華嚴經 品十七 初發心功德品Avataṃsaka Sūtra · The Merit of the First Arousing of the Mind

This Chapter Is Answering a Doubt Left Over from the Preceding Chapter

The last sentence of the chapter “The Practice of Brahmacarya” speaks of obtaining unsurpassed perfect awakening at the moment of first arousing the mind. With that sentence standing there, the reader cannot help raising a doubt: how is it that someone who has only just aroused the mind has already obtained unsurpassed awakening? Chengguan's determination of the reason this chapter comes is bound precisely to that sentence — he says that at the end of the preceding chapter it was said that at the moment of first arousing the mind one straightway accomplishes right awakening, and that it is not yet known what function this mind has that one should obtain it all at once in this way, and that now this meaning is explained, and therefore it comes next. The sentence Fazang binds it to is exactly the same. So this chapter does not open a fresh subject of its own; it takes up the difficulty the preceding chapter threw out and answers it with a whole fascicle.

Let one common misreading be set aside: do not read this chapter as ‘a hymn in praise of arousing the mind’. Praise is the outward look of the words; answering the doubt is its office. Coming down to how one reads: as you read each passage, you may turn back and put a question — how does this passage help to answer ‘on what ground can the first mind be on a level with the buddha-fruit’? If you can answer that, you have read your way in.

Why It Is Śakra Who Asks and Dharma Wisdom Who Answers

The one who asks is Śakra, the lord of the gods; the one who answers is the Bodhisattva Dharma Wisdom. This is no casual arrangement. Chengguan gives three reasons why the god-emperor asks: this assembly is in the palace of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, which is his own palace, and the lord of the place ought to ask; he had heard the preceding chapter's “at the moment of first arousing the mind one straightway accomplishes right awakening” and a doubting thought arose in his mind, and one who has a doubt ought to ask; and the mind of awakening is the lord of the myriad practices, the very thing most worth asking about. He gives two further reasons why the question is put to Dharma Wisdom: Dharma Wisdom is the host of this assembly; and the matter of ‘the first mind being complete in the virtues of the later stations’ is something only the realm of wisdom can shed light upon.

What Fazang and Zhiyan bring forward is much the same, with one sentence more: only a wisdom that answers to the Dharma can exhaust the utmost bound of merit. And here is where it comes down to the ground: the one who asks stands for everyone in whom a doubt arises, and the one who answers stands for the wisdom that truly sees. The reader's place is on Śakra's side; there is no need to be ashamed of having a doubt. To have a doubt and to ask it is the cause by which this chapter came to be born.

The Ten Clauses of Profundity: What Exactly Is It That Is Hard?

Dharma Wisdom does not open by answering the measure; he opens by saying that it is hard. He says ten ‘hards’ in a row — hard to speak of, hard to know, hard to distinguish, hard to believe and understand, hard to realize, hard to practice, hard to penetrate through, hard to think upon, hard to measure, hard to enter into. Why speak first of the difficulty? Chengguan says: the substance of the Dharma is deep and broad, and to praise it first is to remove people's doubt and to make them long for it; and further, what is to be said below is after all a matter of entrusting it to words, which cannot exhaust its source — so it is declared beforehand.

The intensifier in the phrase rendered “profound” Chengguan glosses on four sides: in terms of time, it is deep, penetrating to the limit of the future; in terms of virtue, deep, reaching to the buddha-fruit; in terms of principle, deep, the same as the Dharma realm; in terms of practice, deep, embracing the myriad practices. He sorts out one further layer: if it were only that the numbers are vast and hard to measure, or the reasoning remote and hard to fathom, that would still be merely deep and would not count as profoundly deep; what is here is ‘the many within the few, the principle within the phenomenon, the first mind complete in the later’ — and this is what is called profound. That sentence hands the reader the key to the whole chapter beforehand: the difficulty of this chapter does not lie in the size of the numbers; it lies in the small and the great not being separated.

As for how the ten clauses are apportioned, Chengguan divides them in two lengths: the first four set the capable and the object over against each other — because it is apart from words it is hard to declare, because it is without marks it is beyond the mind's cognizance, because it is not what eloquence by one's own power can reach it is hard to distinguish, because it is not what a modest wisdom can accept it is hard to believe and understand; the latter six run through both the capable realizing and what is realized, and each later one is more modest than the one before it, so that the further on one goes, the more even the shallower reach falls short. In the Jin translation there are only six clauses here, and Zhiyan matches his explanation to those six. The two texts differ in the number of clauses, and each master outlines according to the translation before him; so it has been with the ancient worthies, and it is recorded with no adjudication.

How Many Similes of Comparison Are There: Three Ways of Counting Stand Together

What follows, a long string of “suppose there were a person …”, is the body of this chapter. Here one thing must first be set out, a thing on which a reader is easily tripped up: just how many similes are these?

By the wording of the scripture itself, the opening phrase “suppose there were” is met with thirteen times by actual count; of these, the last two (“suppose there were a person … who made offerings to countless buddhas of the eastern quarter” and “suppose there were further a second person”) belong together to the former and latter parts of the one simile of making offerings to buddhas and to beings, so that the segment-boundaries in fact number twelve. Chengguan, in the Huayan jing shu, combines the first two segments (the offering of articles of enjoyment together with teaching them to keep the five precepts, and the teaching of the ten good deeds, the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless attainments, and the four fruits and on to the way of the pratyekabuddha) into one “simile of benefiting and gladdening sentient beings,” because the two alike take the benefiting and gladdening of sentient beings as their measure; and so he outlines them as eleven great similes, naming them one by one: benefiting and gladdening sentient beings, swiftly striding through the lands, knowing the formation and destruction of kalpas, knowing well their resolute understandings, knowing well their faculties, knowing well their desires and delights, knowing well their means, knowing well the minds of others, knowing well the marks of their deeds, knowing well their afflictions, and making offerings to buddhas and to beings. Zhiyan, on the side of the Jin translation, says plainly “first, discerning twelve similes,” and reads the twelve similes as falling into five classes.

The three ways of counting rest on different things — one on the original segment-boundaries of the scriptural text, one on Chengguan's combining of segments, one on the wording of the Jin translation. The numbers have been there from of old; they are recorded with no adjudication, and this reading notes in each place which is relied upon, taking no one number so as to discard the rest. What really matters is not the number but the thread Chengguan points out: each later one surpasses the one before it, and therefore each time a simile is raised the former one is discarded, and the discarding goes on and on — only in order to display the one thing that can never be discarded.

The Four Beats of the Text of the Similes

Chengguan points out further that these similes have a fixed four-beat form: first raising up the simile, second putting the question, third receiving the answer, fourth the comparison. First some utterly vast meritorious deed is laid out; then the question, “is this person's merit to be reckoned much, or not?”; Śakra answers, “only a buddha is able to know it”; and only then are the words of comparison brought down. And he says: the first simile and the last are complete in all four beats, while the nine in between omit the putting of the question and the receiving of the answer.

This is a very practical rule for reading. If a reader finds that the nine middle similes suddenly have no dialogue, there is no need to suspect that the scripture has dropped something — that is abbreviation. In the whole chapter Śakra answers only three times, and all three times he says the same thing: this person's merit, only a buddha knows it. That sentence “only a buddha is able to know it” is set again and again just before the comparison, and its intent is plain: first push the meritorious deed to the very summit of what anyone can conceive, and only then say that it does not come up to it.

The First Part of Simile One: Making Offerings to All Sentient Beings, and Further Teaching Them to Keep the Five Precepts

The first simile is laid out thus: suppose there were a person who, with every kind of article that brings pleasure, made offerings to all the sentient beings in as many worlds as asaṃkhyeyas in the eastern quarter, made those offerings for a whole kalpa, and then further taught them to keep the five precepts purely; and did the same to the south, the west, the north, in the four intermediate directions, above and below.

The weight of this simile must be seen clearly. It is not giving one thing to one person; it is giving to all the sentient beings of one quarter and on to all ten quarters. It is not for one moment; it is for a kalpa. And it does not stop at the giving of goods — after the giving of goods there is the benefit of the Dharma, teaching them to keep the precepts. Chengguan divides this passage into three: first the benefit given in the present life (the articles offered, the field of merit, and the span of time, all three of them broad), next, from “and thereafter” onward, the happiness given in the life to come, and last, from “and in the southern, the western” onward, the extension to the remaining nine directions. That is to say: the ease of the present life and the good destiny of the life to come, this person has given both.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: do not suppose the scripture is belittling giving and keeping the precepts. The scripture is doing precisely the opposite — pushing giving and precept-keeping to the utmost limit that human power can imagine; and the higher that limit is set, the more force the three words “does not come up” have afterward. Coming down to the ground: if a person finds even a small gift of goods or of Dharma hard, let him look back through this simile — what is being compared is not your giving or mine as we now stand, but that very summit; and if even the summit does not come up to it, one may see that what is being compared is not a thing of the same kind at all.

