華嚴經 品二十七 十定品 · 第九 法界自在大三昧Avataṃsaka Sūtra · The Ten Samādhis · The Ninth, the Great Samādhi of Mastery in the Dharma Realm

What This Question Is Asking

The ten great samādhis have been asked after one by one, and at the ninth Samantabhadra raises the same form of words again: what is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s samādhi of mastery in the Dharma realm? The question looks like a repetition, but the point where it comes down is different every time. Each of the first eight had its own place in which mastery was gained; the point where this one comes down is in the two words ‘Dharma realm.’

One thing must be told apart first. What is asked is not ‘how does one enter this samādhi,’ but ‘what kind of samādhi is this.’ Since the name of the samādhi carries the word ‘mastery,’ the shape of the answer is announced beforehand: this samādhi is not a gathering of the mind into one place where it does not move; it is a not being caught anywhere at all. And so the text below, at its very first breath, says where the entering is done — and that place is not what most people imagine when they imagine meditation.

The Place of Entering Is the Eye, the Ear, the Nose, the Tongue, the Body, and the Mind

The sūtra says that this bodhisattva enters a samādhi at his own eye-place and so on to his own mind-place, and its name is mastery in the Dharma realm; and further, that he enters this samādhi within each single pore of his own body.

This is the easiest place to read straight past. When people picture meditation they suppose that one must first get away from the reaching-out of the six faculties: shut the eyes, stop the ears, put down every occasion of involvement. Here it is exactly the reverse: the place of entering is the six faculties, is the pores. This does not say that one need not cultivate; it says that what this samādhi cures is not the faculties, it is ‘being obstructed by the faculties.’ Chengguan explains this, saying that the general showing of the name and substance is that mastery is gained over the Dharma realm of the eye and the rest; and explaining the place of entering he says that it means entering the samādhi of the eye and the rest within the pores, showing that their mutual use is mastered — to enter samādhi in the eye and yet not lose the working of the ear, this is what is called mutual use.

The entering being in this place, what is known is thereupon without any farthest bound: he knows the manifold worlds, knows the dharmas of the manifold worlds, knows the manifold world-systems, counting on from koṭis of nayutas of world-systems all the way to world-systems as many as the dust motes of unspeakable buddha-lands, and he sees that within all world-systems there are buddhas appearing in the world with their assemblies filling them entirely. Li Tongxuan holds that this samādhi cannot be known by the reckoning of the emotive consciousness, but requires that the settled state be exhausted and the imagining perish, that there be no thinking and no mind, and that it be met with only by the seal of the wisdom that does not contrive — and it is therefore named mastery in the Dharma realm. He says further that within a single pore space has no measure of great or small, and is thus the equal of the realm of space — the reason a pore can hold the Dharma realm is that there was never a measure of great or small in it to begin with, not that something big has been forced into something small.

Now look at the sentence with which the sūtra closes this passage: because mastery has been gained over the Dharma realm, therefore he is well able to tell apart the eye, well able to tell apart the ear, and so on to the mind, the manifold differences each unlike the others, and he exhausts their farthest bound. Chengguan under this passage judges two meanings: first, that because of mastery in the principle-Dharma-realm he is able to tell apart the realms of the eye and the rest; second, that the telling apart of the eighteen realms of the eye and the rest is itself mastery in the phenomenal-Dharma-realm — and that these two are unobstructed, and further that phenomenon and phenomenon are unobstructed. The name and meaning of the four Dharma realms of the Huayan school have here, upon these few sentences of the sūtra, their verbatim place to stand — they were not spun out of abstract talk; they were read out of the four words ‘well able to tell apart the eye.’

Why the Merits Are Counted by Ten Thousand Koṭis

The samādhi being accomplished, the sūtra next spreads out a long series: he can give rise to ten thousand koṭis of lights of the dharma of dhāraṇī, accomplish ten thousand koṭis of pure practices, obtain ten thousand koṭis of faculties, fulfill ten thousand koṭis of spiritual powers — twenty-one clauses in a row, and every clause ten thousand koṭis.

Readers commonly raise two doubts here: one is impatience at the spread of it, the other is the wish to work the number out. Both go wide. Chengguan explains this, saying that this is the first of the ten benefits of the samādhi accomplished, the benefit of giving rise to many merits, in twenty-one clauses, each of them ten thousand koṭis — his counting of the clauses first is precisely a reminder to the reader that this is a ‘format,’ not an inventory. What the format is meant to convey is this: once the samādhi is accomplished, virtue is not added on one item at a time; one and the same quantity falls evenly upon every item.

