華嚴經 品二十 夜摩宮中偈讚品Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Verses of Praise in the Palace of the Yāma Heaven

Once More the Buddha Sits Without Speaking, and This Time the Ten Who Speak Are All Named “Grove”

The framework of this chapter will look familiar to anyone who has read “Verses of Praise on the Summit of Sumeru”: from each of the ten directions one great bodhisattva comes, each with a retinue as many as the dust-motes of a buddha-land; the Buddha emits light; then ten bodhisattvas speak verses in turn, and the World-Honored One himself does not speak one graph. But familiar is not the same as repeated. In the preceding assembly the names of the ten bodhisattvas all carried “Wisdom,” and in this assembly they all carry “Grove”; there the ten worlds all carried “Flower,” and here they all carry “Wisdom”; there the ten buddhas all carried “Moon,” and here they all carry “Eye.” All three sets of names have been exchanged as sets, and the manner of the exchange has a rule to it — what was the “fruit” of the preceding assembly has become the “cause” of this one.

Chengguan, determining the reason for this chapter's coming, gives three grounds: it assists the converting by extolling and praising; it expounds the substance and nature of practice; it is that upon which practice depends. He then says the sentence most useful to a reader: the verses of praise in the three heavenly palaces are the same in the broad import of their coming and their aim, and what differs among them is only the difference of understanding, practice, and vow. So this chapter is not a rerun of the preceding one; it is the same structure run once over “practice.” Li Tongxuan says it more plainly still: if the dharma of the ten practices is to be expounded, the causes and fruits within the ten practices must first be praised in full in verse; if the causes and fruits of what is practiced are not first set forth, upon what would the ten practices be accomplished?

Clear away one misreading: do not take the ten segments of verse for ten pieces of eulogy. Brought down to how one reads — these one hundred and two verses are, before you enter the “ten practices,” the removal, one item at a time, of everything inside the word “Buddha” that can be grasped.

The Three Sets of Names: Grove, Wisdom, Eye

The last graph of the names of the ten bodhisattvas is the same throughout: “Grove.” Chengguan does not read it as a figure of speech; he lists five grounds — it betokens that the ten practices are established, that the kinds of practice are many and wide, that they gather and display, that they are deep and dense and without a gap, that they spread their branches and shelter and shade; and he says outright that these ten bodhisattvas betoken “the substance of practice.” Fazang's explanation is more pictorial: virtue is high like a tree, practice is wide and so is called a grove; the ten perfections are cultivated together in luxuriance and the myriad practices arise in thickets, and so it is named a grove. Zhiyan is the most concise, saying only that because the look of this practice benefiting beings is blazing, they gather together and display the mark of full array. Li Tongxuan opens four senses of his own — many and wide, covering and shading, adorning, and the mutual support of trunk, branch, twig, blossom, leaf, and fruit; and he offers a homely comparison: where rivers and marshes have a grove, the flocks of birds come home to it; when a person has practice, many people come to rely upon him.

The ten worlds all carry “Wisdom,” and Chengguan says that this is “because the wisdom of the ten understandings is that upon which practice depends” — the ten understandings are the ten abodes, and the understanding accomplished in the preceding assembly is exactly the ground upon which the practice of this assembly depends. The ten buddhas all carry “Eye,” and he says this is “because wisdom guides practice, so that all is clear and distinct, and the feet come to have eyes.” Feet alone will walk; without eyes one walks astray. Practice must have wisdom to guide it before it can be brought to accomplishment.

Clear away one mistake: these three sets of names are not ten different bodhisattvas, ten different worlds, and ten different buddhas each saying his own thing. The sameness of the names is precisely what displays the import of this assembly. Where it comes down: if, in reading the ten segments of verse, you feel that ‘they keep taking apart the same one thing over and over,’ that is not repetition — it is exactly what this chapter wants you to see.

Chengguan Leaves a Doubt Standing, and Does Not Resolve It

In the portion on the gathering of the assembly there is a sentence with a number in it: “from beyond lands as many as the dust-motes of a hundred thousand buddha-lands.” Chengguan stopped here. His reason is that the numbers of this whole sūtra increase in step with the stations — the ten faiths are ten, the ten abodes a hundred, the dedications ten thousand; on this progression the ten practices here ought to be “a thousand,” yet the scriptural text says “a hundred thousand.” So he lists two possibilities: either it is an error of the translator, or the original had “ten hundreds” and it is an error of transmission and copying. He lists both, and settles neither.

This matter is worth treating on its own, because it exhibits the measure with which the ancient worthies read a scripture. Chengguan is not afraid to emend; it is that he has in hand no evidence sufficient to settle the case, and so he lets the doubt stand, writes down both possibilities, and lets those who come after look for themselves. Fazang, at the same place in the sixty-fascicle text, says only “before it was a hundred, here a hundred thousand,” reading it as the station having already increased, and raises no doubt. The two masters saw differently; both are recorded, with no adjudication.

Clear away one mistake: do not suppose that because a commentator lets a doubt stand there must be an error in the scriptural text. Where it comes down: when you come upon a place that does not fit the system, first record it as it stands, and do not smooth it out for the sake of tidiness — this is a rule that runs through the reading of every scripture, not this chapter alone.

The Light Is Emitted from the Insteps of the Feet, Not from the Toes

In the preceding assembly the Buddha emitted light from “the toes of his two feet”; in this assembly the scriptural text reads “from the insteps of his two feet.” Chengguan points out the difference in this graph particularly: the top of the foot is the instep; the toes are what one uses to stand still, while the instep is what must move when one walks, and so the preceding assembly betokens “abiding” and this one betokens “practice.” He goes a step further: the instep has its use in dependence upon the sole and the toes, and so this is “to betoken that practice comes to have its use in dependence upon faith and understanding” — practice does not arise out of nowhere; it stands upon the faith and the understanding already accomplished before it.

One thing must be made clear here: the sixty-fascicle text reads “the toes of the two feet” at this place, and so what Fazang and Zhiyan explain is that “the toes have the two powers of practice and of abiding”; the eighty-fascicle text reads “the insteps of the two feet,” and so what Chengguan explains is the instep. The two texts differ, and the two masters each explain in accord with the text they follow; both are recorded, with no adjudication. Li Tongxuan lays the places of the emitting of light at five stations out in a single line: the ten faiths within the wheel beneath the foot, the ten abodes at the tips of the toes, the ten practices upon the instep — what he reads out of it is the one same matter: the stations are ascending.

Clear away one mistake: do not go wondering how bright that light was. Where it comes down: the work of the light in this chapter is to make “pervading” into something that can be seen — without this one shining, the “every place in the ten directions” of the ten bodhisattvas that follows would be no more than an assertion.

