know as it really is what is reasoned and what is unreasoned,” one cannot end the outflows; the knowing and not knowing as it really is of the ascetics and brāhmaṇas in 390 to 392 is understood through this heading. The heading of attainment glosses 379: the good turning of the wheel of the Dharma has five characteristics, its object is the four noble truths, and its means of attainment is “the three cycles of right turning” and “the knowledge of twelve aspects”; the first turning gives rise to the noble eye of wisdom, and according to the distinction of past, future, and present “in that order they are called knowledge, understanding, and awakening”; the second turning is that the trainee should fully know the truth of suffering not yet known, and so on up to cultivating the truth of the path not yet cultivated; the third turning is that what one beyond training should do has all been done. Ājñāta Kauṇḍinya, hearing the Dharma, was the first to awaken and understand, and answered that he had understood the Dharma; the earth deities passed it on up to the Brahmā world; “because it is of the nature of right view and the other dharmas, it is called the wheel of the Dharma.” The treatise takes the first turning as the path of seeing, the second as the trainee, and the third as the one beyond training, which fits exactly the “to be” of 382 and the “has been” of 383 onward. The next passage under attainment glosses the four kinds of yoga of 381: pure faith, strong desire, energy, and skilful means, which are the discourse’s heightened desire, effort and ability, right mindfulness and right knowledge. The heading of characteristics glosses 389: “the truth of suffering is like the diseases; the truth of arising is like the cause that gives rise to disease; the truth of cessation” is like the disease being removed and healed, and the truth of the path is like the disease once removed not arising again; the sick seek just so much right Dharma, and the good physician gives just so much right Dharma, “and therefore there is” “no fifth noble truth”; the Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, are “the unsurpassed good” physicians who draw out the great arrow of craving. At the end of the same passage it lists, for ascetics and brāhmaṇas who have not accomplished direct realization, “in brief ten kinds of fault,” corresponding to the seven pairs repeated at the end of 392. The heading of the basis glosses 393: going forth with pure faith is called attaining the basis; the awakening of the disciple, the awakening of the solitary one, and unsurpassed awakening are called attainment; the three cycles of right turning are called the means of attainment; the discourse’s son of good family going forth, its stream-enterer up to pratyekabuddha, and its unsurpassed right awakening the treatise sets out as the three positions of basis, attainment, and means. The heading of obstacles glosses 402 and 403: to cultivating direct realization there are “in brief four kinds” of obstacle, lack of faith, overestimation, waiting for the time, and heedlessness; to cut off the first lack of faith the World-Honored One cites himself, “because I have attained direct realization of the principle of the four noble truths, I realized and awakened to unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening”; to cut off the second lack of faith he says, “I and you in former times through long ages flowed on, because we had not rightly” reflected on and awakened to the real truths; this is the sense of the verse of 403, “I and you, with regard to the four noble truths, without knowledge, without vision.” The heading of faults glosses the “become manifest as they really are” of 367 and 368 and glosses 388: for ascetics and brāhmaṇas who have not accomplished direct realization of the truths “know that there are in brief four kinds” of fault, the three evil destinations, the burning and boiling among humans and gods, the darkness of ignorance in the form and formless realms, and three kinds of false view; “for this reason, know that the truths should be made manifest as they really are.” The heading of what is finally hard to obtain glosses 406: “if, dwelling in this body, one enters direct realization” of the truths, “know that this body is the hardest of all to obtain”; the trainee who has seen the truths is hard to obtain, the fine wisdom of hearing, reflection, and cultivation is hard to obtain, the fullness of leisure is hard to obtain; the discourse’s blind turtle and floating log the treatise sets at the head of all that is hard to obtain.

The greatest key the treatise gives to this fascicle is the heading of examining the meaning of nutriment: the discourse says only “I do not say there is one who feeds on consciousness,” and the treatise gives the reason: a dharma once arisen does not abide, there is no self that could feed or be fed on, and to say there is one who feeds is only to follow the speech of the world; to ask who feeds is an unreasoned question, and to ask through what cause and condition is a reasoned question. Phalguna’s six questions were changed into six “through what condition,” and the treatise says that this is exactly the change from unreasoned question to reasoned question, in order to enter into dependent arising. Here nutriment and the truths join: the meaning of nutriment is only a dharma drawing on a dharma, and the knowledge of the truths is knowing dharmas as they really are; on neither side is anyone set up as the one.

The householder Sudatta asks whether the four noble truths are comprehended gradually or all at once, and the World-Honored One answers: “These four noble truths are comprehended gradually, not all at once.” The forty-eight discourses of this fascicle speak of the truths in the first thirty-seven and of the elements in the last eleven. In the section on the truths the World-Honored One says one sentence over and over: “one who has not yet attained unbroken comprehension of the four noble truths should strive with skilful means, give rise to heightened desire, and train in unbroken comprehension.” In the section on the elements he says one sentence over and over: “beings always go together with the elements, join with the elements.” Gradual means beginning from the noble truth of suffering; going together with the elements means beginning from the mind.

I. Nine Discourses in the Dining Hall (Discourses 407 to 415)

Nine discourses share one scene: many bhikṣus are gathered in the dining hall, thinking worldly thoughts or holding various discussions; the World-Honored One knows what the bhikṣus are thinking, or hears with the divine ear while in meditation, goes to the dining hall, spreads a seat, and sits down. What is forbidden differs: 407 forbids worldly thinking, 408 the discussion of the fourteen views, 409 thoughts of greed, hatred, and harming, 410 thoughts of kin, of country and people, and of not dying, 411 talk of kings and thieves down to the oceans, 412 quarrelling, 413 the discussion of which of two kings has the greater power and wealth, 414 the discussion of former lives and crafts, 415 the discussion of leaving coarse food to go on almsround. The reason for forbidding is one sentence: “of no benefit in meaning, of no benefit in Dharma, of no benefit to pure conduct, not leading to knowledge or awakening, not conducing to nirvāṇa.” The urging is one sentence: “You should reflect rightly: ‘This is the noble truth of suffering, this the noble truth of the arising of suffering, this the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, this the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering.’”

Discourse 407 has a tale: a man thinking worldly thoughts beside the Kauṣṭhila Pond saw four kinds of army that “all entered into a single lotus-root hole,” and took himself to have gone mad and lost his senses, and the crowd took him for mad too. The World-Honored One says: “But that man had not gone mad and lost his senses; what he saw was real.” The gods and the asuras had fought in the sky, the asuras were defeated and retreated into a lotus-root hole. The sickness of worldly thinking is not that what is seen is unreal but that what is seen is of no use: a real event can still be worldly thinking, still “not leading to knowledge or awakening, not heading rightly toward nirvāṇa.” The World-Honored One does not say the man saw wrongly; he says only, do not think in that direction. So with the fourteen views, so with the wealth of two kings, so with former lives. The World-Honored One does not argue their right or wrong; he says only, “you should not hold such discussions.” What may be discussed is four sentences; what may be reflected on is four sentences.

II. Holding the Four Noble Truths (Discourses 416 to 418)

The World-Honored One asks, “Do you hold the four noble truths as I have taught them?” Three discourses, three bhikṣus, three answers. The bhikṣu of 416 answers with four names: “This is the noble truth of suffering, and I hold it; this the noble truth of the arising of suffering, this the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, this the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering.” The bhikṣu of 417 answers with what makes the four names truths: “thus and so, not departing from thusness, not other than thusness; true, real, certain, not inverted; what the noble ones hold as truth—this is called the noble truth of suffering.” The bhikṣu of 418 asks and answers himself, “What are the four truths?” and still answers with the four names; the World-Honored One approves, and then says that if any ascetic or brāhmaṇa were to set aside these four noble truths and set up another four noble truths, “it would be mere words; when questioned he would not know, and his doubt would only grow, for it is beyond his range.” What the three discourses hold is four names. The one sentence that 417 adds is the language of the abiding of the Dharma and the thusness of the Dharma from the earlier fascicle of this collection, here said as “thus and so, not departing from thusness, not other than thusness”: what makes a truth a truth is that it does not depart from thusness. One who sets aside these four truths and sets up another four noble truths can set up the names, but when questioned he does not know.

III. Doubt about the Three Jewels and Doubt about the Four Truths (Discourses 419 and 420)

Discourse 419 begins from the Three Jewels: one who has doubt about the Buddha has doubt about the four truths; so with doubt about the Dharma and the Saṅgha; and so with the absence of doubt. Discourse 420 begins from the four truths: “if an ascetic or brāhmaṇa has doubt about the noble truth of suffering, he has doubt about the Buddha, and doubt about the Dharma and the Saṅgha.” The two discourses face each other: to doubt the Buddha is to doubt the truths, and to doubt the truths is to doubt the Buddha. The Buddha is to be trusted not in himself but for the four truths he taught; the four truths are to be trusted not as standing on their own but for the one who taught them. Each side is the ground of the other, and both sides are cut off together.

IV. The Precipice, the Heat, the Dark, the Darkness (Discourses 421 to 426)

Four discourses share one form: the World-Honored One first points to some extreme place of suffering in the world, a certain bhikṣu asks whether there is anything worse than this, and the World-Honored One answers that there is: “namely, that ascetics and brāhmaṇas do not know as it really is the noble truth of suffering.” In 421 the World-Honored One himself leads the assembly to look at the deep precipice: “this precipice is very great and deep”; steeper still is that “they delight in and cling to the formations that are the root of birth,” and fall into the deep precipice of birth, ageing, sickness, and death. In 422 the great hot hell is “wholly ablaze”; hotter still is not knowing the four truths as they really are. In 423 in the great dark hell they “cannot see the parts of their own bodies”; darker still is not knowing the four truths as they really are. Discourse 424 first speaks of the small thousandfold world, a thousand suns and a thousand moons illuminating a thousand worlds, and yet “in the darkness between them the light of sun and moon, for all its great power, does not reach them”; 425 the middling thousandfold world, 426 the great thousandfold world of three thousand worlds, the darkness as before. Darker still is not knowing the four truths as they really are. The precipice, the heat, and the dark that the four discourses use are what beings take to be most fearful; the World-Honored One grants each of them and then says there is one thing worse. The fear lies in not knowing; not knowing, they “fall into the great darkness of birth, ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, vexation, and suffering.”

V. I Shall Teach, Meditative Reflection, Samādhi (Discourses 427 to 429)

Discourse 427 has one sentence only: “I shall now teach the four noble truths. Listen carefully, listen carefully, and consider it well,” and then only the four names are listed. The compiler’s note at the end says, “as with ‘I shall teach,’ so with ‘there are’ and ‘should be known’”: I shall teach, there are, should be known, three discourses in one form. Discourse 428 says, “strive diligently in meditative reflection, rouse right endeavour, inwardly still the mind”; 429 says, “cultivate the measureless samādhi with single-minded right mindfulness”; the fruit is one sentence: “becomes manifest as it really is. What becomes manifest as it really is? This noble truth of suffering becomes manifest as it really is.” The fruit of meditative reflection is not concentration but the four truths becoming manifest; the words are the same as in the earlier fascicle of this collection.

VI. The Thrown Stick, the Wheel of Five Spokes, Teaching Supremely, Wisdom (Discourses 430 to 434)

In 430 a stick thrown into the air “falls straight back, landing on its root, on its middle, or on its head,” a simile for one who does not know the four truths as they really are, who “falls into hell, into the animal realm, or among the hungry ghosts.” Discourse 431 has the same simile, the landing places being clean ground and unclean ground, a simile for one who “is born in a good destination or in an evil destination.” In 432 a wheel of five linked spokes is set spinning fast by a strong man, a simile for “turning swiftly through the five destinations,” “human or god, falling back into the evil ways, turning through the long night.” The three similes say one thing: one who does not know the four truths has no place to stop, and even born in a good destination falls back. Discourse 433 says that the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One “teaches the Dharma supremely, namely the four noble truths, disclosing, designating, establishing, analysing, expounding, revealing, and laying bare”: seven verbs, and what they speak of is one Dharma. In 434 the World-Honored One asks, “What is wisdom?” and the bhikṣus answer: “one who knows the four noble truths as they really are—this is wisdom.” Wisdom is nothing else; it is knowing the four truths.

VII. Gradual Unbroken Comprehension (Discourses 435 to 437)

The householder Sudatta asks, gradually or all at once; the World-Honored One answers, gradually. The reason is that “if one who has not yet attained unbroken comprehension of the noble truth of suffering wished to attain unbroken comprehension of the noble truths of the arising of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering, this is impossible.” Two similes: joining two thin tree-leaves into a vessel to hold water and carry it is impossible; taking lotus leaves and joining them into a vessel to hold water and walk about is possible. In 436 a certain bhikṣu asks the same question, and the simile changes to a stairway of four steps: “one must go by the first step, and then climb the second, third, and fourth steps in turn to reach the hall.” In 437 Ānanda asks the same question, the simile changes to a ladder of four rungs, and the answer is still, “to climb the second, third, and fourth rungs and reach the hall without the first rung—this is impossible.” Three questions, one answer, three different similes: the tree-leaves and the lotus leaves speak of the vessel, the stairway and the ladder of the order. The first step is the noble truth of suffering. The earlier fascicle says that to be known, to be abandoned, to be realized, and to be cultivated each have their truth; these three discourses say that the four have an order, and that suffering is known first. Comprehension all at once is impossible not because the four truths differ in difficulty, but because the three truths of arising, cessation, and the path are all said with reference to suffering: without first knowing suffering there is nowhere to set arising, nowhere to set cessation, nowhere to set the path.

VIII. The Water Creatures, Earth and Stones, the Lake, the Soil on the Nail (Discourses 438 to 442)

Discourse 438 asks whether, if all the grass and trees of the earth were made into spears and thrust into the ocean, they could impale every creature in the water; the bhikṣus answer that they could not: “the creatures of the great ocean are of many kinds and forms, some too fine to impale, some too huge.” The World-Honored One says one sentence only: “the realm of beings is countless and measureless.” In 439 the World-Honored One holds earth and stones in his hand and asks which is more, the earth and stones in his hand or those of the Snow Mountains; those who know the four truths are “like the earth and stones I hold in my hand,” those who do not “like the earth and stones of those Snow Mountains, countless in number.” In 440 a lake fifty leagues deep and wide, and a drop of its water taken two or three times with a hair, a strand of fur, or a fingertip; in this discourse the simile is turned round: the water of the great lake is the suffering cut off by “the learned noble disciple perfected in seeing the truths, who has attained the fruit of the noble path and cut off the roots of suffering,” and the drop is “what remains unended.” In 441 a lump of clay the size of a pear and the king of Snow Mountains, as in 439. In 442 the soil on the nail and the soil of the great earth, and then the list: like the soil on the nail are those in the human realm, those born in the middle country, those who have attained the noble eye of wisdom, those who know the Dharma and Discipline, those who know that there are mother and father, those who know that there are ascetics and brāhmaṇas and the elders of the family, those who keep the five precepts, the eight precepts, and the ten wholesome ways, those who die in hell and are born among humans or among the gods, those who pass away from the human realm and are born back among humans, those who die among the gods and are born back among the gods; like the soil of the great earth are their opposites.

Discourses 439 and 441 say that those who know the truths are few; 442 says that the human body, the middle country, the noble eye of wisdom, knowing the Dharma and Discipline, keeping the precepts, and the good destinations are few, layer after layer. Discourse 440, set between them, speaks of something else: the suffering cut off by one who has seen the truths is as much as the water of the lake, and what remains is as little as a drop. Those who know are few, and what those who know obtain is very great. The countless and measureless realm of beings of 438 is the heading of this group: beings so many, and those who know the four truths so few.

IX. Right View Arose (Discourse 443)

“When I had not yet heard the Dharma, I attained right reflection on this noble truth of suffering, and right view arose”: the World-Honored One speaks of himself. That right view arose when he had not yet heard the Dharma means that the Buddha’s four truths were not heard from another but arose from right reflection. The compiler’s note at the end: “as with ‘arose,’ so with ‘arises now’ and ‘will arise’; as with ‘arise,’ so with ‘is roused,’ ‘is practised,’ ‘is cultivated,’ ‘is much cultivated,’ ‘is touched,’ and ‘is realized.’” Arose, arises now, will arise, one discourse for each of the three times; arise, roused, practised, cultivated, much cultivated, touched, realized, one discourse for each of the seven. Right view is not finished once it has arisen; it is to be practised, cultivated, touched, realized.

X. Beings Go Together with the Elements (Discourses 444 to 450)

In 444 a ball of eye-salve a league deep and wide, set out element by element, could quickly be used up, while of the elements “one would not reach the end”: “know that the elements are countless.” Discourse 445 says that beings go together with the elements: “with an unwholesome mind, beings go with an unwholesome element; with a wholesome mind, a wholesome element; with a superior mind, a superior element; with a base mind, a base element.” Discourse 447 takes thirteen venerable ones as examples: Kauṇḍinya walking with many bhikṣus, all elders of great learning; Mahākāśyapa walking with many bhikṣus, all austere in ascetic practice; Śāriputra of great wisdom and eloquence, Mahāmaudgalyāyana of great supernormal power, Aniruddha of clear divine eye, Śroṇa Koṭiviṃśa vigorous in striving, Dravya able to arrange provisions for the assembly, Upāli fully versed in the conduct of the Discipline, Pūrṇa eloquent and skilled in teaching the Dharma, Kātyāyana analysing the discourses, Ānanda of great learning and retentive memory, Rāhula skilled in keeping the conduct of the Discipline; and last, “Devadatta walking nearby with many bhikṣus, all given to many evil deeds.” Thirteen examples are closed with one sentence: “this is called bhikṣus always going together with the elements, joining with the elements.” Discourse 449 carries going together with the elements into action: when killing, one goes with the element of killing; when not killing, with the element of not killing. Discourse 450 carries it into faith: “when faithless, one goes with the element of faithlessness; when breaking the precepts, with the element of breaking the precepts; when without shame or scruple, with the element of shamelessness,” and the end of the discourse lists striving, loss of mindfulness, attainment, great learning, the stingy and the giver, bad and good wisdom, hard and easy to support, hard and easy to satisfy, many and few wishes, contentment, taking in: twelve pairs, one discourse each.

Discourses 446 and 448 are one and the same verse, each attached after the discourse before it: “Always meeting, so always arising; parted, arising is cut off,” “conch and milk are one in colour: beings go together with the elements, join with what is like them, and grow alike.” The elements are not an outside category that sorts beings; whatever mind a being gives rise to, with that element it goes; always meeting, always arising; parted, cut off. Thirteen venerable ones each lead a group of bhikṣus of their own kind, and Devadatta too leads a group of bhikṣus of his own kind, whom the discourse plainly calls “given to many evil deeds”; the good draw the good and the evil draw the evil, each going with his own element, and so the verse urges, “leave sloth behind.” The verse speaks of glue and lacquer, of fire and wind, of conch and milk: like draws like, and what is drawn grows. So the closing words of 444, 445, and 447 are all one urging to train: “discern well the various elements.”

XI. The Various Elements (Discourses 451 to 454)

Discourse 451 lists the eighteen elements: “the eye element, the form element, the eye-consciousness element; the ear element, the sound element, the ear-consciousness element; the nose element, the odour element, the nose-consciousness element; the tongue element, the taste element, the tongue-consciousness element; the body element, the tactile element, the body-consciousness element; the mind element, the dharma element, the mind-consciousness element.” Discourse 452 says, “conditioned by the various elements arise the various contacts; conditioned by the various contacts arise the various feelings; conditioned by the various feelings arise the various cravings,” and forbids the reverse: “it is not that conditioned by the various cravings arise the various feelings, not that conditioned by the various feelings arise the various contacts, not that conditioned by the various contacts arise the various elements.” Discourse 453 says the same, link by link: “it is not that conditioned by eye-contact arises the eye element; only conditioned by the eye element arises eye-contact.” Discourse 454 stretches the chain to eight links: element, contact, feeling, perception, desire, thought, fever, quest, arising forward and not in reverse.

The elements of the first seven discourses are the elements beings go together with, the wholesome and unwholesome elements, the elements of faith and faithlessness; the elements of the last four are the eighteen elements. Two kinds of element bear one name, and the discourses set them side by side. The eighteen elements are what contact, feeling, and craving arise from, forward only, never in reverse: it is not that there is first craving and then feeling, not that there is first feeling and then contact. The wholesome and unwholesome elements are the elements the mind goes together with: always meeting, always arising; parted, cut off. The former tell how beings come to form kinds; the latter tell how a single thought comes to form a chain; both begin from the elements.

XII. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle can be read through 435 and 445. Discourse 435 says that the four noble truths are comprehended gradually, beginning from suffering; 445 says that beings always go together with the elements, beginning from the mind. In the first thirty-seven discourses the World-Honored One presses one thing only: in the dining hall discuss nothing else; in holding the four truths hold what is real in them; to doubt the Buddha is to doubt the truths; the precipice, the heat, and the dark are none of them as fearful as not knowing the four truths; the thrown stick falls back; wisdom is knowing the four truths; those who know are as few as the soil on the nail; right view is to be practised, cultivated, realized. The phrase “train in unbroken comprehension” occurs twenty-two times in this fascicle; “strive with skilful means” also twenty-two times. The direction of the pressing is gradual: know the noble truth of suffering first; without first knowing suffering, arising, cessation, and the path have nowhere to be set. The last eleven discourses change the manner of speaking: whatever mind a being gives rise to, with that element it goes; with whatever element it goes, that kind it becomes; the eighteen elements give rise to contact, feeling, and craving, forward and not in reverse.

The two sections meet at 442 and 445. Discourse 442 says that those who have attained the noble eye of wisdom are like the soil on the nail and those who have not like the soil of the great earth; 445 says that with a wholesome mind one goes with a wholesome element and with a base mind with a base element. Those who know the four truths are few because those who go with a wholesome element are few; and going with a wholesome element begins from a single wholesome thought. Gradual unbroken comprehension begins from the noble truth of suffering; going together with the elements begins from the mind of this moment; both beginnings are at hand. So the urging to train in the section on the elements and the urging to train in the section on the truths are one sentence: to be skilled in the various elements is to train in unbroken comprehension.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The summary verse of Fascicle 95 of the Compendium of Topics, “the reasoned; inclusion; the truth of arising; attainment; characteristics; the basis; function; obstacles; faults; black ripening, and so on; the great meaning; finally, what is hard to obtain,” has twelve headings, and the earlier fascicle of this collection has already matched the discourses of its section on the truths to them; the section on the truths in this fascicle continues under the last three: the heading of black ripening and the rest gathers 430 to 434, the heading of the great meaning gathers 435 to 442, and the heading of what is finally hard to obtain gathers 442 to 443. Under the general summary verse of Fascicle 96, “the general meaning, and so on; light, and so on; feeling, and so on, last,” the four headings of the separate summary verse “the general meaning; distinction by kind; arising in kind; finally, the three quests” and the seven headings of “the inclusion of the three elements and the seven elements; views and perceptions; together with the wondrous; the nature of difference; establishment; stillness; finally, the fool” gather the section on the elements in this fascicle. The order of the headings follows the order of the discourses. For 407 to 426 the treatise has no headings of their own, but what the headings of obstacles and of faults, matched to the earlier fascicle, say is exactly their matter, and they are set first; for 427 to 429 the treatise has nothing to match.

The heading of obstacles says that to the direct realization of the truths there are four kinds of obstacle, the fourth of which is heedlessness: “wrong thinking, wrong thought, and wrong idle discourse are called heedlessness.” Wrong thinking is what the discourses in the dining hall forbid: “or thinking about the world, that the world is eternal, and so on at length; or likewise that the world is bounded, and so on at length; or thinking about sentient beings, that the soul is the body, and so on at length,” “that the Tathāgata after passing away exists or does not exist, and so on at length,” which is the fourteen sentences of 408; “thinking thus about the world and the like can bring on what is without meaning,” which is the “of no benefit in meaning” of 407; “wrong thought, know, is thought of desire and the rest,” which is the thoughts of greed, hatred, and harming of 409; “wrong idle discourse is of six further kinds: the idle discourse of inversion, of futility, of dispute, of judging others superior or inferior, of judging crafts and livelihoods, and of being steeped in worldly wealth and food.” Dispute is the quarrelling of 412; judging superior or inferior is the “which has the greater power, which the greater wealth” of 413; crafts and livelihoods is the “what craft, by what did you live” of 414; worldly wealth and food is the money and the food and drink of 411 and the coarse, plain food of 415. The treatise says that the disciple of the Buddha, to cut off these four obstacles, “holds the noble truths in three aspects”: the wisdom of hearing holds their letter, the wisdom of reflection holds their meaning, the wisdom of cultivation holds their realization; “the noble ones know them to be truths, and so they are called noble truths,” “by their real meaning they are called truths.” The holding of the three discourses 416 to 418, from holding the letter to holding what is thus and so and real, is exactly this order; “for this reason one is far from doubt about the truths. Knowledge of the truths and the purity of realization depend on each other; where there is the one there must be the second,” which is the mutual dependence of 419 and 420, where to doubt the Buddha is to doubt the truths and to doubt the truths is to doubt the Buddha.

The heading of faults says that one who does not know the noble truths has four kinds of fault: “toward the formations that are the root of birth and that lead down to the evil destinations he gives rise to deep delight, and makes and increases the actions that go with them, and so plunges into the pit of birth in the evil destinations,” which is the deep precipice of 421; “once born there, great fever arises and he is constantly burned,” which is the great heat of 422; “and so on at length to falling into the dark of birth,” which is the great dark of 423; “as one born in the space between the three kinds of world falls into the darkness of three kinds of false view,” which is the darkness between the worlds of the small, middling, and great thousandfold worlds of 424 to 426. The four similes of the discourses and the four faults of the treatise are in exactly the same order; the discourses make delighting in and clinging to the formations that are the root of birth the cause of the fall, and the treatise too says “toward the formations that are the root of birth he gives rise to deep delight.”

The heading of black ripening and the rest glosses the simile of the thrown stick: “like a thrown stick, whose root falls into hell, whose middle falls into the animal destination, and whose end falls into the realm of hungry ghosts”; where the discourse has root, middle, and head landing on the ground, the treatise has root, middle, and end falling into three destinations. Of one whose actions are mixed black and white, “like a thrown stick, it falls either into the unclean places of the evil destinations or into the less clean places of the good destinations,” which is the clean and unclean ground of 431; one whose actions are white is born in the five destinations, and “birth and death in the five destinations are like a wheel of five spokes, turning without rest,” which is the wheel of five linked spokes of 432. The treatise then speaks of two kinds of teaching that lead upward: the worldly path leads upward to the summit of existence, but is “not the teaching that leads upward in the ultimate sense”; “the teaching that the Tathāgata speaks in accordance with the noble truths—know that this teaching is the teaching that leads upward in the ultimate sense,” which may be read with the teaching supremely of 433. The treatise glosses intelligence: “if one is called intelligent by reason of knowledge of the truths, this is intelligence in the ultimate sense,” which is the wisdom of 434, the discourse and the treatise differing in word.

The heading of the great meaning glosses the gradual: “knowledge of the first noble truth is able to enter the gradual direct realization of the noble truths, like the foundation; knowledge of the second truth is like the wall; knowledge of the third truth is like the lower storey; knowledge of the fourth truth is like the jewelled terrace above”; “again, these same four knowledges of the noble truths are like a stairway of four steps, able to make one ascend to the palace of great wisdom,” “like a ladder of four rungs, able to make one climb up to liberation and quiescence”: the stairway of four steps of 436 and the ladder of four rungs of 437 the treatise sets side by side as two similes. The same heading glosses the similes of much and little: the suffering that remains to one who has seen the truths and the suffering already cut off are “like a pebble and the great Snow Mountains”; “like a great pond full of water, from which two or three drops are drawn, and the water that remains in the great pond is still very much”; “like a great reservoir, the rest as said before”; “again like the great ocean, the rest as said before”; “again the similes of the great Snow Mountains, of the golden mountains, of Sumeru and the great earth, and again six similes of pebbles, and again the simile of the lump of clay”: the earth and stones in the hand, the lake water, the lump of clay, and the soil on the nail of 439 to 442, and the similes of rivers, mountains, and fruits appended at the end of 440 and 441, the treatise lists together by name. The treatise reads 440 as the discourse does: the pebble is what remains, the Snow Mountains what has been cut off, “thus, because much suffering has already been left behind and little suffering remains, know that the direct realization of the noble truths as they really are has great meaning and benefit.” The discourse uses earth and stones for the fewness of those who know and the lake water for the greatness of what is cut off; the treatise joins the two similes in one meaning: those who know are few, and what they obtain is great.

The heading of what is finally hard to obtain glosses the list of 442: “if, dwelling in this body, one enters direct realization of the truths, know that this body is the hardest of all to obtain”; and then item by item it glosses the discourse’s knowing father and mother, knowing ascetics and brāhmaṇas, fearing wrongdoing, making merit and keeping the fast: “knowing as it really is that all fathers and mothers should be honoured and supported,” “having known as it really is that all ascetics and brāhmaṇas of virtue are a field of merit,” “this is called seeing deep fear in wrongdoing in this world,” “this is called seeing deep fear in wrongdoing in the other world,” “all this is called giving and making merit, keeping the fast and training in the precepts.” It glosses too the difficulty of staying in the good destinations: “once born in the evil destinations, liberation is hard; once born in the good destinations, one is swiftly parted from them,” which is the discourse’s dying in hell and being born back in hell, passing away from among the gods and being born in hell. The same heading glosses 443: “with regard to the past it is called having arisen, with regard to the present arising now, with regard to the future going to arise. As said before, of practising, cultivating, and much cultivating, the meaning should be known”: the compiler’s note at the end of the discourse on arose, arises now, will arise, practised, cultivated, much cultivated, the treatise glosses phrase by phrase.

