華嚴經 品二十九 十忍品Avataṃsaka Sūtra · The Ten Forbearances

The Word ‘Forbearance’ — First One Must Change One’s Eyes

Hearing ‘the ten forbearances,’ most people take it that what is being spoken of is endurance — swallowing a wrong rather than answering it. Yet read the chapter through and one finds that from beginning to end there is not one sentence in it about swallowing an insult. The first forbearance speaks of hearing the profound Dharma without fright or terror; the second of pondering and examining; the third of seeing not the least particle of a dharma arise or cease; and the latter seven are all of them ‘knowing that all worlds are like an illusion, like a heat-haze, like a dream.’ Where in this is there endurance? Chengguan, explaining the name of this chapter, puts it with the greatest exactness: forbearance means bearing with, understanding, and setting one’s seal upon — that is, wisdom illumining and contemplation penetrating. When a man has seen a thing through, has granted it, and rests in it, that granting is what is called forbearance. Fazang says it more plainly still: this forbearance has wisdom for its nature. So the ten forbearances are not ten tempers but ten ways of seeing; they are not the pressing down of what is uncomfortable, but the seeing clearly that the uncomfortable thing was never what it seemed. The misunderstanding to be cleared away lies just here: take forbearance for repression and one will read the whole chapter as a moral exhortation; know forbearance to be wisdom’s illumining and one will understand why the latter seven forbearances are all similes — because they are ten pairs of spectacles, not ten commandments. Brought down to use: with what one cannot bear in daily life, holding it down by force is the first level, and seeing it clearly as an illusion so that one is unmoved of oneself is the second — and it is the second that this chapter speaks of.

The Opening Clause: Gaining This Forbearance, One Reaches the Ground of Unobstructed Forbearance

Samantabhadra, opening his mouth, first declares the prize: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of forbearance, and gaining them he reaches the ground of unobstructed forbearance of all bodhisattvas, where all the Buddha’s teachings are unobstructed and unexhausted; and at once he lists the ten names — sound, conformity, the non-arising of dharmas, what is like an illusion, like a heat-haze, like a dream, like an echo, like a reflection, like a transformation, like space; and then he adds a guarantee: these ten kinds of forbearance the buddhas of the three times have already declared, now declare, and will declare. Why must it be said at the very opening that the buddhas of the three times have already declared them, now declare them, and will declare them? Because the ten forbearances are not a new saying of Samantabhadra’s for the occasion, but a Dharma declared by the buddhas in common, and the hearer may take it with confidence for a constant rule. Chengguan divides this passage into two: first the raising of the number, and afterward, from ‘if he gains’ onward, the praising of its excellence; only below this comes the listing of the names and the displaying of their import. The misunderstanding to be set aside is this: taking ‘the ground of unobstructed forbearance’ for some further station outside the ten forbearances. What the scriptural text says is ‘gaining these forbearances he then reaches’ — the forbearance is itself the ground, and it is not that when the forbearing is done there is another place to go to. The place where it comes down is this: reading the ten passages that follow, one should hold this measure in mind — ‘the ground of unobstructed forbearance’ is the general marking of the ten forbearances (and among the ten passages, before the concluding of the names, only the eighth, the forbearance of what is like a reflection, has ‘by skillful means he penetrates without obstruction’); if what one reads out of them is tighter and more strained, then one has read them backward.

The Forbearance of Sound: The First Barrier Is Not the Doing, but the Being Able to Listen

Why is the first forbearance ‘sound’? Because the first threshold of cultivation is not doing but listening. The definition in the scriptural text is clean: hearing the Dharma declared by the buddhas he is not startled, not terrified, not afraid; he believes it deeply and comprehends it, loves it and delights in it and turns toward it, holds it in memory single-mindedly, cultivates it and rests in it. Seven stages are set out in a row — first three ‘nots,’ then believing and understanding, loving and delighting, holding in memory, and resting. The weight of those three ‘nots’ deserves notice: the profound Dharma frightens a man because it takes away the things he leans upon for his own ease (no self, no arising, nothing gained), and an ordinary man, hearing it, draws back by instinct. To be able not to draw back — with that, this forbearance is accomplished. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is this: taking ‘the forbearance of sound’ for good hearing and a good memory. What the scriptural text says is ‘not startled, not terrified, not afraid’ — this is a matter of the measure of the mind, not of the faculty of the ear. Li Tongxuan reads it from the side of the One Vehicle and says that at the first mind of the ten abidings one gains the gate of the light of the wisdom of holding the buddhas in memory and is born into the house of the Buddha’s wisdom, and that this is called gaining the forbearance of sound — he reads this forbearance very early, which amounts to saying that although the threshold is low, whoever has crossed it has already entered the Buddha’s house. Where it comes down: to judge whether one has entered the gate, do not count how much one has recited; look rather at whether, the first time one hears ‘there is no self at all,’ the mind shrinks or opens.