The Twelve Verses of the Bodhisattva Merit Grove: Why This One Segment Alone Has Two More

Of the ten segments, nine have ten verses each, and the first alone has twelve. This is no copyist's error; Chengguan writes plainly that there are “twelve verses,” and gives the reason: Merit Grove is the host of this assembly, and so it falls to him to set forth in general the matter of this assembly's pervasiveness. He divides the twelve verses into the first eight and the last four: the first eight narrate and praise what is extraordinary, and the last four adduce the virtues and explain how it comes about. Within the first eight there are four further layers — the first verse narrates the emitting of light in this chapter, the second and third narrate the response in the preceding chapter, the fourth through the sixth narrate the gathering of the assembly in this chapter, and the seventh and eighth make clear the sovereign pervasiveness.

Read them one by one. The first says that the Buddha emits a great light shining everywhere on the ten directions, and thereupon all see this one honored by gods and humans, penetrating without obstruction — it first establishes the starting point of “seeing,” and that seeing is given by the light. The second is the most direct statement of the extraordinary in this chapter: the Buddha sits in the palace of the Yāma heaven and yet pervades everywhere the worlds of the ten directions; this matter is utterly extraordinary and rare in the world. The third looks back to the preceding chapter: the god-king Suyāma praised the ten Tathāgatas in verse, and as it is seen in this assembly, so it is in every place. The fourth says that the multitudes of bodhisattvas from the other quarters bear the same names as those here, and expound the unsurpassed Dharma in every place in the ten directions. The fifth says that the worlds they come from are likewise without difference in name, and that each purely cultivates the brahma-conduct in the presence of his own buddha. The sixth says that those Tathāgatas too bear the same titles, that their lands are rich and at ease, and that their spiritual powers are sovereign. The seventh is the most famous sentence of the whole segment: “in every place in the ten directions they all say the Buddha is here; some see him among human beings, some see him abiding in a heavenly palace” — every place says the Buddha is right there with them, some seeing him among human beings and some in a heavenly palace. The eighth brings that sentence back to the speakers themselves: the Tathāgata abides everywhere in all lands, and we now see the Buddha here in this heavenly palace.

The last four adduce the virtues and explain how it comes about. The ninth adduces the cause: the vow for awakening that the Buddha made in ages past reaches everywhere to the worlds of the ten directions, and so the Buddha's awesome power fills and pervades and is hard to think or discuss — pervading is not a display of spiritual power; it is the outcome of a vow. The tenth continues to adduce the cause: because he has left far behind what the world covets and is complete in boundless virtue, he has gained the power of spiritual penetration, and there is no sentient being who does not see him. The eleventh and twelfth discern the depth and breadth of the function of the fruit. The eleventh says that he travels through the worlds of the ten directions unhindered as space, that one body is immeasurable bodies, and that this mark cannot be found — and here Chengguan lays down the guiding thread for the marks of the body in this chapter: one body is at once many, and so the mark of “one” cannot be found; many are at once one, and so the mark of “many” cannot be found; thus he is constantly one and constantly many, and also constantly neither one nor many; the body within a single dust-mote pervades the ten directions without exception, and the bodies that pervade the ten directions all lie hidden within a single dust-mote, and all of it is a whole pervading, not a pervading divided into parts. The twelfth closes upon the unmeasurable: the Buddha's merit is boundless — how could it be measured and known? Abiding nowhere and going nowhere, he enters everywhere into the Dharma realm. Chengguan explains this by saying that because he does not abide there is no place he does not reach, and because he does not go he does not leave his original place.

Clear away one great mistake: “in every place in the ten directions they all say the Buddha is here” does not mean that the Buddha divided his body and went to many places. Where it comes down: this segment gives the sense of scale, and is the ground for the ninety verses that follow — if you read it as a tale of spiritual powers, then the very ‘seizing upon marks’ that the rest takes apart is exactly what you have fallen into.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Wisdom Grove: To Know This Meaning Is More Than Making Offerings to Immeasurable Buddhas

From the second segment the particular is entered. Chengguan says that the first segment made merit clear and that this one discerns wisdom — the wisdom, hard to meet with, that is able to awaken to this and to remove the benighted dark; and so it is named Wisdom Grove. He determines the ten verses in three: the first one makes clear that the Buddha is hard to meet; the next six explain that difficulty in particular; the last three compare and display what is superior.

The first verse establishes the heading: the great Guide of the world, the unsurpassed one who has left defilement behind, is hard to meet with even through inconceivable kalpas. The second and third speak of the breadth of the benefit: the Buddha emits a great light and there is nothing in the world that does not see it, and he opens and expounds it widely for the multitude and benefits the throng of beings; the Tathāgata appears in the world and removes the deluded dark for the world, and such a lamp of the world is rare and hard to see. The fourth speaks of the fullness of the cause: he has already cultivated giving, precepts, patience, vigor, meditative concentration, and the prajñā-pāramitā, and with these he illumines the world — the six perfections here are not a list of terms; they are the reason for the “hard to meet.” The fifth through the seventh speak of the depth of the fruit: the Tathāgata has no equal, and one who seeks a likeness cannot find it, and without understanding the reality of dharmas none can see him; the Buddha's body and spiritual penetrations are sovereign and hard to think or discuss, and neither going nor coming he expounds the Dharma and delivers beings; if a person gets to see and hear this pure teacher of gods and humans, he comes out forever from the evil destinies and casts off all suffering.

The last three compare, and the manner of the comparison is very particular. The eighth: though one cultivate the practice of awakening through immeasurable, incalculable kalpas, if one cannot know this meaning one still cannot attain buddhahood. The ninth: though one make offerings to immeasurable buddhas through inconceivable kalpas, if one is able to know this meaning the merit surpasses that. The tenth: though one give to the Buddha jewels filling immeasurable lands, if one cannot know this meaning one will in the end not accomplish awakening. All three place ‘length of time,’ ‘many offerings to buddhas,’ and ‘weight of giving’ on one side of the scale, and on the other side place only one thing — “knowing this meaning.”

Clear away one mistake: this is not a belittling of practice and of offerings. The comparison can be made at all precisely because that other side is also of the greatest weight. Where it comes down: what these three verses answer is a very practical question — with two people working equally hard, why does one of them never arrive? The answer is not in the quantity; it is in whether one is walking upon the meaning.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Excellence Grove: From a Blazing Sun to the Unarisen

Chengguan says that Excellence Grove awakens to the dharma of the profound in the ultimate sense, and so what the verses praise is a virtue deep and broad beyond any shore; he determines the ten verses in two: the first three make clear the breadth of the Buddha's virtue, and the last seven display the profundity of the substance of dharmas, the horizontal and the vertical displaying each other.

