華嚴經 品二十七 十定品 · 第二 妙光明大三昧Avataṃsaka Sūtra · The Ten Samādhis · The Second, the Great Samādhi of Wondrous Light

What This Samādhi Has to Answer

Samantabhadra, having finished expounding the first, the Great Samādhi of Universal Light, immediately puts the second topic as a question: “Sons of the Buddha! What is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s samādhi of wondrous light?” Each of the ten samādhis has its own eye — what, then, is the eye of this one?

The answer is hidden in the shape of the whole passage. Chengguan outlines this stretch by saying, “Second, the samādhi of wondrous light. Within the explanation there are two: first the dharma, then the similes” — first it is set forth by way of the dharma, then by way of two similes; and with a single phrase he lays bare what the two similes are for: “they are similes for the foregoing sense of mutual entering without confusion.” So this samādhi is not a loose account of how vast the spiritual penetrations are. It has to answer an exceedingly sharp question: measureless worlds enter into the single body of the bodhisattva, and that single body enters into measureless worlds — why is there no crowding, no muddling, no collapse?

The place where this is most easily misread is here: taking it for a question of volume, of ‘the large containing the small’, and so imagining that the bodhisattva’s body grows enormous and packs the worlds inside it. The sūtra says exactly the opposite — it says, “he does not, because those worlds are many, thereby ruin this one world; nor does he, because this world is one, thereby ruin those many worlds.” The many are still many, the one is still one; neither has been compressed. What this samādhi has to deal with, then, is not size but the principle by which things enter one another and yet do not obstruct one another. In reading this passage the eye must stay fixed on the four words “are not thrown into confusion”; that is the needle’s eye of the whole.

The Unfolding Entry of the Cloud of Bodies: One Body Sends Out Light, and within the Light There Are Worlds Again

The sūtra opens with a startling string of numbers: the bodhisattva can enter “three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems as many as the dust-motes of a three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system”, and within each world display as many bodies as those dust-motes, and from each body send out as many rays of light, and in each ray display as many colors, and with each color illumine as many worlds, and within each world tame as many sentient beings. Chengguan judges this to be the first of the four parts within the dharma, “the unfolding entry of the cloud of bodies” — the body is like a cloud spread everywhere, and so is called a cloud of bodies; from this body it unfolds and enters everywhere, and so is called unfolding entry.

One misunderstanding has to be cleared away here: this is not an arithmetical game of multiplying one number five times over. Notice the nesting layer within layer — body gives rise to light, light to color, color to worlds, and within the worlds there are sentient beings. Each step down is not a diminishing; each is again the full measure of a three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system. In other words, the light does not hold a ‘shrunken version of the world’ inside it; it holds the whole world. The unfolding is called unfolding because it opens out all the way without ever growing less; and it can unfold without end because the measure at each layer is from the first not bounded by the layer before it.

Brought home to the reader, this passage first sets the keynote of the whole samādhi: the bodhisattva’s functioning does not spread outward from one center — every place is itself a complete starting point. If this will not stand, there is no way to speak afterward of mutual entering without confusion.

Body and Knowing Enter Together: The Seven Gates Known in Full, and Knowing Is Itself Entering

Chengguan marks the second part as “the entering of body and knowing together”, and the sūtra’s marker for it is “these many worlds are of many kinds and are not the same, and the bodhisattva knows them all”. The question to put is this: in the part before, the body has already entered — what is it that this part enters?

Look at the seven gates the sūtra lists and it becomes plain — the defilement of a world, its purity, that upon which it depends as its cause, its setting up, the dwelling together within it, its light and color, its coming and going. What the earlier part entered was ‘place’; what this part enters is ‘principle’ — the bodhisattva has arrived not with the body alone but with knowing as well.