The Verses on the Forbearance of Sound: The Simile of the Treasure Store and the Simile of the Store of True Gold

When the verses in repetition sing this forbearance they use two similes that the prose does not have; they belong to the verses alone. The first is the simile of the treasure store: a man in the world hears that in a certain place there is a treasure store, and because that treasure may be got, there arises in his mind a great gladness; the bodhisattva, hearing the Buddha’s profound Dharma, gains ease and quiet of mind, is not startled and not terrified, nor does dread arise in him. What this simile points at is the causal order of ‘hearing’ and ‘gladness’ — it is not that gladness is first cultivated up and then one hears, but that first one hears that a treasure may be got and is glad, and being glad is able to bear. The second is the simile of the store of true gold: as a man of great merit obtains a store of true gold and, according to what befits his station, makes of it every kind of adornment; so the bodhisattva, hearing this profound sense, ponders it and the ocean of his wisdom grows, and thereby he cultivates the dharma of conformity. This simile says everything about what comes after hearing: having got the gold, one does not set it up to be looked at, but beats it into adornments to be worn — hearing the Dharma is not collecting, it is putting to use. The verses add further the clauses ‘hearing the Dharma he grows the more valiant, and he makes offerings to the buddhas and causes the buddhas to rejoice’ and ‘vigorous and not falling back, not casting off the yoke of the manifold goods,’ carrying the first forbearance all the way from ‘being able to listen’ to ‘being able to walk.’ The misunderstanding to be guarded against is reading these two similes as set phrases for exhorting the raising of the mind — they are in fact explaining the mechanism of the first forbearance: because he sees that it may be got, his mind is not startled.

The Forbearance of Conformity: To Conform Is Not to Agree

Of the second forbearance the scriptural text has but one sentence: toward dharmas he ponders and examines, is level toward them and goes against them in nothing, and conforming with them understands them clearly; he causes his mind to become pure, rests in them rightly and cultivates them, and enters into them and comes to accomplishment. The hinge is in the four words ‘level toward them and going against them in nothing.’ The hardest thing when a man contemplates dharmas is not to lean — the dharma that suits him he turns toward, the dharma that does not suit him he goes against. The forbearance of conformity is the taking away of this partiality: whatever the Dharma is, so does one grant it to be. There is a clause in the verses that says the thing outright: where dharmas are, he knows in conformity; where dharmas are not, he knows in conformity; whatever those dharmas may be, just so does he know dharmas. Where they are, he conforms with that; where they are not, he conforms with that too — this is not vagueness, it is the refusal to correct the Dharma by one’s own settled opinion. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is taking ‘conformity’ for compliance, for the refusal to distinguish right from wrong. The verses say it still more plainly from the other side: as the Peerless One has declared it, he contemplates dharmas levelly — not that forbearance which is not level, but that forbearance which is able to accomplish the level wisdom. What accomplishes the level wisdom is precisely that level forbearance, and not the forbearance that is unlevel. So the forbearance of conformity does choose: what it strikes out is one’s own partiality, not the differences among dharmas. Where it comes down: reading a sūtra and meeting a passage not to one’s taste, that instant of resistance is the ‘going against’; being able to halt the resistance and read the passage to the end is the first step of the forbearance of conformity.

The Forbearance of the Non-arising of Dharmas: The Chain of Eleven Members Is the Tightest Frame of This Chapter

The third forbearance is the pivot of the whole chapter. The setting up of its sense is only two clauses: he sees not the least particle of a dharma arising, nor does he see the least particle of a dharma ceasing. Then it presses with a ‘why is this,’ and what follows is a chain of eleven members — if there is no arising then there is no ceasing, if there is no ceasing then there is no exhausting, if there is no exhausting then there is separation from defilement, if there is separation from defilement then there is no difference, if there is no difference then there is no place, if there is no place then there is quiescence, if there is quiescence then there is separation from craving, if there is separation from craving then there is no doing, if there is no doing then there is no wish, if there is no wish then there is no dwelling, if there is no dwelling then there is no going and no coming. This string is not a heaping up of rhetoric; it is one line of reasoning: from the single footing of ‘no arising’ it presses all the way to the point where even going and coming cannot be spoken of. Why must it press so far? Because when a man has let go of ‘arising’ he will still catch at ‘exhausting’; letting go of ‘exhausting’ he will catch at ‘purity’; letting go of ‘purity’ he will catch at ‘difference’ — these eleven members shut off, one after another, every hiding place that comes after. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading ‘no arising’ as though nothing at all existed: what the scriptural text says is ‘he sees not the least particle of a dharma arising’ — it is that arising is not seen, not that there is asserted to be a thing called ‘nothing.’ In the Jin rendering this chain has ten members, the three in the middle running ‘no breaking down · no motion · the ground of quiescent extinction,’ and the last stretch turning from separation from craving into ‘nothing practiced — it is the great vow — he dwells in adornment,’ so that where it tends differs from the eighty’s coming home to ‘no going and no coming’ — the one gathering into the absoluteness of quiescent extinction, the other into the adornment of the great vow. Both recensions are recorded side by side without adjudication. Where it comes down: to test whether one has truly let a thing go, watch whether, having let it go, the mind at once catches hold of a second thing.