The first three are simile and correlation. The first takes the simile of the summer sun: just as in the months of early summer the sky is pure with no veil of cloud, and the crimson sun lifts its radiance and there is nothing in the ten directions it does not fill. Here Chengguan does a piece of textual work — he says that “the month of early summer” is a rendering that takes the sense, and that what the Sanskrit text directly corresponds to is “the latter hot month”; in the Western regions the year is set as three seasons, hot, rainy, and cold, and he cites the Xiyu ji, “from the sixteenth day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the fifth month is the hot season,” so that “the latter hot month” takes in the latter half of what in the Han lands is early summer. He also explains particularly that in adducing the blazing sun only this one point is taken — the length of the sunlight and the impossibility of reaching its limit — and that one need not extend it elsewhere. The second continues the simile: that light has no limit and none can measure and know it; it is so even for those who have eyes, how much more for the blind and benighted. The third correlates the dharma: the buddhas too are thus, their merit boundless, and through inconceivable kalpas none can discriminate and know it.

The last seven turn to the substance of dharmas, and the turn is exceedingly steep. Chengguan determines these seven to be “causing one to cultivate the contemplation of the three non-natures upon the other-dependent,” and divides them in three: the first three make the contemplation of the non-nature of arising; the next two conjointly cultivate the contemplation of the non-nature of the ultimate sense; the last two cultivate the contemplation of the non-nature of marks. The fourth verse directly contemplates the unarisen: dharmas have no place from which they come, nor any maker; there is no place from which they arise, and they cannot be found by discrimination. Chengguan takes it apart phrase by phrase: the first phrase is the emptiness of the fruit — a fruit-dharma that arises from conditions is not a ready-made substance that has come from somewhere; if there truly were a place it came from, it existed already, and could that still be called “arising,” as a bird flies over and perches in a tree? The second phrase is the emptiness of the cause — since there is no fruit, with respect to what is a cause spoken of? The third phrase dismisses both cause and fruit. The fifth verse explains non-cessation by the unarisen: all dharmas have no coming and therefore no arising; since arising is not there, ceasing too cannot be found. The sixth speaks of the benefit of the contemplation's accomplishment: all dharmas are neither arisen nor ceased, and if one can understand it thus, this person sees the Tathāgata.

The seventh and eighth dismiss the object and the subject. The seventh dismisses the contemplated: because dharmas are unarisen their own-nature is without anything at all, and one who can discriminate and know it thus penetrates the profound meaning. The eighth dismisses the contemplator: because dharmas have no nature there is no one who knows them, and to understand dharmas thus is in the end to understand nothing. Chengguan here gives a clean example: no one can know the length or size of a tortoise's hair; to know that “there is nothing to be known” is the ultimate knowing. The ninth and tenth are the contemplation of the non-nature of marks: what is spoken of as arising is because the lands are made to appear, and one who can know the nature of the lands has a mind that is not deluded; the nature of the world and of the lands is contemplated all as it truly is, and one who can know here will be able to expound every meaning well.

Clear away one mistake: these seven verses are not a denial that the world has lands. Where it comes down: the ninth verse is exactly the dividing line — it is not that saying “there is arising” is forbidden, but that one must know how that “there is” has been made to appear.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Fearlessness Grove: That You Believe Is Itself a Fruit

Chengguan says that by the power of faith and delight one hears the profound and is not afraid, and so the name is Fearlessness Grove, and what the verses praise is the virtue of the deepening benefit of faith and inclination. He determines the ten verses in two: the first one is the object believed in, and the following nine are the benefits of hearing and believing.

The first verse establishes the object: the Tathāgata's vast body reaches ultimately to the Dharma realm; he does not leave this seat and yet pervades every place. Chengguan explains this by saying that the substance of the dharma-body is just the Dharma realm and that the wisdom-body realizes the Dharma realm to its limit, and that this is why the body of responsive function is able to pervade without moving. The second verse speaks of the leaving of evil through hearing and believing: if one hears such a dharma and reveres, believes, and delights in it, one forever leaves the three evil destinies and every affliction. The third and fourth discern how hard it is to hear: suppose one were to go to immeasurable, uncountable worlds, single-minded in the wish to hear of the Tathāgata's power of sovereign freedom — and the fourth puts the matter beyond appeal: such a dharma of the buddhas is unsurpassed awakening, and even wishing to hear it for a moment, there is no one who can obtain it. (The two graphs “even should” occur only this once in the whole chapter, and they fall exactly here.)

The fifth through the seventh set the three times side by side: if a person believed such a Buddha-dharma in the past, he has already become the most honored among those with two feet and has been a lamp for the world; if a person in time to come gets to hear of the Tathāgata's power of sovereign freedom and can give rise to faith upon hearing, he too will become a buddha; if a person in the present can believe this Buddha-dharma, he too will accomplish right awakening and expound the Dharma without fear. Chengguan says that this is “taking what is already accomplished in the past to attest what is to be accomplished in the present and the future” — an instance already made good stands surety for the present and the future. The eighth says that hearing has its ground: through immeasurable, incalculable kalpas this dharma is exceedingly hard to meet, and if a person gets to hear it, one should know that this is the power of his original vow. The ninth and tenth display the benefit of setting out in practice: if one can receive and uphold such a dharma of the buddhas and, having upheld it, proclaim it widely, this person will become a buddha; how much more one who also adds diligent vigor, firm in mind and not casting it away — such a person will assuredly accomplish awakening.

Clear away one mistake: do not read this segment as the stock phrases of an exhortation to faith. Its weight is in the eighth verse — that you are able to hear this at this moment is itself a fruit, and not an accident. Where it comes down: from the ninth verse the scriptural text pushes “faith” on to “upholding” and to “proclaiming”; if faith stops at being moved, not one sentence of what this segment promises can be taken up.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Shame-and-Conscience Grove: Wisdom Does Not Grow Out of Non-Wisdom

Chengguan says that to refuse the false and honor the true, to refuse delusion and honor wisdom, is why the name is Shame-and-Conscience Grove; and what the verses praise is the superior benefit of the Tathāgata's great wisdom. He determines the ten verses in three: the first three are the statement in terms of dharma of what is hard to think; the next six settle the matter by simile; the last one concludes the virtue and returns it to the Buddha.

The first verse speaks of the superior benefit of hearing the Dharma: if a person gets to hear this rare and sovereign dharma, he can give rise to a mind of joy and swiftly remove the net of doubt — and Chengguan says that “the sovereign dharma is just the Buddha's wisdom.” The second speaks of the Buddha exhausting the knowledge of kinds: the one who knows and sees all says so himself, that there is nothing the Tathāgata does not know, and so he is hard to think or discuss. The third is the axis of the whole segment: there is nothing that gives birth to wisdom out of non-wisdom; the world is constantly dark, and so nothing can give birth to it. Chengguan goes very finely here. He says this sentence has two layers of meaning: one is that it completes what came before — to give rise to wisdom one should seek it of the Buddha, because there is nothing the Buddha does not know, and one should not seek it of the ordinary person, because the ordinary person is benighted. He makes a comparison: to gather lotus one must go into deep water; how would running up to a treetop gather any? The second is that it completes what comes after — wisdom arises from perfuming one's own seed, and not from affliction and non-wisdom.