A Hundredth Part Does Not Come Up to One: What the Advancing Fractions Are Saying

The words of comparison are brought down thus: this person's merit, set against the merit of a bodhisattva's first arousing of the mind, does not come up to one part in a hundred, does not come up to one part in a thousand, does not come up to one part in a hundred thousand; and in the same way a koṭi part, a hundred-koṭis part, a thousand-koṭis part, a hundred-thousand-koṭis part, a nayuta-of-koṭis part, a hundred-nayutas-of-koṭis part, a thousand-nayutas-of-koṭis part, a hundred-thousand-nayutas-of-koṭis part, the fraction of number, the kalā fraction, the fraction of calculation, the fraction of likeness, the upaniṣad fraction — none of these comes up to one part either.

Two of these translated names must be accounted for. The kalā fraction Chengguan glosses as “the splitting lengthwise of a hair upon a person's body into a hundred parts, and one part among those hundred,” and he records a further account that it is one part among sixteen, translated in sense as “the fraction of comparison.” The upaniṣad fraction Chengguan glosses as “near and slight,” that is, the fraction of what is a little near and may be used for setting beside. Which is to say: this string of fractions grows finer the further it goes, until it is nearly past any further fineness.

Then what is the logic of this sentence? It is not ‘the merit of arousing the mind is the greater quantity’; it is: however finely you cut up the merit of arousing the mind, take the most minute fraction of it, and that utterly vast meritorious deed still does not overtake it. This is no longer a comparison of quantity; it is a sorting out of kinds. Chengguan says it plainly in the text further on — the reason the simile does not come up to it is not that the merit is small, but that it ‘has a bound’; the reason arousing the mind is beyond compare is not that the merit is great, but that it is “without any bound.” Multiply the finite as many times as you like, and it will never step across to the side of the infinite.

The Latter Part of Simile One: Teaching from the Ten Good Deeds and the Four Dhyānas All the Way to the Way of the Pratyekabuddha

The second segment pushes the simile up another layer. This time the offerings are made to all the sentient beings in as many worlds as ten asaṃkhyeyas in the ten directions: for a hundred kalpas, teaching them to cultivate the path of the ten good deeds; for a thousand kalpas, teaching them to abide in the four dhyānas; for a hundred thousand kalpas, teaching them to abide in the four immeasurable minds; for a koṭi of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the four formless attainments; for a hundred koṭis of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the fruit of the stream-enterer; for a thousand koṭis of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the fruit of the once-returner; for a hundred thousand koṭis of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the fruit of the non-returner; for a nayuta of koṭis of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the fruit of the arhat; for a hundred thousand nayutas of koṭis of kalpas, teaching them to abide in the way of the pratyekabuddha.

Chengguan points out how this passage is laid out: the articles that bring pleasure are all the same, while the number of kalpas passed through gradually increases and the Dharma taught grows more excellent at each turn. Which is to say, we are no longer merely among the good dharmas of humans and gods — the four fruits and the way of the pratyekabuddha are world-transcending realizations. That a person could teach measureless sentient beings all the way up to the way of the pratyekabuddha is, among the merits the world can conceive of, already at the very top. Śakra answers a second time: this person's merit, only a buddha is able to know it.

Here is where it comes down to the ground: what this chapter sets in comparison has never been indolence or evil deeds, but the most adorned goodness there is. If a reader hears the “does not come up” as a disparagement of the two vehicles, he has gone astray; for what the scripture goes on immediately to say is precisely that the happiness of the two vehicles too comes forth out of the arousing of the mind.

Why It Still Does Not Come Up: The Buddhas Did Not Arouse the Mind for Those Things

After the comparison, the scripture puts a question to itself: for what reason? The answer falls into two layers. First it speaks in the reverse: when all the buddhas first aroused the mind, it was not merely for the sake of making offerings to that many sentient beings through that many kalpas that they aroused the mind of awakening; nor merely for the sake of teaching that many sentient beings to cultivate the five precepts and the ten good deeds, to abide in the four dhyānas, the four immeasurables, the four formless attainments, and to obtain the four fruits and the way of the pratyekabuddha, that they aroused the mind of awakening. Then it speaks straight on: rather it was in order that the lineage of the Tathāgatas should not be cut off, in order to fill and pervade all worlds, in order to liberate the sentient beings of all worlds, in order to know completely the formation and destruction of all worlds, the defilement and purity of sentient beings, the intrinsic purity of the worlds, the delights, afflictions, and habit-energies in the minds of sentient beings, their dying here and being born there, their faculties and means, the conduct of their minds, and their wisdom throughout the three times, together with the sameness of the realm of all buddhas — it was for the sake of these that they aroused the unsurpassed mind of awakening.

Chengguan takes these twelve clauses apart very clearly: the first three, in general aspect, are set over against the former and discern its excellence — the first turns back the small fruit spoken of before, the second turns back the bounded place spoken of before, the third turns back the limited sentient beings spoken of before; and the nine clauses below are the very root of the ten similes that follow. Which is to say: the whole string of similes to come — knowing worlds, knowing kalpas, knowing understandings, knowing faculties, knowing desires and delights, knowing means, knowing minds, knowing deeds, knowing afflictions, knowing the sameness of the realm of the buddhas — has its items already set up here in advance.

He goes further and matches these nine clauses one by one with the wisdoms of the buddha's ten powers: knowing formation and destruction, defilement and purity, and intrinsic nature is the wisdom of the retribution of deeds; the delights of the mind is the wisdom of the many kinds of understanding; knowing the afflictions is the wisdom of the exhaustion of the outflows; birth and death is the wisdom of the heavenly eye; the faculties is the wisdom of the superiority and inferiority of the faculties; the means is the wisdom of dhyāna, liberation, and samādhi; this, together with the realm of the buddhas, is the wisdom of the paths leading to all places; the conduct of the mind is the wisdom of the many kinds of elements; and the wisdom of the three times is the wisdom of former lives. That one matching pierces through the structure of the whole chapter — what the arousing of the mind aspires to is the whole measure of a buddha's wisdom. And therefore it cannot be compared by any meritorious deed that has measure.

Simile Two, Swiftly Striding Through the Lands: Worlds That Can Be Walked to the End, and Roots of Goodness That Cannot

The second simile changes the way of measuring: suppose there were a person who in a single thought could pass beyond as many worlds as asaṃkhyeyas in the eastern quarter, and did so thought after thought, walking to the end of asaṃkhyeyas of kalpas; and a second person who in a single thought could pass beyond all that the former had passed in a kalpa; and so on in turn to the tenth person; and in the ten directions together there are in all a hundred such persons. The scripture's conclusion is: of these worlds the limit can be known, but of all the roots of goodness of a bodhisattva who first arouses the mind, none can know the limit.

There is a nicety of rhetoric here: the scripture does not say that those worlds are “limitless”; it says on the contrary that “the limit can be known.” The further what can be reckoned is pushed to its utmost, the more plainly it shows that the side which cannot be reckoned is not the same affair. A hundred persons, each passing beyond asaṃkhyeyas of worlds in a single thought — this already sounds limitless; and yet the scripture says: that still has a limit.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: do not suppose that the merit of arousing the mind is ‘a larger number’. If it were a number, it would have fallen onto the side of what can be reckoned. What the scripture says is “none can know the limit” — not that it is so large it cannot be counted to the end, but that it does not lie within counting at all.

The Eleven Clauses of Mutual Identity and Mutual Entering: What Is to Be Known Is Not the Number of the Worlds

After the second simile the scripture explains itself: the bodhisattva does not confine himself within a bound; it is not merely in order to obtain knowledge of going to that many worlds that he arouses the mind, but in order to know the worlds of the ten directions. That is to say: wishing to know that a subtle world is the very same as a coarse world, and coarse the very same as subtle; upturned the very same as overturned, and overturned the very same as upturned; small the very same as great, and great the very same as small; broad the very same as narrow, and narrow the very same as broad; one world the very same as worlds beyond telling, and worlds beyond telling the very same as one world; worlds beyond telling entering into one world, and one world entering into worlds beyond telling; a defiled world the very same as a pure world, and a pure world the very same as a defiled world. And further, wishing to know within the tip of a single hair the differentiated nature of all worlds, and within all worlds the one substance-nature of a single hair's tip; wishing to know that within one world all worlds are brought forth; wishing to know that all worlds are without substance-nature; wishing with the mind of a single thought to know completely all vast worlds without obstruction.