So ‘ten thousand koṭis’ is not a statistic; it is a rhetorical quantity. What it is meant to shut out is a misunderstanding of this kind — the supposing that what is gained by cultivating samādhi is a certain number of countable accomplishments. The sūtra presses one and the same number down upon twenty-one different categories precisely so that the reader may see: what is gained is not twenty-one things, it is one strength reaching through twenty-one places. Brought down to use, it comes to this: do not ask ‘how many have I gained,’ ask ‘is every one of my places threaded through by one and the same thing.’

Made Ready, Gathered In, Purified — Merit in the Perfect Tense

The sūtra then changes its manner of speaking: this bodhisattva has besides numberless merits, measureless merits, boundless merits, on to inexhaustible merits; and toward these merits, he has made them all ready, gathered them all in, adorned them all, purified them all, burnished them all clear, taken them all up, is able to bring them all forth, may be praised for them all, has made them all firm, has accomplished them all.

The former ten clauses speak of the multitude of what is possessed, the latter ten of the manner of the possessing — Chengguan explains this, saying that within it there are twenty clauses, the former ten the multitude of what is possessed and the latter ten the manner of the possessing; and he explains two of the graphs, saying that ‘purified’ is because the stain is removed, and ‘burnished clear’ is because the light of the original wisdom is sent forth. These two graphs are worth pausing over: removing stain is a subtraction, sending forth light is an addition — but the light sent forth is not a light from outside; it is the light of the original wisdom. One sees, then, that ‘purified’ and ‘burnished clear’ are not synonyms doubled, but two faces of one matter.

The misunderstanding to be shut out is taking this passage for a heaping-up of praise. It is in fact saying something quite definite: at this station, merit is entirely in the perfect tense, not the progressive. Brought down to practice, this is a test: is the good one has cultivated still ‘in course of being gathered,’ or has it come to the point where it appears the moment it is used?

What It Is That the Buddhas, Appearing Before Him, Speak

Next comes the taking-in by the buddhas. The sūtra says that this bodhisattva is taken in by the buddhas of the east, whose names are as many as ten thousand asaṃkhyeyas of dust motes of buddha-lands, and that under each single name there are again buddhas of the same number, each unlike the rest; as it is with the east, so with the south, west, and north, with the four intermediate quarters, the zenith, and the nadir. All those buddhas appear before him: for him they display the pure lands, for him they speak the buddhas’ measureless body, the eyes past thought, the measureless ears, the pure nose, the pure tongue, the non-abiding mind, on to causing him to enter the boundless secret of the Tathāgata and to know that his own mind is like an illusion, like a conjuring.

One thing must be told apart here: this passage is prose narration, not verses of offering; nor is it the bodhisattva going to make offerings to the buddhas — it is the buddhas coming and appearing before him to speak. Chengguan explains this, saying that this is the third benefit, the taking-in by the buddhas, and that within it there are three: first the making clear of the taking-in, next the manifesting of the body and the speaking of the Dharma, and last the causing of him to cultivate and realize — the order of it is plain. What is spoken is also worth noticing: what the buddhas speak is for the most part the buddhas’ own eye, ear, nose, tongue, and mind. This joins up exactly with the earlier ‘well able to tell apart the eye, well able to tell apart the ear’ — the bodhisattva has gained mastery over his own six places, and so the buddhas take the six places of a buddha for what they speak. Here is where it comes to ground: what one cultivates is what one calls forth.

The Ten Things the Buddhas of the Ten Directions Keep in Mind at Once

Keeping in mind is not the same as taking in. Chengguan explains this, saying that taking in gathers him in, while what belongs to the buddhas’ keeping in mind is the strength of a buddha coming to lend its aid — taking in is a gathering into the buddhas’ holding, whereas keeping in mind is the strength of a buddha lending aid so that the thing is brought about.

What is kept in mind is ten things: causing him to gain a boundless body; to gain an unobstructed mind; to gain toward all dharmas a mindfulness that does not forget; to gain toward all dharmas a wisdom that is decided; to grow ever more quick of understanding so that toward all dharmas he can receive them; to understand clearly all dharmas; to have keen faculties so that in the dharma of spiritual powers he is skilled in every part; to have a field of experience unobstructed so that he moves everywhere through the Dharma realm and never rests; to gain unobstructed wisdom pure to the very last; and by the strength of spiritual power to display the becoming of a buddha within all world-systems.