The sūtra then says “the bodhisattva knows them in full, the bodhisattva enters them in full”, the two clauses set down one after the other, and this is precisely why it is named the entering of body and knowing together. The misreading to be excluded is this: supposing that knowing is standing by and entering is taking part, that knowing is on the outside and entering on the inside. The sūtra has deliberately set the two side by side, and the meaning is that in this samādhi knowing as it truly is is entering in truth — not first seeing clearly and then walking in, but that when the knowing is thorough one is already within. Here the student may take up a measure by which to test himself: whoever still feels that ‘I am observing it’ has not yet entered.

The Furling Entry: The Worlds Come and Enter into His Body, and Yet the Dharmas Are Not Ruined

The third part holds the strangest sentence in the whole samādhi: “these many worlds likewise all come and enter into the bodhisattva’s body, and yet these many worlds are not thrown into confusion, nor are the many kinds of dharmas ruined.” Chengguan marks it as “the furling entry” — before, there was an unfolding outward; here there is a furling inward.

The question arises at once: if the worlds have entered into the body, are the worlds still in their own places? The sūtra fixes the matter with two negations: not thrown into confusion, not ruined. That is to say, the worlds that have entered neither interfere with one another nor lose their own dharma-nature by being gathered in. What must be cleared away here is the mistake of thinking ‘entering’ means removal — as though the worlds had been shifted from where they were. If it were truly a removal there would have to be an order of arriving, a crowding, an emptiness left behind; and then there would certainly be confusion and certainly be ruin. The sūtra says neither confusion nor ruin, and that shows precisely that this ‘entering’ is not a change of position.

What is it, then? Chengguan gives the direction of the answer further on, at the joining of the simile to the dharma: “it is because he abides in neither that they can enter one another.” Entering is possible precisely because nothing has really ‘taken up’ a position. This will be set out in the next section. For now let it be held that unfolding and furling are two faces of one thing — only what can unfold outward without growing less can furl inward without falling into confusion.

The Simile of the Light-Shadows upon the Jeweled Mountains: The Shadow between Two Mirrors

The sūtra turns to simile: “Sons of the Buddha! It is as when the sun rises and circles Mount Sumeru and shines upon the seven jeweled mountains: upon those seven jeweled mountains and between the jeweled mountains alike there are light-shadows displayed with full distinctness.” Chengguan glosses this by saying that the seven jeweled mountains are the seven golden mountains — those among the mountain names listed at the end of The Ten Grounds, save only that the two mountains Wondrously High and Snow Fragrance are excepted; that between the mountains lie the seven fragrant seas, whose waters can display the shadow of the sun, and that the mountains themselves, being of pure gold, can display shadows too. The base of this simile must be seen aright at the start: it is not one mirror facing the sun, but two ranks of mirrors, the mountains and the seas, facing one another.

And so the marvel appears: all the shadows of the sun upon the mountains are displayed within the shadows between the mountains, and all the shadows of the sun between the mountains are displayed within the shadows upon the mountains — there are shadows within the shadows, and within the shadows of those shadows there are shadows still. Chengguan divides this simile into five layers; the second is “the setting forth that the two shadows display one another — which is precisely a simile for the mutual entering of the bodhisattva and others; for those shadows are bright and pure like a mirror of the present day, and therefore can display one another”, and the fourth is “the setting forth of the reappearing again and again without end”.

The misreading to be excluded is taking it for a small piece of optics. What matters in the simile is not how fine the shadows of the sun may look, but that shadow and shadow contain one another at one and the same time. Within the first shadow is the second, and within the second is the first; it is not that the first encloses the second and then the second encloses the first in two successive acts. Why unfolding and furling could stand together at once has, only here, a model that can be looked at — two bright mirrors facing one another, accomplished in a single stroke, layer upon layer without end.

The Differing of the Naming: At the Very Moment of Entering It Is Named Issuing Forth

The third layer of the simile is the sentence most easily read into confusion in the whole passage: “it may be said that the shadow of the sun issues out from the seven jeweled mountains, or that it issues out from between the seven mountains, or that the shadow of the sun enters the seven jeweled mountains, or that it enters between the seven mountains.” One and the same event — how can it be spoken of both as issuing out and as entering?