This passage turns the whole weight of the simile over: what was compared before was ‘how much has been walked’, and what is said here is ‘what it is that is known’. What is to be known is not the number of the worlds, but the mutual identity and mutual entering of the worlds.

Chengguan sets up three gates to explain the ground of these mutual identities. The first is the gate of the interfusing of the nature of dharmas — the differentiated nature of all worlds and the substance-nature of a single hair's tip are not two, and therefore phenomena, interfusing in accordance with the nature, are mutually identical, and phenomena, arising by taking hold of the nature, mutually enter. The second is the gate of dependent origination — the many conditions in arising give birth to one another; in terms of substance, there is the sense of having substance and being without substance, and therefore they are mutually identical; in terms of function, there is the sense of having force and being without force, and therefore they mutually enter. The third is the gate of the absence of intrinsic nature — the great is not fixedly great, and therefore it can be identical with the small. What these three gates explain is just the settled track along which the Huayan school speaks of mutual identity and mutual entering; and that it is set here under the name of ‘what one who first arouses the mind wishes to know’ carries great weight: this is not a picture of a realm that comes only after one has ascended the grounds; it is the goal toward which the arousing of the mind points at this very moment.

Simile Three, Knowing the Formation and Destruction of Kalpas: The Sameness between Kalpa and Kalpa

The third simile changes the way of measuring from place to time: suppose there were a person who in a single thought could know the number of kalpas of the formation and destruction of as many worlds as asaṃkhyeyas in the eastern quarter, and did so thought after thought to the end of asaṃkhyeyas of kalpas; and a second person who in a single thought could know all that the former had known in a kalpa; and so on to the tenth. The conclusion is as before: of that number of kalpas the limit can be known, but of the merit and roots of goodness of arousing the mind none can know the limit.

The part that explains itself is of the same structure as in the second simile, only shifted onto time: knowing that a long kalpa and a short kalpa are the same, and short and long the same; one kalpa and countless kalpas the same; a kalpa with a buddha and a kalpa without a buddha the same; within one buddha-kalpa buddhas beyond telling, and within buddha-kalpas beyond telling one buddha; the measured and the measureless the same; what has an end and what has no end the same; kalpas beyond telling and a single thought the same, and a single thought and kalpas beyond telling the same; all kalpas entering what is not a kalpa, and what is not a kalpa entering all kalpas. At the end the scripture concludes for itself: this is called the great vow-adornment of the first arousing of the mind, the wisdom of the supernormal penetration that fully knows all kalpas.

Chengguan, explaining the two graphs “the same” here, says: sameness is spoken through both mutual identity and mutual entering; whether in terms of conditions or in terms of the nature, mind-only and the rest being different, all of it is without obstruction, and therefore it says “the same.” He further sorts it out: the seven foregoing items belong to the unobstructedness of phenomenon with phenomenon, while the last clause, “kalpas entering what is not a kalpa,” is the unobstructedness of principle with phenomenon. And he points out that the wisdom with which the scripture concludes here is, in the text that follows, the supernormal penetration among the ten of knowing to the end of the kalpas of the limit of the future.

Coming down to the ground: ordinary people, speaking of time, can speak only of long and short, fast and slow; the scripture, speaking of time, speaks of the unobstructedness of long and short themselves. If a person can truly trust that “a single thought and kalpas beyond telling are the same,” his anxiety over whether his practice is fast or slow loosens — fast and slow are spoken in terms of aspect; in terms of the nature there is originally neither fast nor slow.

Simile Four, Knowing Well Their Resolute Understandings: Knowing the Many Sorts of ‘Understanding’ in People's Minds

What the fourth simile measures is the resolute understandings of sentient beings, that is, the faith-understanding and aspiration within each person's mind. The scripture takes ten persons multiplying in turn as its measure, just as before, and the conclusion is the same. What repays attention is the part where it explains itself — this is one of the longest such passages in the whole chapter: wishing to know that all differing understandings are without limit, since the understanding of one sentient being and the understandings of countless sentient beings are the same; wishing to obtain the light of the wisdom of means that can know differing understandings beyond telling; wishing to know completely the differing understandings of each and every one within the ocean of sentient beings, with nothing left over; wishing to know completely the many measureless understandings, good and not good, of past, present, and future; wishing to know completely understandings that are alike and understandings that are not alike; wishing to know completely that all understandings are the one understanding and the one understanding is all understandings; wishing to obtain the power of the Tathāgata's understanding; wishing to know completely the differences between what has something above it and what has nothing above it, what has a remainder and what has none, what is equal and what is not equal; wishing to know completely the differences between what has a support and what has none, what is held in common and what is not, what has a limit and what has none, what is differentiated and what is not, what is good and what is not, what is worldly and what transcends the world; wishing, within all subtle understandings, vast understandings, measureless understandings, and understandings that abide in the correct station, to obtain the Tathāgata's unobstructed wisdom of liberation; wishing by measureless means to know completely the pure understanding, defiled understanding, broad understanding, abbreviated understanding, fine understanding, and coarse understanding of each and every sentient being in the ten directions; wishing to know completely the deep and secret understanding, the understanding of means, the understanding that distinguishes, the understanding that arises of itself, the understanding that arises following upon a cause, and the understanding that arises following upon a condition, and to know the whole net of all understandings with nothing left over.

How is this long string to be read? Notice one clause within it: “all understandings are the one understanding, and the one understanding is all understandings” — this gathers back in a single breath the dozens of classifications just made. First to exhaust the distinguishing, and then to say that distinguishing is non-distinguishing: this is the constant brushwork of this scripture. Coming down to the ground: to know the understandings of sentient beings is not for the sake of pasting labels on people; it is for the sake of knowing how the Dharma ought to be spoken. And the one who knows this most thoroughly is, on the contrary, the one who will not be bound by his own classifications.

Simile Five, Knowing Well Their Faculties: Knowing Whether the Faculties Are Keen or Dull

What the fifth simile measures is the differences among the faculties of sentient beings — the differing keenness and dullness of the faculties of faith, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. The text of this simile is extremely spare; at the place where it explains itself the scripture uses the four graphs “and, speaking at length” to abbreviate, and gathers it up in “in order to know completely the whole net of all the faculties.”

The graph “net” recurs again and again through the similes that follow: the net of the faculties, the net of desires and delights, the net of means, the net of minds, the net of deeds, the net of afflictions. A net means something woven together into one piece, where a pull upon one strand moves a hundred — not a set of isolated single strands. So the “knowing” the scripture speaks of is not a stock-taking item by item; it is knowing the whole of their interweaving.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: to know the faculties is not to grade people. The scripture sets knowing the faculties alongside knowing their understandings and knowing their desires and delights, all bound to one and the same thing — knowing them in order to speak to what they can receive. Coming down to the ground: a person who is truly willing to look after others will of himself take note of what the other can and cannot bear just now; and the utmost of that noticing is what the scripture calls knowing the faculties.

Simile Six, Knowing Well Their Desires and Delights: Knowing Where the Mind's Liking Turns

What the sixth simile measures is the many kinds of desires and delights of sentient beings, that is, what each person's mind is fond of and leans toward. The form of the text is as before, and the self-explanation likewise is gathered up in “in order to know completely the whole net of all desires and delights.”

One distinction must be sorted out: desires and delights are not the same as resolute understanding. Resolute understanding is what the mind holds to be right; desire and delight is what the mind is fond of. The two can fail to agree — a person may know perfectly well that it ought to be thus and yet be fond of something else, and this is precisely where the difficulty of practice lies. That the scripture divides the two into two similes is not repetition; it is dividing finely.

Coming down to the ground: one who teaches others, if he looks only at what they believe and not at what they love, may say what is perfectly right and still not get in. That the scripture lists “knowing their desires and delights” among the buddha-wisdoms to which the arousing of the mind aspires is to say this: if compassion does not come down to the level of knowing what people love, it remains only an abstract good will.

Simile Seven, Knowing Well Their Means: Knowing the Path Each One Takes

What the seventh simile measures is the many kinds of means of sentient beings — the methods and approaches each uses in pursuing what he seeks. The form of the text is the same as in the two preceding similes, and the self-explanation is gathered up in “in order to know completely the whole net of all means.”