He then raises a difficulty against himself: then how is one to take the scriptural saying that “within the mire of the afflictions there is the Buddha-dharma”? He answers: that speaks of the Tathāgata-womb in its bonds; this great wisdom arises from the virtue of that womb, and does not arise from delusion. Again the difficulty: then how does “the afflictions are just awakening” hold good? He answers: that is said with respect to the substance and nature, and with respect to what is deluded about, as waves are to wetness. At last he closes the matter: the true and the false, folly and wisdom, if taken as completing one another, stand as two gates; if taken as taking one another away, the two marks are still. When “one” is said, they are separated so as to be made different; when “different” is said, they are joined so as to be made the same — one must be good at getting the sense, and not be stalled upon the words. This passage is one of the densest places in the doctrine of this chapter, attached graph by graph to Chengguan, recorded with no adjudication.

The fourth through the eighth are five similes, all of them saying that “the two natures are at variance.” The fourth takes form and what is not form as its simile: form and what is not form will not be one, and wisdom and non-wisdom are likewise, their substances each distinct. The fifth adduces what has marks and what is without marks, and birth-and-death and nirvāṇa: discriminated, they are each different, and so are wisdom and non-wisdom. The sixth adduces that when a world is first coming into being there is no mark of decay: so with wisdom and non-wisdom, the two marks are not at one time. The seventh adduces that a bodhisattva's first thought is not together with the later thought: so with wisdom and non-wisdom, the two minds are not at one time. The eighth adduces that the gatherings of the various consciousnesses do not combine one with another: Chengguan says that the eye consciousness cannot take up the function of the ear, and if even bodies of consciousness that are of one kind do not combine, how could folly and wisdom, whose natures differ, give birth one to the other? The ninth turns to the inequality of their functions: as the agada medicine can destroy every poison, so having wisdom can destroy non-wisdom. Chengguan here adduces three pairs together: wisdom can destroy folly while folly does not destroy wisdom; medicine can remove poison while poison does not remove medicine; brightness can destroy darkness while darkness does not destroy brightness — it is not symmetrical, and there is only one direction to it. The tenth concludes by returning to the Tathāgata: the Tathāgata has none above him and none equal to him, and among all things there is nothing to liken to him, and so he is hard to meet with.

Clear away one mistake: this segment is not saying that sentient beings have no share. What it blocks is the notion that ‘non-wisdom can turn itself into wisdom.’ Where it comes down: the practical face of the third verse is that comparison about gathering lotus — one must go to seek where the thing is.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Vigor Grove: Where Does Difference Come From?

Chengguan says that to contemplate diligently that principle and phenomena are alike without difference, and to be apart from the marks of body and mind, is why the name is Vigor; and he points out the relation of this segment to the one before it: the preceding segment was “the difference within no-difference,” and this one is “the no-difference within difference,” the two chapters joining so as to display that they are neither identical nor apart and that they complete one another. He determines the ten verses in two: the first one states both in terms of dharma, and the following nine explain both by simile (the first five explaining what is known, the last four explaining the knower).

The first verse states both: dharmas are without difference and there is none who knows this; only a buddha with a buddha knows it, because wisdom has reached the ultimate. The second is the general simile: as gold and the color of gold are without difference in nature, so dharma and what is not dharma are without difference in substance and nature. Chengguan here opens the horizontal and the vertical senses. The vertical is the mutual penetration of principle and phenomena: dharma is phenomena and what is not dharma is principle, and form is just emptiness; gold is that upon which the rest depends and figures the true dharma, and color is what depends upon it and figures the false dharma — the false has no substance of its own but arises by taking hold of the true, and so there is no true that is not hidden and only the false appears; and because the substance of the true is real there is no false that is not exhausted, and so only the true appears. The horizontal is two dharmas set over against each other: dharma is what can serve as a rule, what is not dharma is what cannot, and their being without difference in substance and nature says that they are one and the same suchness. He also cites the Miyan — “as gold and a finger-ring, turn and turn about without difference” — in corroboration.

The third verse is the simile of provisional names being unreal: sentient beings and what are not sentient beings are both without reality, and the nature of dharmas, spoken of in the sense of the real, is likewise not existent. The fourth is the simile of the three times being mutually absent: as within a future age there is no mark of the past, so dharmas have not any mark — Chengguan says this raises one corner and lets one infer the other two times oneself. The fifth is the simile of the four marks being unreal: the marks of arising and ceasing and the rest are in every kind unreal, and dharmas likewise are without own-nature; the four marks, arising and the rest, have no separate own-nature apart from the dharma that they mark, and all dharmas have no separate own-nature apart from the principle upon which they depend. The sixth dismisses a doubt: if all is without difference, why is a distinction of nature and marks seen? The answer: it is also as when the substance of nirvāṇa is apart from existence and non-existence and the hundred negations are all cut off, and yet names are forced upon it, “with remainder” and “without remainder”; so with dharmas — the true and the conventional are both empty, and the moment they are discriminated they become different.

The last four turn to “the knower,” and each is drawn further back than the last. The seventh: as it is in dependence upon what is counted that there is a counter, and the nature of that which counts is without anything at all — since what is known is without nature, whence would a knower come? The knowing that is a not-knowing is the true understanding of dharmas. The eighth dismisses further: as with the method of counting, one adds one on to the immeasurable, and the dharma of number has no substance and nature, and it is only because of wisdom that there is difference. Chengguan says the Jin rendering has this line as “all of them are the root number,” while the present rendering makes clear that one and many depend upon each other and so are without nature — each of the two texts completes a sense, and both are recorded. The ninth answers the doubt “if there is neither knower nor known, what is called the Buddha's wisdom?”: as the various worlds come to an end when the kalpa burns while space suffers no damage, so is the Buddha's wisdom. The tenth answers the doubt “if the buddhas' wisdom is equal, why should its function differ?”: as the sentient beings of the ten directions each seize a mark of space, so it is with the buddhas — it is the world that falsely discriminates.

Clear away one mistake: this segment does not say that the differences the world sees are false and so may be disregarded. What it asks is where difference comes from. Where it comes down is the tenth verse — your sense that this buddha and that buddha are not the same is a not-the-same that you have seized, like the patch of space each person takes for himself.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Power Grove: Taking the Word “World” Apart

Chengguan says that this is the true wisdom that knows the nature and marks of the three kinds of world so that the extremes do not move it, and so the name is Power Grove; the ten verses display the Buddha's true wisdom apart from marks, and are divided in three: the first four make the world clear throughout, the next five dismiss both the worldly and the world-transcending, and the last one is the benefit of the contemplation's accomplishment. He also says that within the first four there are two contemplations: the first two verses are the contemplation that gathers the branch back to the root and display the emptiness of the world of sentient beings, and the next two are the contemplation of conditioned arising without a maker and display in addition the emptiness of the receptacle world.