Chengguan sets this section out with the utmost clarity. He glosses it thus: when the root shadow in the water is displayed within the shadow upon the mountain, this displayed shadow “issues out from upon the mountain and enters between the mountains”; and conversely, when the root shadow upon the mountain is displayed within the shadow in the water, this displayed shadow “issues from between the mountains and enters upon the seven golden mountains”. Hence the verdict he sets down next: “therefore, at the very moment of entering, it is named issuing forth.”

This sentence deserves chewing over. Issuing and entering can be said at once because issuing and entering are names set up in relation to the standpoint from which one observes: standing upon the mountain, the shadow has gone out; standing between the mountains, that same shadow has come in. The names are two, the matter is one. The mistake to be cleared away is supposing that the sūtra is speaking of two events, or that the Dharma is here playing with words. On the contrary — it is reminding the reader that words of position such as ‘going in’ and ‘coming out’ have already failed when used upon the state of mutual entering, and yet cannot but be borrowed. The student who reads the Avataṃsaka should remember this section whenever he meets such words as issuing, entering, inner, outer, this, and that: language is only a standpoint held for the moment; it is not the matter itself.

Reappearing without End and the Substance Apart from the Two Extremes: Neither Existent nor Nonexistent, Neither Abiding nor Departing

The fourth layer is “but these shadows of the sun shine upon and display one another, and there is no limit to be found”, which Chengguan judges straightway as “the setting forth of the reappearing again and again without end, a simile for the bodhisattva’s body and land as the net of Indra”. The fifth layer is the ground of the whole simile: “their substance-nature is not existent, and neither is it nonexistent; they do not abide upon the mountains, nor do they depart from the mountains; they do not abide within the water, nor do they depart from the water.”

Why not existent and not nonexistent? Chengguan glosses it thus: “because it cannot be grasped, it is not existent; because the shadow is displayed with full distinctness, it is not nonexistent.” Put out your hand to take it and there is no such thing as a shadow of the sun to be got hold of, so it cannot be called existent; yet there it is, plainly displayed, so it cannot be called nonexistent. Then he buckles ‘neither abiding nor departing’ back onto these two clauses: “‘not abiding’ establishes the foregoing ‘not existent’; ‘not departing’ establishes the foregoing ‘not nonexistent’.”

Most important of all is the inference he draws at the last, in the manner of a question answered: “if there were a fixed abiding, there could be no entering one another; and if there were a departing, there would be nothing that could enter another. Therefore only by neither departing nor abiding is entering one another possible.” This is the pivot of the whole samādhi. Suppose the shadow were truly nailed fast upon the mountain: then it could not get out, and there would be no mutual displaying. Suppose the shadow had nothing whatever to do with the mountain: then there would be nothing to display in the other. Only where there is neither identity nor separation is there room for entering one another.

And so the earlier doubt about ‘furling entry without ruin’ finds its answer here: the worlds have not been carried into the bodhisattva’s body — they were never nailed fast in their own positions to begin with. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is supposing that ‘neither existent nor nonexistent’ is a vague and lofty phrase. Here it has a strict function — it is precisely the condition upon which entering one another is possible, and neither side of it can be spared.

The Joining to the Dharma: Neither Ruining nor Abiding, Fact and Principle Traveling Together

The sūtra returns to the dharma: the bodhisattva, abiding in this vast samādhi of wondrous light, “does not ruin the marks by which the world is set up, nor does he annihilate the own-nature of the dharmas of the world; he does not abide within the worlds, nor does he abide outside the worlds”, and further, “he contemplates all dharmas as one mark and as markless, and yet does not ruin the own-nature of the dharmas; he abides in the nature of suchness and never forsakes it”.