In the earlier matching of the nine clauses with the ten powers, Chengguan matched the clause on “means” with the wisdom of dhyāna, liberation, and samādhi. That matching is worth noticing: “means” here is not expedient cleverness but a path that can actually be walked; and what makes a path walkable is the strength of concentration.

Coming down to the ground: it is not enough to know a person's faith-understanding and his liking; one must also know which road he can actually move along. One is capable of sitting in stillness; another is capable only of laboring and making offerings; another must first understand the meaning before he can believe — these are the differences among means. That this chapter gives it a simile of its own is a reminder: what the arousing of the mind wishes to know reaches all the way down to the very step a person can take where he stands.

Simile Eight, Knowing Well the Minds of Others: Knowing the Differences among Minds

What the eighth simile measures is the many differing minds of sentient beings. The text of this simile is the sparest of all: the scripture opens by raising the eastern quarter, then at once says “and, speaking at length,” and goes straight to the conclusion. At the self-explanation it says: in order to know completely the many kinds of minds of the boundless sentient beings to the end of the Dharma realm and the realm of empty space, and on to wishing to know completely the whole net of all minds.

Notice that the words the scripture uses are “differing minds,” not ‘what is on someone's mind’. What is known is the kinds and tendencies of mind, not a peering into what anyone is privately thinking. This agrees with the constant way of speaking since “The Names of the Tathāgata” in the second assembly: to know minds is for the sake of expounding the Dharma.

Coming down to the ground: if a person imagines “knowing the minds of others” to be a faculty for stealing a look at another's privacy, what he imagines is not in the least what this chapter speaks of. That the scripture places it after knowing their understandings, their faculties, their desires and delights, and their means makes the thread plain — the whole string is for the sake of meeting what suits each one.

Simile Nine, Knowing Well the Marks of Their Deeds: Knowing the Differences among Deeds

What the ninth simile measures is the many differing deeds of sentient beings. Here a slight change in the scripture's phrasing is worth pointing out: the concluding words of the preceding similes were all “none can know the limit,” and from this simile onward it becomes “the limit of the roots of goodness cannot be known.” The wording differs, but what it comes home to is one.

The self-explanation says: wishing to know completely the deeds of all sentient beings throughout the three times, and on to wishing to know completely the whole net of all deeds. The reason deeds are called a net is that deed and deed are cause and fruit to one another, entangled and continuing on, so that to cut at one place pulls upon the whole.

Coming down to the ground: knowing deeds is not for the sake of judging who ought to undergo what retribution. That the scripture ranges knowing deeds beside knowing afflictions in the next simile has this intent: deeds are the aspect on the side of the fruit, afflictions the root on the side of the cause; know first the aspect, and then one may cut the root. To know only the aspect of deeds and not go on to the afflictions would be to tell fortunes rather than to cultivate the path.

Simile Ten, Knowing Well the Afflictions: Six Gates for Knowing the Delusions, and Every Gate Has Its Cure

What the tenth simile measures is the many kinds of afflictions of sentient beings, and its self-explanation is the finest-grained passage in the whole chapter. The scripture sets out six groups: first, wishing to know completely light afflictions, heavy afflictions, dormant afflictions, and arisen afflictions, together with the many differences among the measureless afflictions of each and every sentient being and the many kinds of coarse and fine deliberation, and thereby to purify all defilement; second, wishing to know completely the afflictions dependent on ignorance and the afflictions associated with craving, and to cut off all the fetters of affliction that lead to the destinies of existence; third, wishing to know completely the afflictions that are portions of greed, of hatred, of delusion, and afflictions in equal parts, and to cut off the very root of all afflictions; fourth, wishing to know completely the afflictions of grasping a self, of grasping what belongs to a self, and of the conceit of self, and to awaken to all afflictions so that they are exhausted with nothing left over; fifth, wishing to know completely the root afflictions and the secondary afflictions arising from inverted discrimination, together with the sixty-two views arising from the view of self-in-the-body, and to tame all afflictions; sixth, wishing to know completely the afflictions that cover over and the afflictions that obstruct, and to give rise to the mind of great compassion that rescues and protects, to cut off the whole net of afflictions, and to make the nature of omniscience pure.

Chengguan, explaining this passage, points out a formal rule: there are six gates in the separate treatment, and each has first the delusion and afterward the cure. Every group first sets out the delusion that is known and then binds to it a clause of what is cut off and what is cured — it is not that knowing is the end of the matter; having known, there must be a cure.

This is the passage in the chapter that touches one most nearly. The distinction of dormant and arisen says that afflictions are of two sorts, those lying latent and not yet broken out and those already active, and the ones not yet broken out are the harder to know. That beyond greed, hatred, and delusion an “equal part” is separately set up says that one in whom the three poisons rise together cannot be treated for only one of them. That self, what belongs to self, and the conceit of self are raised all three says that clinging wears three faces. That the view of self-in-the-body gives birth to sixty-two views says that the root of the whole net of views lies in nothing but a single “I.” Coming down to the ground: the reader may take these six groups as a checklist for examining himself — not for passing judgment on others' afflictions, but for recognizing his own.

The Former Part of Simile Eleven: Making Offerings to Countless Buddhas and Countless Beings, and Raising Stūpas for the Buddhas Besides

The last simile turns back to a meritorious deed, and to the weightiest of all: suppose there were a person who in a single thought, with food and drink of the finest flavor, with incense and flowers, garments, banners and pennants and parasols, together with saṃghārāmas, most excellent palaces, jeweled canopies and netting and curtains, many kinds of adorned lion seats and multitudes of wondrous jewels, made offerings to countless buddhas of the eastern quarter and to all the sentient beings of countless worlds, revering and honoring, bowing and praising, gazing with bent body, continuously and without break, throughout countless kalpas; who further exhorted those beings to make offerings to the buddhas likewise; and who, after the buddhas had passed into extinction, raised a stūpa for each of them, the stūpas tall and broad and made of the many jewels of countless worlds, within each stūpa countless images of the Tathāgatas, their light shining everywhere upon countless worlds through countless kalpas.

Set beside the first simile, the track of the rising is visible: what the first simile gave was articles of enjoyment, and this simile adds the buddhas to what is given; the receivers in the first simile were sentient beings, and here they are buddhas and sentient beings; the first simile had only the teaching of a single lifetime, while this one reckons in even the spreading abroad of stūpas and images after the buddhas' extinction. This is the very summit of the merit of making offerings that anyone can conceive. Śakra answers a third time: this person's merit, only a buddha knows it; all the rest have no way of taking its measure. And the words of comparison are still that same sentence: it does not come up to one part in a hundred, and so on until it does not come up even to one part of the upaniṣad fraction.

The Latter Part of Simile Eleven: Ten Persons Multiplying One After Another, and Still It Does Not Come Up

The scripture will push it up one layer more: suppose there were further a second person who in a single thought could perform all the acts of offering that the former person and all the beings of countless worlds had performed through countless kalpas, and did so thought after thought; and the third person and on to the tenth were all the same, each in a single thought able to perform all the offerings of the one before him, with the articles offered, the buddhas to whom offering was made, and the kalpas passed through pushed all the way to the boundless, the incomparable, the uncountable, the unnameable, the unthinkable, the immeasurable, the untellable, and the untellably untellable.

This string of names of number is the scripture's own; read them through verbatim and that is enough — there is no need to convert them, and indeed they cannot be converted; they were never meant for reckoning, but for pushing the very matter of ‘reckoning’ to its end. And having pushed it to the end, the scripture still brings down the same words of comparison: this foregoing merit, set against the merit of a bodhisattva's first arousing of the mind, does not come up to one part in a hundred, and so on until it does not come up even to one part of the upaniṣad fraction.

With this, the eleven similes (or, by the segment-boundaries of the scriptural text, twelve segments) are all spoken. Chengguan's words, “each later one surpasses the one before it, and therefore in every case the former is set aside and a later one is raised up,” only here disclose their full intent: the discarding goes on and on until there is nothing further to raise, and the reader understands of himself — it is not that a simile large enough has not yet been found, but that the road of simile itself does not go there.

Setting It Forth Concisely in Terms of the Dharma, One: The Fulfilling of Understanding and Practice — Having Aroused the Mind, He Can Know and Believe the Buddhas of the Three Times

The similes having been spoken to the end, the scripture turns to “setting it forth concisely in terms of the Dharma,” that is, no longer making comparisons but speaking directly in terms of the substance of the Dharma. Chengguan divides this section into five, of which the first is the fulfilling of understanding and practice.