The Verses on the Forbearance of the Non-arising of Dharmas: The Thirty-Three Gods, One Vessel and Differing Food

When the verses in repetition speak of this forbearance they set out a simile the prose does not have: within the Heaven of the Thirty-Three all the gods’ sons eat from one and the same vessel, and yet what each eats is not the same; the manifold foods they eat do not come from the ten directions, but according to the deeds each has cultivated, of themselves they are all there within the vessel. One vessel, and the savor each man tastes is different; and those foods have not been carried in from anywhere outside — each man’s deeds appear of themselves within the vessel. What this simile means to say is: what is called ‘a dharma arising’ is in truth only deeds coming to bear and appearing, and there is no thing that truly arises out of somewhere else. The verses then sing the prose’s chain over again: all of them arise from causes and conditions; because there is no arising there is no ceasing, because there is no ceasing there is no exhausting, because there is no exhausting there is no defilement; toward the dharmas of the world that alter and change, he understands that in truth there is no altering; where there is no altering there is no place, and where there is no place there is quiescence. Here ‘no defilement’ answers to the prose’s ‘separation from defilement,’ and ‘no place’ to ‘no place’ — the verses are not repetition, they are another way in. The verses also have the clause ‘deeds arise from mind, and therefore it is said that mind is like an illusion,’ gathering deeds and mind too into what is like an illusion. Where it comes down: when one complains that his circumstances are unjust, the simile of one vessel and differing food is the most direct remedy — at one and the same table, what one tastes is what one brought.

The Forbearance of What Is Like an Illusion: Within One Dharma Understanding Many, Within Many Understanding One

From the fourth forbearance onward, all the latter seven go by way of simile. The sense set up for the forbearance of what is like an illusion is: he knows that all dharmas are altogether like an illusion, arising from causes and conditions; within one dharma he understands many dharmas, and within many dharmas he understands one dharma. Anyone can say the first half; the second half is the eye — it is precisely because dharmas are like an illusion and without own-nature that one and many do not obstruct each other: within one dharma many dharmas can be understood, and within many dharmas one dharma can be understood. Were dharmas to have a fixed substance, one would be one and many would be many, and they could by no means be understood through each other. After the bodhisattva knows dharmas to be like an illusion, the scriptural text lists seven penetrations: he penetrates the lands, sentient beings, the Dharma realm, the levelness of the world, the levelness of the buddhas’ appearing, the levelness of the three times, and accomplishes every kind of spiritual penetration and transformation. Spiritual penetration is placed last, being fruit and not cause — because he has seen through the illusion, displaying becomes possible. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is taking ‘like an illusion’ for ‘false, and not to be bothered with’: the scriptural text goes straight on to say that when the bodhisattva contemplates the world as an illusion he still delivers sentient beings and still turns the wheel of the Dharma. Where it comes down: one and many being understood through each other is no abstruse talk but an actual ability in reading a sūtra — to read a whole body of doctrine out of a single sentence, and to gather the whole body of doctrine back into that one sentence.

The Simile of the Forbearance of What Is Like an Illusion: The Manifold Things Are Not the Illusion, the Illusion Is Not the Manifold Things

The ordering of the simile of illusion is worth looking at closely. The scriptural text lays down in one breath more than forty ‘nots’ — not an elephant, not a horse; not a man, not a woman; not a tree, not a leaf; not earth, water, fire, wind; not daytime, not night; not one kalpa, not many kalpas; not concentration, not distraction; not the same, not other; not many, not few; not coarse, not fine — striking out one by one everything that the illusion displays; and then it gives its conclusion: the manifold things are not the illusion, nor is the illusion the manifold things; and yet it is because of the illusion that the manifold differentiated affairs are displayed. These two clauses are the hinge of the whole simile: what is displayed is not the illusion itself, nor is the illusion itself those manifold things — and yet apart from the illusion the manifold things could not be displayed at all. The displayer and what is displayed are neither one nor other. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading ‘not an elephant, not a horse’ as ‘there is nothing at all’ — the scriptural text says in the very next breath that the manifold differentiated affairs are displayed, and difference stands there plain. Chengguan divides the first three forbearances as being in terms of dharmas and the latter seven as being in terms of similes, and this simile is the first of those ‘in terms of similes,’ so that the way of reading the six similes after it is fixed here: first block the real, then display the plain. Where it comes down: to see an affair as ‘like an illusion’ is not to see it as nonexistent, but to see that its existing is not in its own keeping.