The heading of the general meaning in Fascicle 96 glosses the elements: “know that the elements are in brief of two kinds: the elements that abide in their own nature, and the elements that grow by habituation. The elements that abide in their own nature are the eighteen elements,” “the elements that grow by habituation are those dharmas, wholesome or unwholesome, that have been repeatedly practised in other lives and so are made to occur now”: the eighteen elements of 451 are the elements that abide in their own nature, and the wholesome and unwholesome elements of 445 to 450 are the elements that grow by habituation; the discourses say two things with the one word “element,” and the treatise divides them into two kinds. The heading of arising in kind glosses going together with the elements: “these elements are gathered together by the power of resolve. An earlier evil resolve gathers an evil element; an earlier wholesome resolve gathers a wholesome element. As they are gathered, so one turns with sentient beings of like kind who share the same dharma,” which is the verse’s “join with what is like them” and the thirteen venerable ones of 447 each leading their own kind. The heading of the three quests, finally, establishes the elements through three quests. The quest for pure conduct: “first is said the arising of faith; next one undertakes training in the precepts; next, toward the faults in one’s present conduct, one contemplates oneself and others and feels shame; next one cultivates the wholesome dharmas without a break, rouses diligent striving, and does not forget what was long ago done and long ago said; relying on these two, the mind attains concentration; because the mind is concentrated, one attains knowledge as it really is,” “one who accomplishes such a quest for pure conduct turns, moistened together with and in likeness to, the sentient beings of that element,” which is the three pairs of faith, keeping the precepts, and shame and scruple in 450, and the pairs of striving, not losing mindfulness, attainment, good wisdom, easy to support and satisfy, and few wishes and contentment listed at the end of the discourse. The quest for existence: “the fruit depends on the cause, not the cause on the fruit,” “because the elements of the six sense bases, followed by the element of ignorance, differ as condition and basis, the various kinds of ignorant contact arise; with the various kinds of ignorant contact as condition, the various kinds of feeling born of ignorant contact arise; with the various kinds of feeling born of ignorant contact as condition, craving conditioned by the feelings born of ignorant contact arises,” which is the element giving rise to contact, contact to feeling, and feeling to craving of 452 and 453; what 453 says link by link, that it is not conditioned by that that this arises but only conditioned by this that that arises, the treatise says as the fruit depending on the cause, not the cause on the fruit. The quest for desire: “with this perception as condition, longing for objects arises; with longing as condition, much thought that follows those dharmas arises; with that much thought that follows those dharmas as condition, the fever of body and mind made by yearning and sorrow arises; with the fever of body and mind as condition, the differences of the various kinds of quest after objects can all be understood,” which is the five links of perception, desire, thought, fever, and quest in 454; the treatise’s perception, longing, thought, fever, and quest are in the same order as the discourse, only the discourse has the link of feeling after contact, which the treatise does not list in this passage. The heading of the nature of difference glosses the two kinds of difference of the eighteen elements: “the nature of difference by other kind is that the eye element is different, the form element is different, the eye-consciousness element is different, and so on up to the mind-consciousness element being different”; “the nature of difference within a kind is that the same element accords with painful feeling, or with pleasant feeling, or with feeling neither painful nor pleasant, and with this as condition gives rise to the three feelings,” which is the arising of contact and feeling conditioned by the elements in 452 to 454. The heading of the fool says that the fool “is unskilled in four places: in the elements, the sense bases, dependent arising, and what is possible and impossible, in none of which he has understanding,” which may be read with the urging of 444 and 445, “train well in the elements; be skilled in the various elements.” The heading of distinction by kind speaks of the kinds of the elements, and may be read with the venerable ones of 447 each leading their own kind; the headings of the inclusion of the three elements and the seven elements, of views and perceptions, of the wondrous, of establishment, and of stillness have no discourse in this fascicle directly matching them, and are not listed.

A bhikṣu in meditative reflection in a quiet place wonders: the World-Honored One has taught three feelings, and yet he also says that “all feelings whatsoever are suffering”; what does this mean? The World-Honored One answers: “Because all formations are impermanent, because all formations are subject to change, I say that all feelings whatsoever are suffering.” Of the thirty-five discourses of this fascicle, the ten at the head and the one appended at the end speak of the elements, and the twenty-four from the four hundred and sixty-sixth to the four hundred and eighty-ninth speak of feeling. The elements are what feeling arises from: “conditioned by the various elements arise the various contacts”; feeling is the fruit the elements bring about, and only when one knows that feeling is all suffering does one “give rise to right weariness, take no delight, and turn away” from things. From the elements to feeling, from feeling to weariness: this is the order of the fascicle.

I. The Seven Elements and Elements as Conditions (Discourses 456 and 457)

Seven elements: the element of light, the element of purity, the four elements of the formless spheres, and the element of cessation. A certain bhikṣu asks “by what conditions are these elements known?” The answer: “the element of light is known in dependence on darkness”; the element of purity in dependence on impurity; the sphere of space in dependence on form; the sphere of consciousness in dependence on the inner; the sphere of nothingness in dependence on something; the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception “is known in dependence on the summit of existence”; “the element of cessation is known in dependence on the existing body.” He asks again by what attainment they are reached: the first five elements are “reached by the attainment proper to each”; the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception is “reached by the attainment of the summit of existence”; the element of cessation is “reached by the attainment of the cessation of the existing body.” An element is known by what it stands against and reached by what it practises; the element of cessation stands against the existing body and is reached in the cessation of the existing body.

In the four hundred and fifty-seventh the World-Honored One rises from meditation and speaks the udāna phrase: “conditioned by an element arises speech, never without an element; conditioned by an element arises a view, never without an element; conditioned by an element arises a perception, never without an element.” Conditioned by an inferior element arise inferior speech, inferior views, inferior perceptions, and so on up to inferior rebirth; so too with a middling element and a superior element. The bhikṣu Vakkalin, holding a fan behind him, asks: “if toward the Fully and Perfectly Awakened One there arises the view that he is not fully and perfectly awakened, does that view too arise conditioned by an element?” The answer: “it too arises conditioned by an element, never without an element”; “the element of the ordinary person is the element of ignorance.” Even a wrong view does not arise without a cause; it has its element. Speech, views, perceptions, rebirth: not one of them fails to come from an element.

II. Perceptions of Desire, of Harming, and of Deliverance (Discourse 458)

“A perception of desire arises from a cause, not without a cause; a perception of hatred and a perception of harming arise from a cause, not without a cause.” The cause is an element: “conditioned by the element of desire arise the perception of desire, the desire for it, the thought of it, the fever of it, the quest for it.” When the foolish ordinary person has given rise to the quest of desire, “this being goes wrong in three places: body, speech, and mind”; he “dwells in suffering here and now, with pain, with obstruction, with vexation, with fever, and when the body breaks up and life ends he is born in an evil destination.” The perception of hatred and the perception of harming are the same, “namely the element of harming.” Ascetics and brāhmaṇas who rest in this and give rise to a perilous perception “do not seek to relinquish it, do not wake to it, do not spit it out,” like a great fire suddenly breaking out in the wilderness beside a town with no one able to put it out: “know that all the beings in that wilderness are harmed by the fire.” Conversely, “conditioned by the element of deliverance arise the perception of deliverance, the desire for it, the thought of it, the fever of it, the quest for it”; from the element of non-harming arises the perception of non-harming. When the wise person seeks, the three places go right; he “dwells in happiness here and now, without pain, without obstruction, without vexation, without fever, and when the body breaks up and life ends he is born in a good destination,” as when a great fire rises and “there is a person able to put out the fire with hands and feet,” and all that depend on the grass and trees are unharmed. Perception arises from the element, the quest arises from perception, the right or wrong of the three places arises from the quest; the fire must be put out when it first rises.

III. The Element of Endeavour (Discourse 459)

A brāhmaṇa comes and asks whether “beings are neither self-made nor made by another.” The World-Honored One says, “with one who argues thus, I do not meet,” and turns the question back on him: “I shall now question you; answer as you see fit.” “Is there an element of endeavour in beings, enabling beings to know how to make endeavour?” The brāhmaṇa answers for himself that there is. The World-Honored One then concludes: “if there is an element of endeavour, enabling beings to know that there is endeavour, then beings are self-made, then they are made by another.” He asks again about “the element of steadfastness, the element of firmness, the element of going forth, the element of making,” and it is the same. He does not meet the empty argument about self-made and made by another; by the element of endeavour he questions in return, and so establishes that beings are self-made and made by another. Where the element is, there is making.

IV. The Householder Ghoṣila Asks about the Various Elements (Discourses 460 to 463)

The householder goes four times to Ānanda and four times asks about the various elements, the first time with the words “what are the various elements?”; the four hundred and sixty-second adds one word, asking what the various elements are called. Ānanda answers differently each time. The first answer is from where feeling arises: “the eye element is distinct, the form element is distinct, a basis of joy; from the two as conditions arises consciousness, and the meeting of the three gives rise to contact, and further, conditioned by joyful contact arises pleasant feeling”; “a distinct eye element, a distinct form element, a basis of sorrow,” “the meeting of the three gives rise to painful contact, and conditioned by that painful contact arises painful feeling”; a basis of equanimity gives rise to “neither-painful-nor-pleasant contact, and conditioned by neither-painful-nor-pleasant contact arises neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling,” and so for all six faculties. The second answer is the three realms: “namely the realm of desire, the realm of form, the formless realm,” and the verse says “relinquishing all that remains, one attains stilling without remainder.” The third answer: “there are three elements, the realm of form, the formless realm, and the element of cessation,” and the verse says “one who does not know the element of cessation returns again to existence.” The fourth answer is the three elements of escape: “escaping from the realm of desire to the realm of form, from the realm of form to the formless realm, and the element of the cessation of all formations and all thinking,” and the verse says “all formations ended; knowing what remains of existence, one turns back no more into existence.” One question, four answers: from where feeling arises, to the division of the realms, to the element of cessation, to escape; the later the answer, the nearer to escape.

V. Calm, Insight, and the Elements of Liberation (Discourse 464)

Ānanda asks an elder by what means a bhikṣu reflecting in a quiet place should reflect, and the answer is “reflect single-mindedly with two things: calm and insight”; “cultivating calm, one ends in insight; having cultivated insight, one also accomplishes calm.” Cultivating calm and insight together, one “attains the elements of liberation”; “the element of abandoning, the element of desirelessness, the element of cessation: these are called the elements of liberation”; “the abandoning of all formations is called the element of abandoning; cutting off craving and desire is the element of desirelessness; the cessation of all formations is called the element of cessation.” Ānanda asks the five hundred bhikṣus again, and asks the World-Honored One again, and the answers are all the same; he marvels that “the teacher and the disciples are all of the same Dharma, the same meaning, the same phrasing, the same taste.” The World-Honored One tells him: “that elder is an arhat; his outflows are ended, he has laid down the burden, with right knowledge his mind is well liberated; and those five hundred bhikṣus are all likewise.” The elements of liberation have three names, and what is abandoned is alike the formations and craving; the same Dharma and the same taste, because what is realized is one.

VI. Rāhula Asks about the Six Elements; the Various Elements as Conditions (Discourses 465 and 455)

Rāhula asks how one should know and see so as to “have no ‘I’, no view of ‘mine’, no fetter of conceit that binds and attaches.” The answer is the six elements: the earth element, whether past, future, or present, inner or outer, coarse or fine, fair or foul, far or near, “all of it one knows as it really is to be not self, not other than self, not within one another”; “the water element, fire element, wind element, space element, and consciousness element are likewise.” Knowing and seeing thus, there is no ‘I’, no view of ‘mine’, no fetter of conceit that binds and attaches; “this is called cutting off craving, turning away the bonds, rightly attaining unbroken comprehension of conceit, reaching the utter end of suffering.”

The four hundred and fifty-fifth, appended at the end of the fascicle, tells how the elements give rise to feeling and the links that follow: “conditioned by the various elements arise the various contacts, conditioned by the various contacts arise the various perceptions, conditioned by the various perceptions arise the various desires, conditioned by the various desires arise the various thoughts, conditioned by the various thoughts arise the various fevers, conditioned by the various fevers arise the various quests.” Link by link it says in reverse that this cannot be inverted: “conditioned by the eye element arises eye-contact; it is not that conditioned by eye-contact arises the eye element, but only that conditioned by the eye element arises eye-contact,” and so on to “it is not that conditioned by the various quests arise the various fevers, and so on, not that conditioned by the various contacts arise the various elements.” The elements come first, contact, perception, desire, thought, fever, and quest come after, and cause and effect are not inverted. This sentence joins the discourses on the eighteen elements in the preceding fascicle, and it joins the four hundred and sixty-sixth below, where contact is the cause and the origin.

VII. Rāhula Asks about the Three Feelings (Discourses 466 to 468)

Rāhula asks the same question in three discourses, and the World-Honored One answers all three from the three feelings, each answer one layer. The four hundred and sixty-sixth answers with the cause of feeling: “there are three feelings: painful feeling, pleasant feeling, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. What is the cause, what the origin, what the birth, what the turning of these three feelings? These three feelings have contact as their cause, contact as their origin, contact as their birth, contact as their turning”; “when this or that contact ceases, this or that feeling also ceases, is stilled, cooled, and gone.” The four hundred and sixty-seventh answers with the contemplation of feeling: “see pleasant feeling with the notion of suffering, see painful feeling with the notion of a sword’s thrust, see neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling with the notion of impermanence”; one who sees thus, “this is called right view.” The four hundred and sixty-eighth answers with the fetters of feeling: “to abandon the fetter of greed toward pleasant feeling, pure conduct is practised under me; to abandon the fetter of hatred toward painful feeling, pure conduct is practised under me; to abandon the fetter of delusion toward neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, pure conduct is practised under me”; when the three fetters are abandoned and known, “this is called a bhikṣu who has cut off craving and desire, turned away the bonds, attained unbroken comprehension of conceit, and reached the utter end of suffering”; the verse says “one who understands the feelings ends the outflows here and now; when the wise one’s life ends, he is not counted among the many.” Know the cause of feeling, see the character of feeling, abandon the fetters of feeling: one question, three steps. The preceding discourse, the four hundred and sixty-fifth, answered the same question with the six elements: feeling and the elements are two entrances to the one question.

VIII. The Deep Abyss of the Great Ocean and the Two Poisoned Darts (Discourses 469 and 470)

“The deep abyss of the great ocean: this is the deep abyss as the fools of the world speak of it, not the deep abyss as the Dharma and Discipline of the noble ones speak of it.” The deep abyss the noble ones speak of is “feelings arising from the body, pressed by many pains, to vexation or to death: this is called the deepest abyss of the great ocean.” When feelings arise from the body in the ordinary person, he “grieves and laments, cries out and reproaches, wails and howls, the mind distraught and mad, long sunk and drowned, with no place of rest”; when feelings arise from the body in the learned noble disciple, he “does not sink in birth and death, and finds a place of rest.” In the four hundred and seventieth the World-Honored One himself asks what the difference is between the ordinary person and the noble one. In the ordinary person feeling arises from bodily contact, and he grieves and cries out; “at that time he gives rise to two feelings, a bodily feeling and a mental feeling,” “like a man struck in the body by two poisoned darts.” Because he enjoys the pleasures of the five senses he is “driven by the fetter of greed”; because hatred arises at the contact of painful feeling he is “driven by the fetter of hatred”; of these two feelings he “does not know as they really are their origin, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape,” and when neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling arises he is “driven by the fetter of delusion”; “namely, he is bound by greed, hatred, and delusion, bound by birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, vexation, and suffering.” When painful feeling arises from bodily contact in the noble disciple, “only one feeling arises, namely the bodily feeling, and no mental feeling,” “like a man struck by one poisoned dart and not by a second”; knowing as they really are the origin, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape of the two fetters, “from that pleasant feeling he is liberated and unbound, and from painful feeling and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling he is liberated and unbound.” The abyss is not in the ocean but in bodily feeling; the difference between the ordinary person and the noble one is not in the first dart but in the second.

IX. The Wild Wind, the Guesthouse, Feeling Is All Suffering, the Gradual Quieting (Discourses 471 to 474)

“Like a wild wind suddenly rising in the sky, coming from the four quarters,” dusty and dustless, thin and thick, up to the winds of the wind-circle, “so too are the winds of feeling in the body: all kinds of feeling arise”: the three feelings, pleasant, painful, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant, each with a bodily feeling and a mental feeling; there are “pleasant carnal feeling, painful carnal feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant carnal feeling” and non-carnal feelings; there are feelings of attachment and “pleasant feeling of deliverance, painful feeling of deliverance, neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling of deliverance.” The four hundred and seventy-second: “like many kinds of people lodging in a guesthouse,” kṣatriyas and brāhmaṇas, keepers and breakers of the precepts, those at home and those gone forth, all lodging there, “so too is this body: all kinds of feeling arise.” The feelings it lists are the same as in the preceding discourse. The verses of the four discourses from the four hundred and seventieth to the four hundred and seventy-third each open with a different line, but their closing parts share one form: each turns with “a bhikṣu strives with skilful means, with right knowledge unshaken,” and each closes with “understanding the feelings, one ends the outflows here and now; at the body’s death one is not counted, abiding forever in final nirvāṇa”; only the four hundred and seventy-third reads “all feelings whatsoever, the wise can understand; having understood the feelings,” the same in form, not wholly the same in wording.

In the four hundred and seventy-third a certain bhikṣu asks about the three feelings and the meaning of all being suffering, and the World-Honored One answers as quoted at the head of this commentary; the verse says “knowing that formations are impermanent, all subject to change, he says feeling is all suffering: this the Perfectly Awakened One knows.” In the four hundred and seventy-fourth Ānanda asks the same, and the World-Honored One, beyond impermanence and change, adds one more sense: “because of the gradual stilling of formations I say it, because of the gradual quieting of formations I say it, that all feelings whatsoever are suffering.” Gradual stilling: “in the attainment of the first dhyāna, speech is stilled”; in the second dhyāna initial and sustained thought are stilled; in the third the joyful mind is stilled; in the fourth in-and-out breathing is stilled; in each of the four formless spheres the preceding perception is stilled; “in the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling are stilled: this is called the gradual stilling of formations.” Gradual quieting is the same, in the same nine stations. Beyond these there are “the superior quieting, the rare quieting, the higher quieting, the unsurpassed quieting”: “the mind takes no delight in desire and is liberated, takes no delight in hatred and delusion and is liberated.” Feeling is all suffering not because it is pleasant or unpleasant, but because all of it is formations, all of it can be stilled and quieted; and the summit of stilling and quieting is not the cessation of perception and feeling, but the mind taking no delight in greed, hatred, and delusion, and being liberated.

X. The Seven Buddhas Contemplate Feeling (Discourses 475 to 480)

When the Tathāgata Vipaśyin had not yet become a Buddha, alone in a quiet place he examined the feelings in eight questions: “What is feeling? What is the origin of feeling? What is the cessation of feeling? What is the path leading to the origin of feeling? What is the path leading to the cessation of feeling? What is the gratification in feeling? What is the danger in feeling? What is the escape from feeling?” He examined thus: “the origin of contact is the origin of feeling; the cessation of contact is the cessation of feeling”; “if one delights in feeling, praises it, is attached to it, abides firmly in it, this is called the path leading to the origin of feeling,” and not delighting, praising, being attached, or abiding firmly is the path leading to the cessation of feeling; “pleasure and joy arising conditioned by feeling is called the gratification in feeling; that feeling is impermanent and subject to change is called the danger in feeling; abandoning desire and craving for feeling, passing beyond desire and craving, is called the escape from feeling.” The Buddha Śikhin and the rest up to the Buddha Kāśyapa, “and I, the Buddha Śākyamuni, when we had not yet become Buddhas, reflected on and examined the feelings in just this way.” In the four hundred and seventy-sixth a certain bhikṣu in a quiet place examines these eight questions himself and asks; in the four hundred and seventy-seventh Ānanda asks likewise; in the four hundred and seventy-eighth the World-Honored One raises them himself and teaches the bhikṣus; the answer is the same eight points. The four hundred and seventy-ninth says this examination is what becoming a Buddha comes from: “had I not known the feelings as they really are,” and so on to “nor would it have been unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening”; because he knew them as they really are, “he is liberated, has escaped, is free of the inversions, and has attained unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening.” The four hundred and eightieth says this examination is what being an ascetic comes from: one who does not know as it really is “is not an ascetic, not a brāhmaṇa, not like an ascetic, not like a brāhmaṇa”; one who knows as it really is “is an ascetic among ascetics, a brāhmaṇa among brāhmaṇas,” and “realizes for himself here and now.” The seven Buddhas examine alike; a bhikṣu and Ānanda ask alike; when the World-Honored One raises it himself, the question lists five points and the answer gives eight, and the answer is one word shorter. The eight questions on feeling are the one path of the Buddha’s way and the ascetic’s way.

XI. Sitting in Meditation for Half a Month (Discourse 481)

The World-Honored One sits in meditation for half a month and tells the bhikṣus: “with a small portion of the meditation I reflected on when I first became a Buddha, I have now for half a month reflected and thought thus”: “for all beings, the arising of feeling has a condition; it is not without a condition. What condition? Desire is a condition, thought is a condition, contact is a condition.” When none of the three is stilled; when desire is stilled but thought and contact are not; when desire and thought are stilled but contact is not; when all three are stilled: “conditioned by these, beings give rise to feeling.” “Conditioned by wrong view, beings give rise to feeling,” and so with wrong intention up to wrong knowledge; “conditioned by right view, beings give rise to feeling; conditioned by the stilling of right view, beings give rise to feeling,” and so with right intention up to right knowledge; and “if one wishes to attain what is unattained, obtain what is unobtained, realize what is unrealized,” feeling also arises. One who knows as they really are “the condition, the origin of the condition, the cessation of the condition, the path leading to the origin of the condition, the path leading to the cessation of the condition,” “know that he is an ascetic among ascetics, a brāhmaṇa among brāhmaṇas.” Feeling does not stop at defilement: right view gives rise to feeling, the condition of stilling gives rise to feeling, and one who wishes to attain the unattained and realize the unrealized gives rise to feeling. To know the conditions of feeling means not only knowing its defiled conditions but knowing where even the feelings on the path come from; only then is one an ascetic.

XII. The Joy of Seclusion; Carnal and Non-Carnal (Discourses 482 and 483)

The householder Anāthapiṇḍada makes offerings for three months, and the World-Honored One grants that he “will obtain the fruit of happiness in the future,” and tells him, “but do not rest silently content with this; you should be diligent and train from time to time in the joy of seclusion, realizing it fully with the body.” Śāriputra unfolds the meaning: a noble disciple who trains in the joy of seclusion “is free of five things and fulfils five things”: free of “the joy nourished by desire, the sorrow nourished by desire, the equanimity nourished by desire, the joy nourished by the unwholesome, the sorrow nourished by the unwholesome,” and fulfilling “gladness, joy, tranquillity, happiness, and one-pointedness.” The four hundred and eighty-third divides gladness, happiness, equanimity, and liberation each into three layers: carnal, non-carnal, and beyond the non-carnal. “What is carnal gladness? Gladness arising conditioned by the five sense pleasures”; non-carnal gladness is the first dhyāna, and gladness beyond the non-carnal is the second dhyāna. Carnal happiness arises from the five sense pleasures, non-carnal happiness is the joy and happiness born of concentration in the second dhyāna, and happiness beyond the non-carnal is the equanimity the noble ones speak of in the third dhyāna. “Carnal equanimity? Equanimity arising conditioned by the five sense pleasures”; non-carnal equanimity is the third dhyāna, “abiding in the happiness the noble ones call equanimity, dwelling having attained the third dhyāna”; “with the equanimity that is neither painful nor pleasant, pure mindfulness and one-pointedness, dwelling having attained the fourth dhyāna: this is called equanimity beyond the non-carnal.” “What is carnal liberation? That which goes with form. What is non-carnal liberation? That which goes with the formless”; liberation beyond the non-carnal is “undefiled by desire and liberated, the mind undefiled by hatred and delusion and liberated.” The merit of offerings is carnal happiness; seclusion is non-carnal happiness; above the non-carnal there is still what lies beyond the non-carnal; and at the layer of liberation, what goes with form is carnal, what goes with the formless is non-carnal, and only the mind undefiled by greed, hatred, and delusion and liberated is beyond the non-carnal.

XIII. The Foremost Seeing (Discourse 484)

Ānanda asks Bhadra: “What is called the foremost seeing? What is the foremost hearing? What is the foremost happiness? What is the foremost perception? What is the foremost existence?” Bhadra answers with what the world agrees on: “if one sees that Brahmā, this is called the foremost seeing”; to hear one born of seclusion with joy and happiness proclaiming it is the foremost hearing; the happiness free of joy filling the whole body is the foremost happiness; the perception of the sphere of nothingness is the foremost perception; the existence of the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception is the foremost existence. Ānanda says: “many people hold such a view and say so; you say the same as they. What is the difference?” And he answers himself: “as one has seen, one ends the outflows in due order: this is the foremost seeing,” and so with hearing, happiness, and perception; “examining as it really is, one ends the outflows in due order: this is called the foremost existence.” The foremost does not lie in the height of what is seen or attained, but in whether the outflows are ended after the seeing; the existence of neither perception nor non-perception and the seeing of Brahmā are alike what the world agrees to call foremost.

XIV. King Bimbisāra and Udāyin (Discourse 485)

King Bimbisāra asks what feelings the World-Honored One has taught, and Udāyin answers three feelings; the king says “there should be just two feelings, pleasant and painful; as for neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, that is stilling.” After three exchanges, “Udāyin could not establish three feelings for the king, nor could the king establish two,” and together they go to the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One answers: “I sometimes teach one feeling, sometimes two, or three, four, five, six, eighteen, thirty-six, up to a hundred and eight feelings, or sometimes innumerable feelings”; “when I say that all feelings whatsoever are suffering, this is called my teaching of one feeling”; “bodily feeling and mental feeling are called two feelings”; three feelings, four feelings, up to a hundred and eight and innumerable, each has its door. “The world does not understand, and so quarrels and contradicts”; one who understands as it really is can settle quarrels arisen and unarisen by the Dharma and Discipline. The World-Honored One further says “there are two feelings: feeling of desire and feeling free of desire”; the first dhyāna is not the only happiness, “because there is a higher happiness beyond it,” and so on upward to the cessation of perception and feeling realized with the body. If those of other schools say that the ascetic son of the Śākyas teaches only the cessation of perception and feeling as the highest happiness, they should be told “this is not what the World-Honored One counts as the happiness of feeling”; “there are four kinds of happiness. What are the four? The happiness of freedom from desire, the happiness of seclusion, the happiness of stilling, the happiness of awakening.” Counting the feelings is not a quarrel about numbers but a door of teaching; one feeling is suffering, and a hundred and eight feelings are also suffering; there is happiness higher by layer upon layer, and the cessation of perception and feeling is not among the feelings counted as happiness; the four kinds of happiness are listed apart, not counted by the number of feelings.

XV. From One Thing to Ten Things (Discourses 486 to 489)

“If toward one thing one gives rise to right weariness, takes no delight in it, and turns away from it, one attains the ending of the outflows: namely, that all beings subsist by nutriment.” Two things are name and form; three things are the three feelings; four things the four nutriments; five things the five aggregates of clinging; six things the six internal and external sense bases; seven things the seven stations of consciousness; eight things the eight worldly dharmas; nine things the nine abodes of beings; ten things the ten courses of action. The four hundred and eighty-seventh has the same ten things and “reaches the utter end of suffering, is liberated from suffering”; the four hundred and eighty-eighth, toward these ten things, “contemplates impermanence, contemplates change, contemplates dispassion, contemplates cessation, contemplates relinquishment, and attains the ending of the outflows”; the four hundred and eighty-ninth contemplates likewise and “reaches the utter end of suffering, is liberated from suffering.” Weariness attains the ending of the outflows, weariness reaches the utter end of suffering, contemplation attains the ending of the outflows, contemplation reaches the utter end of suffering: four discourses, two methods, two fruits. The three feelings are listed third, in the one list with nutriment, name and form, the aggregates of clinging, and the sense bases, under the same weariness and the same contemplation. The section on feeling closes with these four discourses: feeling is one of the things to be wearied of and contemplated, not something apart.

XVI. How to Read the Fascicle

The section on the elements comes first and the section on feeling after, joined in the middle by Rāhula’s question: the four hundred and sixty-fifth answers the question of having no ‘I’ with the six elements, and the four hundred and sixty-sixth to the four hundred and sixty-eighth answer the same question with the three feelings. Feeling arises from the elements: in the four hundred and sixtieth the eye element and the form element, the meeting of the three, give rise to the three feelings, and in the four hundred and fifty-fifth the elements give rise to contact, and contact to perception, desire, thought, fever, and quest. Feeling has its character: in the four hundred and sixty-seventh pleasant feeling is seen with the notion of suffering, painful feeling with the notion of a sword’s thrust, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling with the notion of impermanence. Feeling has its fetters: the three fetters of the four hundred and sixty-eighth, the two poisoned darts of the four hundred and seventieth. Feeling has its count: carnal and non-carnal, attachment and deliverance in the four hundred and seventy-first and seventy-second; one feeling up to innumerable feelings in the four hundred and eighty-fifth. Feeling has its conditions: contact as cause and origin in the four hundred and sixty-sixth; desire, thought, and contact as three conditions, and the wrong and right factors of the path alike as conditions, in the four hundred and eighty-first. Feeling has its cessation: the gradual stilling and quieting of the four hundred and seventy-fourth; liberation beyond the non-carnal in the four hundred and eighty-third. In sum, one sentence: all feelings whatsoever are suffering, because formations are impermanent and subject to change, because formations can be gradually stilled and quieted. And one who knows? “All these feelings whatsoever, the wise can understand”: by this the seven Buddhas became Buddhas, and by this an ascetic is an ascetic; one who does not know is pierced by the second dart, and is without the goal of an ascetic. The four discourses at the end of the fascicle: toward feeling, weariness and contemplation, to the utter end of suffering.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

At the end of Fascicle 96 of the Compendium of Topics, the uddāna “Intrinsic Nature, And Conditions, Seeing, Defilement, The Person, Differences in Turning, The Reasoning, Quiescence, Finally, Examination,” nine doors, and “The Arising of Feeling, Inferior and the Rest, Differences in the Characteristics of Feelings, Seeing and the Rest as Supreme, Knowing the Differences, Questioning, Declaring,” seven doors, gather the discourses of the section on feeling in this fascicle. For the ten discourses on the elements at the head of the fascicle and the four hundred and fifty-fifth at its end, the mātṛkā of the treatise lies in the doors matched in the preceding fascicle, and is not listed again here. The order of the doors in the treatise does not wholly follow the order of the discourses (the door of Differences in the Characteristics of Feelings answers to the four hundred and eighty-fifth, the door of Seeing and the Rest as Supreme to the four hundred and eighty-fourth); below, the order of the discourses is followed, and each door is named at the discourse it glosses.