The first verse: the realm of all sentient beings is within the three times, and the sentient beings of the three times all abide within the five aggregates. Chengguan takes it apart phrase by phrase: to press the provisionally named sentient being back and find it does not exceed the three times displays its impermanence; to press the sentient beings of the three times back and find they do not exceed the aggregates displays their being without self. The second verse: the aggregates have karma as root, the karmas have mind as root, the dharma of mind is like a conjuring, and so is the world. He takes it apart further: that the aggregates arise from karma is the emptiness of the fruit and displays that the cause is not a wrong one; that karma is only mind makes clear that there is no dharma outside the mind; that mind is like a conjuring does not fall outside emptiness of nature and the Middle Way — because a conjuring is without nature, and therefore neither existent nor non-existent; and the last phrase takes the root as the pattern for the branch. The third verse: the world is not made by itself nor made by another, and yet it can have its coming to be and its decay. Chengguan here cites at length — the outer paths say that self-nature makes it or that Brahmā makes it; the lesser vehicle says that a cause of like kind makes it of itself and a cause of ripening makes it of another; and there is the account of causes and conditions depending upon one another; and the Zhonglun, “made by self and made by another, made by both and made without cause: to speak of sufferings thus does not hold with respect to the fruit” — dismissing them one after another; while the latter half says “yet it does not obstruct their being formed by conditions,” and by this dismisses the causeless. The fourth verse: though the world has its coming to be and its decay, one who has penetrated the world should speak of neither — and Chengguan says this is “without destroying the provisional name, to speak of the real mark.”

The fifth through the ninth dismiss both. The fifth asks and answers itself: what is called the world? what is called not the world? the world and what is not the world are only a difference of names. The sixth brings out the substance: the dharma of the five aggregates of the three times is called the world, and when that ceases it is not the world, and so to speak is only a provisional name. Chengguan here cites the Jingming jing, “the emptiness of the nature of the world is just the world-transcending” — one substance spoken of as two, and therefore called a provisional name. The seventh presses the name and substance of the aggregates: why are the aggregates spoken of? what nature do the aggregates have? the nature of the aggregates cannot cease, and therefore it is said to be unarisen. Chengguan says that since it says “the nature cannot cease,” this displays that what has been spoken of is not a ceasing at the level of phenomena and marks. The eighth explains how it comes about: discriminate these aggregates, and their nature is from the first empty and still; because it is empty it cannot cease, and this is the meaning of the unarisen. The ninth extends the case to the world-transcending: since sentient beings are thus, the buddhas too are thus, and the Buddha and the dharmas of the buddhas are without own-nature. The tenth is the benefit of the contemplation's accomplishment: one who can know these dharmas as they really are and without inversion has that one who knows and sees all constantly present before him — and Chengguan says that the Buddha takes the real dharma as his substance, and so to see the dharma is to see the Buddha constantly.

Clear away one mistake: do not read “the world and what is not the world are only a difference of names” as meaning that anything at all may be said. Where it comes down: what this segment takes apart is a grasping very hard to notice — taking “the world-transcending” for another place. The sixth verse blocks it outright: that its ceasing is not the world is also only a provisional name.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Practice Grove: The Body Is Not the Buddha, and the Buddha Is Not the Body

Chengguan says that this is to contemplate the Buddha in the light of principle and thereby to set out in right cultivation, and so the name is Practice Grove; the ten verses contemplate the virtue of the pervasiveness of the Buddha's substance and marks, and are divided in two: the first seven display cultivation by simile, and the last three are the benefit of seeing the real.

The first and second verses are the simile of the earth-element. The first: as the earth-element throughout the ten directions is without own-nature and yet there is no place it does not pervade. The second correlates: the Buddha's body too pervades all the worlds thus, and its various marks of form are without ruler and without any place from which they come. Chengguan determines this pair to be “the simile of the earth-element without nature pervading everywhere, figuring the Buddha's virtue of unarisen responding everywhere.”

The third through the seventh are the simile of the marks of karma and its correlation. The third: it is only because of the karmas that “sentient being” is named, nor can karma be found apart from sentient beings — this is the mutual dependence of karma and fruit. The fourth: the nature of karma is from the first empty and still and yet is what sentient beings rely upon, and it makes everywhere the many marks of form, which likewise have no place from which they come — this is dependence without nature: because there is karma apart from sentient beings there is no karma, therefore the nature of karma is empty; and because it is through karma that there are sentient beings, sentient beings have no place from which they come. The fifth concludes both as hard to think: such marks of form, the power of karma is hard to think or discuss; penetrate its root and one sees nothing therein. Chengguan here presses back once: karma too has its cause, and pressing back one arrives at “no abiding”; no abiding is no root, and being without root nothing is seen — and this “seeing that is not a seeing” is what counts as penetrating the emptiness of karma. The sixth correlates: the Buddha's body too is thus, not to be thought or discussed, and its various marks of form appear everywhere in the lands of the ten directions. The seventh correlates by their not being one another: the body is not the Buddha and the Buddha is not the body, and it is only that he takes the Dharma as body and penetrates all dharmas. Chengguan guards against two mistakes here: if the body were just the Buddha, then a wheel-turning king would also be a Tathāgata; if the Buddha were just the body, then the mind of right awakening would be the same as marks of form.

The last three are the benefit of seeing the real. The eighth: if one can see the Buddha's body as pure as the nature of dharmas, this person has no doubt at all about the Buddha-dharma. The ninth: if one sees the original nature of all dharmas as nirvāṇa, this is seeing the Tathāgata, ultimate and abiding nowhere. The tenth: if one cultivates right mindfulness and sees right awakening clearly, without marks and without discrimination, this is called a son of the Dharma king — and Chengguan says that to illumine the markless and to still discrimination, stillness and illumination flowing together, is what is called right mindfulness; being born from the Buddha's Dharma, he is a son of the Dharma king. He also lays a further layer upon these three verses: the first knows the apart and is called Dharma, the next knows the Dharma and is called Buddha, the last knows the without and is called Saṅgha, and this is to see through to the real substance of the three jewels.

Clear away one mistake: “the body is not the Buddha” is not asking anyone to be irreverent toward the Buddha's body. Where it comes down is the eighth verse — what is to be seen is “as pure as the nature of dharmas,” not some higher-grade body sought elsewhere.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Awakening Grove: The Mind Is Like a Skilled Painter

This is the eye of the whole chapter. Chengguan says that this is to illumine the root and branch of mind, and so the name is Awakening Grove; and he sets down a very weighty determination: “the ten verses display consciousness-only in its complete portion.” He determines the ten verses to divide broadly in two: the first five display the dharma by simile, and the last five correlate the dharma and complete the contemplation; and within the first five there is a further two: the first two with respect to phenomena, and the last three with respect to mind.