The Forbearance of What Is Like an Illusion: The Ten Worlds Contemplated · the Things Not Seen · the Nine Rounds of Accomplishing

The forbearance of what is like an illusion is the longest of the ten, because it pushes ‘like an illusion’ out into the gate of practice. First comes the object contemplated: the world made by deeds, the world made by afflictions, the world of lands, the world of dharmas, the world of times, the world of destinies, the world of forming, the world of decaying, the world of motion, the world of contriving — ten worlds, counting from deeds and delusion all the way to forming, decaying and motion, so that everything a man stands within is spread out in ten layers. Next come the marks of the time of contemplating: he does not see sentient beings arising or ceasing, does not see lands arising or ceasing, does not see dharmas arising or ceasing, does not see the past as something that can be discriminated, does not see the future as having anything set going, does not see the present as having a single thought that stays, and on to not seeing buddhas appear, not seeing buddhas enter nirvāṇa, not seeing a resting in the great vow, not seeing an entering of the right dwelling. Even ‘buddhas appearing’ and ‘resting in the great vow’ are not seen — this puts into the contemplation the very things the cultivator holds most precious. Most weighty is the third section: though he accomplishes buddha-lands, he knows the lands have no differences; though he accomplishes the realm of sentient beings, he knows sentient beings have no differences; though he contemplates the Dharma realm everywhere, he rests in the nature of dharmas, quiescent and unmoving; though he penetrates the levelness of the three times, he does not go against the dharma of discriminating the three times; though he accomplishes the aggregates and sense-fields, he has forever cut off any leaning upon them; though he delivers sentient beings, he understands that the Dharma realm is level; though he knows dharmas cannot be spoken, he constantly declares the Dharma with unexhausted eloquence; though he does not grasp at the transforming of sentient beings, he does not forsake great compassion; though he reveals for them the causes and conditions of the past, he knows that the nature of causes and conditions has no shifting. Nine clauses of ‘though,’ of which seven run ‘though … and yet …’ and the first two run ‘though …, he knows …’; and every one of them stands on both feet at once. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is this: supposing that once one has seen through, one ought to stop working. The scriptural text’s answer is exactly the opposite — it is precisely because there are no sentient beings to be delivered that great compassion never wearies. This passage concludes its name as the fourth, the forbearance of what is like an illusion. Where it comes down: doing a thing without clinging to the thing — these nine clauses are the best checklist there is.

The Verses on the Forbearance of What Is Like an Illusion: The Simile of the Master of Illusion and the Limit of What Is Like an Illusion

The verses on the forbearance of what is like an illusion supply a simile the prose does not have: it is as with a skillful master of illusion, who displays everywhere every kind of form and image, causing the multitude in vain to crave and delight, while in the end there is nothing gained at all. The prose’s simile of illusion rests its weight on the ‘nots’; the verses’ simile of the master of illusion rests its weight on ‘craving’ — the illusionist displays his images not in order to cheat, but men crave of themselves and so are cheated; the world is like an illusion and sentient beings suffer, and the suffering is not in the illusion but in the craving. The verses have further four clauses — he delivers sentient beings and causes them to know that dharmas are like an illusion; sentient beings are not other than the illusion, and when the illusion is penetrated there are no sentient beings to be found — which buckle delivering and being-like-an-illusion together: those delivered are themselves within the illusion, and when the illusion is penetrated there is no real sentient being delivered by me. This is just the verse answering to the prose’s ‘though he delivers sentient beings, he understands clearly that the Dharma realm is level.’ There is also ‘entering into the limit of what is like an illusion, he depends upon them in nothing’ and ‘thus he gains skillfulness, quiescent and without frivolous talk, and dwelling in the ground of non-obstruction he displays everywhere his great awesome power’ — being like an illusion is not the terminus; dwelling in the ground of non-obstruction and displaying awesome power everywhere is. The misunderstanding to be guarded against: reading ‘in the end there is nothing gained at all’ as a counsel of passivity. The very next clause of the verses is ‘he displays everywhere his great awesome power’ — nothing gained and great awesome power are two faces of one thing.

The Forbearance of What Is Like a Heat-Haze: The World Dwells Within Conceiving

The fifth forbearance is the shortest and the sharpest. Its sense is set up as knowing that all worlds are the same as a heat-haze; and the simile is: it is just as with a heat-haze, which has no quarter or place, is not within, not without, not existent, not nonexistent, not cut off, not lasting, not a single color, not manifold colors, nor yet without color, and is displayed only according to the speech of the world. It comes to rest on that last clause — a heat-haze ‘is’ only by force of speech and of looking from afar, and the world ‘is’ in just the same way. The scriptural text then gathers it in a single clause: thus does the bodhisattva contemplate in accordance with reality, understanding dharmas clearly, realizing all things on the spot, and causing all to be brought to fullness. The verses spread this forbearance wider than the prose does, and name its core word besides: the false conceiving of sentient beings is like a heat-haze, and causes them to understand invertedly; the world is like a heat-haze, and by conceiving there are differences; knowing that the world dwells within conceiving, one departs far from the three inversions. And again: it is just as with the heat-haze in the hot season, which men of the world see and take to be water, while the water in truth is nothing at all, and the wise man ought not to go seeking it. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading the forbearance of what is like a heat-haze as ‘the world does not exist’ — the appearance of the heat-haze truly is there, only that appearance is not water. The appearance of the world is truly there too, only that appearance is not real. Where it comes down: when an affliction rises, ask one question — is this water, or is it the haze of the hot season? The difference is not in the object but in one’s own conceiving.