Chengguan’s explanation takes these clauses apart very finely. He says the first two clauses set forth the not-ruining of nature and marks, on the ground that “were nature and marks ruined, there would be nothing that could enter another” — if you have wiped out the marks and natures of the worlds, what is left that could enter into anything else? The next two clauses set forth the not-abiding within or without, on the ground that “were he to abide within the world, he could not enfold the worlds with his body; and were he to abide outside the worlds, he could not enter the worlds throughout” — abiding inside, he cannot enfold; abiding outside, he cannot get in. So he gathers it into one sentence: “it is because he abides in neither that they can enter one another.”

And from “as regards all the worlds he makes no discrimination” onward, Chengguan says he is explaining the reason of it: “because concentration is without discrimination, he does not ruin the marks; because wisdom contemplates the one mark, he does not ruin the many; and since fact and principle travel together, therefore there is neither ruining nor abiding.” Concentration keeps him from raising discriminations, so he need not go and ruin the differing marks of the worlds; wisdom lets him contemplate the one mark, so he need not deny the several dharmas their own natures. The two wheels of concentration and wisdom run side by side, and fact and principle travel at once — this is the Avataṃsaka’s constant ‘fact and principle traveling together’. Chengguan presses it at last to the root: “and if there is neither ruining nor abiding, then he abides in suchness and never forsakes it … therefore, being the same as suchness, inner and outer enter one another.” Suchness is from the first without inner or outer; and since the bodhisattva is in accord with suchness, his own entering of inner and outer has the same shape as suchness.

The reader may carry away from here a single sentence: the complete interfusion of the Avataṃsaka is not the flattening away of differences, but differences left wholly untouched and yet without obstruction to one another. Whatever ‘one’ is got only by cancelling discriminations is not the one this samādhi speaks of.

The Simile of the Illusionist’s Skill: A Hundred Years within a Single Instant

The second simile changes the scene: “Sons of the Buddha! It is as when a man of illusion, well versed in the art of illusion, stands at the crossing where four roads meet and performs the many illusions” — within a single day, in the space of a single instant, he displays a day and a night, and on to seven days and seven nights, half a month, a month, a year, a hundred years, with cities and villages, springs and streams and rivers and seas, sun and moon and clouds and rain, palaces and dwelling houses, none of them lacking.

The simile of light-shadows was of mutual entering in space; the simile of the illusionist is of mutual entering in time — the topic changes, the import does not. The key sentence to watch is: “he does not, because what he displays has passed through years, thereby ruin the root single day and single hour; nor does he, because the root time is exceedingly brief, thereby ruin the days and months and years he displays. The marks of the illusion are displayed with full distinctness, and the root day is not annihilated.” The hundred years within the illusion do not burst the single instant of the actual, and the single instant of the actual does not crush flat the hundred years within the illusion. Chengguan outlines this simile into three: first the general setting forth of the one who is able to conjure; next the setting forth of the time and place depended upon at root and the time and place displayed in the illusion, as a simile for their entering one another; and last the setting forth that root and branch do not obstruct one another, as a simile for the not-ruining of marks.

The misreading to be cleared away is supposing that the point of the simile of illusion is that ‘it is all unreal’. The point of the sūtra lies precisely not in real and unreal but in two orders of time being able to stand together and not to trespass upon one another. If one reads out of it nothing but the word ‘unreal’, then the whole stretch of merit that follows, where the bodhisattva “displays asaṃkhyeya worlds entering into one world”, has been read into emptiness. Illusion here is not a term of disparagement; it is the name of a capacity.

The One and the Many Containing One Another: Asaṃkhyeya Worlds Entering into One World

The joining to the dharma spreads out on the grandest scale: the bodhisattva, entering this samādhi, displays asaṃkhyeya worlds entering into one world; and within those worlds are earth, water, fire, and wind, great seas and the many mountains, cities and villages, groves and gardens and dwelling houses, and on to the palaces of the gods and the palaces of the dragons and the palaces of the eight classes below them, with every kind of adornment complete; there are the three realms, small-thousand and great-thousand world-systems, the fruit and recompense of deeds performed, and dying here and being born there; there are all the divisions of time from a brief instant and day and night on to the kalpa of formation and the kalpa of destruction, and all lands defiled and pure and vast and narrow; and within them the buddhas arise in the world, bodhisattvas encircle them, spiritual penetrations teach and transform; measureless multitudes of people fill them, of differing shapes and differing destinies beyond conceiving; and measureless jewels born of the power of the pure deeds of the three times — all such things as these he displays entirely, entering into one world.