Set them out in a row and the order is plain to see: first body and mind (a boundless body, an unobstructed mind), next holding in memory and deciding (mindfulness that does not forget, wisdom that is decided), next receiving and understanding clearly, next keen faculties and spiritual powers, next moving everywhere unobstructed, and at the last the displaying of the becoming of a buddha. The misunderstanding to be shut out is reading ‘lending aid’ as substituting: among the ten things there is not one that a buddha does in his stead — all of them are ‘they cause this bodhisattva’ to be thus and thus, and what the aid brings about is his own capacity. Brought down to practice: a true response is not being carried in someone’s arms, it is walking more steadily.

The Ten Oceans: Why an Ocean Is the Figure

Deeper still, the sūtra says that abiding in this samādhi he gains ten kinds of ocean — the ocean of the buddhas, of sentient beings, of the dharmas, of the lands, of merit, of spiritual powers, of the faculties, of minds, of practices, of vows; and each ocean carries with it the reason why, as the gaining of the ocean of the buddhas is ‘for he beholds them all’ and the gaining of the ocean of sentient beings is ‘for he tames them all.’

Why an ocean? As a figure, an ocean is taken for its breadth, for its depth, and for its being able to receive the many streams without overflowing. The four kinds of eloquence earlier came home to an ocean, and what is gained here is an ocean too — one sees, then, that what this samādhi gains is in its nature all of the ‘receiving’ sort, not of the ‘possessing’ sort. This is one misunderstanding to be shut out: supposing that to gain an ocean is to put the ocean in one’s pocket. The sūtra itself explains the ground of the gaining, and clause by clause it is ‘beholds,’ ‘tames,’ ‘knows,’ ‘goes to,’ ‘fulfills’ — what is gained is the capacity that answers to the thing, not the ownership of it. Where it comes to ground: to test whether one has truly gained a dharma, the mark is not whether one can talk about it, it is whether one can stand before it without being drowned.

The Ten Preeminences: Standing Out Without Being Stained

After the oceans he gains ten kinds of preeminence: among all sentient beings he is foremost; among all the gods he is most excellent; among all the Brahmā-kings he is master in the highest degree; toward the worlds he is nowhere stained or attached; nothing in any world can overshadow him; no demons can bewilder him; he enters everywhere into the destinies without hindrance; wherever he takes birth he knows it is not firm; in all the dharmas of a buddha he gains mastery; all spiritual powers he can display.

The first three clauses speak of the height of his station, the latter seven of the unobstructedness of his practice. What matters most here is the fourth clause and the eighth: nowhere stained or attached, and knowing it is not firm — these two pull the ‘foremost’ of the first three clauses back into place. Without these two, the first three clauses would become a worldly mind for coming out on top. With these two, the sense of ‘preeminence’ is settled: it is not overtopping the crowd, it is standing among the crowd without being stuck anywhere. Brought down to use, this is a very solid test — if a station makes a man stick to it, then that station is not the preeminence spoken of here.

The Ten Powers, and That Long String of Names of Powers

Then he gains ten kinds of power, and within the realm of sentient beings cultivates the practices: the power of valor (to tame the world), the power of vigor (never turning back), the power of non-attachment (far from every stain), the power of stillness (no dispute toward any dharma), the power of the adverse and the favorable (toward all dharmas the mind has gained mastery), the power of the nature of dharmas (mastery among the meanings), the power of the unobstructed (wisdom vast), the power of fearlessness (able to speak the dharmas), the power of eloquence (able to hold the dharmas), the power of revealing (wisdom boundless). Among the ten powers, the power of the adverse and the favorable most repays turning over — to be master in the favorable and in the adverse alike, not to have strength only where things go one’s way.

The sūtra then lists more than thirty names of powers, from the vast power and the most excellent power on to the power that no sentient being can overshadow. This is not the setting up of a second set of powers. Chengguan explains this, saying that within it he first lists the ten powers and afterward shows their surpassing excellence, and that following upon each single one of the former, every one is furnished with these thirty-eight powers — which is to say that the long string is the depth of each single power, not a horizontal row beginning from an eleventh. Misread as a horizontal row, one goes off to count them; read as depth, the sense of the sūtra comes out: within one power all the powers are complete.