The Forbearance of What Is Like a Dream: The Substance of a Dream Has No Arising or Ceasing

The sixth forbearance sets up its simile with a dream. The ordering of the simile is of the same pattern as the simile of the heat-haze: it is just as with a dream — not the world, not apart from the world; not the realm of desire, not the realm of form, not the formless realm; not birth, not dying away; not defiled, not pure — and yet there is display. After blocking everything it keeps one clause, ‘and yet there is display,’ and this is the clause-pattern held in common by the latter seven similes. Then come nine clauses of ‘dreamlike … therefore’: because there is no alteration, because their own-nature is dreamlike, because the clinging is dreamlike, because their being of themselves apart is dreamlike, because their root nature is dreamlike, because what they display is dreamlike, because their having no difference is dreamlike, because their being discriminated by conceiving is dreamlike, because the time of waking is dreamlike. The nine clauses run from own-nature to the time of waking, and the last is the weightiest — a dream is known for a dream only upon waking, and the world is known to be like a dream only upon awakening. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is taking ‘like a dream’ to mean that one ought here and now to deny everything before one’s eyes: a man in a dream cannot get out of the dream by denying it, but only by waking. The verses sing this forbearance thus: the substance of a dream has no arising and no ceasing, nor has it any quarter or place; the three realms are all of them just so, and he who sees this gains liberation of mind; and again, he who dwells in the samādhi of the dream penetrates that the world is altogether like a dream — it is not the same, nor yet is it other; it is not one, nor yet is it manifold; and it closes with, this is called the forbearance of what is like a dream, and thereby he penetrates the dharmas of the world, swiftly accomplishes unobstructed wisdom, and delivers at large the multitudes of beings — being like a dream is not a fleeing away, it is the road to ‘swiftly accomplishing unobstructed wisdom.’ Where it comes down: the most real thing in a dream is the feeling, and the first thing to scatter on waking is the feeling too — and this much one can use now.

The Forbearance of What Is Like an Echo: The Mechanism of Declaring with Nothing Declared

The seventh forbearance speaks of sound. Its sense is set up in two layers: first, knowing that all sounds are altogether the same as an echo, with no coming and no going; second, contemplating the Tathāgata’s voice as not issuing from within, not issuing from without, nor issuing from the two together. The second layer is the hard place — the Tathāgata declared the Dharma for forty-nine years; where in the end did that voice come from? The answer is that it is none of the three places, and yet ‘he is able to display skillful names and phrases and to accomplish every kind of exposition.’ The simile of the echo in a valley explains just this sense: it is just as with the echo in a valley, which arises from conditions and yet does not go against the nature of dharmas, and which causes sentient beings, each according to his kind, to understand it in his own way and thereby to learn and cultivate. The echo comes neither out of the mountain nor out of the man’s mouth, but out of ‘conditions’; and so it is with the Buddha’s voice. The scriptural text then adds the simile of Śacī: the consort of Śakra, the daughter of the asuras, named Śacī, who within one sound sends forth a thousand kinds of sound, and yet has no thought in her mind that it should come forth so — the hinge is in the four words ‘has no thought in her mind’: without any intending, the thousand sounds come of themselves. Therefore the bodhisattva ‘enters the realm where there is no discriminating, and accomplishes the skillful voice that goes forth according to the kinds of sentient beings.’ The closing passage gathers it into a pair: though he knows that sound has no arising, yet he displays sound everywhere; though he knows there is nothing that can be said, yet he declares dharmas at large. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading ‘sound is like an echo’ as meaning that the Buddha’s declaring of the Dharma has no effect — what the scriptural text says is that it is without own-nature and yet has effect. Where it comes down: what a declarer of the Dharma has most to fear is taking himself for the source of the voice; once that is there, each kind understanding in its own way turns into forcing others to be like oneself.

The Forbearance of What Is Like a Reflection: Displayed and Yet Undefiled, Difference Is Itself Not Difference