The scripture says: having aroused this mind, he can know the first attaining of right awakening and the entry into parinirvāṇa of all the buddhas of the limit of the past, can believe and understand all the roots of goodness of all the buddhas of the limit of the future, and can know all the wisdom of all the buddhas of the present; and all the merit those buddhas have, this bodhisattva can believe, receive, cultivate, obtain, know, realize, and accomplish, and can be the same with the buddhas in being of one nature. Then it sets out eleven clauses of “in order to … he aroused the mind,” answering to that earlier string in the explanatory text of the first simile.

One turn of phrase repays notice: of the buddhas of the past and present it says “can know,” and of the buddhas of the future it says “can believe.” This is no casual variation — the future has not yet come to be, so one can believe and cannot yet say one knows; and this is exactly the strictness of this scripture in its choice of words. Coming down to the ground: a practitioner may seek to know what has already come about, but toward what has not yet arrived he can only set up faith; faith and knowledge each have their place, and to confuse them is to fall into delusion.

Setting It Forth Concisely in Terms of the Dharma, Two: The Wondrous Fruit Yet to Be Accomplished — He Is Held in Mind by the Buddhas of the Three Times

The second section speaks of the fruit that arousing the mind will obtain. The scripture says: because he has aroused the mind, he is constantly held in mind by all the buddhas of the three times, and will obtain the unsurpassed awakening of all the buddhas of the three times; all the buddhas of the three times then bestow the wondrous Dharma upon him, and he is the same with all the buddhas of the three times in the nature of his substance; he has already cultivated the dharmas that aid the path of all the buddhas of the three times, and has accomplished their powers and fearlessnesses; he adorns the exclusive buddha-dharmas of all the buddhas of the three times, and completely obtains the wisdom of expounding the Dharma of all the buddhas throughout the Dharma realm. At the end it questions and answers itself: for what reason? Because, having aroused this mind, he will surely become a buddha.

The pivot of this section lies in the two words “will obtain.” The scripture does not say that one who arouses the mind is a buddha now; it says that the mind he has aroused settles that he will obtain the buddha-fruit, and therefore he is recounted in the virtues of the ground of the fruit. Chengguan touches this layer too when he determines the verses — the prose clarifies that first he is the same in the substance of the fruit and afterward the same in its function; the verses clarify that the function may be present now, while the fruit is clarified as yet to be obtained.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: to hear “he is the same with all the buddhas of the three times in the nature of his substance” as ‘I am already a buddha’ is to turn what will be obtained into what has been obtained. The scripture itself gives the measure: held in mind, will obtain, is given the wondrous Dharma — all of these speak of the virtue of the fruit while standing in the station of the cause, and do not abolish the station of the cause.

Setting It Forth Concisely in Terms of the Dharma, Three: Sameness with the Buddha — What Exactly Is the Same?

The third section is extremely short, and yet it holds the weightiest sentence in the chapter: it should be known that this person is at once equal to the buddhas of the three times, is at once the same as the realm of the buddhas, the Tathāgatas of the three times, is at once the same as the merit of the buddhas, the Tathāgatas of the three times, and obtains the true and real wisdom of the ultimate sameness of the Tathāgata's single body and his measureless bodies.

What exactly is the same? The scripture raises three items: being equal, sameness of realm, sameness of merit; and then one clause more, the true and real wisdom of the ultimate sameness of the single body and measureless bodies. It is upon this very passage that Chengguan, explaining the title of the chapter, sets up the sense of “the opening forth of the three virtues” — being able to know the wisdom of the buddhas of the three times, forever cutting off the whole net of doubt, and obtaining the sameness of the Tathāgata's single body and measureless bodies. And he explains how this is possible: within the station of faith he has already long studied it to the end, and on arriving at this station he opens into awakening all at once, so that his achievement is on a level with the station of the fruit and the virtues he gathers in are boundless.

Someone will ask: how can one who has long practiced ignorance suddenly accomplish great wisdom? Chengguan's answer is beautifully put — have you not heard that a thousand years of darkness in a dark room is all at once removed in an instant by a single lamp? A thousand years of darkness does not need a thousand years to be driven off; one lamp is enough; and the number of the years of darkness has nothing to do with the brightness or dimness of the lamp. He answers a second question as well: have you not heard that an ordinary person wholly in bonds is able to know the secret treasury of the Tathāgata? Coming down to the ground: to imagine accomplishment as something that requires accumulating up to a certain quantity is to treat practice as wages paid by the hour; what the scripture and Chengguan speak of is a change of quality.

Setting It Forth Concisely in Terms of the Dharma, Four: He Can Perform the Buddha's Work — Eleven Things He Can Do at the Very Moment He Arouses the Mind

The fourth section speaks of what he can do the very moment he arouses the mind. The scripture says: at the very moment he arouses the mind, he is praised together by all the buddhas of the ten directions; he can expound the Dharma, teach, and tame all the sentient beings in all worlds; he can shake all worlds; he can illumine all worlds with light; he can extinguish the suffering of the evil destinies in all worlds; he can adorn and purify all lands; he can display the attaining of buddhahood in all worlds; he can cause all sentient beings to gain gladness; he can enter into the nature of the whole Dharma realm; he can uphold the lineage of all the buddhas; he can obtain the light of the wisdom of all the buddhas.

Notice the words here: “at the very moment” and “can.” Set beside the “will obtain” of the preceding section, the distinction stands out: the fruit is what will be obtained, the function is present now. When Chengguan determines the verses he says “the function may be present now, while the fruit is clarified as yet to be obtained” — and this is just what he means.

Let one misreading be set aside: these eleven clauses do not say that one who arouses the mind will at once put on a display of these transformations. The scripture's own sequence puts expounding the Dharma and teaching first and the shaking and illumining afterward, setting expounding the Dharma at the very front; and “displaying the attaining of buddhahood” stands in the same list as “entering into the nature of the whole Dharma realm,” from which one may see that what is spoken of is the aspect of the virtue's function and not a checklist of miracles. Coming down to the ground: when a person has truly aroused the mind, the first thing that changes is the way he speaks to sentient beings.

Setting It Forth Concisely in Terms of the Dharma, Five: Great Wisdom Present before Him — After All That Has Been Said, the End Is That Nothing Is Attained

The fifth section is the closing stroke of the chapter, and it closes with extreme coolness: this bodhisattva who has first aroused the mind has not, with regard to the three times, the least thing attained. That is to say: with regard to the buddhas, with regard to the dharmas of the buddhas; with regard to bodhisattvas, with regard to the dharmas of bodhisattvas; with regard to pratyekabuddhas, with regard to the dharmas of pratyekabuddhas; with regard to śrāvakas, with regard to the dharmas of śrāvakas; with regard to the world, with regard to the dharmas of the world; with regard to what transcends the world, with regard to the dharmas of what transcends the world; with regard to sentient beings, with regard to the dharmas of sentient beings. What he alone seeks is omniscience; toward the whole Dharma realm his mind is without attachment.

The foregoing has put the breadth of his virtue at its utmost, and here one sentence, “he has not, with regard to the three times, the least thing attained,” takes it all back. Chengguan, explaining the ground of the absence of attachment, gives one account thus: it is solely for the sake of awakening that it says he seeks omniscience, and he does not turn to seek anywhere else.

This section is the watershed of the chapter. Without it, all the praise before it might be read as a higher grade of covetousness — coveting a larger merit. With it, the praise before it can stand: the merit is truly vast, and yet the one who arouses the mind does not stand upon the merit. And the ground of it is very concrete: the disease most easily bred after arousing the mind is the feeling that one has aroused the mind and is therefore not like other people. That the scripture sets “without attachment” at the very end of the section of concise setting forth is precisely to block that disease off.

The Quaking of the Earth and the Arising of Offerings: At This Point the Ten Directions Quake

Dharma Wisdom has no sooner finished speaking than the scripture turns to narration: at that time, through the spiritual power of the Buddha, in each of the ten directions worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten thousand buddha-lands quaked in six ways — stirring, stirring everywhere, stirring everywhere alike; rising, rising everywhere, rising everywhere alike; surging, surging everywhere, surging everywhere alike; quaking, quaking everywhere, quaking everywhere alike; roaring, roaring everywhere, roaring everywhere alike; striking, striking everywhere, striking everywhere alike; and there rained down besides heavenly flowers, heavenly incense, heavenly powdered incense, heavenly flower-garlands, heavenly garments, heavenly jewels, and heavenly articles of adornment; heavenly music was played, and heavenly light and heavenly sound were sent forth.