The door of Intrinsic Nature and the door And Conditions: “in brief, the three feelings are the intrinsic nature of feeling; the three kinds of contact are the conditions of feeling,” which is the three feelings of the four hundred and sixty-sixth, contact as cause and origin, and the origin of contact as the origin of feeling in the four hundred and seventy-fifth; the discourse says “contact as cause, contact as origin, contact as birth, contact as turning,” the treatise says three kinds of contact, the two differing in wording. The door of Seeing glosses the four hundred and sixty-seventh: “by this one should see pleasant feeling as suffering,” “as one struck by a poisoned dart not yet drawn out, by this one should see painful feeling as a dart,” and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, “what has already perished is impermanent, what is now present is subject to cessation”; “the right view thus arisen toward feeling can enter in accord into the truth that whatever is felt is all suffering.” The sword’s thrust of the discourse is the dart of the treatise; the discourse makes the three notions right view, and the treatise has right view enter into feeling being all suffering, exactly the joining of the four hundred and sixty-seventh with the four hundred and seventy-third. The door of Defilement glosses the three fetters of the four hundred and sixty-eighth and seventieth: “in pleasant feeling there is the latent tendency of greed, in painful feeling the latent tendency of hatred, in neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling the latent tendency of ignorance,” and “in order to destroy the latent tendencies forever, one thoroughly cultivates pure conduct”; the discourse says fetter, the treatise says latent tendency; the discourse says the fetter of delusion, the treatise the latent tendency of ignorance. The door of The Person glosses the four hundred and sixty-ninth: “a person without the power of discernment, when feeling painful feeling, is deeply grieved in mind,” “therefore it is called the manifest and complete pit of dark feeling, whose bottom is hard to reach,” and “a person with the power of discernment, know, is in every way the opposite of the above.” The foolish, unlearned ordinary person and the learned noble disciple of the discourse are, in the treatise, the person without and the person with the power of discernment; the deepest abyss of the great ocean in the discourse is the pit of dark feeling in the treatise.

The door of Differences in Turning glosses the four hundred and seventieth to seventy-second and the four hundred and eighty-third: “further, a person whose mind is not liberated from the feelings fully receives painful feeling, like one person struck by two poisoned darts,” and “the two poisoned darts are a simile for the three feelings being received either with a defiled mind, that is, through greed, hatred, and delusion, or in concomitance, that is, through the sufferings of birth and the rest.” The two poisoned darts of the discourse, and its “bound by greed, hatred, and delusion, bound by birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, vexation, and suffering,” the treatise divides into the two darts of defiled reception and concomitant reception. “One should see this feeling as like a whirlwind” is the wild wind of the four hundred and seventy-first; “one should see this feeling as like the sorts of travellers in a guesthouse” is the guesthouse of the four hundred and seventy-second; the treatise takes the whirlwind as a simile for feeling that swiftly passes away and the guesthouse for feeling that continues in similar succession, each simile answering to one kind. “Savoury feelings are worldly feelings; unsavoury feelings are feelings beyond the world,” “feelings of relishing are the defiled feelings toward the fine five sense pleasures,” “feelings of renunciation”: the carnal feeling, non-carnal feeling, feeling of attachment, and feeling of deliverance of the discourse are in the treatise savoury, unsavoury, relishing, and renunciation, all four names differing in wording. The door of The Reasoning glosses the four hundred and seventy-third: “further, painful feelings all beings know directly to be suffering, without need of proof,” while pleasant feeling and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling should be known to be suffering because they are subject to decay; “by this reasoning, know that all feelings are suffering.” The discourse says subject to change, the treatise says subject to decay. The door of Quiescence glosses the four hundred and seventy-fourth: “further, of those feelings, know that there are in brief three kinds of quiescence”; “it should be known that here, ceasing to operate for a time is called quiescence; making them finally become things that do not operate is called quieting.” The stilling and quieting of the discourse are divided into two questions and two answers with the same nine stations listed; the treatise divides them as temporary non-occurrence and final non-occurrence. “Speech itself, when one rightly enters the concentration of the first meditation, is at once quiescent” is the stilling of speech in the first dhyāna of the discourse; “it is said that the mind is freed from defilement and liberated with regard to greed, hatred, and delusion” is the superior quieting and the unsurpassed quieting of the discourse. The door Finally, Examination glosses the four hundred and seventy-fifth to eightieth: “further, by seven modes one examines seven characteristics in the feelings,” “namely, examining the intrinsic nature of feelings, the conditions of their present occurrence and reversal, the conditions of their future occurrence, the conditions of their future reversal, the conditions of their defilement, the conditions of their purification, and their purification.” The discourse has eight points (feeling, origin, cessation, the path to the origin, the path to the cessation, gratification, danger, escape), the treatise seven characteristics; the number and the names both differ. The treatise’s conditions of present occurrence and reversal answer to the discourse’s origin and cessation; its conditions of future occurrence and reversal to the paths to the origin and to the cessation; its conditions of defilement and purification to gratification and danger; its purification to escape; and the one characteristic of intrinsic nature the discourse gathers under “what is feeling?”

The door of The Arising of Feeling glosses the four hundred and eighty-first: “all the feelings that sentient beings should abandon arise in brief from three conditions,” “first, the condition of desire, which concerns the future; second, the condition of reflection, which concerns the past; third, the condition of contact, which concerns the present objects before one.” The desire, thought, and contact of the discourse are in the treatise desire, reflection, and contact, and the treatise divides them by the three times. The treatise further divides sentient beings into eight kinds, among them “one endowed with wrong view up to wrong knowledge of liberation” and “one endowed with right view up to right knowledge of liberation,” which is the discourse’s arising of feeling conditioned by wrong view up to wrong knowledge and by right view up to right knowledge; “all the desires, to attain what is unattained, to realize what is unrealized, to touch what is untouched” is the discourse’s attaining the unattained, obtaining the unobtained, realizing the unrealized; one who knows this, “in the ultimate sense is allowed to be an ascetic among ascetics, and a brahmin among brahmins.” The discourse says a brāhmaṇa among brāhmaṇas; the treatise says brahmin. The door of Inferior and the Rest glosses the four hundred and eighty-second and eighty-third: “further, the noble disciples who dwell having realized with the body the joy of seclusion can abandon five things and can cultivate five things to fulfilment,” which is the discourse’s freedom from five things and fulfilling of five things; “further, the inferior, middling, and superior grades of joy, happiness, and equanimity are in the realm of desire and the four meditations,” which is the discourse’s three layers of carnal, non-carnal, and beyond the non-carnal, which the treatise names inferior, middling, and superior; “the equanimity of the stage of the fourth meditation, being free of all faults, is called well purified,” which is the discourse’s equanimity beyond the non-carnal in the fourth dhyāna. The door of Seeing and the Rest as Supreme glosses the four hundred and eighty-fourth: “relying on seeing, hearing, happiness, perception, and existence of such sorts, one at once attains the permanent ending of the outflows; know that this seeing is called the supreme seeing, and so on to this existence being called the supreme existence.” The discourse’s ending the outflows in due order is in the treatise at once attaining the permanent ending of the outflows; the discourse says foremost, the treatise says supreme. The door of Differences in the Characteristics of Feelings glosses the four hundred and eighty-fifth: “further, by ten characteristics one should know the differences among the feelings.” The treatise first cites the words of “those without awakening”: “feeling is of only two kinds, first painful, second pleasant,” and “therefore the World-Honored One, relying on such stilling of pain and pleasure, provisionally established it as existing,” which is the king’s position that neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling is stilling; “the World-Honored One, wishing to open their understanding,” then teaches the happiness of desire and the happiness of seclusion. The treatise’s one without awakening answers to King Bimbisāra in the discourse, and the World-Honored One’s opening of understanding to the discourse’s one feeling up to innumerable feelings. “Happiness is of two kinds, namely the happiness of desire and the happiness of seclusion” is the discourse’s feeling of desire and feeling free of desire; “inferior happiness is that of the sphere of nothingness and below; middling happiness is that of the summit of existence; superior happiness is the cessation of perception and feeling” is the discourse’s happiness higher by layer upon layer; “it is not that the attainment of cessation is said to have happiness in terms of felt happiness; rather, the cutting off of felt happiness is called happiness” is the discourse’s “this is not what the World-Honored One counts as the happiness of feeling.” The discourse’s list from one feeling to innumerable feelings and the treatise’s ten characteristics differ in number and in name; the discourse’s four kinds of happiness have no list in the treatise. The door of Knowing the Differences glosses the four hundred and eighty-sixth to eighty-ninth: “one who can attain the utter end of suffering is one who attains complete liberation with regard to the truth of suffering,” “one who can attain the ending of the outflows is one who attains superior liberation with regard to the truth of arising,” “what should be wearied of, turned from, and liberated from is what one rightly realizes with regard to the truth of cessation,” “one who dwells contemplating impermanence and the rest is one who rightly cultivates the truth of the path.” The four discourses, two methods, two fruits of the discourse are distributed by the treatise over the four truths: the utter end of suffering is the truth of suffering, the ending of the outflows is the truth of arising, weariness and turning away is the truth of cessation, contemplating impermanence and the rest is the truth of the path; “further, by ten characteristics one should understand the differences among the objects,” and the treatise’s ten characteristics are the same in number as the discourse’s ten things, but not the same in name.

The door of Questioning and the door of Declaring speak of the method of question and answer, and have no discourse of this fascicle specially answering to them; the treatise says “if someone asks, ‘having done a deed, does one go to a good destination?’ one should question in return: ‘what deed do you ask about?’”; the World-Honored One in the four hundred and fifty-ninth, not meeting the question of self-made and made by another, questions in return about the element of endeavour, which may be read alongside. Of the treatise’s four kinds of declaration, “declaring categorically,” declaring by questioning in return, and setting aside, the discourse uses the one method of questioning in return.

“There is a one-vehicle path that purifies beings, brings them beyond sorrow and lamentation, extinguishes affliction and suffering, and attains the Dharma as it really is—namely, the four foundations of mindfulness.” Of the thirty-five discourses of this fascicle there is not one that does not teach the four foundations of mindfulness; the recitation heading at the head of the fascicle reads “the Fifth Recitation, Path Section, Part One,” the Path section begins with this fascicle, and the four foundations of mindfulness stand at the head of the Path. The thirty-five discourses are not one teaching repeated; they are the faces of one teaching: what the foundations of mindfulness are, from what they originate, how they are cultivated, how the one who cultivates differs from the one who does not, in what domain one moves, what comes first, what fruit is attained, up to the World-Honored One entrusting them to Ānanda and to the assembly as island and refuge. To read this fascicle is to read the reason the four foundations of mindfulness are called “a one-vehicle path.”

I. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness and the One-Vehicle Path (Discourses 605 to 608)

The six hundred and fifth has only one sentence: “there are four foundations of mindfulness. What are the four? The foundation of mindfulness contemplating the body as body, and feelings, mind, and dharmas as feelings, mind, and dharmas.” The six hundred and sixth adds one sentence of training: “cultivate these four foundations of mindfulness and bring them to fullness, ardent and resourceful, with right mindfulness and clear comprehension; thus you should train.” The six hundred and seventh gives the reason: “there is a one-vehicle path that purifies beings, brings them beyond sorrow and lamentation, extinguishes affliction and suffering, and attains the Dharma as it really is—namely, the four foundations of mindfulness”: purifying, bringing beyond, extinguishing, attaining, four things and one path. The six hundred and eighth speaks from the other side of departing and not departing: “if a bhikṣu departs from the four foundations of mindfulness, he departs from the noble Dharma as it really is; one who departs from the noble Dharma as it really is departs from the noble path; one who departs from the noble path departs from the deathless Dharma; one who departs from the deathless Dharma is not freed from birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, affliction, and suffering—I say that he is not liberated from suffering”; for the one who does not depart it is the reverse: “I say that such a person is freed from all suffering.” The four discourses go from the name to the training, from the training to the path, from the path to departing and not departing: the four foundations of mindfulness and the noble Dharma, the noble path, and the deathless Dharma are one chain, and to depart from its head is to depart from its end.

II. Origin and Passing Away, and Cultivation (Discourses 609 and 610)

The six hundred and ninth speaks of the origin of the four foundations of mindfulness and their passing away, each tied to one thing: “with the origin of nutriment is the origin of the body; with the cessation of nutriment the body passes away,” “with the origin of contact is the origin of feeling; with the cessation of contact feeling passes away,” “with the origin of name and form is the origin of mind; with the cessation of name and form mind passes away,” “with the origin of recollection is the origin of dharmas; with the cessation of recollection dharmas pass away.” Each of the four has that from which it originates; the contemplator dwells contemplating origin, contemplating passing away, contemplating origin and passing away; and the four come alike to no reliance and no clinging, though the closing words differ: for the contemplation of the body, “then one dwells without reliance and never clings to anything in the world”; for the contemplation of feeling, “then one dwells without reliance and clings to nothing at all in the world”; for the contemplations of mind and of dharmas, “then one dwells without reliance and then clings to nothing in the world.” The six hundred and tenth speaks of cultivation: “dwelling in contemplation of the body as body internally, ardent and resourceful, with right knowledge and right mindfulness, taming sorrow and lamentation for the world; dwelling in contemplation of the body externally, and internally and externally, ardent and resourceful, with right mindfulness and clear comprehension, taming sorrow and lamentation for the world,” and feeling, mind, and dharmas likewise in the three contemplations, internal, external, internal and external, “this is called a bhikṣu cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness”; the last sentence of the discourse, “the cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness in the past and in the future is taught likewise,” makes the cultivation the same in the three times. To know their origin and passing away is the content of the contemplation; to contemplate in three ways, inside and out, and tame sorrow and lamentation is the shape of the cultivation.

III. The Mass of the Wholesome and the Mass of the Unwholesome (Discourses 611 to 613)

The six hundred and eleventh sets up two masses: “what is the mass of wholesome dharmas? It is the four foundations of mindfulness; this is the right teaching. Why? The mass that is purely full and pure is the four foundations of mindfulness”; “what is the mass of the unwholesome? The mass of the unwholesome is the five hindrances; this is the right teaching. Why? The mass of the unwholesome, purely overflowing and full, is the five hindrances,” and the five hindrances are “the hindrance of sensual desire, the hindrance of ill will, the hindrance of sloth and torpor, the hindrance of restlessness and remorse, the hindrance of doubt.” The six hundred and thirteenth sets up the same two masses but exchanges the mass of the unwholesome for the three unwholesome roots: “the mass of the purely unwholesome is the three unwholesome roots,” “the purely wholesome and complete is the four foundations of mindfulness; this is called the good teaching”; at the end of the discourse is appended “as with the three unwholesome roots, so with the three bad conducts”—“bad conduct of body, bad conduct of speech, bad conduct of mind”—and the three perceptions, the three thoughts, the three elements, each divided by desire, hatred, and harming. The mass of the wholesome is one only; the mass of the unwholesome can be spoken of as the five hindrances, as the three roots, as bad conduct, perceptions, thoughts, elements; what is purely wholesome and complete is the four foundations of mindfulness alone. The six hundred and twelfth stands between the two masses and likens four kinds of śrāvakas to four strong bows: “as a man holding four strong bows, with great strength and skill, shoots at the shadow of a palm tree, and the arrows pass swiftly through without obstruction”; a śrāvaka of sharp faculties who listens to the Dharma for a full hundred years, “yet the Tathāgata’s teaching of the Dharma cannot be exhausted. Know that what the Tathāgata teaches is immeasurable and boundless, and the bodies of names, phrases, and syllables are likewise immeasurable, without end—namely, the four foundations of mindfulness.” After the discourse is one general sentence: “all the discourses on the four foundations of mindfulness have this general sentence, namely: ‘therefore, bhikṣus, in the cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness, arouse a superior desire, be ardent and resourceful, with right mindfulness and right knowledge—thus you should train.’” A teaching immeasurable and boundless, and what it teaches is only the four foundations of mindfulness; all the discourses on the four foundations of mindfulness, and their closing word is only one sentence of training.

IV. The Great Man (Discourse 614)

A certain bhikṣu asks “what is called a great man, and one who is not a great man?” The answer lies not in whether there is a foundation of mindfulness but in whether there is liberation of mind: “if a bhikṣu dwells in contemplation of the body as body, and having so dwelt, his mind does not leave desire, is not liberated, has not ended the outflows, I say that he is not a great man. Why? Because his mind is not liberated”; “if a bhikṣu dwells in contemplation of the body as body, and his mind leaves desire, his mind is liberated, the outflows are ended, I say that he is a great man. Why? Because his mind is liberated.” Feeling, mind, and dharmas are the same. One who cultivates the foundations of mindfulness and whose mind is not liberated is still not a great man; the name of great man is tied to the fruit, not to the practice.

V. The Mind Bound in Place; Knowing the Rising and Falling, Before and After (Discourse 615)

The bhikṣuṇīs say to Ānanda: “we bhikṣuṇīs cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness with the mind bound in place, and know for ourselves the rising and falling, before and after”; Ānanda confirms it, and the World-Honored One confirms it again: “you should train thus in the four foundations of mindfulness, binding the mind well in place and knowing the rising and falling, before and after. Why? The mind seeks outward, and then one restrains it and makes it seek its own mind; a scattered mind and an unliberated mind are both known as they really are.” How does one rise: when dwelling in contemplation of the body, “if the body is sunk in drowsiness and the mind slack, that bhikṣu should arouse pure faith and take up a pure sign,” and from pure faith comes gladness, from gladness joy, the body is tranquil, one feels bodily ease, the mind is concentrated; one whose mind is concentrated knows for himself “gathering in the outward-scattered mind and bringing it to rest, not giving rise to initial thought or to what has already been examined, without initial or sustained thought, dwelling at ease with equanimity and mindfulness; having dwelt at ease, he knows as it really is.” Rising and falling, before and after, is not a judgment of how well one cultivates; it is the cultivator’s knowing as it really is of his own mind’s scattering and non-liberation; to know the place of falling and take up a pure sign is rising.

VI. Taking the Sign of One’s Own Mind (Discourse 616)

“Take the sign of your own mind and do not let it scatter outward.” The foolish cook “without skill blends the many flavours to serve his master, sour, salty, vinegary, bland, not to his taste,” and receives no rank or reward; the foolish bhikṣu is the same: “dwelling in contemplation of the body as body, he cannot cut off the upper defilements, cannot gather in his mind, nor does he attain inner stillness of mind, nor superior right mindfulness and clear comprehension, nor the four higher states of mind, dwelling at ease in this very life, the safe nirvāṇa not previously attained.” The wise cook “takes up well the sign of what his master likes and blends the many flavours,” and is sure to gain rank and stipend; the wise bhikṣu, “dwelling in contemplation of the body as body, cuts off the upper defilements, gathers his mind well, his inner mind stilled, with right mindfulness and clear comprehension, attains the four higher states of mind, dwells at ease in this very life, and attains the safe nirvāṇa not previously attained.” What the cook takes up is the mind of his master; what the bhikṣu takes up is the sign of his own mind; having taken up the inner mind, then one takes up the outer sign, and the order cannot be reversed.

VII. One’s Own Domain, the Domain of One’s Parents (Discourses 617 and 620)

The bird Luopo, seized by the hawk, laments: “I have brought this on myself by leaving the domain of my parents and roaming in another place, and so I meet this calamity”; set free, it returns to the furrows of the ploughed field and crouches beneath a great clod, and the hawk in its fury swoops straight down, “its breast struck the hard clod and its body was shattered, and it died on the spot.” The verse of Luopo says, “the hawk came with all its force, Luopo relied on its own domain; riding its anger’s fierce strength, it met disaster and its body was shattered,” “though you have the fierce and foolish strength of a hundred thousand dragons and elephants, it is not worth a sixteenth part of my wisdom.” The World-Honored One applies it: “another place, another’s domain, means the domain of the five sense pleasures,” “one’s own place, the domain of one’s parents, means the four foundations of mindfulness.” The six hundred and twentieth says the same thing again with the monkey of the Snow Mountains: the hunter smears birdlime on the grass, and the foolish monkey “touches it lightly with a hand, and the hand is stuck; it tries to free itself with the other hand, and both hands are stuck; it tries to free itself with a foot, and the foot is stuck too; it bites the grass with its mouth, and then the mouth is stuck. Stuck fast at five points, it lies curled on the ground”; the foolish bhikṣu going into the village for alms “does not guard the body well, does not guard the sense-doors, and when the eye sees forms he gives rise to attachment,” “with inner faculties and outer objects bound at five points, he goes wherever Māra wishes.” “What is the bhikṣu’s own range, the domain of his parents? It is the four foundations of mindfulness.” Two similes, one meaning: domains are one’s own and another’s; in one’s own domain the enemy cannot reach one, and leaving it one is bound at five points; strength is no match for wisdom, and wisdom lies in knowing the place where one moves.

VIII. The Four Fruits, and Guarding Oneself and Guarding Others (Discourses 618 and 619)

The six hundred and eighteenth: “by much cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness one attains the four fruits, four kinds of blessing,” and the four fruits are “the fruit of stream-entry, the fruit of once-returning, the fruit of non-returning, the fruit of arhatship.” The six hundred and nineteenth is occasioned by the acrobat on the bamboo pole telling his pupil that they should guard each other; the pupil answers “each should rather guard himself,” and the acrobat allows it: “when one guards oneself one guards others; when others guard themselves they guard oneself; the mind drawing near to itself, cultivating, guarding, and realizing—this is called guarding oneself and guarding others. What is guarding others and guarding oneself? Not frightening others, not opposing others, not harming others, pitying them with a kindly heart—this is called guarding others and guarding oneself.” The World-Honored One concludes: “one who guards himself cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness; one who guards others also cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness.” Guarding oneself and guarding others are not two things: to cultivate the foundations of mindfulness is to guard oneself, and to guard oneself is to guard others; not harming others and pitying them with a kindly heart is the content of guarding others, and its root is still in guarding oneself.

IX. The Young Bhikṣus; the Stage of Training and the Arhat (Discourses 621 and 627)

Ānanda asks how the young bhikṣus should be instructed, and the answer is “they should be taught to cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness”; and why: “if a bhikṣu is at the stage of training, not yet advanced further, aspiring to the safe nirvāṇa, he dwells in contemplation of the body as body, ardent and resourceful, in heedful conduct, with right mindfulness and right knowledge, stilling the mind”; “if an arhat, whose outflows are ended, who has done what was to be done, laid down the heavy burdens, ended the bonds of existence, and is well liberated by right knowledge—at that time he too cultivates dwelling in contemplation of the body as body,” and feeling, mind, and dharmas likewise, “up to attaining detachment from dharmas.” In the six hundred and twenty-seventh Aniruddha asks how a noble disciple at the stage of training cultivates so as to end the outflows, and the answer is again the four foundations of mindfulness: “such a noble disciple, having much cultivated, ends the outflows, up to knowing for himself that there is no further existence.” The young begin with it, those at the stage of training advance by it, the arhat abides in it; one dharma runs through the three stations, and so it is the first teaching for instructing the young.

X. Diligently Gathering the Mind; Right Knowledge; Right Mindfulness (Discourse 622)

Āmrapālī is coming, and the World-Honored One first admonishes the bhikṣus: “bhikṣus, diligently gather the mind and abide, with right mindfulness and right knowledge. Āmrapālī is now coming; that is why I admonish you.” Diligently gathering the mind and abiding is the four right exertions: “if a bhikṣu has evil unwholesome states already arisen, they should be cut off: he arouses desire, endeavour, and energy to gather the mind. Evil unwholesome states not yet arisen are not allowed to arise, wholesome states not yet arisen are made to arise, wholesome states already arisen are kept and not forgotten, cultivated and brought to fullness.” Right knowledge is “in coming and going his deportment always follows right knowledge; turning to look and gazing, bending and stretching, bowing and raising, holding robe and bowl, walking, standing, sitting, lying, sleeping and waking, speaking and silent, all abide in right knowledge.” Right mindfulness is “dwelling in contemplation of the body as body internally, ardent and resourceful, with right knowledge and right mindfulness, taming greed and sorrow for the world,” and feeling, mind, and dharmas likewise. The admonition given, he teaches the Dharma to Āmrapālī, accepts her invitation to a meal, and speaks the verse of rejoicing: “the giver is loved by people, followed by many; his name rises day by day, heard by far and near; among the crowd he is ever gentle and gracious, free of stinginess and without fear,” “therefore give with wisdom, and cut off stinginess without remainder,” “he is born above in the Heaven of the Thirty-three, and for a long night enjoys happiness”: the giver gains in this life people’s love, a name, and fearlessness among the crowd, and afterwards the happiness of rebirth in heaven. The four right exertions, right knowledge, and the four foundations of mindfulness are set side by side and summed in one sentence, “diligently gather the mind and abide, with right mindfulness and right knowledge”; the admonition comes before the object arrives, and that is the order of this discourse.

XI. The Bowl of Oil (Discourse 623)

The World-Honored One asks three questions: can a beauty draw many people to gather and look? If song, dance, and music are added, can they draw a great crowd to gather and look? A man holding a bowl full of oil passes through the great crowd, a man with a drawn sword following behind: “can that man holding the bowl of oil not be mindful of the bowl of oil, not be mindful of the man who would kill him, and look at the dancing girl and the great crowd?” The bhikṣus answer no: “single-minded, mindful of the bowl of oil, he walks slowly past the beauty of the world and the great crowd, not daring to glance aside.” The World-Honored One applies it: “if there is an ascetic or brāhmaṇa, upright in body, self-possessed, single-minded, heedless of sounds and sights, well gathering all states of mind, dwelling in mindfulness of the body—then he is my disciple and follows my teaching.” The verse says, “with concentrated mind and right mindfulness, guarding the bowl of oil; guarding one’s own mind, one goes to the quarter never reached before,” “it is not those ordinary people, who act heedlessly, who can enter such a teaching of heedfulness as this.” The bowl of oil is mindfulness, the drawn sword is death; mindfulness not leaving the bowl is dwelling in mindfulness of the body.

XII. First Purifying the Initial Undertaking (Discourses 624 to 626)

Uttiya asks three times to be taught the Dharma, and the World-Honored One at first does not consent: “in the Dharma I teach he does not gladden my heart, his undertakings too do not succeed, and though he follows after me he gains no benefit but instead gives rise to obstruction”; asked a third time, he tells him: “you should first purify your initial undertaking, and then cultivate pure conduct.” The initial undertaking is: “you should first purify your precepts, straighten your view, and be complete in the three kinds of action, and then cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness.” In the six hundred and twenty-fifth Bāhiya makes the same request, and the sentence that differs is: “with the initial undertaking purified, one who dwells in contemplation of the body as body passes beyond the Māras; one who dwells in contemplation of feelings, mind, and dharmas as feelings, mind, and dharmas passes beyond the Māras”; in the six hundred and twenty-sixth, the second discourse, the difference is only four characters: “passes beyond birth and death.” Purifying the precepts, straightening the view, and being complete in the three kinds of action come first, and the four foundations of mindfulness after; for one whose initial undertaking is purified, the foundations of mindfulness pass beyond the Māras and beyond birth and death.

XIII. The Noble Precepts and the Four Questions (Discourses 628 to 632)

Udāyin asks Ānanda: why does the Tathāgata teach the bhikṣus the noble precepts, making them “unbroken, undeficient, unpicked, unparted, not clung to as mere observance, well perfected, well upheld, praised by the wise and not disdained by them”? The answer: “for the sake of cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness.” Bhadra asks Ānanda four questions: is there a dharma which, cultivated and much cultivated, attains non-regression? Which makes unpurified beings pure and gives them ever more lustre? Which can bring beings who have not crossed to the far shore across to the far shore? Which attains arhatship? The four answers are alike: “there is a dharma which, cultivated and much cultivated, can make the practitioner attain non-regression, namely the four foundations of mindfulness.” The noble precepts are taught for the sake of the foundations of mindfulness, the same order as “first purify your precepts” in the discourse before; four questions and four answers, non-regression, purity, the far shore, arhatship, all tied to one dharma.

XIV. All Dharmas, Deliverance, Purity (Discourses 633 to 635)

“All dharmas that are spoken of—all dharmas are the four foundations of mindfulness; this is called the right teaching.” The six hundred and thirty-fourth: “if a bhikṣu cultivates and much cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness, this is called the noble deliverance,” and after the discourse is appended: “as with deliverance, so with rightly ending suffering, reaching the utter end of suffering, attaining great fruit, attaining great blessing, attaining the deathless Dharma, the culmination of the deathless, realization of the deathless Dharma.” The six hundred and thirty-fifth: “makes unpurified beings pure and gives purified beings more lustre,” with the appended list: “as with purifying beings, so with bringing across those who have not crossed to the far shore, attaining arhatship, becoming a pratyekabuddha, attaining unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening.” All dharmas are the four foundations of mindfulness; cultivating them one is delivered, ends suffering, attains the fruit, attains the deathless, and is purified, crosses to the far shore, attains the fruits of the three vehicles. The four questions and four answers of the discourse before answered four fruits with one dharma; these three discourses gather all dharmas and all fruits in one dharma.