The first among Chengguan’s senses in joining this simile is precisely “the setting forth that the one and the many contain one another and yet are not the same”. The question to put is: if the many have been contained, why is it still said that they are ‘not the same’? The sūtra answers as with a knife: “he does not, because those worlds are many, thereby ruin this one world; nor does he, because this world is one, thereby ruin those many worlds.” Containing without being made the same — the many enter into the one, and the many are still many; the one contains the many, and the one is still one.

The imagining most in need of clearing away here is ‘blending’. When people of the world speak of complete interfusion they commonly picture two bowls of water poured together. The containing of the Avataṃsaka is not like that: it is two bowls of water each whole and entire, and yet each within the other. Brought down to practice, this sense unties a common anxiety — one need not first cancel one’s own station in order to accord with the Dharma realm; the station is left wholly untouched, and the according is left wholly untouched as well.

The Nine Clauses of “This Is Called”: The Reason for Mutual Entering Comes Back to No-Self

After the grandeur, the sūtra abruptly puts a question to itself: “Why is it?” — and then gives the nine clauses of “this is called”: because the bodhisattva knows that all dharmas are without self, he is named as entering the dharma of there being no living being and of there being no doer; because he diligently cultivates the dharma of no contention, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of there being no self; because he sees as it truly is that all bodies arise from conditions, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of there being no sentient being; because he knows that all dharmas of arising and ceasing are born from causes, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of there being no pudgala; because he knows that the root nature of the dharmas is equal, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of there being no mind-born one and no māṇava; because he knows that the root nature of all dharmas is still, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of stillness; because he knows that all dharmas are one mark, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of no discrimination; because he knows that the Dharma realm has no dharmas of many kinds and differences, he is named as one who abides in the inconceivable dharma; because he diligently cultivates all skillful means and is good at taming sentient beings, he is named as one who abides in the dharma of great compassion.

This passage is the ground of the whole samādhi, and yet it is often skipped by readers. Its logic must be seen clearly: after all that has been said of the unthinkable mutual entering, here is given the one and only reason — because all dharmas are without self. The living being, the doer, the self, the sentient being, the pudgala, the mind-born one, the māṇava: this string of names is the several ‘subjects’ that the old Indian schools posited, and the sūtra refutes them one by one precisely in order to show that mutual entering is unobstructed because there is fundamentally no thing occupying a place, to crowd against another. Where there is a self there are boundaries; where there are boundaries there is obstruction. Since the self cannot be got, neither can the boundaries.

Above all, note the last clause: at the very end of the refuting, the sūtra does not close upon emptiness but closes upon “the dharma of great compassion”. No-self is not having nothing to do; it is exactly the premise of “diligently cultivating all skillful means and being good at taming sentient beings”. Here the student may correct a common deviation: supposing that the breaking of self is for the sake of withdrawing from the world. This clause says plainly that the breaking of self is for the sake of being able to get in.

Here and There Are Not Different, and the Particular Simile: The First Does Not Confuse the Latter, the Latter Does Not Confuse the First

The sūtra then says that the bodhisattva sees numberless sentient beings, numberless bodhisattvas, numberless buddhas arising in the world, receives the Dharma expounded by those buddhas, and sees also his own body cultivating the practice among them; “and yet he does not forsake this place and see himself there, nor does he forsake that place and see himself here — the body there and the body here are not different.”