What does “complete portion” mean? Chengguan explains it very clearly himself: if one follows the eight consciousnesses of arising and ceasing there is only the dependence of mind and object; but because that is just the Tathāgata-womb mind, there is also the dependence of the true and the false. To gather conditions into the real so that the marks of difference are exhausted is the gate of suchness, and that is what the earlier similes display; to gather the object into the mind without destroying its marks is the gate of arising and ceasing, and that is what the later ones make clear. Standing and perishing are not two, and there is one conditioned arising only; the two gates are unobstructed and are only one mind, and so where the correlation comes below it says only “made by mind,” while for the sake of dividing the senses to be seen the similes display the two gates — and this is called consciousness-only in its complete portion. This whole passage is Chengguan's determination, attached graph by graph, recorded with no adjudication.

Read them one by one. The first verse: as a skilled painter spreads out the various colors, and one falsely seizes different marks while the great elements are without difference. Chengguan matches the four phrases one by one: the first phrase is the general simile of the one mind; the second figures the perfuming and transforming that follow conditions and form the other-dependent; the third figures the failure to understand the other-dependent, which forms the wholly imagined; the fourth figures that when the marks of the other-dependent are exhausted the substance is just the perfected. The second verse: within the great elements there is no color, within color there are no great elements, and yet no color can be found apart from the great elements. The upper half says “not identical” — what makes and what is made are not the same, the great elements being what the body touches and color what the eye sees; the lower half says “not apart” — the blue and yellow that are made have no separate substance apart from the earth, water, fire, and wind that make them. Chengguan here points out a detail of direction: the great elements can make color and color cannot make the great elements; this figures that the false must arise in dependence upon the true and that the true does not arise in dependence upon the false, and so the scriptural text says only “nor can color be found apart from the great elements,” and does not say it the other way about.

The third verse turns to mind: within the mind there is no painting, within the painting there is no mind, and yet no painting can be found apart from the mind. Chengguan divides the halves in the same way: the upper half is not identical, for within the mind there is no painting is its not being visible, and within the painting there is no mind is its being without deliberation and knowing; the lower half is not apart, for it is arranged following the mind, and apart from mind there is no mark of an object. Here he says why the two graphs “consciousness-only” can only be said thus: it must be that the mind transforms into the object, and not that the object can transform the mind, and so it is said “consciousness-only” and not “object-only”; and so too the scriptural text says only “yet apart from the mind no painting can be found,” and does not say “apart from the painting no mind can be found.” The fourth verse: that mind constantly does not abide, immeasurable and hard to think, displaying every form, and each not knowing the other. Chengguan says that “constantly” blocks annihilation and “does not abide” blocks permanence, like a cascading flood; that it holds all the seeds is why it is called immeasurable; that it displays all is hard to think through breadth, and that they do not know one another is hard to think through depth. The fifth verse: as a skilled painter cannot know his own mind and yet paints because of the mind, so is the nature of dharmas. Chengguan says that this verse takes up again the “not knowing one another” of the text above — not only do the things painted not know one another, but the mind that paints also arises and ceases moment by moment and does not know itself; and by this it figures that although sentient beings are deluded about the direct perception of mind, the mind still transforms the object into being.

The sixth verse is that very sentence: the mind is like a skilled painter, able to paint all the worlds, the five aggregates all arise from it, and there is no dharma it does not make. Chengguan correlates it with what came before: “mind” correlates with the one mind of that first phrase, and “all the worlds” correlates with the various colors of the second phrase; below, the various marks are brought out, which are the aggregates, the elements, and the sense-fields, and so it says there is no dharma it does not make. He also cites the Jin rendering as “paints the various five aggregates,” and cites the Zhengfa nian, “the mind is like the painter's hand, painting out the five colors, black, blue, red, yellow, white, and the whitest white,” taking the painting hand to figure the mind and the sequence of six colors to figure the hells, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the asuras, humans, and gods; and if “various” is said, then it is the ten dharma-realms, and the five aggregates and the rest are all made by mind.

The seventh verse: as the mind is, so is the Buddha; as the Buddha is, so are sentient beings; one should know that the Buddha and the mind are alike inexhaustible in substance and nature. This verse differs in the eighty-fascicle and the sixty-fascicle texts — the sixty has “mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, these three are without difference.” Chengguan explains both texts: mind is the general mark; awakened to, it is named Buddha and forms the pure conditioned arising; deluded, it becomes sentient beings and forms the defiled conditioned arising; and though conditioned arising has the defiled and the pure, the substance of mind is not other, and the fruit of buddhahood accords with mind and is one with the true and so is inexhaustible, while false dharmas have their limit and so are not spoken of. If one follows the old rendering, “these three are without difference,” then all three are inexhaustible, and the inexhaustible is just the mark of being without difference. He also sets down here a sentence of the greatest weight: because the substance of the false is originally the true it too is inexhaustible, and therefore the Tathāgata does not cut off the nature of evil, just as the icchantika does not cut off the nature of good. Two renderings and two explanations, attached graph by graph to Chengguan, recorded with no adjudication.

The eighth verse: if a person knows that the workings of mind make all the worlds everywhere, this person sees the Buddha and understands the Buddha's true nature. Chengguan says that this correlates with what came before in reverse — to seize different colors falsely is not to know the workings of mind, and if one knows that the workings of mind make the worlds everywhere then there is no falsity, and one understands the real. The ninth verse: the mind does not abide in the body and the body does not abide in the mind, and yet it can do the work of a buddha, sovereign as never was before. Chengguan says that the upper half correlates with the sense of “mutual absence” in the two verses above and the lower half with the sense of “not apart”; and he praises the present rendering for using “does not abide” rather than “mutually absent” as a fine piece of translation — the Jin scripture says only “the mind is likewise not the body,” and so obtains only the sense of mutual absence.

The tenth verse is the concluding exhortation, and also the most recited line of the whole chapter: if a person wishes to know fully all the buddhas of the three times, he should contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm — all is made by mind only. Chengguan does not settle upon a single explanation here; he writes plainly that “there are two explanations.” The first: if one wishes to understand the Buddha, one should contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm, for all the differences spoken of above are made by mind only, since to see the dharma is to see the Buddha. The second: “contemplating the nature of the Dharma realm” is the gate of suchness and “contemplating what is made by mind only” is the gate of arising and ceasing, and this is a conclusion of both; that is to say, one is the true contemplation of suchness and one is the contemplation of consciousness that is mind only, and the essentials of contemplation in the great vehicle do not go beyond these two; and contemplating these two gates as being one mind only, each of them gathers in all dharmas entirely, the two truths fusing without obstruction into one taste, and the buddhas of the three times realize this as their substance. His closing sentence is: if one wishes to know that, one should contemplate this — and since it is utterly marvelous, even to hold it for a moment can break the hells.