The eighth forbearance sets up its simile with a reflection, and puts first nine rounds (eighteen rubrics) of ‘not’: not born in the world, not dying away in the world; not within the world, not outside the world; not travelling in the world, not failing to travel in the world; not the same, not other; not going, not failing to go; not resting, not failing to rest; not a worldly dharma, not a world-transcending dharma; not practicing the bodhisattva practice, not forsaking the great vow; not real, not unreal. These eighteen rubrics block off entirely the relation between the bodhisattva and the world, and there follows at once a clause of positive statement: though he constantly upholds all the Buddha’s teachings, he is able to bring to completion all the affairs of the world; he is not carried along in the current of the world, nor does he come to a stop within the current of the Dharma — that he does not rest even in the current of the Dharma is a very weighty clause. The simile of the reflection then follows: the sun and moon, men and women, houses, mountains and forests, rivers and springs, display their reflections within oil, water, a body, a jewel, a bright mirror and other pure things; the reflection and the oil and the rest are not one, not other, not apart, not joined; within a running stream it is not washed away, within a pool or a well it does not sink, and though displayed therein it is nowhere defiled. Three sentences say the whole of ‘being inside a thing without belonging to it.’ The scriptural text then adds two layers: though things far and near can all display reflections, the reflection does not become far or near according as the thing is far or near; and, as within a seed there is no root, sprout, stem, joint, branch or leaf, and yet such things as these can arise from it — the former breaks the grasping at space, the latter displays the skillfulness of discriminating two marks within a dharma that has no two. The misunderstanding to be cleared away: a reflection is not another name for a false appearance; it is the very sample of ‘arising in dependence upon another, and displayed without being defiled.’ After this forbearance concludes its name there is a further passage on the virtue of accomplishing it, and its weightiest clause is this — this difference is right there not difference, and being other and not being other obstruct one another in nothing: difference, in its very substance, is not difference. Where it comes down: for entering the world and doing its work without being stained by it, a reflection is the aptest image a man can have of himself.

The Verses on the Forbearance of What Is Like a Reflection: The Reflection in Water, Neither Within Nor Without

When the verses sing this forbearance, clause after clause buckles upon ‘neither within nor without’: it is just as with a reflection in water, which is neither within nor without; the bodhisattva, taking hold of awakening, penetrates that the world is not a world at all; and again: he neither dwells in the world nor goes forth from it, because the world cannot be spoken; nor is he within or without, but like a reflection is displayed within the world. The prose blocks it off entirely with nine rounds (eighteen rubrics) of ‘not’; the verses gather it into the single pair ‘neither within nor without’ — and this is the convention of the verses: what the prose has already taught, the verses only answer to. What the verses alone have is a section on the conduct of mind after entering this forbearance: entering into this profound sense, apart from defilement and wholly clear through, he does not cast away the mind of his original vow, and everywhere he shines the lamp of wisdom; the world has no boundary, and his wisdom enters and is wholly level with it; everywhere he transforms the multitudes of beings and causes them to cast off their manifold clingings. Note ‘he does not cast away the mind of his original vow’ — the prose said ‘not practicing the bodhisattva practice, not forsaking the great vow,’ and the verses bring the second half out into the open on the positive side: what is blocked is the grasping, not the vow itself. Where it comes down: for the man who reads ‘not practicing the bodhisattva practice’ and feels his heart draw back, this clause of the verses is the remedy.

The Forbearance of What Is Like a Transformation: The Ten Transformations, the Seven Knowings, and the Man of Transformation

The ninth forbearance gathers everything under ‘transformation.’ First it lists ten kinds of transformation: the mental deeds of sentient beings are a transformation (arising from conceiving and thinking); the manifold practices of the worlds are a transformation (arising from discriminating); inverted views of pleasure and pain are a transformation (arising from false grasping); unreal dharmas are a transformation (displayed by speech); afflictions and discriminations are a transformation (arising from thought and conception); purification and taming are a transformation (displayed by non-discrimination); not being carried along in the three times is a transformation (no arising and levelness); the power of the bodhisattva’s vows is a transformation (brought about by vast cultivation); the great compassion of the Tathāgata is a transformation (displayed by skillful means); the skillful means of turning the wheel of the Dharma is a transformation (declared by wisdom, fearlessness and eloquence). The first five are on the defiled side, the latter five on the pure — and that even the Tathāgata’s great compassion and the turning of the wheel of the Dharma are counted as transformation is the fiercest stroke in this forbearance: not one corner is left where one may say ‘this one is real.’ Next it lists six knowings: a knowing that realizes it before him, a vast knowing, a boundless knowing, a knowing according to the thing itself, a sovereign knowing, a truly real knowing, together with ‘not something that the views of falsity can shake.’ Then comes the simile of transformation, with more than twenty pairs of ‘not’ in a row — not arising from mind, not undergoing the fruit of deeds, not dwelling long and not dwelling for a moment, not ordinary and not holy, not defiled and not pure, not wise and not foolish, not birth-and-death and not nirvāṇa, not existent and not nonexistent. The misunderstanding to be cleared away: reading ‘the Tathāgata’s great compassion too is a transformation’ as a belittling of the Buddha — the scriptural text’s meaning is that the Buddha’s compassion and his declaring of the Dharma are alike without own-nature, and therefore can answer everywhere without ever running dry. After the name is concluded there follow the simile of the man of transformation and the five names (one who is liberated, one who is tamed, one of spiritual penetration, one who does not fall back, one who is unobstructed), which fix the virtue of accomplishing this forbearance. Where it comes down: put the good deed you prize most into ‘transformation’ and look at it once — the place where you find yourself unwilling is the place where the grasping still is.