Then comes the particular simile of the illusionist: “it is just as when there is a man of illusion who, at whatever place he may be, performs the many arts of illusion: he does not, because of the conjured ground, ruin the root ground, nor, because of the conjured sun, ruin the root sun.” The bodhisattva is likewise — where there is no land he displays a land, and where there is a land he displays none; where there are sentient beings he displays none, and where there are none he displays sentient beings; where there is no form he displays form, and where there is form he displays no form. And the sūtra adds one sentence to hold the whole in check: “the first does not throw the latter into confusion, and the latter does not throw the first into confusion.”

The misreading to be cleared away is taking this passage for a display of spiritual powers. It is in fact stopping a gap: since existence and nonexistence, form and formlessness can all be displayed as one another, might not the earlier and the later overturn each other and cancel themselves out? The sūtra says they do not. When existence is displayed as nonexistence, ‘existence’ has not been cancelled; when nonexistence is displayed as existence, ‘nonexistence’ has not been cancelled. That the first does not confuse the latter and the latter does not confuse the first says exactly that these displayings, layer upon layer, each rest secure in their own place. The reader may take this sentence and test with it every account of ‘non-duality’: in a true non-duality, both sides are still there.

Illusion Turning upon Illusion, and Space and the World Not Different

The sūtra presses one layer deeper: “because he knows that dharmas are illusory, he knows that knowing is illusory; because he knows that knowing is illusory, he knows that deeds are illusory; and having known that knowing is illusory and deeds are illusory, he gives rise to the knowing of illusion and contemplates all deeds therewith.” This puts even the knowing that does the contemplating into the illusion.

Why press it so? Because if it were only said that ‘dharmas are illusory’, there would still be left an unillusory observer standing outside — and that is exactly the ‘self’ refuted in the section before. So the sūtra pursues it all the way: dharmas illusory, knowing illusory, deeds illusory, and at last it gives rise to the ‘knowing of illusion’ with which to contemplate deeds. This is not nihilism; it is bringing the observer too under the same rule, and not letting it slip back in as a new subject.

Then it closes with the illusionist: “it is as with a man of illusion in the world, who does not conjure his illusion outside the place where he stands, nor has any place apart, outside the illusion.” The illusionist cannot conjure from somewhere outside the ground he stands on, and the illusion has no separate place of its own. The bodhisattva is likewise — “he does not enter the world from outside space, nor does he enter space from outside the world”, the reason being that “space and the world are no different”. If space and the world were truly two places, there would be a going in and a coming out to speak of; since they are not different, to abide in the world is to abide in space.

Then follows the same conclusion in respect of time: in a single thought he knows in full the forming and destroying of numberless worlds and knows the order in which the kalpas follow one upon another; “he is able within a single thought to display numberless kalpas, and yet he does not let that single thought grow vast.” This last half-sentence is the dotting of the eye — numberless kalpas have been displayed within a single thought, and yet that single thought has not grown larger. Had the single thought been stretched out, it would still be a containing by volume; it is precisely because it does not grow larger that the mutual entering of “neither ruining nor abiding” is established.

Abiding at the Bourn of Illusion: No Different from Illusion, the Mind without Limit

Just before the concluding naming, the sūtra gives the fruit-aspect of this samādhi: the bodhisattva “gains the inconceivable knowing of illusion that is liberation and arrives at the further shore; he abides at the bourn of illusion and enters into the illusory number of the world, thinking upon all dharmas as being wholly like illusion; he does not go against the illusory world, he exhausts the knowing of illusion, and he fully knows that the three times are no different from illusion; with settled resolve he penetrates it, and his mind is without limit.”

The question to put is: having already arrived at the further shore, why does he still “abide at the bourn of illusion” and still “enter into the illusory number of the world”? This is just where the Avataṃsaka is not held in common with others. The further shore is not some other place away from this shore; the one who has arrived at the further shore still abides within the bounds of illusion, still enters into the illusory number of the world. The sūtra says expressly “he does not go against the illusory world” — he does not set himself against this world that is like illusion. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is supposing that realization means backing out of the illusion. Quite the contrary: whatever can be backed out of still has a grasper and a grasped, and has not yet arrived at the further shore.