Able to Give Rise, to Accomplish, to Fulfill — and Not to Be Told to the End

The sūtra then gathers it up with eleven graphs of ‘can’: toward measureless dharmas of merit such as these, he can give rise to them, can accomplish them, can fulfill them, can illumine them, can be furnished with them, can be furnished with them throughout, can make them vast, can make them firm, can increase them, can purify them, can purify them throughout. Chengguan explains this, saying that this is the eighth benefit, the benefit of the fulfillment of what he is able to do.

Then it turns to the other face: the farthest bound of this bodhisattva’s merit, of his wisdom, of his practice, of his dharma-gates, of his mastery, of his austerity, of his accomplishment, of his purity, of his going forth, of his mastery in the Dharma — none can tell them; and what he has obtained, accomplished, entered upon, and brought before him, all his dharma-gates, cannot be told to the end in unspeakable kalpas. Chengguan judges this to be the ninth benefit: since his own virtue is boundless, others cannot tell it.

On the one face ‘can,’ on the other ‘cannot be told to the end’ — the two faces must be looked at together. ‘Can’ speaks of his working; ‘cannot be told to the end’ speaks of his weight. The misunderstanding to be shut out is reading ‘none can tell them to the end’ as a passive putting-off. It is not an unwillingness to speak; it is that the measure of the virtue was never bounded by speech to begin with. Where it comes to ground: whatever has truly come to its full measure is for the most part plain in the describing, because it does not stand upon description.

Of All Samādhis There Is None Not Clearly Seen

The tenth benefit says that the samādhis are boundless and yet there is nothing of them he does not understand: he is able to know all samādhis, numberless on to unspeakably unspeakable; and of each single one of those samādhis the field of experience is measureless and vast, and within it, whether he enters, rises, or abides, all its aspects, displays, courses, outflows, own-nature, ceasing, and going forth — of all this there is nothing not clearly seen.

This item gathers up all the benefits before it. Those spoke of the virtue and power he has gained; this one speaks of his having seen the whole of the matter of ‘samādhi’ itself through and through — even how other samādhis are entered, abided in, come out of, and laid to rest lies within his sight. This is why it is named mastery: it is not that this one samādhi of his own is smoothly handled, it is that of all samādhis there is none he does not understand. Where it comes to ground is a distinction: to be able to use one kind of samādhi, and to see clearly the aspects of all samādhis, are two different levels; only the latter keeps a man from being shut in by the state of his own samādhi.

The Four Rivers of the Lake of No Heat: Where the Figure Lies

Here the sūtra turns to the great simile. Out of the palace of the great dragon king Free of Heat and Vexation four rivers flow forth, with nothing turbid and nothing mixed in them, their light and color pure as space; on the four sides of the lake there is one mouth apiece, and from the elephant’s mouth issues the Gaṅgā flowing sand of silver, from the lion’s mouth the Sītā flowing sands of adamant, from the ox’s mouth the Sindhu flowing sand of gold, from the horse’s mouth the Vakṣu flowing sand of beryl; the four rivers circle the lake seven times round and then divide toward the four quarters and enter the great ocean. Sand is spread on the lake’s bed, jewels adorn its banks, candana is scattered through it, four kinds of jeweled flower fill it entirely, and trees of jewels encircle it; and the moment the sunlight comes forth, all the manifold things within and without the lake and the rivers show the image of the sun, while the jewels in their turn show one another’s images, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither joined nor scattered.

Chengguan explains this, saying that in the third division, the showing by simile, what is shown directly is the substance and working and the benefits set out before, and that it also makes clear what was not shown before, so that it is not wholly like the text above — this one sentence is the key to reading the great simile. The division of simile is not a saying over again of what came before; it has something in it that the earlier text never brought out. He judges this simile to open into thirteen gates, each with the simile first and the joining after; and he records further that if the general and the particular of the four kinds of eloquence are opened out into five, then there are seventeen gates.

Li Tongxuan goes another way: relying upon what another scripture says, he matches the four rivers with the quarters and with the lands they enter — on the east the Sītā entering Cīnasthāna and coming home to the eastern sea, on the south the Gaṅgā entering southern India and coming home to the southern sea, on the west the Sindhu entering the land of Sindhu and coming home to the western sea, on the north the Vakṣu entering the lands of Persia and Fulin and coming home to the northern sea; and as for what the figures stand for, in two places he says that the sūtra itself sets it out fully, and lets the text speak for itself. The sūtra itself ties only the mouths and the sands together, and does not match them with quarters. The one of the two masters is detailed upon the opening and joining of the text, the other upon what the geography stands for; both are recorded.