XV. The Whole Course of Cultivating the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Discourses 636 and 637)

The six hundred and thirty-sixth begins from the Tathāgata’s appearing in the world: “the Tathāgata, Worthy One, Fully and Perfectly Awakened, Perfect in Knowledge and Conduct, Well-Gone, Knower of the World, Unsurpassed Man, Tamer of Men, Teacher of Gods and Humans, Buddha, World-Honored One, appears in the world and expounds the right Dharma”; a son of good family hears the Dharma and gains pure faith, sees the faults of the household life, “shaves off hair and beard, puts on the robe, and with right faith leaves home for the homeless life and goes forth to train in the path,” “makes upright the conduct of the body, guards against the four faults of speech, purifies his livelihood, trains in the noble precepts, guards the sense-doors, protects the mind with right mindfulness”; in the six faculties he gives rise to right restraint, “in coming and going, turning about, looking and bending and stretching, sitting and lying, sleeping and waking, speaking and silent, he dwells in knowledge and right knowledge”; sitting alone in an open place or under a tree, he cuts off the five hindrances, “cuts off the five hindrances—which trouble the mind, weaken the power of wisdom, belong to the side of obstruction, and do not lead to nirvāṇa—and therefore dwells in contemplation of the body as body internally, ardent and resourceful, with right knowledge and right mindfulness, taming greed and sorrow for the world,” “this is called a bhikṣu cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness.” The six hundred and thirty-seventh, in its differing sentence, supplies the precepts after going forth: “takes up the restraint of the prātimokṣa, complete in his range of conduct, sees great danger in the slightest fault, and undertakes the training precepts,” “robe and bowl go with him, like the two wings of a bird. With the training precepts thus accomplished, he cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness.” The cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness does not begin from the foundations of mindfulness; it begins from hearing the Dharma: faith, going forth, the precepts, restraint of the faculties, right knowledge, sitting alone, cutting off the hindrances, and then the foundations of mindfulness; what the six hundred and twenty-fourth called “first purify your initial undertaking” is here unfolded as the whole course.

XVI. An Island unto Oneself, the Dharma as Island (Discourses 638 and 639)

Śāriputra has entered nirvāṇa, the novice Cunda comes bearing his relics, robe, and bowl, and Ānanda says: “my whole body feels as if it were coming apart, the four directions have changed their aspect, and the eloquence I held is blocked.” The World-Honored One asks: did Śāriputra enter nirvāṇa taking with him the body of precepts he had received, the body of concentration, the body of wisdom, the body of liberation, the body of the knowledge and vision of liberation? Did he take with him “the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right exertions, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold path”? Ānanda answers no, and says that Śāriputra was “keeping the precepts, learned, of few wishes and content, always practising seclusion, ardent and resourceful, abiding with gathered mindfulness,” complete in eight kinds of wisdom: “for the sake of the Dharma and for the sake of those who receive the Dharma, I grieve and sorrow.” The World-Honored One tells him: “whether sitting, rising, or acting, how could what is conditioned and subject to breaking up not break up? To wish that it not break up—there is no such possibility”; “it is like a great tree, with roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit flourishing: its great branches break first; like a great mountain of jewels, its great crags crumble first”; “the Tathāgata too will before long pass away. Therefore, Ānanda, be an island unto yourself, your own refuge; be the Dharma as island, the Dharma as refuge; be no other island, no other refuge.” Ānanda asks how, and the answer is: “if a bhikṣu dwells in contemplation of the body as body, ardent and resourceful, with right knowledge and right mindfulness, taming greed and sorrow for the world,” and feelings, mind, and dharmas likewise, “this is called an island unto oneself, one’s own refuge; the Dharma as island, the Dharma as refuge; no other island, no other island as refuge.” In the six hundred and thirty-ninth, not long after Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana have entered nirvāṇa, the World-Honored One at the poṣadha surveys the assembly: “I survey the assembly and see that it has become empty, because Śāriputra and Mahāmaudgalyāyana have entered final nirvāṇa”; “there are two kinds of wealth: material wealth and the wealth of the Dharma. Material wealth is sought from people of the world; the wealth of the Dharma was sought from Śāriputra and Mahāmaudgalyāyana. The Tathāgata has already left behind both the giving of wealth and the wealth of the Dharma”; he repeats the simile of the great tree and the mountain of jewels, “how could anything born, arisen, made, conditioned, and subject to breaking up not pass away,” and repeats the island and refuge, “namely, dwelling in contemplation of the body as body internally, ardent and resourceful, with right knowledge and right mindfulness, taming greed and sorrow for the world.” Śāriputra did not take the body of precepts or the dharmas of the path with him into nirvāṇa; the dharmas of the path do not go away with the person. The great śrāvakas enter final nirvāṇa first, and the Tathāgata too will before long pass away; what one relies on is only oneself and the Dharma, and the content of being an island unto oneself, with the Dharma as island, is still the four foundations of mindfulness.

XVII. How to Read the Fascicle

The four discourses at the head set up the name and the chain: the four foundations of mindfulness are a one-vehicle path, and to depart from it is to depart from the noble Dharma, the noble path, and the deathless Dharma. The six hundred and ninth to the six hundred and thirteenth speak of their origin and passing away, their cultivation, and the division of wholesome and unwholesome. The six hundred and fourteenth to the six hundred and sixteenth speak of the cultivator’s mind: only one whose mind is liberated is a great man; bind the mind in place and know the rising and falling, before and after; first take the sign of one’s own mind. The six hundred and seventeenth to the six hundred and twentieth speak of domain: the five sense pleasures are another’s domain, the four foundations of mindfulness are the domain of one’s parents, and one who leaves his own domain is shattered or bound at five points. The six hundred and twenty-first to the six hundred and twenty-seventh speak of persons and order: the young, those at the stage of training, and the arhat cultivate alike; admonish before the object arrives; be single-minded as one guards the bowl of oil; first purify the initial undertaking and then the foundations of mindfulness. The six hundred and twenty-eighth to the six hundred and thirty-fifth say that the noble precepts are taught for the sake of the foundations of mindfulness, and that one dharma gives the four fruits, all dharmas, deliverance and purity. The six hundred and thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh unfold the whole course from going forth to the foundations of mindfulness. The six hundred and thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth conclude with the passing of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana: the dharmas of the path do not go away with the person, and one who is an island unto oneself, with the Dharma as island, cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness. The meaning of the fascicle lies in one sentence: “there is a one-vehicle path that purifies beings, brings them beyond sorrow and lamentation, extinguishes affliction and suffering, and attains the Dharma as it really is—namely, the four foundations of mindfulness”; and it is one vehicle because those at the stage of training and the arhat walk this same path, guarding oneself and guarding others are this same dharma, and island and refuge are still this dharma.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

In the Compendium of Topics, the Topics of the Sūtras, after the Selections on Dependent Arising, Nutriment, the Truths, and the Elements comes “The Selection on the Factors of Awakening I shall now explain”; its general summary verse, “foundations of mindfulness, and right exertions, bases of supernormal power, and faculties, powers, awakening, path factors, mindfulness of breathing, the trainings, and faith with purity as the last,” gives ten doors gathering the fascicles of the Path. The thirty-five discourses of this fascicle all teach the four foundations of mindfulness, and what answers to them is the door of the foundations of mindfulness, which the treatise explains under four particular summary verses, from “The Ascetic, The Meaning of Ascetic, Joy and Happiness, All Dharmas, Pure Conduct, The Person, Surpassing, Two Defilements as the last” in fascicle ninety-seven to “Wrong Teachers, Dwelling in the Snow Mountains, Encouragement, Purity of What Is Bound, Gradual Sequence, Perfection of Precepts, The Ear of Grain, Accomplishment as the last” in fascicle ninety-eight, its last sentence being “there could be no one able to cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness,” after which comes the door of right exertions. The order of the treatise’s doors differs from the order of the discourses; what follows keeps for the most part to the order of the discourses, the door being named with the discourse it explains; doors that may be read alongside are placed after the door they accompany, and doors sharing the wording but not directly explaining it are set apart in a closing paragraph.

The door of Establishment, Limit, Purity explains the discourses at the head of the fascicle: “here the four foundations of mindfulness are established first and the path factors last, the thirty-seven factors of awakening, in brief or at length, their character to be known as in the Śrāvaka Stage”: the foundations of mindfulness stand at the head of the factors of awakening, the Path begins with the foundations of mindfulness, and the discourse and the treatise share one order. “Know that apart from these four foundations of mindfulness there is no other path of a different kind, nor any other object. By this path and this object one can end the outflows and attain nirvāṇa. Because there is no second path of purification, it is said that there is purely one that can lead to the right path”: the discourse’s “one-vehicle path” the treatise gives as “purely one that can lead to the right path,” and it explains why it is one: there is no second path of purification. “Here grief means defiled sorrow. Exuberance means the defiled joy of the desire realm accompanied by restlessness,” “in the four foundations of mindfulness one makes diligent effort and by the power of discernment passes beyond grief and exuberance”: the discourse’s “brings them beyond sorrow and lamentation” the treatise explains under the two names of grief and exuberance. The door of Dependent Arising as It Is explains the six hundred and ninth and the six hundred and eighth: “because at the outset he contemplates the nature of the body and the rest as arising from conditions, he enters into impermanence,” which is the meaning of dwelling contemplating origin and dwelling contemplating passing away; “turning against this, he turns against attention as it is,” “turning against this, he turns against the whole noble path. Turning against the path, he turns against the fruit of the path, the deathless, final nirvāṇa”: the discourse’s departing from the foundations of mindfulness and so from the noble Dharma, the noble path, and the deathless Dharma the treatise gives as turning against the foundations of mindfulness, attention as it is, the noble path, and the fruit of the path, the deathless: four links answering four links, the discourse’s “noble Dharma as it really is” standing where the treatise has “attention as it is,” two wordings that differ, recorded together without a ruling.

The door of The Time of Cultivation, Obstruction, Teaching of Intrinsic Nature explains the six hundred and eleventh: “in the foundations of mindfulness the cultivation continues to turn; in the future, know that the cultivation too is without end. Further, they are the ground on which immeasurable wholesome dharmas, mundane and supramundane, of the past, future, and present arise, and therefore these four foundations of mindfulness are called the mass of the wholesome. Further, because they obstruct such a mass of the wholesome, the five hindrances are called the mass of the unwholesome”: the discourse’s mass of wholesome dharmas and mass of the unwholesome the treatise explains, the name of the wholesome mass by its being the ground of the wholesome dharmas of the three times, the unwholesome mass by its obstructing the wholesome mass; and the sentence “the cultivation continues to turn” answers also the six hundred and tenth’s “the cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness in the past and in the future is taught likewise.” The door of First the Roots explains the six hundred and thirteenth: “there are three kinds of roots which, because they obstruct the whole mass of the wholesome in the foundations of mindfulness, are called the mass of unwholesome dharmas. What are the three? First, the roots of bad conduct, which cause one to dwell in the future in the suffering of the bad destinations. Second, the roots of discursive thought, which cause one to dwell in this life in the suffering of unease. Third, the root roots, which, being the root of the roots of bad conduct and the roots of discursive thought, are called root roots,” “the three unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion can be the root of bad conduct of body and the rest; the three perceptions of desire and the rest can be the root of the discursive thoughts of desire and the rest; the three elements of desire and the rest, know, can be the root of the three roots of greed and the rest and of the three roots of the perception of desire and the rest”: the three bad conducts, three perceptions, three thoughts, and three elements appended at the end of the discourse the treatise strings together in three layers of root: the three elements are the root of the three roots and the three perceptions, the three roots are the root of bad conduct, the three perceptions are the root of discursive thought; the discourse’s three thoughts the treatise calls discursive thoughts.

The door of Taking the Sign explains the six hundred and sixteenth: “in the foundations of mindfulness he makes diligent effort, relying on insight, and in calm he delights in cultivating contemplation. He should then take such a sign in his own mind as gathered by inner calm,” and of one who does not take the sign of his own mind: “though he can for a time dispel the secondary defilements present before him, afterwards, if he again gathers the mind inward as before, he is troubled again by such secondary defilements and does not attain stillness and concentration”; “here the head cook stands for the yogin, the master stands for the mind as gathered by inner calm, the flavours of the dishes stand for the sign taken, the fine clothing and food stand for inner calm of mind and the rest; know that the black side stands for the foolish, and all the white side stands for the wise”: the discourse’s cook, master, many flavours, and rank and stipend the treatise matches, position by position, with the yogin, the mind gathered by calm, the sign taken, and inner calm of mind—the discourse says rank and stipend, the treatise says fine clothing and food, two wordings that differ while the positions answer; the discourse’s foolish and wise the treatise gives as the black side and the white side. The door of Gratification may be read alongside the six hundred and fourteenth: of the concentration of the summit of existence, “he gives rise to much gratification, and in this concentration gives rise to the notion of contentment, not striving further to attain what he has not attained. In the noble Dharma and vinaya he is not called a great being. Why? Because his mind has not attained good liberation. The reverse of this is called a great being”: the discourse judges the great man by liberation of mind, the treatise judges the great being by the mind’s good liberation, the discourse and the treatise differing in wording and agreeing in the judgment; the discourse does not speak of the concentration of gratification, the treatise does, and both are recorded without a ruling.

The door of Wrong Teachers explains the six hundred and nineteenth: a teacher of another path tells his pupil that they should rely on and guard each other, and the pupil objects, “one who guards in this way is not called one who guards himself against the loss of going to the bad destinations; if one wards off this loss, that is called guarding oneself”; “here, as before, by cutting off the defilements through drawing near and the rest, one is called one who should guard oneself. After this, with that cutting off as cause, one does not trouble others and the rest, and is called one who should guard others. Know that here, no hatred and no harming is the meaning of not troubling. Giving rise without cause to the two minds of benefit and happiness, giving rise without cause to the two minds of kindness and compassion, know that this is the meaning of pity”: the discourse’s acrobat and pupil the treatise gives as a teacher of another path and his pupil, and the treatise judges that “the pupil is one who speaks in accordance with reason, is intelligent, and weighs the future”; the discourse’s “not frightening others, not opposing others, not harming others, pitying them with a kindly heart” the treatise gives as the meaning of not troubling and the meaning of pity. The door of Dwelling in the Snow Mountains explains the six hundred and twentieth: “know that the Snow Mountains stand for the Buddha’s well-taught Dharma and vinaya, in which in brief three parts can be found: first, the stage of the adept; second, the stage of training; third, the stage of the ordinary person. The monkey stands for the minds associated with attention not in accordance with reason; the huntsman stands for Māra; in the stage of the adept neither can move. In the stage of training, up to the non-returner, only the monkey-like mind associated with attention not in accordance with reason can go alone, where the huntsman-like Māra cannot move. In the stage of the ordinary person both can move”: the discourse’s cold and icy perilous places without monkeys, the mountains where monkeys dwell but no people, and the mountains where people and beasts dwell together the treatise matches with the stage of the adept, the stage of training, and the stage of the ordinary person, the hunter with Māra; the discourse says one goes wherever Māra wishes, the treatise says in which stage Māra can move.

The door of Great Fruit and Benefit explains the six hundred and thirty-fourth: “of the merit brought by cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness, know that because it can bring the supreme, superior, final fruit it is called having great fruit; and because it can bring the supreme, superior benefit of happiness it is called having great benefit”: the discourse’s two names, “attaining great fruit, attaining great blessing,” the treatise divides into the final fruit and the benefit of happiness. The door of Purity of What Is Bound and the door of Gradual Sequence may be read alongside the six hundred and thirty-fifth and the six hundred and thirty-sixth: “impure sentient beings means the ordinary persons. Pure means those in training. Bright-white means the adepts”: the discourse’s making unpurified beings pure and giving purified beings more lustre the treatise divides by the three stations of the ordinary person, the one in training, and the adept, the discourse’s “lustre” the treatise giving as “bright-white”; “in cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness, know that there are in brief five gradual steps: first, by the superior power of faith, going forth in purity; second, the restraint of the precepts; third, the restraint of the faculties; fourth, delight in seclusion; fifth, purity from the hindrances”: the six hundred and thirty-sixth, from pure faith and going forth, the noble precepts, guarding the sense-doors, sitting alone in seclusion, and cutting off the five hindrances to the foundations of mindfulness, is exactly these five gradual steps, the discourse unfolding them as narrative and the treatise gathering them under five numbers. The door of Perfection of Precepts explains the six hundred and thirty-seventh and the purifying of the precepts in the six hundred and twenty-fourth: “by three causes, know, a bhikṣu endowed with the precepts is perfect in the purity of his precepts and livelihood. What are the three? First, perfection of range; second, perfection of what is taken up; third, perfection of use,” “perfection of use means that with robes just enough to cover the body and food just enough to fill the belly he is content”: the discourse’s “robe and bowl go with him, like the two wings of a bird” the treatise gives as perfection of use; the discourse’s “abstains from killing, has cut off killing” up to all the courses of action the treatise gives as perfection of range.

The door of The Ascetic, the door of The Meaning of Ascetic, the door of All Dharmas, and the door of Surpassing make their own statements, sharing the wording of the discourses of this fascicle without directly explaining them: “by the superior cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness, by four causes, know that in the inner Dharma there is the path of the ascetic and there is the final end; in outer dharmas there is certainly no path of the ascetic and no final end,” which may be read alongside the six hundred and twenty-third’s “if there is an ascetic or brāhmaṇa, upright in body, self-possessed” and “then he is my disciple and follows my teaching”; “in brief, all dharmas are gathered by the trainings and the fruits of the trainings,” which may be read alongside the six hundred and thirty-third’s “all dharmas are the four foundations of mindfulness,” the discourse saying that all dharmas are the foundations of mindfulness, the treatise saying that all dharmas are gathered by the trainings and their fruits, two referents that differ, recorded together without a ruling; “the differences in passing beyond the conduct leading to bad destinies and the conduct leading to good destinies” shares the one word “surpassing” with the six hundred and twenty-fifth’s “passes beyond the Māras,” while what is surpassed differs. The doors of Joy and Happiness, Pure Conduct, The Person, Two Defilements, Cutting Off, Arising and Cultivation, Difference Before and After, And the Entanglements, Encouragement, The Ear of Grain, and Accomplishment find no direct explanation in the discourses of this fascicle; for the six hundred and fifteenth, the six hundred and seventeenth, the six hundred and eighteenth, the six hundred and twenty-first, the six hundred and twenty-second, the six hundred and twenty-seventh to the six hundred and thirty-second, the six hundred and thirty-eighth, and the six hundred and thirty-ninth, the treatise has no sentence of direct mātṛkā explanation, and none is forced. The explanation of the door of the foundations of mindfulness ends at “there could be no one able to cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness”; the nine doors that follow, right exertions, bases of supernormal power, faculties, powers, factors of awakening, path factors, mindfulness of breathing, the trainings, and faith with purity, answer to the later fascicles of the Path and are not listed here.

“These five faculties are all gathered in by the faculty of wisdom. It is like the many timbers of a storeyed hall: the ridgepole is their head, and all rely on the ridgepole, because it holds them together. So too the five faculties: wisdom is their head, because it holds them together.” Of the seventy discourses of this fascicle, the first nineteen teach the faculties, the next forty-three the powers, and the last eight the factors of awakening; each of the three groups has its numbers, three faculties and five faculties, two powers up to ten powers, five hindrances and seven factors of awakening, and the meaning of the fascicle lies in one word: wisdom. Among the five faculties wisdom is the head; the powers of one in training are five and the ten powers of the Tathāgata are all powers of knowledge; the seven factors of awakening “can make great light, can be eyes, and increase wisdom.” To read this fascicle is to read how, among the factors of the path, wisdom stands at the head and holds the rest together.

I. The Three Faculties (Discourse 642)

The discourse at the head of the fascicle has only one sentence: “there are three faculties: the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known, the faculty of knowing, and the faculty of having fully known.” The three faculties are not explained; they are explained by the verse: “when one is aware of the stage of training, following the straight path one advances, with energy, diligence, and skill in means, guarding one’s own mind well”—this is coming to know what is not yet known; “as one knows for oneself that birth is ended, the unobstructed path already known, having known, one is liberated, and at the last attains the faculty of having fully known”—this is the faculty of knowing and the faculty of having fully known; “unshaken, the mind liberated, able to end all existence, the faculties all complete, delighting in the stillness of the faculties, bearing the last body, one subdues the hosts of Māra”—one who bears the last body has fulfilled the three faculties. The stage of training, knowing, and having fully known: the three faculties are three stations on one path, from training to beyond training; a fascicle that teaches the faculties begins from the three faculties without outflows, and the meaning of faculty lies first in going beyond the world.

II. The Five Faculties and the Two Fruits (Discourses 643 to 645)

The six hundred and forty-third sets up the names: “there are five faculties. Which five? Namely, the faculty of faith, the faculty of energy, the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of concentration, and the faculty of wisdom.” The six hundred and forty-fourth speaks of the fruit of contemplating them as they really are: “if a bhikṣu contemplates these five faculties well as they really are, one who contemplates them well as they really are has cut off and known the three bonds, namely the view of the body, clinging to precepts, and doubt, and is called a stream-enterer, not subject to falling into evil destinations, certain of right awakening, going back and forth among gods and humans for seven rebirths, and reaching the end of suffering.” The six hundred and forty-fifth speaks of its utmost: “one who contemplates these five faculties as they really are does not give rise to the outflows, the mind is liberated and free of desire, and he is called an arhat, whose outflows are ended, who has done what was to be done, laid down the heavy burdens, won his own good, ended the bonds of existence, and is well liberated in mind by right knowledge.” The same “contemplating as it really is”: one discourse speaks of the first fruit, one of the stage beyond training; the depth of the contemplation lies in the person, not in the dharma. As soon as the five faculties are set up, their beginning and end are marked by the two fruits.

III. What Is to Be Known of the Five Faculties (Discourses 646 and 647)

The six hundred and forty-sixth matches five dharmas to the five faculties: “the faculty of faith, know, is the four unbreakable purities; the faculty of energy, know, is the four right exertions; the faculty of mindfulness, know, is the four foundations of mindfulness; the faculty of concentration, know, is the four dhyānas; the faculty of wisdom, know, is the four noble truths.” The six hundred and forty-seventh explains them one by one: the faculty of faith is “the mind of pure faith aroused toward the Tathāgata, firm at its root, which no other ascetic or brāhmaṇa, god, Māra, or Brahmā, ascetic or brāhmaṇa, or anyone else in the world can shake”; the faculty of energy is the four sentences of the four right exertions, from “evil unwholesome dharmas already arisen he causes to be cut off, arousing desire, means, gathering the mind, and advancing” onward; the faculty of mindfulness is “dwelling in contemplation of the body as body internally, diligent and resourceful, with right mindfulness and right knowledge, taming greed and sorrow for the world”; the faculty of concentration is “secluded from desire and from evil unwholesome dharmas, with initial and sustained thought, with the joy and happiness born of seclusion, up to dwelling in the attainment of the fourth dhyāna”; the faculty of wisdom is “knowing the noble truth of suffering as it really is, knowing the noble truth of the arising of suffering, the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and the noble truth of the way to the cessation of suffering as they really are.” The five faculties are not five new dharmas; they are other names for the four unbreakable purities, the four right exertions, the four foundations of mindfulness, the four dhyānas, and the four truths. That the divisions of the factors of the path contain one another is seen in this one discourse.

IV. Contemplating as It Really Is and the Four Turnings (Discourses 648 to 651)

The six hundred and forty-eighth and forty-ninth repeat the two fruits of the six hundred and forty-fourth and forty-fifth, differing only in the sentence: “having contemplated these five faculties as they really are, he has cut off and known the three bonds. Which three? Namely, the view of the body, clinging to precepts, and doubt,” and “having contemplated these five faculties as they really are, he has ended the outflows, is liberated and free of desire, and is called an arhat.” The six hundred and fiftieth and fifty-first say it instead through the World-Honored One’s own realization: “if I had not known as they really are this faculty of faith, the arising of the faculty of faith, the cessation of the faculty of faith, and the way to the cessation of the faculty of faith, I would never have gone out and been freed among gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brāhmaṇas, with a mind free of inversion, nor would I have attained unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening”; “because I contemplated this faculty of faith as it really is with right knowledge, and contemplated the arising of the faculty of faith, the cessation of the faculty of faith, and the way to the cessation of the faculty of faith as they really are with right knowledge, I went out and was freed among the assemblies of gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brāhmaṇas, with a mind free of inversion, and attained unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening.” The six hundred and fifty-first exchanges the four turnings for five: “one who does not know as they really are the arising of the faculty of faith, the passing away of the faculty of faith, the gratification of the faculty of faith, the danger of the faculty of faith, and the escape from the faculty of faith—I could not, among the assemblies of gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brāhmaṇas, be liberated, go out and be freed, with a mind free of inversion, and attain unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening.” To contemplate the five faculties as they really are is not to contemplate the names of the five faculties; it is to contemplate, in each faculty, its arising, its cessation, and the way, its gratification, its danger, and the escape from it. The World-Honored One himself says that without this one does not attain right awakening: the contemplation of the five faculties has the same form as the contemplation of the aggregates and the sense bases.

V. Keen and Dull Faculties and the Stations of the Noble Ones (Discourses 652 and 653)

The six hundred and fifty-second divides the stations of the noble ones by the fullness or unfullness of the five faculties: “if a bhikṣu’s five faculties are keen and full, he attains arhatship. If they are weaker and inferior, he attains non-returning. If weaker and inferior, once-returning. If weaker and inferior, stream-entry. One who is full accomplishes what the full accomplish; one who is not full accomplishes what the not-full accomplish; these five faculties are not empty and without fruit. If one has none of these five faculties at all, I say that he is counted among the ordinary persons of other paths.” The six hundred and fifty-third divides finely into ten: “one whose five faculties are superior, keen, and full attains arhatship liberated both ways. If weaker and inferior, he attains the body-witness. If weaker and inferior than that, attained-to-view. If weaker and inferior than that, liberated by faith. If weaker and inferior than that, the one-seeder. If weaker and inferior than that, once-returning. If weaker and inferior than that, family-to-family. If weaker and inferior than that, seven rebirths. If weaker and inferior than that, one who follows by Dharma. If weaker and inferior than that, one who follows by faith”; and it sets up three names: “this is called, bhikṣus, knowing the perfection of the fruit by the cause and condition of the perfection of the faculties, and knowing the perfection of the person by the cause and condition of the perfection of the fruit.” When the faculties are full the fruit is full, and when the fruit is full the person is full; the difference between the stations of the noble ones is nothing but the difference between the five faculties, and “if one has none of these faculties, I say that he is counted among the ordinary persons.” The boundary between the ordinary and the noble lies in whether the faculties are present; the steps among the noble lie in whether the faculties are keen or dull.

VI. Wisdom Is Their Head (Discourses 654 to 658)

The six hundred and fifty-fourth sets up the simile of the fascicle: “these five faculties are all gathered in by the faculty of wisdom. It is like the many timbers of a storeyed hall: the ridgepole is their head, and all rely on the ridgepole, because it holds them together. So too the five faculties: wisdom is their head, because it holds them together.” The six hundred and fifty-fifth repeats the matching explanation of the six hundred and forty-sixth and concludes, “of all these qualities, wisdom is the head, because it holds them together.” The six hundred and fifty-sixth says why the faculty of wisdom gathers in the faculty of faith: “if a noble disciple has accomplished the faculty of wisdom, he can cultivate the faculty of faith, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment; this is called the accomplishment of the faculty of faith, and the accomplishment of the faculty of faith is the faculty of wisdom”—the accomplishment of the faculty of faith is the faculty of wisdom; it is not that apart from faith there is a separate wisdom that gathers it in, but that when faith is accomplished by relying on seclusion, dispassion, and cessation and tending toward relinquishment, what is accomplished is wisdom. The six hundred and fifty-seventh speaks of what one who has accomplished the faculty of faith trains in: “the noble disciple, in beginningless birth and death, clung to by ignorance, bound by craving—beings in the long night of birth and death, coming and going, rushing on, do not know the original limit; because there is a cause there is birth and death, and when the cause is wholly ended there is no birth and death; the great darkness of ignorance, a mass obstructing—who attains final nirvāṇa? Only the cessation of suffering, the stilling of suffering, coolness, passing away”—this is what the faculty of faith trains in, and what it trains in is the meaning of the four truths; therefore “of these five faculties, wisdom is the head, and they are held together by wisdom.” The six hundred and fifty-eighth again matches four dharmas to four faculties and concludes with the storeyed hall: “of all these qualities, wisdom is the head. It is like a storeyed hall: the ridgepole is its head.” Five discourses, one simile: the ridgepole is not outside the many timbers, and the timbers become a storeyed hall by relying on the ridgepole; wisdom is not outside the four faculties, and the four faculties become the path by relying on wisdom.