The sūtra takes the Tathāgatas as the standard: “just as the Tathāgatas abide in the knowing that is like illusion, their minds equal and one; the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is just so, knowing that the worlds are wholly like illusion, and in all places without attachment and without the thought of anything as his own.” Equality here is not an attitude; it is that there is no ‘mine’ within the mind doing the picking and choosing.

The Concluding Naming: The Illusionist Is Not Deluded

A last simile gathers up the whole passage: “it is as with that man of illusion who performs the many illusions: although he does not dwell together with those illusions, yet as regards those illusions he is not deluded.” Chengguan records this as the third simile, that of the illusionist who is not deluded, and says the text throughout can be known. The illusionist knows that these are of his own conjuring, so he does not run off after the illusions, nor is he deceived by them. The bodhisattva is likewise: knowing all dharmas and arriving at the further shore, “in his mind not reckoning that it is ‘I’ who am able to enter into the dharmas, nor falling into error as regards the dharmas.”

This last sentence is the whole samādhi’s most essential safeguard. After so much has been said of mastery in mutual entering, the illness the reader is most liable to contract is quietly setting up an “I who am able to enter” — and then all the previous work is undone, for the moment a self is set up the boundaries come back and the mutual entering falls apart on the spot. So the sūtra marks it out expressly: even the thought “I am able to enter into the dharmas” is not reckoned. And here Samantabhadra concludes with the naming: “This is called: the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s knowing of skillful means in the second, the great samādhi of wondrous light.”

From the opening question to the concluding naming, this samādhi has walked a full circle: first it displays the aspect of mutual entering, then by two similes it displays why mutual entering is so, then by no-self it gives the ground of it, and last, by not reckoning an “I who can enter”, it seals the gap. What the knowing of skillful means is skillful in is just this sense of measure.

Lineage

What is most worth recording in this passage is a single word Chengguan sets down upon the fourth layer of the simile of light-shadows: he judges “but these shadows of the sun shine upon and display one another, and there is no limit to be found” as setting forth the reappearing again and again without end, and says outright that it is “a simile for the bodhisattva’s body and land as the net of Indra”. The Yanyi chao then records the reason of this of itself: “the ancient worthies established the sense of the net of Indra. The sūtra has the name of the net of Indra, yet has no place where it is expounded at length; for in former times the text of this chapter was not yet had. Therefore this one passage of text may truly serve as its witness.” — the sense of the net of Indra layer upon layer had long been established by the ancient worthies, and yet the whole sūtra had only the name of the net of Indra and no text expounding it at length; not until this passage of The Ten Samādhis appeared did that sense gain its scriptural witness.

There are two things to observe in this record. First, it is a plain declaration by Chengguan as to where the scriptural ground of his own house’s doctrine lies: the establishing of the sense of the net of Indra stood before and the gaining of its scriptural witness came after, and this order was written down by the master of the commentary himself, not inferred by later hands. Second, for this unit the explanations of the ancient worthies are fullest in the line of Chengguan’s Shu and Chao: Fazang’s Tanxuan ji and Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji are both commentaries on the sixty-fascicle Avataṃsaka, and the sixty-fascicle text has no chapter of the ten samādhis, so that there is no explanation of this chapter in them; and Li Tongxuan’s Xin Huayan jing lun explains this samādhi under “the four senses as before” — its name, its substance and function, its realm, and the sense following the text — establishing the name by “the substance of the principle-wisdom of the dharma-body being pure and able to display wondrous light.” Two houses lacking the text and two furnishing an explanation — Chengguan by the outline of the text, Li Tongxuan by the purity of the substance of principle-wisdom — this is a record of the state of the documents, and no judgment of higher and lower is made. As for the doctrinal manuals of the classification of the teachings of this house that might cite this chapter, none has been found in what was examined here; the absence is marked according to the facts, and no text from elsewhere is used to fill it in.