The six kinds of quaking, each opened into three aspects, making eighteen, is the constant manner of this scripture when a great Dharma is proclaimed. The essential point is the cause the scripture marks out: through the spiritual power of the Buddha. The quaking of the earth is not Dharma Wisdom's own accomplishment; it is the attestation manifested by the Buddha's power.

Coming down to the ground: when a passage of Dharma has been spoken, how does one know it was spoken rightly? The world relies on the approval of people; within the scripture it relies on the earth's quaking and the buddhas' witness. This is not mythic decoration; it is stating a fact — the real Dharma has a weight of its own, and the speaker need not vouch for himself.

Verification from Other Quarters: The Buddhas of the Ten Directions, All Named Dharma Wisdom, Appear

Next, beyond worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten buddha-lands in each of the ten directions, there were buddhas as many as the dust-motes of ten thousand buddha-lands, all named Dharma Wisdom, who each made his own body appear and said before the Bodhisattva Dharma Wisdom: excellent, excellent, Dharma Wisdom, you are able this day to expound this Dharma; we too, buddhas as many as the dust-motes of ten thousand buddha-lands in each of the ten directions, all expound this Dharma, and all the buddhas expound it thus. And they said further: when you expound this Dharma, bodhisattvas as many as the dust-motes of ten thousand buddha-lands arouse the mind of awakening, and we this day all confer upon them the prediction that in ages to come, after a thousand untellable boundless kalpas have passed, within one and the same kalpa they will obtain buddhahood, all titled the Tathāgata Pure Mind, and the worlds in which they dwell will each be different.

Three things come down together: buddhas appear and bear witness; the one who expounds and the ones who bear witness share a name; and those who hear the Dharma receive their prediction on the spot. The intent of the shared name Dharma Wisdom is that ‘because the Dharma expounded is the same, the name is the same’; and the title, the Tathāgata Pure Mind, that they will bear in time to come sets the sense of this chapter into a buddha's very title — the purity of the mind is itself the fruit of arousing the mind.

Coming down to the ground: this passage is addressed to the reader. The scripture particularly records that bodhisattvas as many as the dust-motes of ten thousand buddha-lands aroused the mind while listening to this very chapter — that listening to this chapter and arousing the mind is a thing that has its record within the scripture itself.

The Concluding Statement That It Is Inexhaustible: The Ones Still Speaking Are Those Buddhas

The passage that follows says: just as in this Sahā world, in the four continents, on the summit of Mount Sumeru, a Dharma such as this is expounded, so that sentient beings who hear it receive the teaching; so too in the ten directions, a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas, countless and on to untellable, to the end of the Dharma realm and the realm of empty space, in all the worlds this Dharma is likewise expounded and sentient beings are taught; and those who expound the Dharma are all named Dharma Wisdom; and they all do so through the spiritual power of the Buddha, through the power of the World-Honored One's original vows, in order to reveal the buddha-dharma, in order to shine everywhere with the light of wisdom, in order to open up and set forth the true meaning, in order to cause them to realize the nature of dharmas, in order to cause the whole assembly to be gladdened, in order to reveal the cause of the buddha-dharma, in order to obtain the sameness of all the buddhas, and in order to comprehend that the Dharma realm is without duality.

Here a note must be bound as to whom the words belong. Chengguan particularly sorts it out: this passage is the concluding statement of the buddhas who bear witness, and not of the compilers of the scripture. Which is to say, this speech about ‘this Dharma being expounded everywhere throughout the ten directions’ is still in the mouths of those buddhas named Dharma Wisdom, and is not the narration of those who compiled the scripture. Misjudge this one stroke, and the provenance of the whole passage shifts.

Coming down to the ground: who is speaking within a scripture is part of the doctrine. The same sentence carries a different weight from a buddha's mouth than from a narrator's; and to read a scripture without attending to the speaker is often to read something other than the scripture.

The Manner of Speaking the Verses: For Whose Sake Are These Eleven Clauses Spoken?

Before the verses of repetition there is a passage on the manner of speaking them: at that time the Bodhisattva Dharma Wisdom universally beheld all the assemblies in the lands of the ten directions to the end of the realm of empty space; in order to bring all sentient beings to accomplishment, in order to purify all the fruits and retributions of deeds, in order to open and reveal the pure Dharma realm, in order to pull out the root of defilement, in order to increase vast faith-understanding, in order to cause the faculties of measureless sentient beings to be known, in order to cause the sameness of the dharmas of the three times to be known, in order to cause the realm of nirvāṇa to be contemplated, in order to increase his own pure roots of goodness — sustained by the majestic power of the Buddha, he thereupon spoke these verses.

Chengguan divides this passage into eleven clauses: the first clause and the last are the manner of speaking the verses, and the nine in between are the intent of speaking them; and he explains why the first and last are set apart — in order to display that all nine of the middle clauses are sustained by the Buddha's power and ought to reach through the ten directions. The nine middle clauses he determines as one general and the rest particular, and among the particular there are four couplets: purifying deeds and disclosing principle, removing delusion and opening faith, knowing the sickness and recognizing the medicine, contemplating the fruit and purifying the cause.

Coming down to the ground: to set out beforehand what a thing is done for, before expounding the Dharma, is the constant manner of this scripture. Among the nine middle clauses Chengguan determines, eight begin “in order that they may” and are all for sentient beings, while the last says “in order to increase his own pure roots of goodness” — within acting for others, self-benefit is not excluded, and the one who expounds is himself among those who profit. That clause is written with great honesty.

Why the Sequence of the Verses Differs from the Prose

Dharma Wisdom's verses of repetition are one hundred twenty-one in all. Chengguan divides them into three great segments: the first eighty-two verses leap ahead and praise the concise setting forth in terms of the Dharma; the next thirty-four turn back and praise the comparison by way of similes; the last five conclude the virtue and exhort and extol so that people may admire it and arouse the mind. And he points out that the division of praising the depth as hard to speak of pervades all three segments, because it is the root of both the prose and the verses and therefore is not praised separately.

What most easily trips the reader up is the sequence — the prose plainly speaks of the similes first and the Dharma afterward, while the verses praise the Dharma first and the similes afterward; and the five sections of the concise setting forth stand in the prose as the fulfilling of understanding and practice, the wondrous fruit yet to be accomplished, sameness with the Buddha, the ability to perform the buddha's work, and great wisdom present before him, whereas in the verses they run as the fulfilling of understanding and practice, the ability to perform the buddha's work, the obtaining of sameness with the Buddha, great wisdom present before him, and the wondrous fruit yet to be accomplished. Chengguan gives only one reason: that the text is not in sequence is because it displays that the virtue has no before and after. And he adds a layer: the prose is first sameness in the substance of the fruit and afterward sameness in its function, while the verses have the function present now and the fruit yet to be obtained, and because great wisdom runs through everywhere, before and after clarify each other.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: the interweaving of the verses is not a slip in arrangement. If the virtue truly had a before and after, it would become a thing divisible into sections; that the scripture displays a virtue without before and after by means of an interwoven text is a matter of form, not of disorder.

Praising the Fulfilling of Understanding and Practice: Seventeen Verses on the Aspect of Arousing the Mind

The first segment of seventeen verses Chengguan determines as praising the prose's fulfilling of understanding and practice, and he says that the first verse raises in general that arousing the mind is the cause, while the remaining sixteen praise the earlier questioning and explanation, and are further divided into seven small sections, each matched to the clauses of the prose from “in order to fill and pervade all worlds” onward.

Several lines within these seventeen verses want singling out. “To benefit the world he arouses the great mind, and this mind reaches everywhere throughout the ten directions” — the opening line marks out first what it is for: arousing the mind is not for seeking ease for oneself. “Some buddha-lands abide upturned, some lie sideways or overturned, coarse ones, subtle ones, vast ones, of measureless kinds; once the bodhisattva has aroused this uppermost mind, he can go to them all without any obstruction” — this gathers the whole passage of mutual identity and mutual entering in the prose into a single verse. “His mind is vast, equal to the Dharma realm, without any support, without alteration, like empty space” — this speaks of the measure of the mind. “He knows the minds of sentient beings and yet has no conception that ‘there are sentient beings born’; he comprehends all dharmas and yet has no conception that ‘there are dharmas’; though he discriminates everywhere, in truth he does not discriminate” — this is the eye of the whole segment: to discriminate everywhere and yet not discriminate is the right construal of all the “knowing completely” that went before.