VII. Arousing the Mind of Awakening toward the Tathāgata (Discourses 659 and 660)

The six hundred and fifty-ninth explains the five faculties instead by the arousing of the mind: “if a noble disciple has the mind of pure faith obtained by arousing the mind of awakening toward the Tathāgata, this is called the faculty of faith,” and energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom are all “aroused by the first arousing of the mind of awakening toward the Tathāgata,” and “for the rest, the storeyed hall, the simile is as taught above.” The place where the five faculties arise is one place only, the arousing of the mind of awakening toward the Tathāgata; faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom are five workings of one mind. The six hundred and sixtieth speaks of the fruit of cultivating them: “by cultivating these five faculties and cultivating them much, all suffering of the past, future, and present is cut off”; the end of the discourse appends the list, “as with the cutting off of suffering, so with the end of suffering, the ending of suffering, the stilling of suffering, the passing away of suffering, crossing the flood of suffering, being released from the bond, destroying the forms, and the ending of all outflows of the past, future, and present—it is taught likewise.” The nineteen discourses of the group on the faculties end here: beginning from the three faculties, setting up the five faculties, matching them to five dharmas, contemplating the four turnings, dividing the stations of the noble ones, returning to wisdom as head, tracing them back to the arousing of the mind, and ending in the cutting off of suffering.

VIII. The Power of Reckoning and the Power of Cultivation (Discourses 661 to 663)

The group on the powers begins from two powers. The six hundred and sixty-first: “there are two kinds of power. Which two? Namely, the power of reckoning and the power of cultivation.” The power of reckoning is the power of reflection: “the noble disciple, in an empty place in the forest, beneath a tree, reflects thus: ‘bad conduct of body receives its bad result in this life and in the life to come. If I practise bad conduct of body, I shall reproach myself, others too will reproach me, the great teacher too will reproach me, and the great and virtuous companions in pure conduct too will reproach me and blame me by the Dharma; my ill repute will spread abroad, and when the body breaks up and life ends I shall be born in the bad destinations, in the hells.’ Thus, by the result in this life and in the life to come, bad conduct of body is cut off and good conduct of body is cultivated.” The power of cultivation arises from the power of reckoning: “if a bhikṣu trains in the power of reckoning, when the noble disciple has accomplished the power of reckoning, he then attains the power of cultivation; having attained the power of cultivation, the power of cultivation is full.” The six hundred and sixty-second speaks of the use of the power of reckoning: “when the noble disciple has accomplished the training in the power of reckoning, greed, hatred, and delusion are curbed or ended.” The six hundred and sixty-third speaks of the substance of the power of cultivation: “what is the power of cultivation? Namely, cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness”; the end of the discourse appends, “as with the four foundations of mindfulness, so with cultivating the four right exertions, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold noble path, the four paths, the four Dharma sentences, and calm and insight—it is taught likewise.” The power of reckoning is to weigh the result of bad conduct and cut it off; the power of cultivation is to cultivate the factors of the path. First reckoning and then cultivation: the two powers are one sequence.

IX. The Three Powers, the Four Powers, and the Four Means of Gathering In (Discourses 664 to 669)

The six hundred and sixty-fourth lists three kinds of three powers: “the power of faith, the power of energy, and the power of wisdom,” “the power of faith, the power of mindfulness, and the power of wisdom,” “the power of faith, the power of concentration, and the power of wisdom”—in all three groups the first and last are faith and wisdom, and the middle power is exchanged. The six hundred and sixty-fifth says it as a training: “I shall accomplish the power of faith, the power of energy, and the power of wisdom.” The six hundred and sixty-sixth explains the power of faith: “the noble disciple enters into pure faith toward the Tathāgata, firm at its root, which gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brāhmaṇas, and all who share the Dharma cannot shake”; the power of energy is the four right exertions, and the power of wisdom is the four noble truths. The six hundred and sixty-seventh lists three kinds of four powers, the third set up apart: “the power of discernment, the power of energy, the power of blamelessness, and the power of gathering in”; the power of discernment is “knowing as they really are wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, blameworthy and blameless, to be drawn near to and not to be drawn near to, inferior dharmas and superior dharmas, black dharmas and white dharmas, dharmas with discrimination and dharmas without discrimination, dharmas of dependent arising and dharmas not of dependent arising—knowing them as they really are”; the power of blamelessness is “blameless body, speech, and mind”; the power of gathering in is “the four means of gathering in: giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and sharing the benefit.” The six hundred and sixty-eighth speaks of the supreme among the four means of gathering in: “the supreme giving is the giving of the Dharma. The supreme kind speech is teaching the Dharma at the right time, which the son of good family delights to hear. The supreme beneficial conduct is to bring those without faith into faith and establish them in faith; those who keep the precepts, by pure precepts; the stingy, by giving; those of bad wisdom, by right knowledge—to bring them in and establish them. The supreme sharing of the benefit is that an arhat gives to another by arhatship, a non-returner by non-returning, a once-returner by once-returning, a stream-enterer by stream-entry, and one of pure precepts by purity.” The six hundred and sixty-ninth speaks of how the four means of gathering in reach everywhere: “whatever dharmas the multitude takes up are all the four means of gathering in,” and so it is for the multitudes of the past and the future; the verse says, “by these the world is gathered in, as a cart runs by its axle-pin. Were there no four means of gathering in in the world, a mother’s kindness and a son’s support would be forgotten, nor would there be the honouring of fathers and the rest, nor the humble service rendered them.” Among the four powers, the power of discernment is wisdom, and the power of gathering in gathers in people; by wisdom one accomplishes oneself, by gathering in one reaches others.

X. The Four Powers Free One from the Five Fears (Discourses 670 to 672)

The six hundred and seventieth speaks of the fruit of the four powers: “if a bhikṣu has accomplished these four powers, he is freed from the five fears. Which five? Namely, the fear for livelihood, the fear of ill repute, the fear in the assembly, the fear of death, and the fear of the bad destinations.” The six hundred and seventy-first speaks of the reason for the freeing: “I do not fear for livelihood; why should I fear for livelihood? If one practises impure conduct of body, impure conduct of speech, impure conduct of mind, commits wrong greed, is without faith, lazy, without energy, forgetful, unconcentrated, of bad wisdom, stingy, and does not gather in, he should fear for livelihood. I have the four powers, namely the power of discernment, the power of energy, the power of blamelessness, and the power of gathering in; because I have accomplished these four powers, I should not fear as one fears for livelihood.” What is feared is what the impure in conduct and those without the powers fear; one who has the four powers, lacking the cause, lacks the fear. The six hundred and seventy-second explains again the power of discernment and the power of energy: the power of discernment is “wisdom, great wisdom, deep wisdom, wisdom hard to surpass”; the power of energy is, with regard to “unwholesome dharmas counted as unwholesome, black counted as black, blameworthy counted as blameworthy, not to be drawn near to counted as not to be drawn near to—having left these dharmas, whatever other wholesome dharmas counted as wholesome, white counted as white, blameless counted as blameless, to be drawn near to counted as to be drawn near to, cultivating these, with superior diligence, desire, means, and capability, training with right mindfulness and clear comprehension.” The power of discernment is wisdom: four names, one substance; what the power of energy leaves and cultivates is exactly the black and the white that the power of discernment knows as they really are.

XI. The Five Powers and the Five Powers of One in Training (Discourses 673 to 680)

The six hundred and seventy-third sets up the five powers: “the power of faith, the power of energy, the power of mindfulness, the power of concentration, and the power of wisdom”; the six hundred and seventy-fourth says it as a training, and the six hundred and seventy-fifth matches five dharmas, “that power of faith, know, is the four unbreakable purities; the power of energy, know, is the four right exertions; the power of mindfulness, know, is the four foundations of mindfulness; the power of concentration, know, is the four dhyānas; the power of wisdom, know, is the four noble truths”—the five dharmas matched are one by one the same as in the matching of the five faculties in the six hundred and forty-sixth; faculties and powers are one substance, differing in name; the six hundred and seventy-sixth turns the training into “I have accomplished the power of faith, the power of energy, the power of mindfulness, the power of concentration, and the power of wisdom,” the inner sentence lacks the “shall,” yet it still stands within “you should train thus”. The six hundred and seventy-seventh sets up apart the five powers of one in training: “the power of faith is a power of one in training, the power of energy is a power of one in training, the power of shame is a power of one in training, the power of fear of blame is a power of one in training, and the power of wisdom is a power of one in training”—replacing mindfulness and concentration by shame and fear of blame, these are the powers of the stage of training; the six hundred and seventy-eighth says it as a training, “I shall accomplish the power of faith as a power of one in training, accomplish the power of energy as a power of one in training, accomplish the power of shame as a power of one in training, accomplish the power of fear of blame as a power of one in training, and accomplish the power of wisdom as a power of one in training.” The six hundred and seventy-ninth explains them: the power of shame is “shame, being ashamed of giving rise to evil unwholesome dharmas counted as defilements, which receive the blazing suffering of the results of existence, birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, and distress in future lives”; the power of fear of blame is “fearing blame for what is blameworthy, fearing blame for giving rise to evil unwholesome dharmas counted as defilements”; the power of wisdom is “the noble disciple dwelling in wisdom, accomplishing the wisdom of the arising and passing away of the world, the noble deliverance through weariness, certain of the right ending of suffering.” Shame and fear of blame are powers of one in training because the one in training has not yet left evil dharmas and must guard against them by shame and fear of blame; wisdom is a power of one in training because the wisdom of one in training is “the wisdom of the arising and passing away of the world” and is “certain of the right ending of suffering,” heading toward the fruit but not yet at it. The six hundred and eightieth says the training again, “I shall accomplish the power of faith as a power of one in training, and the powers of energy, shame, fear of blame, and wisdom as powers of one in training,” omitting “accomplish” before the latter four.

XII. The White Dharmas and Faith (Discourses 681 to 683)

The six hundred and eighty-first speaks of reproach and congratulation by the five white dharmas: “if a bhikṣu’s wholesome dharmas change, decline, or do not long endure, others will come to reproach you by five white dharmas,” and “if a bhikṣu in the right Dharma does not change, does not decline, and long endures, others will come to congratulate you by five white dharmas”; the five white dharmas are the five powers of one in training, faith, energy, shame, fear of blame, and wisdom: “one who relies on faith can leave unwholesome dharmas and cultivate wholesome dharmas,” and “one who relies on wisdom can leave unwholesome dharmas and cultivate wholesome dharmas.” The six hundred and eighty-second says it of those who give back the precepts and fall away: “if a bhikṣu to the end of his life is purely full and pure, his pure conduct spotless, others will come to congratulate you by five white dharmas.” The six hundred and eighty-third speaks of the reason: “if a bhikṣu does not wish evil unwholesome dharmas to arise, there is only faith in wholesome dharmas; if faith declines and perishes, and lack of faith abides for good, unwholesome dharmas arise,” and so with energy, shame, fear of blame, and wisdom: “if the powers of energy, shame, fear of blame, and wisdom decline and perish, and bad wisdom abides for good, evil unwholesome dharmas arise.” The five powers of one in training are the guard of wholesome dharmas; when one power declines, unwholesome dharmas arise. Reproach and congratulation are both by these five dharmas, because whether wholesome dharmas abide or do not abide hangs on these five.

XIII. The Ten Powers of the Tathāgata (Discourses 684 to 687)

The six hundred and eighty-fourth first asks the difference between the Tathāgata and the arhat: “if a bhikṣu grows weary of form, dispassionate, has ceased and ended it, does not give rise to it, and is liberated, he is called the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One,” and “if again a bhikṣu grows weary of form, dispassionate, does not give rise to it, and is liberated, he is called an arhat liberated by wisdom”—what is realized is the same; “what are the various differences between the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One, and the arhat liberated by wisdom?” The answer is by before and after: “the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One, having not heard the Dharma before, is able to awaken to it himself, knows it himself in this life, and attains saṃbodhi, and in the future is able to teach the right Dharma and awaken the śrāvakas, namely the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right exertions, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, and the eightfold noble path,” and “he is able to attain the dharma not yet attained, to establish the pure conduct not yet established, to know the path well and teach the path well, and to lead the multitude, and afterwards the śrāvakas accomplish it by following the Dharma and following the path.” Next it distinguishes by the powers: “the five powers of one in training and the ten powers of the Tathāgata”; the powers of one in training are the five powers, and the ten powers begin from “the Tathāgata knows the possible and the impossible as they really are; this is called the first power of the Tathāgata,” and then the results of actions, the dhyānas and liberations, the differences among faculties, inclinations, the various elements, the ways that lead everywhere, past lives, the divine eye, and the ending of the outflows; of every power it is said that “he attains the supreme standing of the knowledge of former Buddhas, turns the Brahmā wheel, and in the great assembly is able to roar the lion’s roar,” and it concludes, “these ten powers only the Tathāgata accomplishes; this is called the various differences between the Tathāgata and the śrāvakas.” The six hundred and eighty-fifth speaks of his teaching by the simile of the infant and the nurse: “while the śrāvakas have begun to train and their wisdom is not yet sufficient, the Tathāgata teaches them by the Dharma at the proper times and tends them; when they have long trained and their wisdom is deep and firm, the Tathāgata lets go and no longer teaches them earnestly at the proper times, because their wisdom is accomplished and they are not heedless”—the nurse’s diligence and letting go hang on the infant’s growing up, and the Tathāgata’s teaching and letting go hang on the śrāvakas’ wisdom. The six hundred and eighty-sixth abridges the ten powers to six powers—the possible and the impossible, the mind’s delight in dharmas and feelings of past, future, and present, the dhyānas, liberations, samādhis, and attainments, past lives, the divine eye, and the ending of the outflows—and the six hundred and eighty-seventh says them by declaration: “if someone comes and asks me about the Tathāgata’s power of the possible and the impossible, then as the Tathāgata’s power of knowledge of the possible and the impossible knows, sees, and is aware, having attained perfect awakening, I declare it to him.” The Tathāgata and the śrāvakas have the same liberation; what distinguishes them is before and after, and the ten powers; and the ten powers are all “knowing as it really is,” and so are powers of knowledge.

XIV. Seven Powers, Eight Powers, Nine Powers, Ten Powers (Discourses 688 to 702)

The six hundred and eighty-eighth sets up seven powers: “the power of faith, the power of energy, the power of shame, the power of fear of blame, the power of mindfulness, the power of concentration, and the power of wisdom,” and the verse says, “one who has accomplished the seven powers attains the ending of all the outflows of existence”; the six hundred and eighty-ninth says it as a training, the six hundred and ninetieth repeats it in verse, “one who has accomplished the seven powers quickly cuts off all the outflows of existence,” and the six hundred and ninety-first explains them one by one. The seven powers are the five powers with shame and fear of blame added; they are the five powers and the five powers of one in training combined. The six hundred and ninety-second sets up eight powers, not powers of the path but powers of the world: “the power of a sovereign king, the power of a minister who decides cases, the power of a woman who bears a grudge, the power of an infant who cries, the power of a fool who reviles, the power of the wise who examine closely, the power of one gone forth who endures, and the power of the learned who reckon”; the six hundred and ninety-third explains them, from “a king displays the power of sovereign majesty” onward, each displaying what it has. The six hundred and ninety-fourth is Śāriputra asking about the powers of a bhikṣu whose outflows are ended, and the answer is also eight powers: “the mind of a bhikṣu whose outflows are ended tends toward seclusion, flows into seclusion, and inclines toward seclusion; tends toward deliverance, flows into deliverance, and inclines toward deliverance; tends toward nirvāṇa, flows into nirvāṇa, and inclines toward nirvāṇa. If he sees the five sense pleasures, it is as if he saw a pit of fire. Having seen thus, his mind does not long abide in thoughts of desire, feelings of desire, or attachment to desire, and he cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right exertions, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, and the eightfold noble path”—the eight powers of the world each belong to their person, and the eight powers of one whose outflows are ended lie only in the direction of one mind; the six hundred and ninety-fifth is the same as the discourse in which Śāriputra asks, but the questioner is a certain bhikṣu, and the six hundred and ninety-sixth is the discourse that questions the bhikṣus; the eight powers taught are the same. The six hundred and ninety-seventh sets up nine powers, the seven powers with the power of reckoning and the power of cultivation added, and the six hundred and ninety-eighth explains them. The six hundred and ninety-ninth sets up ten powers, the eight powers of the six hundred and ninety-second with “the power of craftsmen with their devices and the power of robbers with their swords” added, and the seven hundredth explains them. The seven hundred and first and second repeat the ten powers of the Tathāgata and the declaration. The powers from two to ten have two series: one series is the powers of the path, the two powers, three powers, four powers, five powers, seven powers, and nine powers, all of them the opening out and gathering in of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom; the other series is the powers of the world and the powers of the Tathāgata, the eight powers and the ten powers each belonging to their person, while the ten powers of the Tathāgata “only the Tathāgata accomplishes.”

XV. Uprightness and Instruction (Discourse 703)

The seven hundred and third speaks of why instruction can take effect: “whatever dharmas are realized by this or that inclination of mind are all born of the Tathāgata’s fearless knowledge. If a bhikṣu comes to be my śrāvaka, without flattery or deceit, and an upright mind arises in him, I instruct and teach him and teach him the Dharma”; “instructed and taught the Dharma in the morning, by midday he attains a place of advance; if instructed and taught the Dharma at dusk, by morning he attains a place of advance”; after the teaching, “an upright mind arises in him, and he knows the real as real and the unreal as unreal, knows the superior as superior and the unsurpassed as unsurpassed; what is to be known, to be seen, to be attained, and to be awakened to, he fully knows—this is possible.” It then raises the five powers of one in training and the ten powers, and concludes with certainty: “of the power of knowledge of the possible and the impossible I say that it is certain, not uncertain, up to the knowledge of the ending of the outflows, I say that it is certain, not uncertain; what is certain is the right path, what is uncertain is the wrong path.” The disciple’s uprightness answers to the Tathāgata’s fearless knowledge, and only then does instruction bring advance; the Tathāgata’s powers are powers because they are certain and not uncertain.

XVI. The Five Hindrances and the Seven Factors of Awakening (Discourses 704 to 710)

The eight discourses on the factors of awakening all set the five hindrances against the seven factors of awakening. The seven hundred and fourth speaks of reflection: “if one reflects wrongly, the hindrance of sensual desire not yet arisen arises, and the hindrance of sensual desire already arisen is born again and made to grow,” and “the awakening factor of mindfulness not yet arisen does not arise, and the awakening factor of mindfulness already arisen declines”; “if a bhikṣu reflects rightly, the hindrance of sensual desire not yet arisen does not arise, and the hindrance of sensual desire already arisen is made to cease,” and “the awakening factor of mindfulness not yet arisen arises, and that already arisen is born again and made to grow.” The arising and ceasing of the hindrances and of the factors of awakening hang on one place, right or wrong reflection. The seven hundred and fifth names them by decline and non-decline: “there are five things that lead to decline. Which five? Namely, the hindrances of sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt; these are the things that lead to decline. If one cultivates the seven factors of awakening, and cultivates them much and makes them grow, these are the things that do not lead to decline.” The seven hundred and sixth names them by light and darkness: the five dharmas “can make black darkness, can make one without eyes, can make one without knowledge, can weaken wisdom, are not light, not perfect awakening, and do not turn one toward nirvāṇa,” and the seven factors of awakening “can make great light, can be eyes, and increase wisdom; they are light, they are right awakening, and they turn one toward nirvāṇa.” The seven hundred and seventh names them by obstruction and covering: “there are five obstructions, five hindrances, which afflict the mind, weaken wisdom, and are of the part that obstructs; they are not light, not right awakening, and do not turn one toward nirvāṇa,” and the seven factors of awakening “are not coverings, not hindrances; they do not afflict the mind, they increase wisdom; they are light, they are right awakening, and they turn one toward nirvāṇa”; the verse says, “these five cover the world, deeply clung to, hard to cross; they screen beings and make them not see the right path. If one attains the seven factors of awakening, they can be a shining light,” and “these seven factors of awakening are the right path of the sage; following the great seer, one is freed from the fear of birth and death.” The seven hundred and eighth speaks of the growth of the hindrances by the simile of the trees: one gone forth who “sees a woman young and beautiful and gives rise to attachment, reflects wrongly, his mind rushing to take the sign, heading toward the thought of sensual desire, the mind of desire blazing up, burning mind and body, returns to the lay life, gives back the precepts, and falls away of himself,” like the five great trees whose “seed is tiny, yet the tree grows huge and is able to overshadow the many small trees, which wither in its shade and cannot grow,” and “so too the five trees of the mind: the seed is tiny, yet they grow and grow, shading the joints, and can make the joints lie fallen in their shade”; the remedy is still the seven factors of awakening, “having cultivated and cultivated them much, one turns and becomes one who does not fall back.” The seven hundred and ninth speaks of listening to the Dharma: “if a bhikṣu, with single-minded attention, listens to the right Dharma, he can cut off the five dharmas and cultivate the seven dharmas, so that they turn, advance, and are fulfilled.” The seven hundred and tenth divides their fruit in two: “pure faith is liberation of mind; knowledge is liberation by wisdom; one whose mind is defiled by sensual desire does not attain non-delight; one whose mind is defiled by ignorance, his wisdom is not pure. Therefore, bhikṣus, one who leaves sensual desire is liberated in mind, and one who leaves ignorance is liberated by wisdom,” and “leaving ignorance, liberated by wisdom, this is called a bhikṣu who has cut off the bonds of craving, and by the unbroken comprehension of conceit has reached the end of suffering.” Seven discourses in one form: the five hindrances are decline, darkness, obstruction, and trees that grow and grow; the seven factors of awakening are non-decline, light, the right path, and the dharma that cuts off the hindrances; and the factors of awakening are light because they “increase wisdom.”

XVII. The Discourse on the Factors of Awakening (Discourse 711)

The last discourse is at Rājagṛha, on Vulture Peak, and Prince Fearless asks: “there are ascetics and brāhmaṇas who hold this view and say this: ‘without cause, without condition, beings are defiled; without cause, without condition, beings are purified.’ What, then, does the World-Honored One say?” The Buddha answers: “with cause, with condition, beings are defiled; with cause, with condition, beings are purified.” The cause and condition of defilement are the five hindrances: “beings in whom sensual desire is dominant speak greedily of others’ goods and others’ belongings,” and ill will, sloth and laziness, agitation and unquiet, and “the mind always in doubt, doubting the past, doubting the future, doubting the present”; the prince says, “one part of a hindrance is enough to defile the mind, how much more all of them.” The cause and condition of purification are the seven factors of awakening fulfilled in sequence: “if a brāhmaṇa has one superior mindfulness, certain and accomplished, able to recollect what was long ago done and long ago said, at that time he practises the awakening factor of mindfulness. Having cultivated the awakening factor of mindfulness, the awakening factor of mindfulness is fulfilled; when the awakening factor of mindfulness is fulfilled, then he selects, discriminates, and reflects, and at that time the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas is cultivated”; when investigation of dharmas is fulfilled there is energy, when energy is fulfilled “then joy arises and he leaves the thoughts of nutriment,” when joy is fulfilled “body and mind are tranquil,” when tranquillity is fulfilled “delighting, the mind is concentrated,” and when concentration is fulfilled “greed and sorrow cease, the mind of equanimity arises, and he cultivates the awakening factor of equanimity”; the prince says, “if one part fulfilled purifies beings, how much more all of them.” He asks the name of the discourse, and the answer is “let this be named the Discourse on the Factors of Awakening”; the prince says, “this is the supreme factor of awakening,” and “coming up the mountain today, my four limbs were utterly weary; having heard Gautama teach the Discourse on the Factors of Awakening, I have wholly forgotten my weariness.” The preceding seven discourses speak of the opposition of the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening; this discourse speaks of their cause and condition: defilement has a cause and purification has a cause, and the cause lies in the hindrances and the factors of awakening; the seven factors of awakening arise from mindfulness and give rise to one another in sequence, one factor fulfilled giving rise to the next. This is the way of cultivating the factors of awakening, which the preceding seven discourses do not teach and this discourse teaches, and so the discourse is named by it.

XVIII. How to Read the Fascicle

The nineteen discourses of the group on the faculties: the three faculties are three stations on one path; the five faculties are named and bounded by the two fruits; the five faculties are the four unbreakable purities, the four right exertions, the four foundations of mindfulness, the four dhyānas, and the four truths; one who contemplates the five faculties contemplates their arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape; the steps among the noble ones are the keenness or dullness of the five faculties; of the five faculties wisdom is the head, like the ridgepole of a storeyed hall; the five faculties arise from the arousing of the mind of awakening, and by cultivating them all suffering is cut off. The forty-three discourses of the group on the powers: the power of reckoning and the power of cultivation, first reflecting and then cultivating; the three powers, four powers, and five powers are all the opening out and gathering in of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, and the five powers matched to five dharmas differ not at all from the five faculties; the five powers of one in training guard the stage of training by shame and fear of blame; the five white dharmas are the guard of wholesome dharmas; the Tathāgata and the arhat have the same liberation, and the Tathāgata has the ten powers, all of them knowing as it really is; the seven powers and the nine powers combine the powers of the path, the eight powers and the ten powers set apart the powers of the world and the powers of the Tathāgata, and the eight powers of one whose outflows are ended lie only in the direction of one mind; the upright can be instructed, and the Tathāgata’s powers are certain and not uncertain. The eight discourses on the factors of awakening: the opposition of the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening is decline and non-decline, darkness and light, obstruction and non-obstruction, the tree that grows and the tree that is cut down; one who listens with single-minded attention cuts off the five and cultivates the seven, and leaving sensual desire is liberated in mind, leaving ignorance is liberated by wisdom; at the end the Discourse on the Factors of Awakening says that defilement and purification both have cause and condition, and the seven factors of awakening arise from mindfulness and are fulfilled in sequence. The meaning of the fascicle lies in one sentence: “so too the five faculties: wisdom is their head, because it holds them together”; and wisdom is the head because among the five faculties the accomplishment of the faculty of faith “is the faculty of wisdom,” the powers of one in training are five and the ten powers of the Tathāgata are all powers of knowledge, the work of the seven factors of awakening lies in “increasing wisdom,” and the cultivation of the factors of awakening begins from mindfulness; the factors of the path are many in number, and what holds them together is one.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

In the Compendium of Topics, the Topics of the Sūtras, the Selection on the Factors of Awakening has ten doors; the door of the foundations of mindfulness explains fascicle twenty-four. The next two doors, right exertions and bases of supernormal power, say “know that the four right exertions are established as already analysed at length in the Stage of the Śrāvakas” and “know that the four bases of supernormal power are established as already analysed at length in the Stage of the Śrāvakas”; this fascicle has no discourses on right exertions or the bases of supernormal power, and these two doors of the treatise have nothing to answer to in this fascicle. What the seventy discourses of this fascicle answer to are three doors: the door of the faculties, the door of the powers, and the door of the factors of awakening. The order of the treatise’s doors is the same as the order of the discourses, and what follows keeps to it.

The summary verse of the door of the faculties: “Establishment, the Range of Activity, the Faculty of Wisdom as the Most Excellent, know, and afterwards Abiding, the Class of Outer Ordinary Persons, and the rest.” Establishment establishes the twenty-two faculties: “in brief, by the meaning of dominance in six places, know that the twenty-two faculties are established”; among them, “faith is the first and wisdom the last: these five faculties have the meaning of dominance in tending toward worldly dispassion. The three faculties without outflows, coming to know what is not yet known, having known, and fully knowing, have the meaning of dominance in tending toward supramundane dispassion at its utmost end.” The three faculties and the five faculties of the discourses the treatise gathers within the twenty-two faculties; the treatise names the three faculties “coming to know what is not yet known, having known, and fully knowing,” the discourse “the faculty of coming to know what is not yet known, the faculty of knowing, and the faculty of having fully known,” and both names are recorded without a ruling; the discourses run the five faculties through both the worldly and the supramundane fruits, while the treatise takes the five faculties as worldly dispassion and the three faculties without outflows as supramundane dispassion, a different division, recorded together. The door of the Faculty of Wisdom as the Most Excellent explains the six hundred and fifty-fourth to the six hundred and fifty-eighth: “if there is a person of the kind that is intelligent and keen in the faculties, by the power of selection he attends to dharmas in accordance with principle and so attains right faith and understanding with regard to nirvāṇa. By this dominance he arouses diligent energy; by the dominance of that, he is able to abide in right mindfulness on the objects of the body and the rest; by the dominance of that, he is able to make the mind go to one point on the object; by the dominance of that, he knows all dharmas as they really are and sees them as they really are. By these causes and conditions he is able to reach the utmost end. Therefore this wisdom, whether at the beginning or at the end, has much to do, and so it is said that the faculty of wisdom is the most excellent.” The discourse uses the ridgepole of a storeyed hall as a simile for wisdom as head; the treatise explains it by wisdom “whether at the beginning or at the end, having much to do”: faith and understanding arise from selection, and knowing as it really is ends in wisdom, so wisdom stands at the head and also at the end. The discourse’s “the accomplishment of the faculty of faith is the faculty of wisdom” and the treatise’s “by the power of selection he attends to dharmas in accordance with principle and so attains right faith and understanding with regard to nirvāṇa” both tie faith to wisdom. The door of the Class of Outer Ordinary Persons may be read alongside the counting among the ordinary persons in the six hundred and fifty-second and fifty-third: “if the right faith up to the right wisdom obtained in dependence on the unsurpassed awakening of the Buddhas is not present in this world at all, know that this one dwells in the class of outer ordinary persons. If in this Dharma there is only the worldly and nothing supramundane, know that this one dwells in the class of inner ordinary persons, not an outer ordinary person. If in this Dharma there is the supramundane, know that all these dwell apart in the remaining classes and are not of that class.” The discourse’s “if one has none of these five faculties at all, I say that he is counted among the ordinary persons of other paths” the treatise gives as the class of outer ordinary persons; the treatise further sets up a class of inner ordinary persons, which the discourse does not mention, recorded together. The door of the Range of Activity: “the practitioner of yoga, attending in accordance with principle to the six inner faculties, diligently applies himself to cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness; at that very time these four foundations of mindfulness take in the range of activity of the six faculties,” and “again, by the causes and conditions of cultivating the factors of awakening, he gives rise to knowledge and liberation,” which may be read alongside the liberation of mind and liberation by wisdom of the seven hundred and tenth: the treatise takes knowledge and liberation as the fruit of the factors of awakening, the discourse takes the two liberations as the fruit of cultivating the seven dharmas, differing in wording and matching in place, recorded together without a ruling. For the arousing of the mind of awakening in the six hundred and fifty-ninth, the treatise’s “the right faith obtained in dependence on the unsurpassed awakening of the Buddhas” may be read alongside.