The Four Kinds of Eloquence Send Forth Practices and Enter the Ocean of Wisdom Together

The simile once set up, the sūtra joins it itself. The first joining is the general one: as the great Lake of No Heat sends four rivers out of four mouths into the great ocean, so the bodhisattva out of four kinds of eloquence sends forth the practices and to the very last enters the ocean of omniscience. Chengguan explains this, saying that although four rivers are raised, the intent lies in the four mouths that send out the sands — the eye of the simile is not in the rivers, it is in the mouths and the sands.

Thereupon the four kinds of eloquence are joined severally: by the eloquence of meaning he speaks all the gates of meaning that all the Tathāgatas have spoken, brings forth pure and bright dharmas, and enters the ocean of unobstructed wisdom; by the eloquence of dharma he speaks for beings the adamantine sayings of the buddhas, draws forth adamantine wisdom, and enters the ocean of unobstructed wisdom; by the eloquence of instructing speech he speaks the skillful means of dependent arising in accord with the world, awakens beings and makes them all glad, and enters the ocean of the skillful means of dependent arising; by inexhaustible eloquence he rains down a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of unspeakable rains of Dharma, so that those who hear are made moist, and enters the ocean of the dharmas of the buddhas.

Each of the four kinds of eloquence has its own ocean to enter, and the gates differ without taking anything from one another. The misunderstanding to be shut out here is reading eloquence as a gift of the tongue. What the four kinds of eloquence send forth is ‘the practices,’ not merely words; and every one of them closes with ‘to the very last enters such and such an ocean’ — eloquence is not the end of the road, it is the watercourse. Where it comes to ground: if a capacity to speak the Dharma does not run through to the ocean of wisdom, then it is only a handsome river-mouth with no sand flowing out.

The Circling, the Four Quarters, and the Flowers and Jewels Within the Lake

For the gates that follow, the sūtra makes each joining itself. The four rivers circle the lake and afterward enter the ocean from the four quarters, and what is joined to this is the three kinds of action in accord and the three kinds of action with wisdom going before; Chengguan explains this, saying that the wisdom of the mind of awakening is what is named the lake, and that the three kinds of action being in accord with wisdom is precisely the sense of circling — first circling and then flowing out, which is to say that the three kinds of action must first turn about the mind of awakening before there can be any talk of pouring forth. The sūtra then asks and answers for itself what the bodhisattva’s four quarters are: to see all the buddhas and be awakened, to hear all the dharmas and hold them without forgetting, to fulfill the practice of all the perfections, and to speak the Dharma with great compassion and satisfy sentient beings.

Next, the four flowers filling the lake are joined to not abandoning sentient beings in the space within the mind of awakening and to speaking the Dharma and taming them; Chengguan explains this, saying that speaking the Dharma has the sense of opening into blossom, and samādhi the capacity to bring on fruit. The trees of jewels encircling it are joined to displaying the adornment of the buddha-lands and causing beings to turn toward awakening. The lake fifty yojanas broad, pure and unturbid, is joined to the mind of awakening being boundless in its measure and filled full with roots of goodness. The measureless jewels adorning the banks and the candana scattered everywhere are joined to adorning with the ten kinds of jewel of wisdom the bank that is the great vow of the mind of awakening — and here Chengguan records that the ten kinds of jewel of wisdom bear two senses, one being the ten kinds of jewel-like wisdom in the chapter on leaving the world behind, the other the ten kinds of wisdom such as the knowing of others’ minds, and he lets the two stand without judging between them. The sand of gold on the lake’s bed with maṇi jewels set among it is joined to contemplating everywhere with subtle wisdom and to the manifold jewels of the Dharma set among one another as adornment; and Chengguan makes the joining thing by thing, saying that subtle wisdom is joined to the sand of gold, liberation to the maṇi, unobstructed light to the two kinds of light sent forth, and abiding where the buddhas abide and entering the deep to the spreading across its bed.