At the end of this segment, explaining the three verses from “the net of doubt of the three times he has already removed” onward, Chengguan lists ten kinds of obstruction — the obstruction of the defilement of afflictions, of confusion and inversion upon contact with objects, of long-continued indolence, of grasping and clinging to cause and fruit, of being led astray by wrong teachings and wrong teachers, of heading toward the lower vehicle, of coarse marks appearing before one, of having no capacity for the practice that goes everywhere, of giving rise to understanding that merely follows words, and of not forgetting the capable and the object — and says that the ten clauses each have one antidote in order. Coming down to the ground: these ten obstructions make an excellent table for self-examination, counting from the coarsest afflictions all the way to the subtlest “not forgetting the capable and the object,” each later one harder to notice than the last.

Praising the Ability to Perform the Buddha's Work: Seventeen Verses on the Virtue's Function Present Now

The second segment of seventeen verses Chengguan determines as leaping ahead to praise the prose's “ability to perform the buddha's work,” and he divides it in all into ten to match the clauses of the prose (of the prose's eleven clauses, the clause “he can obtain the light of the wisdom of all the buddhas” has no verse-section set up for it separately): the first two verses praise expounding the Dharma and teaching, because compassion and wisdom lead each other; one verse praises the buddhas' praise; one verse praises the shaking of the worlds; six verses praise the extinguishing of the suffering of the evil destinies; one verse praises the illumining of the worlds with light; one verse praises the adorning and purifying of the lands; one and a half verses praise the gladdening of sentient beings; one and a half verses praise entering into the nature of the whole Dharma realm; half a verse praises the upholding of the lineage of all the buddhas; one and a half verses praise the displaying of the attaining of buddhahood.

Two verses in this segment are worth stopping over. “In order that sentient beings may gain deliverance, to the end of the future he benefits them everywhere; through long toil his mind is never wearied, and even the suffering of the hells he willingly accepts” — to say that even the hells are willingly accepted is the weightiest line on great compassion in the chapter; so many inconceivable functions of virtue have been spoken of before, and where it comes to rest is on the willingness to undergo suffering. Another verse, “upon the tip of a single hair he displays a multitude of buddha-lands, and the great bodhisattvas fill them all,” puts the prose's sense of mutual identity to use in the matter of display.

Coming down to the ground: the core of what is called performing the buddha's work is not the ability to do extraordinary things, but the ability to bear suffering for sentient beings. Without the latter line to hold up the former, supernormal power becomes a display of skill.

Praising the Obtaining of Sameness with the Buddha: Eighteen Verses on the Realm of Sameness with the Buddha

The third segment of eighteen verses Chengguan determines as turning back to praise the prose's “obtaining of sameness with the Buddha,” and divides it into four: the first three and a half verses praise sameness of the realm of the buddhas; the next four and a half praise sameness of merit; one verse praises the sameness of the single body and measureless bodies; and the last nine praise the true and real wisdom. The last nine are again divided into four: the first four praise the arousing of the vast mind that leaves behind all false imagining; the next two praise the arousing of the vast mind that exhausts the three limits; the next two praise the arousing of the vast mind that accords with nirvāṇa and awakening; and the last verse concludes with an exhortation.

The doctrinal weight of this segment falls on the graph “conception.” “All worlds are only conception, and within it the many kinds are each different; he knows that the realm of conception is perilous and deep, and therefore manifests supernormal penetration and rescues them into liberation” — the world is conception, and the realm of conception is at once perilous and deep. Next: “all worlds are only the force of conception; with wisdom he enters within them and his mind is without fear” — because he knows it to be conception, he enters and is unafraid. Next again: “the discrimination of grasper and grasped are both left behind; in defilement and in purity alike there is nothing grasped; whether bound or liberated, in wisdom it is all forgotten” — even the discrimination of bondage and liberation is set down.

Let one misunderstanding be set aside: to say that the world is only conception is not to say that the world does not exist and may therefore be ignored. The scripture goes straight on to say “therefore manifests supernormal penetration and rescues them into liberation” and “he wishes only to give happiness to sentient beings everywhere” — it is precisely because he knows it to be like a conjuring that he is able to move to save. Coming down to the ground: to see through and yet be unwilling to save is annihilation; to be willing to save and yet not see through is bondage. These eighteen verses put the two together in one place.

Praising Great Wisdom Present before Him: Six and a Half Verses on the Wisdom That Grasps Nothing

The fourth segment of six and a half verses Chengguan determines as praising the prose's “great wisdom present before him,” and he says the first verse concludes what precedes and gives rise to what follows, while the rest properly praise great wisdom present before him, matching verse by verse the prose's string of ‘with regard to the buddhas and the dharmas of the buddhas, with regard to bodhisattvas and the dharmas of bodhisattvas, with regard to the world and the dharmas of the world’ — the item of the two vehicles is passed over in the verses; and the last half-verse praises the prose's closing words, “his mind constantly calls to mind the buddhas of the ten directions” being the seeking of omniscience alone, and “and yet leans on nothing and grasps at nothing” being the mind without attachment toward the whole Dharma realm.

What matters most in this segment is its correspondence with the last section of the prose. The prose says “he has not, with regard to the three times, the least thing attained,” and the verses say “measureless worlds are all ground down into dust-motes, and within each single dust-mote are measureless buddha-lands; the buddhas within them too are measureless, and he can see them all clearly and grasp at nothing” — seeing the measureless and grasping not a fraction. And again: “his mind is vast, like empty space; toward the affairs of the three times he is clear and comprehending; all doubts are already removed, and he contemplates the buddha-dharma rightly and grasps at nothing.”

Coming down to the ground: clear comprehension and not grasping are two faces of one thing. One who cannot see clearly is in no position to speak of putting down, since he has not really taken up; and one who sees clearly and still clings is bright but not wise. That the scripture ranges “sees them all clearly” and “grasps at nothing” side by side, clause upon clause, is to forbid anyone to take only one side.

Praising the Wondrous Fruit Yet to Be Accomplished: Twenty-Three and a Half Verses on the Fruit to Be Accomplished in Time to Come

The fifth segment of twenty-three and a half verses is the longest; Chengguan determines it as praising the prose's “wondrous fruit yet to be accomplished,” and divides it into nine: the first three and a half verses praise being constantly held in mind by the buddhas; half a verse praises the obtaining of unsurpassed awakening in time to come; half a verse praises the bestowing of the wondrous Dharma (and explains that “the Dharma of the Great Person” is the eight awakenings of a great person); one verse praises sameness in the substance of a buddha; one verse praises the having already cultivated the dharmas that aid the path; six verses praise the accomplishing of the powers and fearlessnesses; five verses praise the adorning of the exclusive buddha-dharmas; five verses praise the obtaining of the wisdom of the buddhas' expounding of the Dharma; and the last verse concludes that the virtue is inexhaustible and ascribes it to the first mind.

Among these, the six verses praising the ten powers most repay close reading: from “what is and what is not the case for sentient beings, together with the differences among the retributions felt through the many kinds of deeds” onward, they speak verse by verse of what is and is not the case, the retribution of deeds, the many kinds of natures, the many kinds of understandings, dhyāna and liberation and samādhi, former lives, and the exhaustion of the outflows, closing with “toward the ten powers of the Buddha the bodhisattva, though he has not yet realized them, is without any doubt.” Chengguan says these six verses set out at length the separate names of the ten powers while abbreviating the general title of the fearlessnesses, and that the last half-verse displays the exact measure. That line “though he has not yet realized them, is without any doubt” is precisely where the chapter takes its exact measure — it does not say he has realized, only that he has no doubt; the station of the cause does not usurp the station of the fruit, and yet faith is not discounted in the least.

Further down, five verses speak of buddha-lands appearing in a pore and measureless buddha-lands within a single dust-mote, praising the exclusive buddha-dharmas by way of the unobstructedness of phenomenon with phenomenon. Coming down to the ground: this segment is the fullest place in the chapter for the teaching of “will obtain,” and in reading it one must keep hold of that word “will” — it will be obtained and has not been obtained, and therefore one must still cultivate; there is no longer any doubt and yet no realization, and therefore one does not turn back.

Properly Praising the Foregoing Similes: Fourteen Verses Turning Back to Praise the Comparison Again

The second great segment of thirty-four verses Chengguan divides into two: the first fourteen properly praise the foregoing similes, and the latter twenty explain in general the reason the similes do not come up to it.