The summary verse of the door of the powers: “Selection, Discernment and the Rest, Countries and the Rest and Kings, the Arhat, the One in Training, and Uprightness as the Last.” The door of Selection explains the six hundred and sixty-first to the six hundred and sixty-third: “in brief, with regard to all bad conduct in this life and in the life to come, having seen deeply its faults, one is able to select rightly, to still bad conduct and cultivate good conduct: this is called the power of selection,” and “again, this is able to serve as the support for the cultivation of the foundations of mindfulness gathered by the power of cultivation; relying on this, one is able rightly to cultivate the four foundations of mindfulness and the other factors of awakening. Know that this cultivation is called the power of cultivation.” The discourse’s power of reckoning the treatise gives as the power of selection, and the discourse’s power of cultivation the treatise gives as the power of cultivation, differing wordings recorded together; the discourse takes the power of reckoning as reflecting on the results of bad conduct in this life and the life to come, the treatise takes the power of selection as seeing deeply the faults of bad conduct in this life and the life to come, and the two explanations agree; the discourse takes the power of cultivation as cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness, the treatise takes the power of cultivation as gathering the cultivation of the foundations of mindfulness, the same. The door of Selection further explains the shame and fear of blame of the six hundred and seventy-seventh to the six hundred and eighty-third: “again, the power of selection is able to be accompanied by shame in three places. What are the three places of shame? First, shame with regard to others. One thinks: if I do evil, I shall be reproached together by the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones in the world who know the minds of others, by the noble disciples, and by the hosts of gods who have faith in the Buddha’s teaching”; “second, shame with regard to oneself. One thinks: if I do evil, I shall certainly be deeply reproached by myself”; “third, shame with regard to the Dharma. One thinks: if I do evil, it will be an obstruction to the pure conduct cultivated in the well-taught Dharma and Vinaya.” The discourse explains the power of shame and the power of fear of blame each once; the treatise divides them by shame in three places; the discourse’s “others will come to reproach you by five white dharmas” answers to the treatise’s shame with regard to others; the discourse’s shame and fear of blame and the treatise’s shame differ in wording, recorded together without a ruling. The door of Discernment explains the six hundred and sixty-seventh and the six hundred and seventieth to seventy-second: “by the dominance of the conduct of one’s own benefit and the conduct of benefiting others, know that four powers are established: first, the power of discerning wisdom; second, the power of energy; third, the power of blamelessness; fourth, the power of gathering in. Being able to go to nirvāṇa in this life is called one’s own aim; being able to go to the good destinations of humans and gods is also called one’s own aim. Know that here, relying on the first of one’s own aims, the two powers of discerning wisdom and energy are established. By these two powers one is able to have the means to arouse right diligence. Relying on the second of one’s own aims, the power of blamelessness is established. By these three powers all of one’s own aims reach the utmost end. For one who delights in benefiting others, the aims of others remain. By this dominance, the power of gathering in is established.” The discourse’s power of discernment and power of gathering in the treatise gives as the power of discerning wisdom and the power of gathering in; the discourse does not divide one’s own benefit from the benefit of others, while the treatise takes three powers as one’s own aim and the power of gathering in as the aim of others, which is the treatise’s explanation, recorded together. The door of Countries and the Rest and Kings explains the worldly powers of the six hundred and ninety-second and the six hundred and ninety-ninth: “relying on the country and the king, on man and woman, husband and wife, fool and wise, the one dwelling at home and the one gone forth, know that ten powers are established. That is, kings have the power of sovereignty. Such powers are taught at length as in the sūtra.” The treatise itself says “taught at length as in the sūtra” and does not explain the rest. The door of the Arhat explains the six hundred and ninety-fourth: “the arhats have accomplished eight powers: they take in as it really is the ending without remainder of greed, hatred, delusion, and the rest, do no evil, and cultivate the good. That is, because the mind tends toward seclusion, deliverance, and final nirvāṇa, they turn away from future existence. By the causes and conditions of turning away, they do no evil deeds. Again, because they see the sense pleasures as a portion of hot coals and fire, they turn away from the sense pleasures. By the causes and conditions of turning away, they do no evil deeds. By these two powers they do no evil. Not doing evil, they further cultivate the good by six doors: the foundations of mindfulness, the right exertions, the bases of supernormal power, the faculties and powers, the factors of awakening, and the factors of the path.” The discourse’s eight powers are the nine sentences of tending toward, flowing into, and inclining toward seclusion, deliverance, and nirvāṇa, which the treatise abridges to “tends toward seclusion, deliverance, and final nirvāṇa”; the discourse’s “if he sees the five sense pleasures, it is as if he saw a pit of fire” the treatise gives as “see the sense pleasures as a portion of hot coals and fire,” the simile differing and the meaning the same, recorded together; the seven groups cultivated at the end of the discourse the treatise gives as cultivating the good by six doors. The door of the One in Training explains the six hundred and eighty-fourth, the six hundred and eighty-fifth, and the seven hundred and third: “the Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, relying on the conduct of their own benefit and the conduct of benefiting others, wishing to show the difference between themselves and their disciples, say these words: those in training have accomplished five powers; only the Tathāgata has accomplished ten powers,” “the Tathāgata, having attained arhatship, has accomplished the ten powers and practises the conduct of benefiting others, taking the benefit of others as his own aim,” and “the ten powers of the Tathāgata are as already analysed at length in the Stage of the Bodhisattva.” The discourse distinguishes the Tathāgata from the śrāvakas by before and after and by the ten powers; the treatise distinguishes them by one’s own benefit and the benefit of others: the śrāvakas practise their own benefit, and the Tathāgata takes the benefit of others as his own aim; the discourse’s simile of the infant and the nurse the treatise does not mention. The door of Uprightness explains the seven hundred and third: “if there is a person who loves himself, without flattery or deceit, upright by nature, for the realization of his own aim there are four marks,” “what are the four marks? First, the teaching of the right Dharma; second, instruction and admonition; third, penetration in accordance with principle; fourth, the attainment of true realization,” and “again, relying on the four foundations of mindfulness, with a mind calmed in concentration, having rightly cultivated the seven factors of awakening, he realizes the utmost end of knowledge and liberation. This is called the attainment of true realization.” The discourse’s “without flattery or deceit, an upright mind arises in him, I instruct and teach him” the treatise unfolds by four marks, the teaching of the Dharma and instruction and admonition first, penetration and realization after; the discourse’s “attains a place of advance” answers to the treatise’s last two marks.

The summary verse of the door of the factors of awakening: “Establishment, Difference, Nutriment, Gradual Sequence, Ease, Abiding, and Cultivation as the Last.” The door of Establishment, “by the difference between the class of calm and the class of insight together, the factors of awakening are established,” may be read alongside the seven factors of awakening of the seven hundred and fourth to the seven hundred and tenth. The door of Nutriment, “among the dharmas that conduce to the factors of awakening, there are in brief two kinds of uninverted attention, which, know, together serve as nutriment for the factors of awakening. What are the two? First, right attention; second, repeated attention. The contrary of these, know, is not nutriment,” may be read alongside the right and wrong reflection of the seven hundred and fourth: the discourse takes right and wrong reflection as the cause of the arising and decline of the factors of awakening, the treatise takes right attention and repeated attention as the nutriment of the factors of awakening, right reflection and right attention differing in wording, recorded together without a ruling. The door of Gradual Sequence, “if any one factor is lacking at the beginning, middle, or end, awakening as it really is cannot be fulfilled. As with the kind of thing that is relied upon and the thing that relies on it, in their flow and establishment, they are taught in the gradual sequence of their arising. Know that here mindfulness is what is relied upon and investigation of dharmas is what relies on it; the rest, as applicable, know, are likewise,” explains the fulfilment in sequence of the seven hundred and eleventh: the discourse takes the fulfilment of the awakening factor of mindfulness as the cultivation of investigation of dharmas, the treatise takes mindfulness as what is relied upon and investigation of dharmas as what relies on it, the same order. The door of Ease, “if a bhikṣu cultivates the factors of awakening by means, by four causes and conditions he does not attain abiding at ease,” further likens the seven factors of awakening to the seven treasures of a wheel-turning king: “as a wheel-turning king, attaining great sovereignty over the four continents, obtains the seven treasures, so the king of the mind, attaining great sovereignty over the four noble truths, obtains the truly pure seven treasures of the factors of awakening, know, likewise”; the discourse has no simile of the seven treasures, and the treatise makes its own statement. The door of Abiding, “if a practitioner has the seven factors of awakening present at the right time and present in the right measure, this is called abiding. If at some time he withdraws, this is called passing away,” may be read alongside the things that lead to decline and do not lead to decline of the seven hundred and fifth. The door of Cultivation, the cultivation of the factors of awakening accompanied by twenty-one perceptions, finds no direct explanation in the discourses of this fascicle. For the six hundred and forty-second to the six hundred and fifty-third, the six hundred and sixty-fourth to the six hundred and sixty-sixth, the six hundred and sixty-eighth, the six hundred and sixty-ninth, the six hundred and seventy-third to the six hundred and seventy-sixth, the six hundred and eighty-sixth to the six hundred and ninety-first, the six hundred and ninety-third, the six hundred and ninety-fifth to the six hundred and ninety-eighth, the seven hundredth to the seven hundred and second, and the seven hundred and sixth to the seven hundred and ninth, the treatise has no sentence of direct mātṛkā explanation, and none is forced. The explanation of the door of the factors of awakening ends at “cultivating loving-kindness up to its utmost, up to the Pure-Radiance heaven and the rest, its marks should be known as in the Stage of Meditative Attainment”; the four doors that follow, path factors, mindfulness of breathing, the trainings, and faith with purity, answer to the later fascicles of the Path and are not listed here.

“What is called the factors of awakening is the seven dharmas of the path. Yet, bhikṣus, the seven factors of awakening arise in sequence and are cultivated to fulfilment.” The thirty-six discourses of this fascicle, apart from the first, which carries on from the previous fascicle, and three on the four immeasurables and the perceptions, all teach the seven factors of awakening: their divisions, their time, their nutriment, the persons on whom they depend, the sequence of their arising, their fruits, and their being cultivated together with every field of practice. In the two fascicles before, the seven factors of awakening stood alongside the foundations of mindfulness, the faculties, and the powers as a name; only in this fascicle are they opened one by one: why the hindrances are ten, why the factors are fourteen, which factor is to be cultivated at which time, what is nutriment and what is not, from the arising of mindfulness to equanimity, the attainment of two fruits, four fruits, seven fruits. To read this fascicle is to read how the seven factors of awakening go from a numbered name to a path that can be cultivated and known.

I. With Cause, With Condition (Discourse 712)

The first discourse of the fascicle is given in brief; it carries on Prince Fearless’s question from the previous discourse, changing only the two things asked about: “there are ascetics and brāhmaṇas who hold this view and say this: ‘without cause, without condition, beings are without knowledge and without vision; without cause, without condition, beings have knowledge and vision.’” The previous discourse asked about defilement and purification; this one asks about the absence of knowledge and vision and their presence; the text reads “as above,” and the answer too carries on: defilement has a cause and purification has a cause, the absence of knowledge has a cause and knowledge and vision have a cause, and the cause is the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening; the discourse ends “up to: Prince Fearless, hearing what the Buddha said, rejoiced and followed it with joy, bowed at the Buddha’s feet, and departed,” its close too carrying on from the previous discourse. The fascicle opens with this one discourse carrying on from the last, and the thirty-five that follow teach this cause.

II. The Ten of the Five Hindrances, the Fourteen of the Seven Factors (Discourse 713)

Many bhikṣus, going for alms too early, pass by the monastery of followers of other paths, who ask: “the ascetic Gautama teaches the Dharma to his disciples: cut off the five hindrances, which cover the mind, weaken the power of wisdom, are a portion of obstruction, and do not turn toward nirvāṇa; dwell in the four foundations of mindfulness; cultivate the seven factors of awakening. We too teach our disciples to cut off the five hindrances, which cover the mind and weaken the power of wisdom, to dwell well in the four foundations of mindfulness, and to cultivate the seven factors of awakening. What difference is there between us and that ascetic Gautama? Both are able to teach the Dharma.” The bhikṣus are displeased, rebuke them, and leave; they return and tell the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One teaches them to ask back: “Followers of other paths! The five hindrances should be ten in kind. The seven factors of awakening should be fourteen in kind. What are the ten of the five hindrances and the fourteen of the seven factors of awakening?” The followers of other paths can speak the names but cannot speak the divisions; the difference in teaching the Dharma lies not in the headings but in whether, beneath the headings, each can be opened and analysed. The World-Honored One says of himself: “I do not see, among gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, brāhmaṇas, or the assemblies of gods and humans, any who, hearing what I teach, rejoice and comply, except the Tathāgata and the assembly of disciples who hear it here.”

The five hindrances are taught as ten, each hindrance opened into two: “there is inner sensual desire, there is outer sensual desire. That inner sensual desire is a hindrance; it is not knowledge, not right awakening, it does not turn toward nirvāṇa. That outer sensual desire is a hindrance; it is not knowledge, not right awakening, it does not turn toward nirvāṇa”; ill will and the sign of ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, doubt about wholesome dharmas and doubt about unwholesome dharmas, each two, making ten. The seven factors of awakening are taught as fourteen, each factor likewise opened into two: “there is mindfulness of the mind dwelling on inner dharmas, there is mindfulness of the mind dwelling on outer dharmas. That mindfulness dwelling on inner dharmas is the awakening factor of mindfulness; it is knowledge, it is right awakening, it is able to turn toward nirvāṇa. That mindfulness dwelling on outer dharmas is the awakening factor of mindfulness; it is knowledge, it is right awakening, it is able to turn toward nirvāṇa”; the selection of wholesome dharmas and the selection of unwholesome dharmas, “there is energy that cuts off unwholesome dharmas, there is energy that nourishes wholesome dharmas,” joy and the place of joy, the tranquillity of body and the tranquillity of mind, concentration and the sign of concentration, “there is equanimity toward wholesome dharmas, there is equanimity toward unwholesome dharmas,” each two, making fourteen. The criterion for the ten and the fourteen is a single pair of sentences: a hindrance “is not knowledge, not right awakening, it does not turn toward nirvāṇa,” a factor of awakening “is knowledge, it is right awakening, it is able to turn toward nirvāṇa.” Hindrance and factor are divided not by name but by whether they turn toward nirvāṇa; the same “selection,” selecting wholesome dharmas is a factor of awakening and selecting unwholesome dharmas is also a factor of awakening, because both are knowledge and both go toward nirvāṇa, while doubt about wholesome dharmas and doubt about unwholesome dharmas are both hindrances, because both are not knowledge.

III. The Time and Not the Time (Discourse 714)

The next discourse also carries on a question from the followers of other paths, and what is asked is the time: “if the mind is feeble and hesitant, which factors of awakening should be cultivated at that time? What is not the time to cultivate? And if the mind is restless, if the mind is restless and hesitant, which factors of awakening should then be cultivated? What is not the time?” The World-Honored One answers with two pairs: “if at that time the mind is feeble, the mind hesitant, one should not cultivate the awakening factor of tranquillity, the awakening factor of concentration, the awakening factor of equanimity,” “as when, with a small fire, one wishes to make it burn and adds charred coals”; “if a restless mind arises, if the mind is restless and hesitant, at that time one should not cultivate the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas, the awakening factor of energy, the awakening factor of joy,” “as when, with a blazing fire, one wishes to put it out and supplies it with dry kindling.” This is not the time. The time: “if a feeble mind arises, feeble and hesitant, this is the time to cultivate the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas, the awakening factor of energy, the awakening factor of joy,” by these three dharmas one “instructs, teaches, illumines, and gladdens,” as a small fire supplied with dry kindling; “if a restless mind arises, restless and hesitant, cultivate the awakening factor of tranquillity, the awakening factor of concentration, the awakening factor of equanimity,” “these dharmas are able to make the mind dwell within, gathered and held in one,” as a burning fire supplied with charred coals.

Here the seven factors of awakening are divided into three and three: investigation of dharmas, energy, and joy are able to make the mind rise, tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity are able to make the mind settle; when the mind sinks one uses those that raise it, when the mind is restless one uses those that settle it, and to use them the other way round increases the illness. And “the awakening factor of mindfulness assists them all”: mindfulness is in neither group, and both groups take mindfulness as their aid. This discourse teaches that the factors of awakening are not seven dharmas cultivated all at once, but that one observes the sinking or restlessness of the mind and selects what should be cultivated; the simile of fire is used both ways, charred coals and dry kindling being in themselves neither good nor bad, succeeding when used at the right time and failing when used at the wrong one.

IV. Nutriment and Non-Nutriment (Discourse 715)

“There are the five hindrances and the seven factors of awakening, with nutriment and without nutriment.” “Just as the body stands by relying on nutriment, not without nutriment, so the five hindrances stand by relying on nutriment, not without nutriment.” The nutriment of each of the five hindrances has its own object: “what is the nutriment of the hindrance of sensual desire? It is the sign of contact: reflecting wrongly on it makes sensual desire not yet arisen arise, and sensual desire already arisen it is able to make increase; this is called the nutriment of the hindrance of sensual craving”; for the hindrance of ill will, “it is the sign of obstruction”; the hindrance of sloth and torpor has five things, “feebleness, discontent, yawning, overeating, and slackness”; the hindrance of restlessness and remorse has four things, “thoughts of kin, thoughts of people and crowds, thoughts of gods, and thoughts of pleasures formerly experienced”; the hindrance of doubt has the three times, “hesitation about the past, hesitation about the future, hesitation about the present.” The nutriment of all five hindrances is “reflecting wrongly on it”: the objects are the sign of contact, the sign of obstruction, five things, four thoughts, and three times, and what feeds on them is wrong reflection.

The seven factors of awakening too abide by relying on nutriment; first their non-nutriment is taught: “what is the non-nutriment of the awakening factor of mindfulness? It is not reflecting on the four foundations of mindfulness: the awakening factor of mindfulness not yet arisen does not arise, and the awakening factor of mindfulness already arisen is made to decline”; the object of the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas is “selecting among wholesome dharmas, selecting among unwholesome dharmas,” of the awakening factor of energy “the four right exertions,” the awakening factor of joy has joy and the place of joy, the awakening factor of tranquillity has the tranquillity of body and the tranquillity of mind, the awakening factor of concentration “has the four dhyānas,” the awakening factor of equanimity “has three elements, namely the element of abandoning, the element of desirelessness, the element of cessation”; not reflecting on these, the factor of awakening does not arise, and once arisen is made to decline. Next the non-nutriment of the five hindrances is taught, which is the five counteragents: for the hindrance of sensual desire, “the contemplation of impurity,” for the hindrance of ill will, “reflecting with a mind of loving-kindness,” for the hindrance of sloth and torpor, “reflecting on bright illumination,” for the hindrance of restlessness and remorse, “reflecting on stilling and calm,” for the hindrance of doubt, “reflecting on the dharma of dependent arising.” Last the nutriment of the seven factors of awakening is taught, the objects as before: “having reflected,” what has not arisen is made to arise and what has arisen is made to increase.

The frame of this discourse is a single word: reflection. The nutriment of the five hindrances is wrong reflection, the nutriment of the seven factors of awakening is reflection; the non-nutriment of the five hindrances is reflecting on the five counteragents, the non-nutriment of the seven factors of awakening is not reflecting on their objects. Hindrance and factor alike stand by relying on nutriment, and nutriment is the direction reflection takes. Each of the seven factors of awakening has its object, mindfulness the four foundations of mindfulness, energy the four right exertions, concentration the four dhyānas, equanimity the three elements: the factors of awakening are not seven states of the mind but the mind’s reflection in accordance with principle on seven objects.

V. Inner Dharmas and Outer Dharmas (Discourses 716 and 717)

The previous discourse teaches nutriment; these two teach the general cause of nutriment, one inner and one outer. Inner dharma: “among inner dharmas, I do not see one dharma that makes evil unwholesome dharmas not yet arisen arise, makes evil unwholesome dharmas already arisen arise again and increase, makes wholesome dharmas not yet arisen not arise, and makes those already arisen decline, as does wrong reflection”; its opposite is “right reflection.” Outer dharma: “among outer dharmas, I do not see one dharma that makes evil unwholesome dharmas not yet arisen arise, makes those already arisen arise again and increase, makes wholesome dharmas not yet arisen not arise, and makes those already arisen decline, as do bad friends and bad companions”; its opposite is “good friends, good companions, good followers.” The two discourses are identical in wording; the evil unwholesome dharmas spoken of are the five hindrances and the wholesome dharmas are the seven factors of awakening, each listed one by one. Within, by reflection; without, by friends: one dharma takes in the arising and decline of the five hindrances and the seven factors. The previous discourse gives five nutriments for the five hindrances and seven for the seven factors; these two discourses gather them into one inner and one outer.

VI. Three Venerables Speak of the Factors of Awakening (Discourses 718 to 720)

None of the three discourses is spoken by the World-Honored One. Śāriputra tells the bhikṣus: “these seven factors of awakening are attained with certainty, attained without striving; as I wish, I enter the attainment of the factors of awakening,” “as when a king’s great minister has garments of many kinds placed in a chest, and takes what he needs as he needs it, what he needs at midday, what he needs at dusk, freely as he wishes”; “this awakening factor of mindfulness of mine is pure and wholly white; when it arises I know it arises, when it ceases I know it ceases, when it sinks I know it sinks, when it has arisen I know it has arisen, when it has ceased I know it has ceased,” and so for the other six. This is the mastery of one beyond training over the factors of awakening: attained without striving, entered as one wishes, their arising and ceasing all known.

Atimukta asks Upavāna: “Venerable! Can one know the means to the seven factors of awakening, dwelling thus in happiness in attainment, dwelling thus in suffering in attainment?” Upavāna answers with the reflection at the time of cultivating the awakening factor of mindfulness: “that mind is not well liberated, has not destroyed sloth and torpor, has not well tamed restlessness and remorse, has not destroyed sloth and torpor; as I reflect on the dharma of the place of the awakening factor of mindfulness, with energy and means, I do not attain evenness,” this is dwelling in suffering; “the mind is well liberated, has rightly destroyed sloth and torpor, has tamed restlessness and remorse; as I, having reflected here on the dharma of the place of the awakening factor of mindfulness, without striving in means, attain evenness,” this is dwelling in happiness. Aniruddha answers many bhikṣus, also teaching dwelling in happiness: “a bhikṣu cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness by means and knows well in reflection: my mind is well liberated, has well destroyed sloth and torpor, has well tamed restlessness and remorse. Having thus reflected on the dharma of the place of the awakening factor of mindfulness, with diligence and means, the mind not slack, the body tranquil and unshaken, binding the mind and making it dwell, not giving rise to scattered thoughts, one-pointed in attainment.” What the three discourses teach is the knowledge that one cultivating the factors of awakening has of his own mind: Śāriputra knows their arising and ceasing, Upavāna knows suffering and happiness, Aniruddha knows the marks of dwelling in happiness; the cultivation of the factors of awakening is not only cultivation, but also knowing whether that cultivation succeeds or not.

VII. The Seven Treasures of the Wheel-Turning King (Discourses 721 and 722)

“When a wheel-turning king appears in the world, seven treasures appear in the world: the golden wheel treasure, the elephant treasure, the horse treasure, the divine pearl treasure, the jewel-woman treasure, the treasurer-minister treasure, the general-minister treasure. So too, when the Tathāgata appears in the world, the seven treasures of the factors of awakening also appear.” The first discourse tells in brief how the golden wheel treasure appears and the king follows the wheel, “the lesser kings of the eastern countries, everywhere, seeing the holy king come, all submit”; the next tells the seven treasures at length, each beginning from “what is”: the golden wheel treasure appears and the king follows the wheel across the four seas, the lesser kings come out to receive him, and the king tells them, “you should now only govern the people of your countries well; if any do not comply, come and tell me; govern according to the Dharma, do nothing unlawful, and make the people of your countries also govern well what is unlawful; if you do so, then you follow my governance”; the elephant treasure, “in less than a day the elephant is tamed”; the horse treasure is likewise tamed in a day; the pearl treasure, “within the king’s palace, is always a lamp,” and when the king tests it, “carrying the pearl before him, its light shines a full yojana around”; the jewel-woman treasure, “her body soft as Kaliṅga cloth,” “with an upright mind and right mindfulness, arouses the king’s intent on the path”; the treasurer-minister, “because of his former practice of giving, is born with the divine eye and can see hidden stores”; the general-minister “knows in full what the holy king should do, matters of merit in this life and the life to come, and tells the holy king.” The last sentence says only: “so, when the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One appears in the world, the seven factors of awakening appear in the world.”

The discourse sets the seven treasures and the seven factors of awakening side by side without matching them one to one; what it takes is that the seven treasures appear with the king and the seven factors of awakening appear with the Tathāgata, the appearance of the treasures bound to the king and the appearance of the factors bound to the Buddha. The long telling of the seven treasures is among the longest discourses of the fascicle, and all it tells is the business of kings; a reader who seeks one treasure matched to one factor will not find it in the discourse, but will find it in the treatise of the ancient masters, in the last section.

VIII. Hearing the Profound Dharma, Accomplishing the Real Dharma, the Wholesome Mass (Discourses 723 to 725)

The seven hundred and twenty-third teaches the persons on whom the factors of awakening depend: “a young bhikṣu who serves and attends on elder bhikṣus from time to time hears the profound and subtle Dharma; having heard the profound Dharma, two right things are accomplished, rightness of body and rightness of mind. At that time he cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness,” “when the awakening factor of mindfulness is fulfilled, he selects among dharmas, discriminates dharmas, considers dharmas,” and so on until the awakening factor of equanimity is fulfilled. The seven hundred and twenty-fourth has the same order: “if a bhikṣu keeps the precepts, cultivates virtue, has shame and fear of blame, and accomplishes the real dharma, those who see this person gain much fruit,” “and those who hear of him, those who recollect him, those who go forth after him, gain much merit”: seeing, hearing, recollecting, and going forth after him, all four gain merit; those who draw near and serve him hear the profound Dharma and accomplish the two right things, and “by means cultivate the awakening factor of concentration”: this discourse begins from the awakening factor of concentration, the previous one from the awakening factor of mindfulness, and the two are recorded together. The seven hundred and twenty-fifth speaks in terms of masses: “one who speaks of the unwholesome mass means the five hindrances; this is the right teaching,” “that which is wholly pure and complete is the seven factors of awakening.” The arising of the factors of awakening has its persons, what the persons give is the profound Dharma, and what the profound Dharma accomplishes is rightness of body and mind; the factors of awakening do not arise of themselves, they arise from hearing.

IX. Half the Pure Conduct and the Good Friend (Discourse 726)

Ānanda, sitting alone in reflection: “half the pure conduct is good friends, good companions, good followers, not bad friends, bad companions, bad followers,” and tells the Buddha. The Buddha says “do not say this”: “wholly pure and still, the pure conduct spotless, is good friends, good companions, good followers.” Why it is the whole and not the half: “because I am a good friend, there are beings who from me take up the awakening factor of mindfulness, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment,” and so on to the awakening factor of equanimity. Ānanda takes the good friend as half the pure conduct, the Buddha takes the good friend as the whole of the pure conduct, and the ground is that the Buddha himself is a good friend and beings take up the seven factors of awakening from the Buddha; the factors of awakening are gained from a good friend, and the good friend is the pure conduct. The earlier discourse, the seven hundred and seventeenth, teaches that the one outer dharma is the good friend; this discourse teaches that this one dharma is not half but whole.

X. Ānanda Speaks the Seven Factors of Awakening (Discourse 727)

The World-Honored One, wandering among the people, by the river Hiraṇyavatī, tells Ānanda: “I now have a pain in my back and wish to lie down and rest a little.” He lies on his right side, “binding his mindfulness to the perception of light, with right mindfulness and right knowledge, forming the perception of rising,” and tells Ānanda: “you speak the seven factors of awakening.” Ānanda speaks: “the awakening factor of mindfulness, which the World-Honored One, having himself awakened and attained perfect awakening, teaches as relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment,” and the other six likewise. The Buddha asks, “do you speak of energy?” Ānanda answers that he has spoken of it, and the Buddha says: “only energy, cultivated and much cultivated, attains unsurpassed, right and perfect awakening.” Having spoken, he sits upright, and a certain bhikṣu speaks verses: “Good, venerable Ānanda, clearly understanding and skilfully speaking, there is the supreme white and pure Dharma, spoken free of defilement and subtle”; “the body beset by great suffering, bearing the illness, sitting upright and listening,” “still he delights to hear what is spoken, how much more those who have not yet heard,” “one well versed in the Dharma and Vinaya should listen, how much more the rest”; “rejoicing, the body tranquil, the mind of itself happy likewise, the mind happy attains attainment, rightly contemplating the course of the matters of existence”; “without remainder, like a lamp going out, final nirvāṇa at the end.” “That bhikṣu, having spoken this verse, rose from his seat and left”: the discourse closes with this, without a closing word spoken by the Buddha.

This discourse has two things: the Buddha, ill, has a disciple speak the Dharma, and listens to it sitting upright; of the seven factors, the Buddha asks only about energy and approves only energy. Hearing the Dharma in illness is taking the Dharma as medicine; the verses reason from the Buddha’s own delight in hearing to everyone else, making the Buddha’s listening an exhortation to listen; taking one out of seven is showing energy as that by which awakening is attained. The verses move from Ānanda’s speaking to the listener’s rejoicing, tranquillity, happiness, attainment, and liberation, which is the very sequence of the seven factors of awakening from mindfulness to equanimity.