Next again, the dragon king forever apart from heat and vexation is joined to the bodhisattva being forever apart from the sorrow and vexation of the world, and though he displays a taking of birth being unstained by it — Chengguan explains this, saying that this is the joining of the lake’s own name, since the name is had from the dragon. The four rivers moistening Jambudvīpa are joined to moistening gods, humans, śramaṇas, and brahmins with four rivers of wisdom, and the sūtra itself lists the four rivers of wisdom as the river of the wisdom of vows, the river of the wisdom of the perfections, the river of the wisdom of the bodhisattva samādhis, and the river of the wisdom of great compassion. Of the three gates after this, the rivers’ inexhaustibility is joined to cultivating by the strength of great vows a knowing and seeing without exhaustion; their entering the ocean unobstructed to ever cultivating the practices and vows of Samantabhadra and entering the wisdom of the Tathāgata without obstruction; and their entering the ocean without weariness to cultivating with the practices and vows of Samantabhadra to the exhaustion of the kalpas to come and not giving rise to weariness.

The Sun’s Images Appearing in One Another: Why the Buddhas Are Seen Within a Pore

The end of the great simile is the sun’s image. When the sun comes forth, the sand of gold, sand of silver, sands of adamant, sand of beryl and every jeweled thing within the lake all show the image of the sun, and the jewels in their turn show one another’s images, shining clear through one another without hindrance. The joining says: the bodhisattva abiding in this samādhi sees, within each single pore of his own body, buddhas and Tathāgatas as many as the dust motes of unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands, and sees too their lands, their sites of awakening, and their assemblies; and in the presence of each buddha he hears the Dharma, holds it, believes and understands it, and makes offerings, each time through unspeakably unspeakable koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, and yet he does not think of the length or shortness of the season, nor are those assemblies crowded and pressed for room.

The four words ‘nor are the assemblies pressed for room’ are the eye of the whole passage — many and yet not crowded, long and yet not felt as long. What most needs to be shut out here is reading it as a spiritual power that has stretched the space out. The sūtra puts the question to itself, ‘why is this so,’ and answers at once with ten clauses, the first of which is ‘because with a subtle mind he enters the boundless Dharma realm,’ and below it the entering of the unequalled and differing fruits of action, of the field of samādhi past conceiving, of the field of pondering past conceiving, of the field of the mastery of all the buddhas, and then the gaining of what all the buddhas keep in mind, of their great spiritual transformations, of the ten powers hard to gain and hard to know, the entering of the field of the fulfilled practice of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, and last the gaining of the spiritual power of all the buddhas that never tires. Chengguan explains this, saying that within the joining there is first the direct joining and afterward the asking and explaining of the ground of the mutual entering — the reason for the reason, the sūtra sets out itself.

One sees, then, that the not being crowded is not space enlarged, it is a mind that does not discriminate upon quantity. Where it comes to ground is thoroughly practical: when a man feels busy, feels pressed, it is for the most part not that his affairs are many, it is that his mind has first drawn them up in a queue.

Though He Enters Samādhi He Does Not Lay It Aside; Though He Transforms Beings He Is Apart from the Notion of Beings

The last division is the general conclusion, the twin practice. First it is said in terms of dharma: though he can enter and come out within a single thought-moment, yet he does not lay aside the long abiding in samādhi and grasps at nothing; though he takes no lodging in the fields of experience, yet he does not abandon any object of attention; though he enters well the very instant, yet for the benefit of beings he displays the spiritual powers of a buddha with no satiety; though he enters the Dharma realm equally, yet he does not gain its farthest bound; though he has nowhere to abide and no place, yet he ever turns toward the path of omniscience; though he is far from the upside-down discriminations of the world and has passed beyond every ground of discrimination, yet he does not abandon the manifold aspects; though he can be furnished with skillful means, yet he is pure to the very last; though he makes no discrimination among the bodhisattva grounds, yet the grounds are all well entered. Chengguan explains this, saying that the general conclusion of the twin practice means that the provisional and the real, samādhi and dispersion, are without obstruction to one another.

Next it is said in terms of simile: it is as with space, which though able to receive all things is yet apart from being and non-being. The figure of space is used with great exactness — it is not a nothing-at-all, for it receives everything; and it is not a being-full-of-something, for it is apart from being and non-being.