These fourteen verses answer the prose's similes in order: giving ease, exhorting to keep the five precepts and the ten good deeds and the four dhyānas and the four immeasurables, causing them to cut off delusions and become arhats, and teaching koṭis of beings to become pratyekabuddhas — these praise the first simile; a single thought passing beyond buddha-lands as many as dust-motes praises the second; the boundless measure of the kalpas praises the third; desires and delights, means, and what the mind pursues praise the fourth through the eighth; the delusions and deeds continuing on in the three modes of existence praise the ninth and the tenth; and the three verses from “in a single thought he makes offerings to boundless buddhas” onward praise the eleventh. The closing line of every verse comes to rest on the same sense: though those accumulations of merit are measureless, they cannot be compared with the merit of arousing the mind; the number of those buddha-lands may still be reckoned, but the merit of arousing the mind cannot be known; though that person's accumulation of merit is again abundant, still it does not match the vastness of the merit of arousing the mind.

Coming down to the ground: what the prose took the better part of a fascicle to say, the verses finish in fourteen. This shows precisely that the similes are not the purpose of this chapter, only a stair; and once a stair has been used it may be put away.

Explaining in General the Reason They Do Not Come Up: Twenty Verses on the Root Ground

Of the latter twenty verses Chengguan says that although it was explained concisely before, only here is it discerned at length. He divides them into three: the first half-verse concludes what precedes and gives rise to what follows; the next seventeen and a half properly explain the ground; and the last two conclude that the virtue is inexhaustible. Within the proper explanation there are again three: the first verse sets up the headings, the next twelve and a half explain them separately, and the last four display that the virtue is perfectly complete. The two headings set up are: that what it brings forth is inexhaustible, and that its substance and aspect are without limit.

“The many and various similes that have been spoken — none of them is able to come up to the mind of awakening; for the Honored Ones among humankind of the three times are all born from the arousing of the mind” — this verse is the setting up of the headings: no simile comes up to it, because all the buddhas of the three times are born from it. Next, “arousing the mind is unhindered and without any bound; would one seek its measure, it cannot be found” speaks of the substance and aspect being without limit; and “arousing the mind is vast, equal to empty space, and the merit it brings forth is equal to the Dharma realm” speaks of both headings together.

Within the separate explanation there is a string of words of the greatest weight: the mind of awakening is the root of the ten powers, and is the root too of the four eloquences and the fearlessnesses, and the eighteen exclusive dharmas are likewise so; the bodies of the buddhas adorned with form and mark, together with the equal and wondrous dharma-body, all come to be by reason of arousing the mind; all the vehicles of the pratyekabuddhas and the śrāvakas, the joy of the samādhis of the dhyānas of the form realm, and the samādhis of the formless realm all take arousing the mind as their root; all the joys of sovereign freedom of humans and gods and the many kinds of joy within the destinies — there is none that does not come from the first arousing of the mind. Upon this Chengguan determines: because it cultivates the six perfections, it is the root of the bodhisattva vehicle; because it exhorts to right practice, it is the root of the vehicle of humans and gods; because it sets forth the subtle undertakings and penetrations, it is the root of the nirvāṇa of the three vehicles.

This passage turns back and answers the earlier question — why is it that even the fruit of the two vehicles and the joys of humans and gods cannot be compared with arousing the mind? Because they were born out of arousing the mind to begin with. Coming down to the ground: from beginning to end this chapter belittles no good dharma whatever; it only points out where they come from.

Displaying That the Virtue Is Perfectly Complete, and the Concluding Exhortation: Therefore One Ought Quickly to Arouse the Mind

The last two verses of the second great segment conclude that the virtue is inexhaustible: the Tathāgatas of the worlds of the ten directions all together praise the first arousing of the mind; this mind is adorned with measureless merit, and can reach the further shore and be the same as the Buddha; with kalpas as many as the number of sentient beings one might speak of its merit and could not tell it to the end, for he abides within the vast household of the Tathāgata, and among the dharmas of the three realms there is none that can serve as a simile for it.

The third great segment of five verses is the concluding exhortation. Chengguan divides it into three: the first half-verse properly exhorts; the next three and a half explain the ground of the exhortation, raising in general that it is complete in all virtues; and the last verse concludes the exhortation to arouse it quickly. And so the opening line is “would you know all the dharmas of the buddhas, then you ought quickly to arouse the mind of awakening,” and the closing line is still “would you see all the buddhas of the ten directions, would you give the inexhaustible treasury of merit, would you extinguish the many sufferings and afflictions of sentient beings — then you ought quickly to arouse the mind of awakening.”

The end of the chapter comes to rest not upon praise but upon the one word “quickly.” After all that has been said of the inconceivable, at the last the reader is asked to do one thing — to arouse the mind now. Coming down to the ground: all the comparisons of this chapter are in the end not meant to make anyone marvel; they are meant to make him move. If a reader finishes and feels only that the merit of arousing the mind is very great while he has not himself aroused it, then for him this chapter is as good as unread.

Lineage

The sense of this chapter was carried forward by the various masters, all of it recorded, with no adjudication. The line of Chengguan: he explains the whole chapter under the three gates of the reason for its coming, the explanation of the name, and the tenet and aim, together with a division at length into seven; he determines the comparison as eleven great similes; he establishes the ground of the similes not coming up to it upon “not confining himself within a bound”; he explains mutual identity and mutual entering under the three gates of the interfusing of the nature of dharmas, dependent origination, and the absence of intrinsic nature; he determines the clauses on the sameness of kalpas as the unobstructedness of phenomenon with phenomenon and “kalpas entering what is not a kalpa” as the unobstructedness of principle with phenomenon; and he outlines the verses of repetition as one hundred twenty-one in three great segments, explaining their interweaving with “that the text is not in sequence is because it displays that the virtue has no before and after.” The two similes he sets up for ‘how the first mind can be at once on a level with the buddha-fruit’ — the single lamp in a dark room and the tiny drop entering the heavenly pool — are the settled reading of this chapter in the hands of the Huayan school. The line of Fazang: on the sixty-fascicle text he explains arousing the mind by “original awakening perfuming from within, and the great mind first arising,” and determines that this chapter clarifies only the profound wonder of the distinct teaching of the One Vehicle, differing from the two preceding chapters which run through both the common and the distinct teachings; his threefold division of the section of answering (praising in general its profundity so as to give rise to longing, comparing so as to display its excellence and give rise to pure faith, discerning its depth in its very aspect so as to give rise to right understanding) divides in terms of the sequence of teaching and is not the same outline as Chengguan's division by segments of text; and his outline of the verses is bound to the six clauses of praising the depth in the Jin translation and set up in four great segments. The line of Zhiyan: he determines the comparison as twelve similes and divides them into five classes, divides the joining up of the similes into seven, and warns those who come after that “here one must not outline finely; if it is fine, then the purport is lost”; he further determines the verse text of the Jin translation as two hundred forty-one and a half verses, which with Chengguan's determination of one hundred twenty-one for the Tang translation is not a differing computation of one and the same text. The line of Li Tongxuan: he praises in general with “raise up what is equal to empty space, and there is nothing to liken it to in kind; grind up all the lands into dust-motes, and there is nothing to match it with,” and speaks of the first mind not differing in substance from the Buddha by the three similes of the little stream entering the great sea, the eldest son of a wheel-turning king, and the cub of a lion king; in following the text he divides into segments by counts of lines, and of the verse text he says “four lines make one verse; as the text is complete of itself, there is no need to explain further,” setting up no verse-outline at all.

Of one passage the four masters outline densely, or sparsely, or not at all; of one simile they make it eleven, or twelve; of the one sense that arousing the mind is the same as the Buddha, they explain it by the opening forth of the three virtues, or by original awakening perfuming from within, or by gathering the beginning in by the end, or liken it by the substance of the water not being different. These several accounts have been there from of old, and are recorded, with no adjudication as to which stands higher.

Beyond this chapter, the “wisdom of the supernormal penetration that fully knows all kalpas” with which the third simile concludes is pointed out by Chengguan as, in the text that follows, the supernormal penetration among the ten of knowing to the end of the kalpas of the limit of the future; and at the explanation of the name he points to “for the rest, as in the chapter Foremost in Worthiness,” from which one may see that the sense of the merit of arousing the mind had its antecedent already in the second assembly. Receiving from above the doubt of “The Practice of Brahmacarya” and opening below the practice of “Clarifying the Dharma” — the place of this chapter among the six chapters of the third assembly is just that joint which takes up the understanding of the preceding chapter and starts the practice of the one that follows.