XI. The General Heading and the Cultivation of the Seven Factors of Awakening (Discourses 728 to 732)

Five short discourses follow one another. The seven hundred and twenty-eighth gives the general heading: “there are seven factors of awakening. What are the seven? Namely the awakening factor of mindfulness, up to the awakening factor of equanimity.” The seven hundred and twenty-ninth teaches cultivation: “if a bhikṣu cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment.” The seven hundred and thirtieth teaches the three times: “in the past they have thus cultivated the seven factors of awakening, in the future they will thus cultivate the seven factors of awakening.” The seven hundred and thirty-first teaches where they come from: “if a bhikṣu’s awakening factor of mindfulness is pure and bright-white, without joints, free of all defilements, what has not arisen does not arise, except by the Buddha’s taming and instruction,” “what has not arisen arises by the Buddha’s taming and instruction, not by any other.” The seven hundred and thirty-second is given in brief, with the Well-Gone One in place of the Buddha: “what has not arisen does not arise, except by the Well-Gone One’s taming and instruction; what has not arisen arises, this is the Well-Gone One’s taming and instruction, not any other.” A factor of awakening pure and bright-white does not arise without the Buddha’s instruction; this is the same meaning as “because I am a good friend” in the seven hundred and twenty-sixth. The four relyings, “relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment,” have already appeared in the seven hundred and twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh; these five discourses restate them as the way of cultivation, and from here on, wherever the cultivation of the factors of awakening is taught, these four phrases are its direction.

XII. Arising in Sequence (Discourses 733 and 737)

A certain bhikṣu asks: “the World-Honored One speaks of the factors of awakening. World-Honored One! What are the factors of awakening?” The Buddha answers: “what is called the factors of awakening is the seven dharmas of the path. Yet, bhikṣus, the seven factors of awakening arise in sequence and are cultivated to fulfilment.” How in sequence: “if a bhikṣu dwells in contemplation of the body as body, internally, then while he dwells in contemplation of the body as body, internally, he gathers the mind and binds mindfulness, not forgetting. At that very time he cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness by means”; “when the awakening factor of mindfulness is fulfilled, he selects among dharmas, discriminates and considers them. At that very time he cultivates the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas by means,” and so on until the awakening factor of equanimity is fulfilled; the body externally, the body internally and externally, feelings, mind, and dharmas likewise. “One who dwells thus, the factors of awakening arise in sequence, and having arisen in sequence, are cultivated to fulfilment.” In the seven hundred and thirty-seventh the World-Honored One himself poses the question to the bhikṣus, and they ask him to speak: “the World-Honored One is the root of the Dharma, the eye of the Dharma, the support of the Dharma; may he please speak”; the Buddha tells the bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs: “the seven factors of awakening are the seven dharmas of the path,” the order the same as in the previous discourse, ending “this is called the bhikṣu’s seven factors of awakening arising in sequence, and having arisen in sequence, cultivated to fulfilment.”

The two discourses teach one thing: the seven factors of awakening have an order, the order begins from mindfulness, and mindfulness begins from the foundations of mindfulness. When, dwelling in mindfulness contemplating the body as body, one gathers the mind and does not forget, that is the awakening factor of mindfulness; when mindfulness is fulfilled, then investigation of dharmas; when investigation of dharmas is fulfilled, then energy; one factor fulfilled, the next arises. The seven hundred and fourteenth teaches cultivation divided three and three, these two discourses teach the seven factors giving rise to one another; divided cultivation is counteraction, mutual arising is sequence, and the two teachings do not obstruct each other: counteraction is at one time, sequence is on one path.

XIII. Two Fruits, Four Fruits, Seven Fruits (Discourses 734 to 736 and 738 to 740)

Six discourses in two groups of three teach the fruits of cultivating the seven factors of awakening. Two fruits: “one attains two kinds of fruit: in this life one attains the ending of outflows and nirvāṇa without remainder, or one attains the fruit of non-returning,” and the later group reads “one attains knowledge in this life and nirvāṇa with remainder, and the fruit of non-returning”: the earlier says without remainder, the later with remainder, differing words recorded together without a ruling. Four fruits: “one attains four kinds of fruit, four kinds of blessing. What are the four? Namely the fruit of stream-entry, the fruit of once-returning, the fruit of non-returning, the fruit of arhatship.” Seven fruits: “one attains seven kinds of fruit, seven kinds of blessing,” “this bhikṣu attains in this life the happiness of realized knowledge; or at the time of death; or, if he does not attain in this life the happiness of realized knowledge, then at the time of death he attains the ending of the five lower bonds and final nirvāṇa in the interval,” final nirvāṇa on rebirth, without effort, with effort, “if he does not attain final nirvāṇa with effort, he attains final nirvāṇa going upstream”; the later group reads “namely knowledge in this life and nirvāṇa with remainder, and at the time of death, or if not, the five lower bonds ended, one attains final nirvāṇa in the interval,” the rest the same.

The three teachings each stand on their own: the two fruits are the two of the ending of outflows in this life and non-returning, the four fruits are the four fruits of the ascetic from stream-entry to arhatship, and the seven fruits are the happiness of realized knowledge in this life, the time of death, and the five kinds of non-returner, making seven. The two fruits take the ending of outflows in this life as the highest, and for one who does not attain it, non-returning; the seven fruits take knowledge in this life as the highest, for one who does not attain it, attainment at the time of death, and only for one who does not attain that the five kinds of non-returner; the four fruits count from stream-entry and do not take non-returning as their limit. The three teachings open and close differently, but what they teach is one thing: the cultivation and much cultivation of the seven factors of awakening has a fruit to be expected, and that fruit, from entering the stream to the ending of outflows, lies wholly within them; this is why the factors of awakening are called factors of awakening.

XIV. Cultivated Together with the Perceptions (Discourses 741 to 747)

The last seven discourses teach the factors of awakening cultivated together with every field of practice. “One should cultivate the contemplation of impurity; having much cultivated it, one attains great fruit and great blessing,” and how it is cultivated: “this bhikṣu cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness together with the contemplation of impurity, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment.” Mindfulness of death likewise, “cultivating the awakening factor of mindfulness together with mindfulness of death.” In the seven hundred and forty-third the followers of other paths ask again, and what they ask about is the four immeasurables: they say the World-Honored One teaches his disciples “with a mind accompanied by loving-kindness, without enmity or envy, and without ill will, vast and immeasurable, well cultivated and filling,” and they too teach thus, so what difference is there. The Buddha teaches the bhikṣus to ask back: “in cultivating a mind of loving-kindness, what is the highest it reaches? In cultivating a mind of compassion, of sympathetic joy, of equanimity, what is the highest it reaches?” and answers himself: “a mind accompanied by loving-kindness, much cultivated, has the pure as its highest; a mind of compassion cultivated and much cultivated has the sphere of space as its highest; a mind of sympathetic joy cultivated and much cultivated has the sphere of consciousness as its highest; a mind of equanimity cultivated and much cultivated has the sphere of nothingness as its highest.” Each of the four immeasurables has the place it reaches at its highest; the followers of other paths can speak of loving-kindness but cannot speak of where loving-kindness arrives. The seven hundred and forty-fourth then cultivates the factors of awakening together with loving-kindness: “this bhikṣu, with a mind accompanied by loving-kindness, cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness”; the seven hundred and forty-fifth, “with a mind accompanied by the sphere of space, cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness,” “as with the cultivation of the sphere of space, so the three discourses on the sphere of consciousness, the sphere of nothingness, and the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception are also taught as above”; the seven hundred and forty-sixth, “with a mind accompanied by mindfulness of breathing, cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness”; the seven hundred and forty-seventh, “this bhikṣu, with mind and speech accompanied by the perception of impermanence, cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness,” and appends at the end: “as with the perception of impermanence, so with the perception of suffering in the impermanent, the perception of non-self in suffering, the perception of contemplating food, the perception of there being no delight in the whole world, the perception of ending, the perception of abandoning, the perception of desirelessness, the perception of cessation, the perception of danger, the perception of impurity, the perception of the bluish-bruised, the perception of the festering, the perception of the bloated, the perception of the broken, the perception of food unconsumed, the perception of blood, the perception of separation, the perception of bones, the perception of emptiness, each discourse is taught as above.”

The impure, mindfulness of death, the four immeasurables, the four spheres, mindfulness of breathing, and the twenty perceptions are every field of practice; every field of practice is “together with the awakening factor of mindfulness” up to the awakening factor of equanimity, every one “relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment.” The seven factors of awakening are not another field of practice beside the fields of practice; they are the common track of the cultivation of every field: whatever dharma one cultivates, it is together with the factors of awakening, and all tend toward relinquishment. The seven hundred and thirteenth teaches that the followers of other paths and the Buddha both speak of the five hindrances and the seven factors, the seven hundred and forty-third that both speak of the four immeasurables, and the two discourses have the same answer: the difference is not in the names spoken, but in the divisions beneath the names and in where they arrive.

XV. How to Read the Fascicle

The thirty-six discourses of one fascicle may be read by the arising and ceasing of the seven factors of awakening. First know their divisions (the seven hundred and thirteenth), next their time (the seven hundred and fourteenth), next their nutriment (the seven hundred and fifteenth to seventeenth); the one who knows knows for himself (the seven hundred and eighteenth to twentieth); their appearance is bound to the Buddha (the seven hundred and twenty-first and twenty-second), their arising is bound to the good friend and the profound Dharma (the seven hundred and twenty-third to twenty-sixth, thirty-first, and thirty-second), the Buddha himself shows energy (the seven hundred and twenty-seventh); their order is from mindfulness to equanimity (the seven hundred and thirty-third and thirty-seventh), their fruits in three teachings, of two, four, and seven (the seven hundred and thirty-fourth to fortieth); their cultivation is together with every field of practice (the seven hundred and forty-first to forty-seventh). Divisions, time, nutriment, knowing, what they depend on, sequence, fruit, and accompaniment: with these eight things the path of the seven factors of awakening is complete. The two fascicles before teach the foundations of mindfulness and the faculties and powers; this fascicle teaches the factors of awakening, and with it the factors of the path come to have sequence and fruit; the fascicle closes with cultivation together with the perceptions, teaching that the factors of awakening do not stand apart from the fields of practice, and the fields of practice do not leave the factors of awakening.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

In the Compendium of Topics, the Topics of the Sūtras, the Selection on the Factors of Awakening has ten doors; the door of the foundations of mindfulness explains fascicle twenty-four, and the three doors of the faculties, the powers, and the factors of awakening explain fascicle twenty-six; what the thirty-six discourses of this fascicle answer to is the door of the factors of awakening alone, and the two doors of right exertions and bases of supernormal power have no discourse answering to them in this fascicle. The summary verse of the door of the factors of awakening, “Establishment, Difference, Nutriment, Gradual Sequence, Ease, Abiding, and Cultivation as the Last,” has seven doors whose order answers broadly to the order of the discourses in this fascicle, and what follows goes by it.

The door of Establishment, “by the difference between the class of calm and the class of insight together, the factors of awakening are established”; the door of Difference, “by difference of intrinsic nature, and by difference in the marks of object and of cause and condition, know that the seven factors of awakening have fourteen kinds of difference”: the “seven factors of awakening should be fourteen in kind” of the seven hundred and thirteenth the treatise explains by two kinds of difference, of intrinsic nature and of the marks of object and cause and condition; the discourse’s mindfulness dwelling on inner dharmas and on outer dharmas the treatise takes as difference of object, recorded together; the ten of the five hindrances the treatise does not mention. The door of Nutriment, “among the dharmas that conduce to the factors of awakening, there are in brief two kinds of uninverted attention, which, know, together serve as nutriment for the factors of awakening. What are the two? First, right attention; second, repeated attention. The contrary of these, know, is not nutriment,” explains the seven hundred and fifteenth: the discourse takes reflection as nutriment, the treatise takes right attention and repeated attention as nutriment; the discourse’s wrong reflection is the treatise’s “the contrary of these”; right reflection and right attention differ in wording, recorded together without a ruling; the discourse lists the object of each of the seven factors one by one, the treatise speaks of them as a whole. The right reflection among inner dharmas of the seven hundred and sixteenth may be read alongside this door.

The door of Gradual Sequence, “if any one factor is lacking at the beginning, middle, or end, awakening as it really is cannot be fulfilled,” “mindfulness is what is relied upon and investigation of dharmas is what relies on it; the rest, as applicable, know, are likewise,” explains the arising in sequence of the seven hundred and thirty-third and thirty-seventh: the discourse has investigation of dharmas arise once mindfulness is fulfilled, the treatise has mindfulness as what is relied upon and investigation of dharmas as what relies on it, the same order; the discourse speaks of sequence, the treatise of non-fulfilment if any one factor is lacking, the one speaking from arising, the other from lack. The beginning from mindfulness and from concentration in the seven hundred and twenty-third and twenty-fourth may be read alongside.

The door of Ease, “if a bhikṣu cultivates the factors of awakening by means, by four causes and conditions he does not attain abiding at ease”: “first, because the coarseness of every class of defilement has not yet been left behind; second, because the secondary defilements of the class of calm are present; third, because the secondary defilements of the class of insight are present; fourth, because the path is not yet well tamed and is driven”; “because the acts of attention have exertion, energy is excessive; and because there is increase and decrease between earlier and later, the running is uneven. By these two conditions, know, it is called a path not well tamed.” The feeble mind and the restless mind of the seven hundred and fourteenth the treatise takes in under the two kinds of secondary defilement, of the class of calm and of the class of insight; the discourse takes cultivation at the wrong time as the illness, the treatise takes the path not well tamed as the illness; the discourse’s wrong time answers to the treatise’s uneven running, recorded together. The dwelling in happiness and in suffering of the seven hundred and nineteenth and twentieth the treatise has as abiding at ease and not at ease, which may be read alongside. This door further likens the seven factors of awakening to the seven treasures of a wheel-turning king: “as a wheel-turning king, attaining great sovereignty over the four continents, obtains the seven treasures, so the king of the mind, attaining great sovereignty over the four noble truths, obtains the truly pure seven treasures of the factors of awakening, know, likewise,” matching them one to one: “first, the awakening factor of mindfulness is like the wheel treasure,” “the awakening factor of investigation of dharmas is like the elephant treasure,” “the awakening factor of energy is like the horse treasure,” “the awakening factor of joy is like the woman treasure,” “the awakening factor of pliant ease is like the divine pearl treasure,” “the awakening factor of concentration is like the treasurer treasure,” “the awakening factor of equanimity is like the general treasure”: the seven hundred and twenty-first and twenty-second only set the seven treasures and the seven factors side by side, while the treatise matches one treasure to one factor; the treatise’s names and order of the seven treasures differ from the discourse’s: the discourse has the golden wheel treasure, the elephant treasure, the horse treasure, the divine pearl treasure, the jewel-woman treasure, the treasurer-minister treasure, and the general-minister treasure, the treatise has the wheel treasure, the elephant treasure, the horse treasure, the woman treasure, the divine pearl treasure, the treasurer treasure, and the general treasure, the pearl and the woman exchanging places and the names of the minister treasures also differing, recorded together without a ruling.

The door of Abiding, “as a great king has a chest of fine garments which he uses at three times, so the three divisions of abiding in the seven factors of awakening, know, are likewise,” “in the first division one abides in four factors of awakening, in the second division in four factors of awakening, in the third division one abides fully in all seven factors of awakening. Practitioners never abide in only one factor of awakening,” explains the seven hundred and eighteenth: the discourse likens the attainment of the factors of awakening to the king’s great minister taking garments from the chest freely as he wishes, the treatise likens the three divisions of abiding to the chest of fine garments used at three times, the simile the same and what is likened different: the discourse speaks of entering concentration as one wishes, the treatise of how many factors are abided in in each of the three divisions, recorded together. “If a practitioner has the seven factors of awakening present at the right time and present in the right measure, this is called abiding. If at some time he withdraws, this is called passing away,” may be read alongside “when it arises I know it arises, when it ceases I know it ceases” of the seven hundred and eighteenth; “it is called blameless abiding, without relish, the mind free of the taint of relish,” may be read alongside “pure and bright-white, without joints, free of all defilements” of the seven hundred and thirty-first.

The door of Cultivation, “as for cultivating the factors of awakening accompanied by the twenty-one perceptions, know that in brief it is by two causes and conditions. First, by the meaning of accompaniment in association; second, by the meaning of accompaniment without interval,” “cultivation accompanied by the perception of impermanence and the rest, up to cultivation accompanied by the perception of death, is by the meaning of association. Cultivation accompanied by the perception of impurity and the rest, up to cultivation accompanied by the perception of contemplating emptiness, is by the meaning of no interval. Cultivation accompanied by loving-kindness and the rest, know, is likewise,” explains the cultivation together with the perceptions of the seven hundred and forty-first to forty-seventh: the discourse says “together with the awakening factor of mindfulness,” the treatise divides accompaniment in association and accompaniment without interval into two meanings; the discourse lists the perception of impermanence and the rest, twenty perceptions, the treatise speaks of twenty-one perceptions, the numbers differing, recorded together; the treatise’s “cultivating the perception of death” answers to the discourse’s mindfulness of death, “and all of these, from the perception of the bluish-bruised up to the perception of contemplating emptiness, know, are taken in by the perception of impurity” answers to the discourse’s contemplation of impurity and the perceptions from the bluish-bruised to emptiness, and the treatise’s “cultivating loving-kindness up to its utmost, up to Universal Purity and the rest, its marks should be known as in the Stage of Meditative Attainment” answers to the seven hundred and forty-third’s loving-kindness having the pure as its highest, each of the four immeasurables having its highest place, which the discourse states and the treatise refers elsewhere; the discourse’s mindfulness of breathing the treatise does not list. For the seven hundred and twelfth, seventeenth, twenty-fifth to thirtieth, thirty-second, thirty-fourth to thirty-sixth, and thirty-eighth to fortieth, the treatise has no sentence of direct mātṛkā explanation, and none is forced. The explanation of the door of the factors of awakening ends here; the four doors that follow, path factors, mindfulness of breathing, the trainings, and faith with purity, answer to the later fascicles of the Path and are not listed here.

“Just as the sign that goes before the sunrise is the first light of the sign of dawn, so too, bhikṣus, the sign that goes before the complete ending of suffering, the final ending of suffering, is right view.” The forty-five discourses of this fascicle all teach the eightfold noble path: its sign that goes before, its sequence and its root, its being the path to everything that is sought, its being of one in training and one beyond training, the inner and outer things on which it depends, its standing against the eight wrong factors, the meaning of each of its factors and the two kinds of each, and its fruit. The three previous fascicles taught the foundations of mindfulness, the faculties and powers, and the factors of awakening; by the end of that fascicle the factors of awakening already had a sequence and a fruit. This fascicle teaches the noble path, and here the Connected Discourses on the Path come to the name of “path.” The whole fascicle repeats one question and one answer—“is there a path, is there a track, by cultivating which and cultivating much one cuts off these three feelings?” and “there is a path, there is a track, by cultivating which and cultivating much one cuts off these three feelings”—where what is to be cut off keeps changing and what is answered does not: “namely, the eightfold noble path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” To read this fascicle is to read how one path is asked after, marked out, and opened factor by factor, and remains throughout a single path.

I. The Sign Before the Sunrise (Discourses 748 to 750)

The first three discourses of the fascicle teach that right view comes before the other factors. The seven hundred and forty-eighth takes the sunrise as its simile: before the sun has risen, the sign of dawn appears first; before suffering is ended, right view arises first; “that right view is able to give rise to right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Because the attainment of right concentration arises, the noble disciple’s mind is rightly liberated from greed, hatred, and delusion; thus the mind is well liberated.” Right view is the sign that goes before, not the whole path; the whole path goes from right view to right concentration, and from right concentration to the liberation of the mind. The seven hundred and forty-ninth teaches that before the sign that goes before there is a further sign: “if ignorance is the sign that goes before, then evil, unwholesome dharmas arise. At that time there arise shamelessness and lack of scruple; when shamelessness and lack of scruple have arisen, wrong view arises,” and the reverse: “if knowledge arises as the sign that goes before, wholesome dharmas arise. At that time shame and scruple arise with it; when shame and scruple have arisen, they are able to give rise to right view; when right view has arisen, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration arise in sequence.” Knowledge and ignorance stand at the very beginning, shame and scruple or their lack stand in between, right view and wrong view part ways from there, and from there the eight factors “arise in sequence.” The seven hundred and fiftieth goes a level further down and teaches the root: “all evil, unwholesome dharmas, bhikṣus, have ignorance as their root; from ignorance they gather, from ignorance they are born, from ignorance they arise.” What is ignorance? “Ignorance is not knowing: not knowing wholesome and unwholesome dharmas as they really are,” not knowing as they really are what is blameworthy and blameless, what is low and what is high, what is defiled and undefiled, what is to be discerned and not, what is dependently arisen and not; knowledge is the reverse: of wholesome and unwholesome dharmas it knows as they really are the blameworthy and blameless, what is to be drawn near to and not, inferior dharmas and superior dharmas, the defiled and the pure, the discerned and the undiscerned, the dependently arisen and not—the seven pairs of knowledge have one pair more than the six of ignorance, “to be drawn near to and not”—and “one who knows as it really is, that is right view.”

Read together, the three discourses say: right view is the sign that goes before the path, knowledge is the sign that goes before right view, and knowledge is simply knowing as it really is. Right view is not a view that one has chosen; it is “knowing as it really is” the wholesome and unwholesome, the blameworthy and blameless, the dependently arisen and not. Wrong view is not a mistaken view; it arises from “not knowing.” From this the order of the eight factors is settled: knowing comes first, intention, speech, action, and livelihood are made right by knowing, effort, mindfulness, and concentration are accomplished by that rightness, and liberation is attained by concentration. All three discourses end the same way: “My birth is ended, the pure conduct established, what was to be done is done; I know for myself there is no further existence.” What the sign that goes before tends toward is this sentence.

II. Wrong Things and Right Things (Discourse 751)

“Whether a householder or one gone forth, if he gives rise to wrong things, I do not speak of him,” and “whether a householder or one gone forth, if he gives rise to right things, I praise him.” Wrong things are “wrong view, up to wrong concentration”; right things are “right view, up to right concentration.” The discourse sets householder and renunciant side by side: the path of eight factors does not take going forth as its boundary; a householder who gives rise to right things is likewise praised, and one gone forth who gives rise to wrong things is likewise not spoken of. The verse says: “a householder or one gone forth, who gives rise to wrong things, he in the end does not delight in the unsurpassed right Dharma,” and “a householder or one gone forth, who gives rise to right things, his mind constantly delights in the unsurpassed right Dharma.” Delighting or not delighting in the right Dharma is the fruit of wrong things and right things, and also their mark: the seven hundred and eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh below, where “one who tends toward the wrong goes against the Dharma and does not delight in the Dharma,” carry on from this verse.

III. Desire, the Deathless, the Requisites of Samādhi (Discourses 752 to 757)

In all three discourses a disciple asks and the Buddha answers; what is asked differs, and what is answered always returns to the path. The bhikṣu Jiamo asks about desire, and the Buddha first answers with the five strands of sensual pleasure: “forms cognized by the eye that are lovely, pleasing, desirable, and nourish sensual delight,” and so for ear, nose, tongue, and body; then he turns the sentence: “yet these are not desire; the craving and clinging to them, that is called desire.” The verse says it again: “the world’s varied five colours, these are not sensual desire; the thought of craving and desire, that is a man’s desire. The many forms remain in the world; the practitioner cuts off the desire in the mind.” Forms are not desire; craving and clinging are desire; forms remain in the world, and what the practitioner cuts off is the desire in the mind. Jiamo asks further, “is there a path, is there a track, that cuts off this craving and desire?” and the Buddha answers, “there is the eightfold right path, which is able to cut off craving and desire.” Alishizha asks about the deathless, and the Buddha answers: “the deathless is said as the name of an element; yet it is for one whose outflows are ended that I now speak this name”—the deathless is originally the name of one element, and the Buddha borrows it to name the ending of outflows; what attains it is “the so-called factors of the eightfold noble path, namely right view up to right concentration.” Śāriputra asks about the root and requisites of noble right samādhi, and the Buddha answers: “the seven factors of the right path are the root and the requisites of noble right samādhi,” and “having taken these seven path factors as the foundation, one attains oneness of mind; this is called the root and requisites of noble right samādhi.” This discourse alone picks out seven of the eight factors, and right concentration is not among them: right concentration is what is accomplished, and the first seven are its root and requisites; the seven factors are the foundation, and oneness of mind is attained from them. The seven hundred and fifty-fifth to fifty-seventh are joined in one sentence: “as in the three discourses above. So too the three discourses in which the Buddha asks the bhikṣus are taught in the same way”—the same three questions, now asked by the Buddha of the bhikṣus.

Three questions, three answers: desire, the deathless, samādhi; what is sought differs, and the path is one. The seven hundred and fifty-fourth deserves particular notice: samādhi is not cultivated apart from the seven factors; it is the oneness of mind where the seven factors are accomplished.

IV. The Fears Without Mother and Son (Discourse 758)

This discourse first refutes what ordinary people say and then establishes what the Buddha has declared. Ordinary people speak of three “fears without mother and son”: the rising of war and turmoil, the sudden breaking out of a great fire, and floods in the mountains, where “the son loses his mother and the mother loses her son.” The Buddha says these are really “fears with mother and son”: “at times war and turmoil rise and ravage the country; carried along with the flow and scattered, mother and son lose one another, and at times mother and son see one another again”—lost and yet able to meet again, the bond of mother and son is not severed, and so they are called fears with mother and son. The true fears without mother and son are three, “which I have declared from my own awakening to perfect awakening”: old age, sickness, and death. “When the son grows old, no mother can say: ‘Son! Do not grow old; I shall grow old in your place.’ When the mother grows old, no son can say: ‘Mother! Do not grow old; I shall grow old in your place’”; so too with sickness, so too with death. Mother and son are the closest of kin, yet in old age, sickness, and death they cannot take one part in each other’s place; here the bond of mother and son reaches nothing at all, and so they are called fears without mother and son. The bhikṣus ask whether there is a path, a track, “that cuts off the former three fears with mother and son and cuts off the latter three fears without mother and son,” and the Buddha answers, “there is a path, there is a track, that cuts off those three fears,” namely the factors of the eightfold noble path.

The depth of the discourse lies in the turn: what ordinary people fear is in truth a fear that can be mended; what ordinary people do not fear is in truth a fear in which no one can stand in for another. Old age, sickness, and death cannot be taken on by another, so one can only cut them off oneself; and the path by which one cuts them off oneself is the eightfold noble path. This carries over into the seven hundred and sixtieth: were there no old age, sickness, and death in the world, the Tathāgata would not appear in the world.

V. Three Feelings, Three Things, the Tathāgata’s Appearing (Discourses 759 and 760)

The seven hundred and fifty-ninth teaches that the three feelings are “impermanent, conditioned, born of the mind’s conditions”: pleasant, painful, and neither painful nor pleasant; the bhikṣus ask whether there is a path, a track, that cuts off these three feelings, and the Buddha answers with the eightfold noble path. The seven hundred and sixtieth teaches that there are three things in the world “not to be delighted in, not to be loved, not to be cherished,” namely old age, sickness, and death; “if in the world there were not these three things not to be delighted in, not to be loved, not to be cherished, there would be no Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened One appearing in the world, and the world would not know that there is the Tathāgata’s teaching of the Dharma, his admonition and instruction.” Old age, sickness, and death are the reason the Tathāgata appears in the world, and also the reason for the teaching and instruction; asked whether there is a path, a track, that cuts off these three things, he again answers with the eightfold noble path.

The two discourses share one pattern of question and answer with the seven hundred and fifty-eighth. What is asked after runs from feelings to old age, sickness, and death; what is answered is always the path; and what makes the path a path is that it has something to cut off. The Tathāgata appears in the world because of old age, sickness, and death; what he teaches is the path that cuts off old age, sickness, and death; and the path is the eight factors.

VI. In Training and Beyond Training (Discourses 761 and 762)

“What is one in training? One in training is accomplished in right view, and accomplished in right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration of one in training; this is called one in training. What is one beyond training? One beyond training is accomplished in right view, and accomplished in right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration of one beyond training; this is called one beyond training.” One in training and one beyond training are alike accomplished in the eight factors; what differs is the name, in training or beyond training: the one is still cultivating, the other has completed. The appended sentence at the end of the discourse reads, “as for one in training and one beyond training, so too the right person and the great person are taught in the same way”—the right person and the great person are also named by accomplishment in the eight factors. The seven hundred and sixty-second teaches the noble ending of outflows: “accomplished in the right view of one beyond training, up to accomplished in the right concentration of one beyond training; this is called the noble ending of outflows.” The ending of outflows is not a fruit obtained apart from the path; it is the accomplishment itself of the eight factors of one beyond training.