Last it is said in terms of the joining, a dozen or more clauses of twin illumination in a row: though he enters everywhere into all the worlds, he is apart from the notion of world; though he diligently delivers all beings, he is apart from the notion of a being; though he knows all dharmas deeply, he is apart from the notion of dharmas; though he delights to see all buddhas, he is apart from the notion of buddhas; though he enters well the manifold samādhis, he knows that the own-nature of all dharmas is just as it is and is nowhere stained; though with boundless eloquence he expounds inexhaustible sayings of the Dharma, his mind ever abides in the dharma apart from letters; though he delights to contemplate the dharma without speech, he ever displays a pure voice; though he abides in the border of all dharmas where words are left behind, he ever displays the manifold forms and marks; though he teaches and transforms beings, he knows that all dharmas are in their very nature empty; though he diligently cultivates great compassion to deliver beings, he knows that the realm of beings is inexhaustible and does not scatter; though he understands through and through that the Dharma realm abides constantly without change, he tames beings with the three wheels and never rests; though he ever abides where the Tathāgata abides, his wisdom is pure, his mind without fear, and he tells apart and expounds the manifold dharmas and turns the Dharma-wheel without rest.

Chengguan sets down here a very fine remark, saying that in the dharma-statement what is made clear is working from within stillness, while in the simile and its joining what is made clear is stillness from within working, and that the texts abbreviate by casting light on one another — the dharma-statement speaks from the still side out to the working, the simile and joining speak from the working side back to the stillness, the two faces seen in one another with each text sparing half. The misunderstanding to be shut out is reading ‘though … yet …’ as a compromise or a concession. It is not each side giving way a step; it is both wholly at once: the entering of the world is a whole entering, and the being apart from the notion of world is a whole apartness. Here is where it comes to ground — at a certain station of practice, one does not reconcile two things into a single tepid thing; both things go to their own bottom without obstructing each other.

Gathered Up in One Sentence

The sūtra closes very briefly: this is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s skillful wisdom of the ninth great samādhi, mastery in the Dharma realm.

Ten times over the samādhis are asked, and every one of them closes with ‘skillful wisdom.’ Looking back from here, what the four words ‘mastery in the Dharma realm’ point to is not that there is somewhere else, called the Dharma realm, in which one may roam at liberty; it is that between eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, within a single pore, and between entering samādhi and coming out of it and speaking the Dharma and delivering beings, one is no longer caught. That the samādhi is named mastery is on this account.

Lineage

The ancient masters relied upon for this unit are two only. Chengguan’s Huayan jing shu is the track of the outline: the whole passage is judged into four divisions — the showing of the substance and working of the samādhi, the making clear of the benefits of the samādhi accomplished, the showing by simile, and the general conclusion of the twin practice — the benefits opening into ten sections and the simile into thirteen gates; and at the substance of the samādhi he judges mastery in the principle-Dharma-realm, mastery in the phenomenal-Dharma-realm, the unobstructedness of the two, and further the unobstructedness of phenomenon and phenomenon — so that the meaning of the four Dharma realms of the Huayan school has upon this passage its verbatim commentarial ground. Li Tongxuan’s Xin Huayan jing lun makes no outline, but explains the name of the samādhi directly by the wisdom that does not contrive, saying that this cannot be reckoned by the emotive consciousness but requires that the settled state be exhausted and the imagining perish, without thinking and without mind, before it can be met; and he further matches the four rivers, by what the geography stands for, with their quarters and the lands they enter, while twice letting the sūtra itself make plain what the figures stand for. What the two masters treat in detail is not the same; both are recorded, and no judgment is passed between them.

The sixty-fascicle Avataṃsaka has no Chapter on the Ten Samādhis, and therefore Fazang’s Tanxuan ji and Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji have no text of explanation citing this passage; the counterpart in the sixty is a structural absence, not a divergence of wording. The treatises of the Huayan school likewise have no explanation citing this passage; their words ‘mastery in the Dharma realm’ belong to the classifying of the teachings and the setting up of the school’s position, and are not an explanation of this text of the sūtra. This is recorded without judgment.

As for what the meaning of this passage carries on and what it hands forward: the four unobstructed kinds of eloquence are elsewhere mostly set out as a list of terms, whereas this passage takes samādhi for their source and the ocean of wisdom for their homecoming, and so establishes the order of ‘eloquence issues from samādhi, eloquence ends by entering the ocean’; and in the passage of the sun’s images appearing in one another, the ground that the sūtra itself gives is the two matters of entering the boundless Dharma realm and the buddhas’ lending of aid. The speaker of this chapter is Samantabhadra, and twice within the joining of the simile the text ties itself to the practices and vows of Samantabhadra, running through with the practice of Samantabhadra in one thread — this is the tie of this unit outward, a tie of name held ready for cross-reading, and it is not carried beyond this passage into argument.