One thing should be made clearer here, because it bears upon the provenance of the very verse the reader holds: what this chapter transmits is “if a person wishes to know fully all the buddhas of the three times, he should contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm: all is made by mind only.” The sixty-fascicle text renders it otherwise, “if a person wishes to seek and know all the buddhas of the three times,” and both are recorded with no adjudication (see the apparatus); this edition follows the base text graph by graph.

Clear away one great mistake: “all is made by mind only” does not mean that the world is something I have thought up. The third verse has already blocked it — within the mind there is no painting, and within the painting there is no mind; not identical, and not apart. Where it comes down is the fifth verse: the painter does not know his own mind and yet paints because of the mind. Everything you are now experiencing has been painted under exactly the condition that you do not know your own mind; and so what matters is not to change the picture, but to turn back and know the one who can paint.

The Ten Verses of the Bodhisattva Knowing Grove: Even the Expounding of Dharma Itself Is Taken Apart

Chengguan says that this is to discern that the buddhas far surpass form and sound and that the roads of both mind and speech are cut off, and so the name is Knowing Grove; the ten verses are divided in two: the first one states the heading and the following nine explain it (the first two explaining what cannot be seized, the next four what cannot be seen, the last three what cannot be heard).

The first verse states the heading: what is seized cannot be seized, what is seen cannot be seen, what is heard cannot be heard, and this one mind cannot be thought or discussed. Chengguan here collates three texts: the Jin text has the fourth phrase as “what is thought cannot be thought,” and then all four phrases are the heading; the present text has the upper three phrases as the heading and the fourth as a general conclusion, saying that if one understands the one true mind then speech and thought are both cut off, and this accords with the substance of awakening. He also says that the Sanskrit text has the fourth phrase as “within the unthinkable, what is thought?” All three texts are recorded, with no adjudication.

The second verse: what has limit and what is without limit both cannot be seized, and if a person wishes to seize them he gains nothing in the end. Chengguan says that there is the wisdom that accords with principle, of which one cannot say that it has measure, and the wisdom that accords with extent, of which one cannot say that it is without. The third verse displays the fault of seizing: to speak what should not be spoken is to deceive and delude oneself, one's own task is not accomplished, and one cannot make the multitude rejoice. Chengguan speaks very directly here: one who expounds the Dharma should expound in accord with the Dharma; the Dharma is from the first without anything to be gained, and if you wish to gain it and reckon in your mind that there is something expounded, then to take a stone for a jewel is to deceive oneself; and to say there is where in principle there is not is to delude oneself, and in the end one will not accord with the principle.

From the fourth verse the explanation of what cannot be seen begins. The fourth states it in terms of dharma: should one wish to praise the Tathāgata's boundless body of wondrous form, one could not finish setting it forth though one exhausted incalculable kalpas. Chengguan says that because it is not form and yet makes form appear it is called wondrous, and because it appears the moment anything stimulates it, it is called boundless. The fifth is the simile of the maṇi reflecting what falls upon it: as a wish-granting jewel can make every color appear while itself having no color, so are the buddhas. The sixth is the simile of pure space making form appear: again like pure space, which is not form and so cannot be seen, and though it makes every form appear there is none who can see space. The seventh correlates: the buddhas too thus make immeasurable form appear everywhere, and that is not where the mind can go, and none of it can be seen.

Here Chengguan raises a difficulty of his own: do the two similes not contradict the scripture? Above it said that the Buddha has boundless wondrous form, and here it says not form and without form; moreover the treatises say that the Buddha has wondrous form as a dominant condition. He first records the two answers of the ancient worthies — one says that if it is with respect to the initial teaching of the great vehicle it is as stated above, while if it is with respect to the real teaching of the great vehicle then at the ground of buddhahood there are no such coarse marks of form and sound as virtues, but only the virtues of great wisdom, great compassion, great concentration, great vow and the rest, and these virtues alike realize suchness, and when the capacities of sentient beings are stirred, form appears inexhaustibly; the other answer questions this: is the substance that makes them appear then existent or non-existent? If one holds that at the fruit of buddhahood only suchness and the wisdom of suchness stand alone, then the undefiled aggregates, elements, and sense-fields to the end of the future and pervading Indra's net are none of them real matters, and this also contravenes the Nirvāṇa's saying that “the impermanent form is extinguished and the permanent form obtained.” Chengguan at last brings them together: the two explanations above are each one principle and both accord with the scriptures and treatises, and he now reconciles them — gathering the branch back to the root, there is only the wisdom of suchness; gathering marks back to nature, there is only suchness; and since what appears is just suchness, what should hinder wondrous form? His conclusion is this: of the maṇi making color appear it says only “without color,” and “without” is only without any other, not without a substance of its own; of pure space making form appear it says “not form,” and “not” is not its own substance. The former simile is the body of self-enjoyment and the latter is the dharma-body, and these two being not two is the Buddha's true body. Both explanations are recorded, attached to Chengguan, without adjudicating which is higher.

The eighth through the tenth explain what cannot be heard. The eighth: though one hears the Tathāgata's voice, that sound is not the Tathāgata, and yet apart from sound one cannot come to know the perfectly awakened one. Chengguan says that to seize by sound is to walk a wrong path, and that to seize apart from sound is not free of an annihilationist nothing. The ninth explains with respect to substance: awakening has no coming and going and is apart from all discrimination, so how could one, within this, say of oneself that one can see it? Chengguan says that the mind being apart from discrimination is not even something the mind can see, how much less something the ear can hear — as a heavenly drum is without mind and yet gives out sound. The tenth is the closing sentence of the whole chapter: the buddhas have no dharma; where would the Buddha have anything to expound? It is only that according to each one's own mind it is said that the Buddha expounded such a Dharma. Chengguan explains this by saying that if one follows the provisional teaching this is a case of a shadow with no original; but if one follows this school, then because the ocean of the fruit is apart from words there is no expounding, and because the function appears according to what stimulates it, it is said that there is such an expounding — and this original substance too is one's own mind. Fazang, at the same place in the sixty-fascicle text, determines that “at the ground of buddhahood there is no expounding, and the expounding lies in the conditions of capacity.”

Clear away one mistake: this segment does not say that the Buddha expounded nothing and that the scriptures are false. The eighth verse has already set the measure: sound is not the Tathāgata, and yet apart from sound one cannot come to know the perfectly awakened one. Where it comes down: only here is the whole chapter cleanly gathered up — even the thought ‘the Buddha expounded this for me’ is set back upon your own mind.