VII. The General Heading of the Eightfold Noble Path and Its Cultivation (Discourses 763 to 767)

The seven hundred and sixty-third only marks out the names: “I shall now teach the factors of the eightfold noble path. What are the eight? Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” The seven hundred and sixty-fourth teaches cultivation: “that bhikṣu cultivates right view, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment; he cultivates right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment; this is called cultivating the eightfold noble path”—the manner of cultivation is the same sentence as the cultivation of the factors of awakening in fascicle twenty-seven: relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment. The seven hundred and sixty-fifth teaches the three times: “I shall now teach how a bhikṣu has cultivated the eightfold noble path in the past and will cultivate the eightfold noble path in the future,” the rest being given in brief. The seven hundred and sixty-sixth teaches arising: “if a bhikṣu’s right view is pure and bright-white, without faults, free of afflictions, it does not arise when it has not arisen, except by the Buddha’s taming; up to right concentration is taught in the same way,” with the appended sentence “as for except by what the Buddha teaches, so too except by what the Well-Gone One teaches is taught as above”—a pure right view does not arise of itself; it arises from the Buddha’s taming. Fascicle twenty-seven taught that the factors of awakening, not yet arisen, arise through the Buddha’s taming and instruction; this fascicle teaches the same of the noble path. The seven hundred and sixty-seventh sets the wholesome mass against the unwholesome mass: “to say that the unwholesome mass is the five hindrances is right speech. Why? Because the mass that is purely unwholesome is the five hindrances,” and “to say that the mass of wholesome dharmas is the eightfold noble path is called right speech. Why? Because the mass that is wholly pure and complete and wholesome is the eightfold noble path.” The five hindrances are purely unwholesome; the eightfold noble path is wholly pure and complete and wholesome. The previous fascicle set the five hindrances against the seven factors of awakening, this fascicle sets them against the eightfold noble path: what they are set against changes, and the five hindrances do not.

What the five discourses teach is the body of the path: its name, its cultivation, the three times, its arising, and its pure wholesomeness. The phrase “wholly pure and complete” appears again in the seven hundred and sixty-eighth.

VIII. The Good Friend and the Vehicle of Brahmā (Discourses 768 and 769)

In the seven hundred and sixty-eighth Ānanda, sitting alone, thinks: “half the pure conduct is good friends, good companions, good followers”; the discourse abbreviates his report to the Buddha, and the Buddha tells him directly: “the wholly pure and complete fulfilment of the pure conduct is the good friend. Why? Because I am a good friend, there are beings whom I cause to cultivate right view, relying on seclusion, relying on dispassion, relying on cessation, and tending toward relinquishment, up to cultivating right concentration.” The seven hundred and twenty-sixth in fascicle twenty-seven has the same episode, where what is cultivated is the factors of awakening; here what is cultivated is the noble path. The good friend is not half the pure conduct but the whole of it: because the Buddha is himself the good friend, beings’ cultivation of the eight factors all arises from the Buddha. In the seven hundred and sixty-ninth Ānanda, on his alms round, sees the brāhmaṇa Shengwen riding a white-horse chariot, “white horses, white chariot, white reins, white whip, on his head a white hat and white parasol, in his hand a white fly-whisk, wearing white garments and white ornaments, his body anointed with white scents, and all his attendants in white,” and the crowd cries out, “A fine vehicle! A fine vehicle! The brāhmaṇa vehicle!” Ānanda brings this to the Buddha: “in the right Dharma and discipline, is this the vehicle of worldly people, or the brāhmaṇa vehicle?” The Buddha answers: “it is the vehicle of worldly people, not the brāhmaṇa vehicle of my Dharma and discipline”; the vehicle in the Buddha’s Dharma and discipline is “the vehicle of the right Dharma and discipline, the vehicle of the gods, the brāhmaṇa vehicle, the great vehicle, which is able to subdue the army of afflictions,” namely the eightfold right path; the concluding sentence has “the vehicle of the right Dharma and discipline, the vehicle of the gods, the vehicle of Brahmā, the great vehicle”—the earlier reads brāhmaṇa vehicle, the later vehicle of Brahmā, and both forms stand side by side in the base text. The verse takes the chariot as a simile for the path: “faith and precepts are the Dharma yoke, shame and scruple the long reins, right mindfulness guards it well and serves as the good driver,” “relinquishment and samādhi are the shaft, wisdom and energy the wheels, non-attachment and patience the armour, and it runs at ease in accordance with the Dharma,” “going straight on without turning back, going forever to the sorrowless place, the wise man mounts the war chariot and crushes the enemy of unknowing.” After the verse this discourse has no closing words; the next discourse follows directly.

Both discourses are set off by Ānanda: the one teaches that what the path depends on is the good friend, the other that what the path is named is the great vehicle. Worldly people take whiteness as the vehicle; the Buddha takes faith, precepts, shame and scruple, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom as the vehicle. What is called the vehicle of Brahmā is what can crush the enemy of unknowing, not what is adorned in white without.

IX. Leaving the Wrong and Cultivating the Right, the Far Shore and Not the Far Shore (Discourses 770 to 774)

The seven hundred and seventieth teaches that both leaving and cultivating have their reason: “because wrong view can be cut off, I say that a bhikṣu should leave wrong view. If he does not leave wrong view, wrong view will bring about what is meaningless, unprofitable, and painful,” and “because right view can be cultivated and attained, I say that a bhikṣu should cultivate right view. If he does not cultivate right view, it will bring about what is meaningless, unprofitable, and painful”; from wrong intention to wrong concentration and from right intention to right concentration, “it is taught in the same way.” The Buddha does not say that what cannot be cut off should be cut off, nor that what cannot be cultivated should be cultivated; he teaches leaving and cultivating because they are possible. In the seven hundred and seventy-first the brāhmaṇa Shengwen asks about the far shore and not the far shore, and the Buddha answers: “wrong view is not the far shore. Right view is the far shore”; the eight wrong factors are not the far shore, and the eight right factors are the far shore. The verse says: “rare are the people who are able to cross to the far shore; all the world wanders about on this shore,” and “those who in this right Dharma and discipline are able to follow it well, they are able to cross to the far side of the shore of birth and death, so hard to cross.” The eightfold right path is not the boat that crosses to the far shore; it is the far shore itself, and those who wander on this shore are the eight wrong factors. The seven hundred and seventy-second to seventy-fourth are joined in one sentence: “so too, when a certain bhikṣu asks the venerable Ānanda, asks the Buddha, and asks the bhikṣus, these three discourses are taught as above”—the same question, with three changes of questioner and answerer.

X. Inner Dharmas and Outer Dharmas (Discourses 775 to 781)

Seven discourses of one pattern teach the causes that give rise to the eight wrong and right factors. Among inner dharmas there is one dharma “that is able to make evil, unwholesome dharmas not yet arisen arise, and those already arisen arise again and increase, namely wrong reflection”; among inner dharmas there is one dharma “that makes evil, unwholesome dharmas not yet arisen not arise, and makes evil, unwholesome dharmas already arisen cease, namely right reflection.” The seven hundred and seventy-fifth teaches the arising and ceasing of evil dharmas, the seventy-sixth the arising and decline of wholesome dharmas, and the seventy-seventh teaches both together. So too with outer dharmas: “namely bad friends, bad companions, bad followers” can make evil arise and the wholesome decline, and “namely good friends, good companions, good followers” can make evil cease and the wholesome arise; the seven hundred and seventy-eighth, seventy-ninth, and eightieth are three discourses like the three on inner dharmas. The seven hundred and eighty-first teaches inner dharmas together, with the appended sentence at the end: “as for wrong view and right view, so too wrong intention and right intention, wrong speech and right speech, wrong action and right action, wrong livelihood and right livelihood, wrong effort and right effort, wrong mindfulness and right mindfulness, wrong concentration and right concentration: seven discourses are taught as above. As for the eight discourses on inner dharmas, so too the eight discourses on outer dharmas are taught in the same way”—one discourse for each factor, eight for the inner and eight for the outer.

The seven hundred and sixteenth and seventeenth in fascicle twenty-seven teach in the same pattern the causes of the factors of awakening and of the five hindrances; this fascicle teaches the causes of the eight wrong and right factors; the causes do not change: within, it is whether reflection is right or wrong; without, it is whether friends are good or bad. The path arises from within through right reflection and from without through the good friend; the wrong path likewise arises from within through wrong reflection and from without through bad friends. The seven hundred and sixty-eighth, with the Buddha as the good friend, is the furthest point of this outer dharma.

XI. Not the Dharma and the Dharma, Ānanda Answers a Brāhmaṇa (Discourses 782 and 783)

The seven hundred and eighty-second: “what is not the Dharma, and what is the Dharma? Wrong view is not the Dharma, right view is the Dharma, up to wrong concentration is not the Dharma and right concentration is the Dharma.” The appended sentence gives eleven pairs: “as for not the Dharma and the Dharma, so too not the discipline and the right discipline, not noble and noble, unwholesome dharmas and wholesome dharmas, dharmas not to be practised and dharmas to be practised, dharmas not well done and dharmas well done, black dharmas and white dharmas, the meaningless and the right meaning, inferior dharmas and superior dharmas, blameworthy dharmas and blameless dharmas, dharmas to be discarded and dharmas not to be discarded: each is a discourse taught as above.” The eight wrong factors and the eight right factors are set in pairs under eleven names: Dharma, discipline, noble, wholesome, to be practised, well done, white, meaning, superior, blameless, not to be discarded; the names differ, and what they point to does not. In the seven hundred and eighty-third Ānanda is staying at Kauśāmbī, and a certain brāhmaṇa asks why he went forth; Ānanda answers, “for the sake of cutting off”; cutting off what? “Cutting off greed, cutting off hatred and delusion”; is there a path, a track, able to cut them off? “There is: the eightfold noble path, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” The brāhmaṇa praises it: “An excellent path! An excellent track! Cultivating it and cultivating it much, one is able to cut off these—greed, hatred, and delusion.” This discourse has no word of the Buddha at all, and Ānanda’s answer does not differ by one word from the Buddha’s answers. The appended sentence again gives eleven meanings: “so too for taming greed, hatred, and delusion, and attaining nirvāṇa, and disenchantment, and not tending toward nirvāṇa, and the goal of an ascetic, and the goal of a brāhmaṇa, and liberation, and the cutting off of suffering, and the final ending of suffering, and the complete ending of suffering: each is a discourse taught as above”—what going forth is for can be spoken under eleven names, and the path is one for them all.

Each of the two discourses repeats one thing under eleven names: the seven hundred and eighty-second names the path under eleven names, the eighty-third names under eleven names what the path is for. “The goal of an ascetic” and “the goal of a brāhmaṇa” are among them, and the seven hundred and ninety-fourth to ninety-sixth at the end of the fascicle open out from here.

XII. The Explanation of the Eight Factors (Discourse 784)

This discourse explains the eight factors one by one. “What is right view? It is to say that there is giving, there is teaching, there is offering, there is good conduct and bad conduct, there are the results of good and bad conduct, there is this world and there is the other world, there are father and mother, there are beings who are born, there are arhats who have gone well and tended well,” up to knowing and realizing for oneself. “What is right intention? The intention of renunciation, the intention without ill will, the intention of non-harming.” “What is right speech? Abstaining from false speech, abstaining from divisive speech, abstaining from harsh speech, abstaining from idle speech.” “What is right action? Abstaining from killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.” “What is right livelihood? Seeking robes, food, bedding, and medicine in accordance with the Dharma, not against the Dharma.” “What is right effort? Desire, energy, exertion, going forth, striving, being capable of constant practice without turning back.” “What is right mindfulness? Mindfulness that follows along, mindfulness that is not false and not empty.” “What is right concentration? The mind dwelling undisturbed, firm, gathered and held, stilled, in samādhi, in oneness of mind.”

The right view of this discourse is “there is giving, there is teaching, there is offering” up to there are arhats: it is the view that there is action and its result, that there is this world and the other world, that there are the noble ones; read together with the “knowing as it really is” of the seven hundred and fiftieth, the content of knowing as it really is, is just this. Here the explanation of the eight factors is only one layer each; the next discourse opens each into two.

XIII. The Two Kinds, Worldly and Beyond the World (Discourses 785 and 789)

The seven hundred and eighty-fifth carries on from the previous discourse, and “the difference” is that each factor is opened into two: “there is right view that is worldly and conventional, with outflows and with clinging, turning toward good destinations; and there is right view that is noble and beyond the world, without outflows and without clinging, completely ending suffering, turning toward the end of suffering.” Worldly right view is the previous discourse’s there is giving, there is teaching, up to “knowing that in the world there are arhats who receive no further existence; this is called worldly right view”; right view beyond the world is “the noble disciple’s reflecting on suffering as suffering, reflecting on its arising, its cessation, and the path as the path, reflection without outflows conjoined with it, selecting among dharmas, discriminating and searching, awareness and keen wisdom, opening awakening and contemplating.” Right intention is of two kinds: the worldly is “the thought of renunciation, the thought without ill will, the thought of non-harming,” and the one beyond the world is reflection on the four truths, “mental dharmas conjoined with reflection without outflows, discriminating, resolving and understanding of oneself, reckoning and setting the mind.” Right speech is of two kinds: the worldly is abstaining from the four faults of speech, and the one beyond the world is reflection on the four truths, “setting aside wrong livelihood, being mindful of the four bad actions of speech and the remaining bad actions of speech, abstaining from them, without outflows, secluded, unattached, guarding firmly, gathering and holding without transgression, not overstepping the season, not crossing the bounds”; so too right action and right livelihood, where what is abstained from is the three of body and wrong livelihood. Right effort is of two kinds: the worldly is “desire, energy, exertion rising above, firmly established, capable of exertion in what is undertaken, gathering in the mental dharmas, constant, without rest,” and the one beyond the world is the same, but “mental dharmas conjoined with recollection without outflows.” Right mindfulness is of two kinds: the worldly is “mindfulness, following mindfulness, repeated mindfulness, recollection, not false, not empty,” and the one beyond the world is the same, but “conjoined with reflection without outflows.” Right concentration is of two kinds: the worldly is “the mind dwelling undisturbed, unmoving, gathered in, stilled, in samādhi, in oneness of mind,” and the one beyond the world is “mental dharmas conjoined with reflection without outflows dwelling, undisturbed, unscattered, gathered in, stilled, in samādhi, in oneness of mind.”

The two kinds of the eight factors differ in one thing only: with outflows and with clinging, or without outflows and not clinging; turning toward good destinations, or completely ending suffering and turning toward the end of suffering. The explanation of the worldly eight factors and that of the eight factors beyond the world differ factor by factor: for right view, right intention, right mindfulness, and right concentration, the explanation beyond the world in each case contains “reflecting on suffering as suffering, reflecting on its arising, its cessation, and the path as the path, reflection without outflows conjoined with it”; for right speech and right action it further adds “removing wrong livelihood,” being without outflows and unattached toward the four faults of speech and the three evil actions of body, holding firm and not transgressing (right speech reads “without outflows, keeping far from them, not attached, holding firm, keeping and not transgressing”); right livelihood reads as being without outflows and not delighting in any wrong livelihood; right effort reads “mental dharmas conjoined with recollection without outflows.” The point is that what is conjoined with reflection on the four truths and is without outflows is beyond the world, and otherwise it is worldly. In the seven hundred and eighty-ninth the brāhmaṇa Shengwen asks about right view, and the Buddha answers with the two kinds, where right view beyond the world reads “selecting among dharmas, discriminating and seeking awakening, skilful and keen wisdom contemplating,” with the appended sentence “as for right view, so too right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration: each is a discourse taught as above.”

These two discourses are the finest point of the whole fascicle. Earlier, the seven hundred and sixty-first on in training and beyond training, the sixty-second on the noble ending of outflows, and the sixty-sixth on pure and bright-white had already tacitly divided the two kinds; here it is said openly: under one name there are two paths, one going to good destinations, one ending suffering. What makes the eight factors the noble path is not their names but their being conjoined with reflection on the four truths and without outflows.

XIV. Tending Toward the Wrong and Tending Toward the Right (Discourses 786 to 788)

The seven hundred and eighty-sixth: “if a bhikṣu’s mind tends toward the wrong, he goes against the Dharma and does not delight in the Dharma; if it tends toward the right, his mind delights in the Dharma and does not go against the Dharma.” The seven hundred and eighty-seventh explains it: “a person of wrong view’s bodily action is as his view is, his verbal action is as his view is; whatever he thinks, desires, wishes, and does all follows along with it, and everything he obtains is an unloved fruit, an uncherished, undesired fruit. Why? Because his view is bad, namely wrong view”; a person of right view is the reverse, “he obtains a lovely, cherished, desired fruit. Why? Because his view is right, namely right view.” The actions of body and speech, thinking, desiring, wishing, and doing all follow along with the view; the fruit arrives according to the action. The seven hundred and eighty-eighth says it again and adds a simile: “it is like a bitter fruit planted in the ground and watered in season: it takes in the flavour of earth, the flavour of water, the flavour of fire, and the flavour of wind, and all of it is bitter. Why? Because what was planted was bitter,” and “it is like sugar cane, rice, wheat, and grapes planted in the ground and watered in season: they take in the flavour of earth, the flavour of water, the flavour of fire, and the flavour of wind, and all their flavour is sweet. Why? Because the seed was sweet.” Earth, water, fire, and wind are the same, and whether the flavour is bitter or sweet lies not in the four flavours but in the seed; body, speech, thought, and desire are the same, and action follows the view, and whether the fruit is loved or unloved is divided by the view. The appended sentence reads, “the worldly and beyond the world are taught in the same way; as in the three discourses above, in each the verse is also spoken,” and the verse says: “one should not draw near to base dharmas, one should not practise negligence, one should not cultivate wrong view, increasing in the world,” and “suppose there is one in the world in whom right view increases: though he be born a hundred thousand times, in the end he does not fall into the evil destinations.”

The three discourses teach that view is the seed of action. The seven hundred and forty-eighth took right view as the sign that goes before; here right view is the seed: the sign that goes before speaks of its order, the seed speaks of its nature. When the view is right, everything follows along with it and a loved fruit is obtained; when the view is wrong, everything follows along with it and an unloved fruit is obtained. That is why the eight factors have right view at their head, and why the seven hundred and fiftieth says that wrong view comes from not knowing.

XV. The Wrong Path and the Right Path, With the Stream and Against the Stream (Discourses 790 to 793)

The seven hundred and ninetieth: “what is the wrong? Hell, the animal realm, and the hungry ghosts. What is the wrong path? Wrong view, up to wrong concentration. What is the right? Humans, gods, and nirvāṇa. What is the right path? Right view, up to right concentration.” The wrong and the wrong path are spoken of separately: the wrong is the three evil destinations, and the wrong path is the path that leads there; the right is humans, gods, and nirvāṇa, and the right path is the path that leads there. The seven hundred and ninety-first asks the same and changes the path: “what is the wrong path? Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle speech, greed, hatred, and wrong view,” and “what is the right path? Not killing, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct, not lying, not speaking divisively, not speaking harshly, not speaking idly, without greed, without hatred, and right view.” The wrong path can be spoken of as the eight wrong factors and also as the ten unwholesome ways; the right path can be spoken of as the eight right factors and also as the ten wholesome ways—where they lead is the same. The seven hundred and ninety-second is given in brief, the only difference being “what is the path to the evil destinations? Killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, killing an arhat, splitting the saṃgha, and shedding the Buddha’s blood with an evil mind.” The seven hundred and ninety-third: “what is the path that goes with the stream? Wrong view, up to wrong concentration. What is the path that goes against the stream? Right view, up to right concentration,” with the appended sentence “as for with the stream and against the stream, so too the path of decline and the path of excellence, the lower path and the higher path, and the three discourses on the track of the path, are taught as above.”

The four discourses speak of the path by its destination: a path is named wrong or right by where it leads. The eight wrong factors, the ten unwholesome ways, and the five heinous deeds all go down with the stream to the evil destinations; the eight right factors and the ten wholesome ways all go up against the stream to humans, gods, and nirvāṇa. The seven hundred and seventy-first spoke of the far shore and this shore; here it is with the stream and against the stream: one matter, two similes.

XVI. The Dharma of an Ascetic, the Goal of an Ascetic, the Fruits of an Ascetic (Discourses 794 to 796)

The last three discourses of the fascicle close with the ascetic. “What is the dharma of an ascetic? The eightfold noble path—right view up to right concentration. What is an ascetic? One who is accomplished in this dharma is called an ascetic.” “What is the goal of an ascetic? Greed forever ended, hatred and delusion forever ended, all afflictions forever ended; this is called the goal of an ascetic.” “What are the fruits of an ascetic? The fruit of stream-entry, the fruit of once-returning, the fruit of non-returning, and the fruit of arhatship.” The dharma of an ascetic is the eightfold noble path; an ascetic is the person accomplished in this dharma; the goal of an ascetic is the forever ending of afflictions for which this dharma is practised; the fruits of an ascetic are the four fruits obtained by practising this dharma.

The three discourses answer to the seven hundred and eighty-third: Ānanda went forth “for the sake of cutting off,” what is cut off is greed, hatred, and delusion, and the means is the eightfold noble path; here the goal of an ascetic is greed, hatred, and delusion forever ended, and the dharma of an ascetic is the eightfold noble path. The fascicle begins with the sign before the sunrise and ends with the fruits of an ascetic: from the first light of right view to the accomplishment of the four fruits, the order of one fascicle is the order of one path.

XVII. How to Read the Fascicle

The forty-five discourses of one fascicle can be read by the beginning and end of one path. First know its sign that goes before and its root (748 to 750); next know it as the path to everything that is sought (751 to 760: delighting in the right Dharma, cutting off desire, attaining the deathless, accomplishing samādhi, cutting off the three fears, cutting off the three feelings, cutting off old age, sickness, and death); know it as of one in training and one beyond training (761 and 762); know its body—name, cultivation, arising, pure wholesomeness (763 to 767); know what it depends on, within right reflection and without the good friend, with the Buddha as the furthest point of the good friend (768, and 775 to 781); know its names—the vehicle of Brahmā, the far shore, the Dharma, against the stream (769, 771, 782, 793); know the meaning of each of its factors (784) and the two kinds of each (785 and 789); know it as the seed of action (786 to 788), know the destinations to which it leads (790 to 792); and finally know it as the dharma of an ascetic, with the goal of an ascetic and the fruits of an ascetic (794 to 796). The sign that goes before, what is sought, in training and beyond training, body, what it depends on, names, the meaning of the factors, the two kinds, seed, destination, fruit: in one fascicle the path of the eightfold noble path is complete. The three previous fascicles taught the foundations of mindfulness, the faculties and powers, and the factors of awakening; this fascicle teaches the noble path. The factors of awakening begin with mindfulness and end with equanimity; the noble path begins with right view and ends with right concentration; and that right view is of two kinds, divided into the worldly and that beyond the world, is the meaning that belongs to this fascicle alone.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

In the Compendium of Topics, the Topics of the Sūtras, the Selection on the Factors of Awakening has ten doors; the door of the foundations of mindfulness explains fascicle twenty-four, and the doors of the faculties, the powers, and the factors of awakening explain fascicles twenty-six and twenty-seven; what the forty-five discourses of this fascicle answer to is the door of the path factors alone, and the doors of mindfulness of breathing, of training, and of the purities of realization have no discourse answering to them in this fascicle. The uddāna of the door of the path factors, “first Inner and Outer Power, the Difference of Purity, Synonyms, and Ascetic, then Brāhmaṇa last,” has five headings answering broadly to the order of the discourses in this fascicle—the treatise explains ascetic and brāhmaṇa together, and they are taken here as one section—and what follows goes by them.

Inner and Outer Power: “among all powers, inner and outer, for giving rise to the eightfold noble path there are two powers that are the most excellent of all the rest,” “first, among outer powers, the power of the good friend is the most excellent; second, among inner powers, the power of right reflection is the most excellent”; “the outer good friend means that from him one hears the unsurpassed right Dharma, and for this reason it is called hearing the sound from another. Inner right reflection means that immediately after this one is able to give rise to the path with right view at its head.” This explains the seven hundred and seventy-fifth to eighty-first: the discourses take wrong reflection and right reflection among inner dharmas, and bad friends and good friends among outer dharmas, as the causes that give rise to the eight wrong and right factors; the treatise takes the power of the good friend as the highest of outer powers and the power of right reflection as the highest of inner powers; the discourses speak of their arising, ceasing, increase, and decline, the treatise speaks of them as powers. “Able to give rise to the path with right view at its head” answers to the seven hundred and forty-eighth, where right view is the sign that goes before: the good friend is without, right reflection is within, right view arises from these, and the eight factors arise from right view. The seven hundred and sixty-eighth, with the Buddha as the good friend, and the seven hundred and forty-ninth and fiftieth, with knowledge and ignorance as the sign that goes before, may be consulted.

The Difference of Purity: “that right view and the rest, when in one in training, are called pure because they are without outflows. When in one beyond training, they are called bright-white because their continuity is pure”; “when in the world, being far removed from the countless evil wrong practices that follow the views of outsiders, they are therefore called without a speck of dust”; “in brief, all the factors of the eightfold noble path are comprised in two places: first, the worldly; second, beyond the world. The worldly, because it is bound by the three outflows and the four clingings, is unable to end suffering; because it is wholesome by nature, it is able to go to good destinations. That beyond the world is the reverse of this and is able to end all suffering.” This explains the two kinds of the seven hundred and eighty-fifth and eighty-ninth: the discourses say of the worldly “with outflows and with clinging, turning toward good destinations,” and the treatise says of the worldly “because it is bound by the three outflows and the four clingings, it is unable to end suffering; because it is wholesome by nature, it is able to go to good destinations”; the discourses say of that beyond the world “without outflows, not clinging, completely ending suffering,” and the treatise says “able to end all suffering”—the same meaning in different words, both recorded. The treatise’s pure for one in training and bright-white for one beyond training explain the seven hundred and sixty-first on in training and beyond training and the sixty-sixth on “pure and bright-white”: the discourse joins pure and bright-white in one phrase, the treatise assigns them to one in training and one beyond training; both are recorded without judgement. “Further, the extensive analysis of the meaning of right view and the rest, the eight factors of the noble path, should be known in its characteristics as in the Śrāvaka Level and the Compendium of Synonyms”—for the factor-by-factor explanation of the seven hundred and eighty-fourth and eighty-fifth, the treatise points elsewhere, and the mātṛkā does not gloss it.

Synonyms: “the eight factors of the noble path with right view at their head, because they accord with right principle, are called the Dharma. Because they are able to extinguish all afflictions, they are called vinaya. Because they are extremely far removed from all evil dharmas and because all the noble and worthy have practised them in common, they are called noble. Because they are able to lead on to the good destinations, they are called wholesome. Because they tend toward nirvāṇa, they are called to be cultivated. Because the wise praise them, they are called well done”; “the reverse of these, it should be known, is the difference belonging to the eight factors of the wrong path with wrong view at their head. Because they fall into the class of the black darkness of ignorance, they are called black. Because they go to the evil destinations, they are called meaningless. Because they are unwholesome by nature, they are called inferior. Because they give rise to all the fear and enmity there is in the present life, they are called blameworthy. Because the wise censure them and keep far from them, they are called to be kept far from.” This explains the eleven pairs of the appended sentence of the seven hundred and eighty-second: the discourse’s the Dharma, the right discipline, noble, wholesome dharmas, dharmas to be practised, dharmas well done, white dharmas, the right meaning, superior dharmas, blameless dharmas, dharmas not to be discarded, against the treatise’s Dharma, vinaya, noble, wholesome, to be cultivated, well done, white, meaning, superior, blameless, and the reverse of to be kept far from—the treatise explains six right names and five wrong names, the discourse gives eleven pairs; discipline and vinaya, dharmas to be practised and to be cultivated, dharmas to be discarded and to be kept far from, differ in word and agree in meaning, and are recorded without judgement. The treatise gives under each name its reason: Dharma because it accords with right principle, vinaya because it is able to extinguish afflictions, noble because the noble and worthy have practised it in common, wholesome because it goes to the good destinations, to be cultivated because it tends toward nirvāṇa, well done because the wise praise it; black because it falls into ignorance, meaningless because it goes to the evil destinations, inferior because it is unwholesome by nature, blameworthy because it gives rise to fear and enmity, to be kept far from because the wise censure it. The seven hundred and ninetieth and ninety-first, which speak of wrong and right by their destinations, may be compared with “go to the evil destinations” and “lead on to the good destinations.”

Ascetic and Brāhmaṇa: “in dependence on the ascetic there is in the ultimate sense, the eightfold noble path is established as the goal of an ascetic. For the sake of this goal, in the well-taught Dharma and vinaya, one goes forth under a designation and takes on the nature of an ascetic”; “further, their seeking the fruits of an ascetic, the meaning of the final cutting off of greed, hatred, delusion, and the rest, is why that is called the goal of an ascetic”; “thus there are four in all: first, the nature of an ascetic; second, being an ascetic; third, the goal of an ascetic; fourth, the fruits of an ascetic. The principle of the differences of the brāhmaṇa should be known to be the same.” This explains the seven hundred and ninety-fourth to ninety-sixth: the discourses speak of the dharma of an ascetic, an ascetic, the goal of an ascetic, and the fruits of an ascetic; the treatise speaks of the nature of an ascetic, being an ascetic, the goal of an ascetic, and the fruits of an ascetic, four set against four; the discourse’s dharma of an ascetic (the eightfold noble path) answers to the treatise’s nature of an ascetic, the discourse’s ascetic (one accomplished in this dharma) answers to the treatise’s being an ascetic, and the goal of an ascetic (greed, hatred, and delusion forever ended) and the fruits of an ascetic (the four fruits) share their names. The treatise says “the meaning of the final cutting off of greed, hatred, delusion, and the rest,” the discourse says “greed forever ended, hatred and delusion forever ended”: the same meaning in different words. The appended sentence of the seven hundred and eighty-third sets “the goal of an ascetic” and “the goal of a brāhmaṇa” side by side, and the treatise says “the principle of the differences of the brāhmaṇa should be known to be the same”; they answer to each other.

Outside these five headings, the discourses of this fascicle from the seven hundred and fifty-first to sixtieth, the sixty-third to sixty-fifth, the sixty-seventh, the sixty-ninth to seventy-first, the eighty-fourth, the eighty-sixth to eighty-eighth, the ninety-second, and the ninety-third are not directly glossed by the mātṛkā.