The Verses on the Forbearance of What Is Like a Transformation: By the Strength of Transformation He Declares the Dharma

When the verses sing this forbearance, their weightiest clauses are: all the buddhas of the three times are likewise, all of them, like a transformation; upon their original vow they cultivate the several practices, and by transformation they become tathāgatas; and: the Buddha, with great loving-kindness and compassion, delivers sentient beings who are like a transformation; and the delivering too is like a transformation, and by the strength of transformation he declares the Dharma for them. The prose said that the ten transformations include the Tathāgata’s great compassion; the verses push it to the bottom: the Buddha too is like a transformation, the delivering too is like a transformation, and the very strength by which he delivers is the strength of transformation. The misunderstanding to be guarded against is reading this as nihilism — the verses say next: knowing that the world is altogether like a transformation, he does not discriminate the world; the affairs of transformation are of every kind and differ from each other, and all of them are owing to the differences of deeds. Difference still stands plain, upon deeds. The verses have also: cultivating the practice of awakening, he adorns the store of transformation, and with measureless goodness he well adorns it, as deeds make the world — cultivation is not a getting away from transformation, it is adorning within transformation. And they close with: the dharma of transformation is apart from discriminating, nor does it go about discriminating dharmas; these two are both of them quiescent — and just so is the bodhisattva’s practice; and: the ocean of transformation he penetrates by wisdom, and by the nature of transformation he seals the world — penetrating the ocean of transformation by wisdom, and sealing the world by the nature of transformation. Where it comes down: doing a good deed without feeling that one is doing a good deed is what is called practicing the practice that is like a transformation; and the words ‘in the end he never forsakes it’ are the guarantee that this will not slide into doing nothing at all.

The Forbearance of What Is Like Space: The Nine Clauses of Being Like Space

The tenth forbearance is the utmost of the whole chapter. It opens with nine clauses laid down in one breath: the whole Dharma realm is like space, because it is markless; all world-systems are like space, because there is no rising; all dharmas are like space, because there is no duality; the practice of all sentient beings is like space, because there is nothing practiced; all buddhas are like space, because there is no discriminating; all the powers of the buddhas are like space, because there is no difference; all concentrations are like space, because the three limits are level; all the dharmas that are declared are like space, because they cannot be spoken; the bodies of all buddhas are like space, because there is no attachment and no obstruction. The order of the nine clauses counts from the Dharma realm all the way to the bodies of the buddhas, gathering into space that which is depended upon (the realm, the world-systems, dharmas), that which practices (the practice of sentient beings), and that toward which all tends (the buddhas, their powers, the concentrations, the dharmas declared, the buddha-bodies). Each clause brings its own reason with it — it is not a matter of saying ‘they are all empty’ and having done, but of giving item by item the wherefore: markless, no rising, no duality, nothing practiced, no discriminating, no difference, the three limits level, cannot be spoken, no attachment and no obstruction. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is taking ‘like space’ for empty of everything — space can serve as a simile precisely because it is markless and can therefore contain, not because it is nothing whatever. The closing clause says: by a skillful means that is like space he understands clearly that all dharmas are wholly without anything whatever — and the words ‘skillful means’ are the important ones: space is the method, not the conclusion. Where it comes down: these nine clauses can serve as a checklist gone through item by item, to see which item one is still guarding as a thing with marks.

The Forbearance of What Is Like Space: The Eleven Rounds of Contemplating in Pairs, ‘It Is Just as with Space’

What comes next is the most evenly ordered passage in the chapter: eleven rounds of ‘it is just as with space … so likewise is the bodhisattva-mahāsattva.’ Space is what all dharmas depend upon and yet neither arises nor dies away; the bodhisattva’s dharma-body of all dharmas neither arises nor dies away. Space cannot be destroyed; the bodhisattva’s wisdom and powers cannot be destroyed. Space is what the world depends upon while itself depending upon nothing; the bodhisattva is what dharmas depend upon while himself depending upon nothing. Space has no arising and no ceasing and yet sustains the arising and ceasing of the world; the bodhisattva has no turning toward and no gaining and yet can reveal turning toward and gaining. Space has no quarter and no corner and yet displays boundless quarters and corners; the bodhisattva has no deeds and no fruits of deeds and yet reveals every kind of deed and fruit. Space is neither travelling nor resting and yet displays every deportment; the bodhisattva is neither travelling nor resting and yet discriminates all practices. Space is neither form nor non-form and yet displays every kind of form; the bodhisattva is neither worldly form nor world-transcending form and yet displays all forms. Space is neither far nor near and yet abides long and displays all things; the bodhisattva too is neither far nor near and yet abides long and reveals the practices that bodhisattvas practice. Space is neither pure nor foul and is not apart from purity and foulness; the bodhisattva is neither obstructed nor unobstructed and is not apart from obstruction and non-obstruction. Before space all worlds appear, while it does not appear before the world; before the bodhisattva all dharmas appear, while he does not appear before dharmas. Space enters everywhere into all and has no boundary; the bodhisattva enters everywhere into dharmas and his mind has no boundary. The formula of the eleven rounds is one and the same: on the side of space a ‘no’ is set up, and on the side of practice an ‘able’ — being able because there is no. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading the two sides as a rhetoric of contradiction: it is not ‘though there is nothing, yet he is able,’ but ‘because there is nothing, therefore he is able.’ Where it comes down: when a thing will not move, it is generally because a mark was already there in the mind first; take the mark away and the ability comes out of itself.