Lineage

The import of this chapter is carried on in four tracks by the ancient worthies, all recorded with no adjudication. The Chengguan track: he explains the chapter by four gates, and determines the whole chapter to be the three portions of the gathering of the assembly, the emitting of light, and the verses of praise; within the portion of the gathering of the assembly he classifies ten gates; upon the number “a hundred thousand” he lets a doubt stand and lists two possibilities without settling; for the place of the emitting of light he follows the eighty-fascicle text's “upon the two insteps” and explains it as the instep betokening practice; he determines the portion of the verses of praise to be ten segments in the ten bodhisattvas, with Merit Grove as the host of the assembly having twelve verses and setting forth in general the matter of this assembly's pervasiveness, and the remaining nine each praising one gate of the Buddha's virtue. His determinations segment by segment: Wisdom Grove's ten verses divided in three; Excellence Grove's ten verses divided in two, the last seven cultivating the contemplation of the three non-natures; Fearlessness Grove's ten verses divided in two; Shame-and-Conscience Grove's ten verses divided in three; Vigor Grove making clear that “the difference within no-difference” and “the no-difference within difference” are joined; Power Grove's ten verses divided in three, establishing the two contemplations of gathering the branch back to the root and of conditioned arising without a maker; Practice Grove's ten verses divided in two, the last three verses seeing through to the real substance of the three jewels; Awakening Grove's ten verses “displaying consciousness-only in its complete portion” and opening the two gates of suchness and of arising and ceasing; Knowing Grove's ten verses divided in two, with the two similes being not two as the Buddha's true body. The three places densest in doctrine in the whole chapter are these: in the Shame-and-Conscience Grove segment, “wisdom arises from perfuming one's own seed” and, below it, the reconciling of “the afflictions are just awakening”; in the Awakening Grove segment, the definition of consciousness-only in its complete portion and the two renderings and two explanations of “mind, Buddha, and sentient beings”; and in the Knowing Grove segment, the reconciling of the two similes.

The Fazang track: upon the sixty-fascicle text's “The Bodhisattvas Speak Verses” he distinguishes four gates, and explains the name as “the wondrous cause of its own substance, the gathering of practice, the text in variegation”; he takes the worlds sharing the name Wisdom to be that upon which the earlier understanding-wisdom depends, the buddhas sharing the name Eye to be the practicing mind's seeing the Dharma clearly, and the bodhisattvas sharing the name Grove to be virtue high and practice wide; for the place of the emitting of light he follows the sixty-fascicle text's “the toes” and explains that the former set forth abiding and this displays practice; he determines of the portion of the verses of praise that “the first one sets forth in general the phenomena and principle of this assembly, and the following nine display in particular the gates of the Buddha's virtue,” and upon “contemplating everywhere the ten directions” he establishes four senses and cites the Dilun, “because it displays the absence of the conceit of self and of a partial mind.” His “eleven lines of verse” for the Merit Grove segment of the sixty-fascicle text differs from the eighty-fascicle text's twelve verses, and this comes of the difference between the two texts.

The Zhiyan track: his commentary is the most concise of all, and yet its verse-classifications for the ten segments are complete; he establishes the one sentence “the ten persons each praise the Buddha by the dharma-cause of conditioned arising and suchness that they have themselves obtained” as the general gathering of the ten segments; for the Shame-and-Conscience Grove segment he establishes the headings of five similes (the difference in nature of folly and wisdom, their alike forming falsity, the two natures being at variance, folly and wisdom being separated by conditions, and function without a mark being what responds), and for the Vigor Grove segment the headings of eight similes (the substance of dharma without difference, the substance of dharma empty and without, the substance of dharma unreal, the substance of dharma apart from marks, the substance of dharma completing the true, one completing the function of many, function arising in dependence upon conditions, and the substance firm and hard to destroy); and the Awakening Grove segment (in the sixty-fascicle text, Tathāgata Grove) he determines to be “the first five similes, which in turn answer five profound doubts,” closing it with “the maker of a Tathāgata means a buddha who is without any making.”

The Li Tongxuan track: he runs the stations of the ten practices through the whole chapter, and lays the one chapter out in an extended outline of five segments (coming and gathering, extending the case throughout, the emitting of light, contemplating the dharma and speaking verses, and the ten segments of verse), which differs from Chengguan's three portions; within the first segment he treats ten kinds of cause and fruit, matching one by one the bodhisattva's name, the world's name, the buddha's title, and the gate of a perfection, together with the good friend whom Sudhana visits — as when he determines Merit Grove to belong to the practice of joy and the gate of the dāna-pāramitā, whose good friend is named Well Seen and walks to and fro within a grove; and he lists the places of the emitting of light at the three stations of the ten faiths, the ten abodes, and the ten practices, so as to display the ascent.

The number of segments the four masters establish is not the same (Chengguan makes three portions and ten segments, Li Tongxuan five segments, and Fazang upon the sixty-fascicle text ten segments with the first as the general, and Zhiyan a verse-outline set up segment by segment), the stations they match are not the same, and their verse-classifications segment by segment are likewise not the same (Chengguan establishing his upon the eighty-fascicle text and Fazang and Zhiyan upon the sixty, so that for one and the same segment the number of verses classified differs); the ancients held differing accounts, which are recorded without adjudicating which is higher.

Of the carrying on of this chapter's verse-lines in the outline-books of the Huayan school there are two places that are clearest: in the Fajie xuanjing Chengguan presents and cites Power Grove's eighth verse, “discriminate these aggregates, their nature is from the first empty and still,” as an instance of the contemplation of the perfected, and again presents and cites Vigor Grove's second verse, “as gold and the color of gold,” as an instance of dharma and what is not dharma being without difference; while the Huayan yisheng shixuan men presents and cites the first line of Vigor Grove's eighth verse. As for this chapter's most famous lines, “the mind is like a skilled painter” and “if a person wishes to know fully,” they return no result in the Wujiao zhang, the Shixuan men, the Zhigui, the Huanyuan guan, and the Fajie xuanjing, nor in the Souxuan ji, the Tanxuan ji, the Xin Huayan jing lun, or the Dasheng qixin lun yiji, and the lack is recorded as it stands — which accords with the character of this chapter: it is scriptural text depicting a scene of bodhisattvas of the ten directions praising in verse, and its import lies in the negating manner of disclosure rather than in establishing terms; only Chengguan, in another chapter of this same commentary, once cited this line of the present chapter himself in attesting the sense of consciousness-only, and this too is recorded.

As for this chapter's joining to what comes before and after: above it receives “Ascent to the Palace of the Yāma Heaven” — in the preceding chapter the Buddha ascends to the palace of the Yāma heaven without leaving the foot of the tree of awakening, and in this chapter the bodhisattvas of the ten directions come and gather and praise in verse; below it is followed by “The Ten Practices” — Chengguan's one sentence, “it assists the converting by extolling and praising, it expounds the substance and nature of practice, it is that upon which practice depends,” buckles the two chapters into one matter: the Buddha's virtues are first praised so that one may know the substance of practice, and only then are the names and marks of the ten practices expounded. Li Tongxuan puts it still more directly: if the causes and fruits of what is practiced are not first set forth, upon what would the ten practices be accomplished?