The Forbearance of What Is Like Space: Why Is This — One Substance, One Savor, One Kind

After the eleven rounds of contemplating in pairs, the scriptural text sets itself a question: why is this? And it answers: because what the bodhisattva does is like space. It then spreads out the reason: all his cultivating, all his adorning and purifying, all his accomplishing are wholly level, of one substance, of one savor, of one kind, of a measure like space, pure and pervading everywhere. The six words ‘of one substance, of one savor, of one kind’ are the eye of this passage — cultivating, adorning-and-purifying and accomplishing look to an ordinary man like three different pieces of work, and here they are three names for one and the same thing. There follow eleven clauses of positive statement about what is thus accomplished: he realizes and knows all dharmas while making no discrimination toward any dharma; he adorns and purifies all the buddha-lands; he brings to fullness every body that depends upon nothing; he understands all quarters without confusion; he is possessed of all powers that cannot be broken down; he brings to fullness all boundless merit; he has reached the place of all the profoundest dharmas; he penetrates the way of all the perfections; he sits everywhere upon all the adamantine seats; he sends forth everywhere all voices that go according to kind; he turns the wheel of the Dharma for all worlds without ever missing its time. The last clause, ‘without ever missing its time,’ is the most worth turning over: no discriminating, and yet never wrong about the season. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading ‘no discriminating’ as a failure to tell what suits the occasion — the scriptural text places ‘without ever missing its time’ precisely after ‘no discriminating,’ which shows that non-discrimination is the most exact sense of measure there is. After this passage the name is concluded as the tenth, the forbearance of what is like space. Where it comes down: one supposes that one must first discriminate clearly in order not to miss the moment; the scriptural text says the reverse — the less the discriminating, the truer the timing.

The Fruit of the Forbearance of What Is Like Space: Twenty Kinds of Body

For one who has accomplished the forbearance of what is like space, the scriptural text lists twenty bodies, each body carrying a reason closed with ‘because,’ and the reasons of the latter ten all fastened upon ‘like space’: the body without coming (because there is no going), the body without arising (because there is no ceasing), the body without motion (because there is no breaking down), the body that is not real (because it is apart from what is false), the body of one mark (because it is markless), the measureless body (because the powers of the buddhas are measureless), the level body (because it is the same as the mark of suchness), the body without difference (because he contemplates the three times as level), the body that reaches everywhere (because his pure eye beholds levelly without obstruction), the body at the limit of separation from craving (because he knows dharmas have no joining and no scattering), the body boundless as space (because his store of merit is inexhaustible like space), the body of eloquence unbroken and unexhausted and level with the nature of dharmas, the body of measureless and unobstructed voice, the body possessed of every skillful and pure bodhisattva practice, the body wherein the ocean of all the Buddha’s teachings follows on in due order, the body that within all buddha-fields displays measureless buddha-fields, the body that displays all sovereign dharmas without resting, the body of all indestructible and firm strength, the body whose faculties are bright and keen, firm and indestructible as adamant, the body that sustains the strength of all worlds. The twenty bodies begin from ‘without coming’ and end with ‘sustaining the strength of all worlds’ — walking from the emptiest sense to the most sustaining function, and the order is itself doctrine. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is taking these twenty bodies for a spreading out of the names of spiritual powers: every one of them is given a reason — the first ten with such reasons as ‘because there is no going’ and ‘because it is apart from what is false,’ and the latter ten fastened one by one upon ‘like space’ — which shows that this is not a table of functions but twenty facets of one and the same sense of emptiness. When the verses sing this forbearance they say: wisdom and voice, and the bodhisattva’s body — their nature is like space, and all of them are wholly quiescent, gathering body, speech and mind together into the nature of emptiness. Where it comes down: what one cultivates to at the last is not a heap of new abilities, but the losing of one partition between the grasper and the grasped.

The Conclusion: Why It Must Be Told Out to Ten

The last sentence of the prose is a single line: Sons of the Buddha! These are called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s ten kinds of forbearance. The end of the verses is the same: that the bodhisattva is able to accomplish these ten kinds of forbearance — his wisdom and the practice he practices, sentient beings have no power to fathom. Two conclusions, one long and one short, look ordinary enough, and yet they answer the raising of the number at the opening. Fazang, explaining this chapter’s name, says that ‘ten’ is the perfect number, without exhausting; Chengguan says that lodging them in the perfect he displays ten — in the Huayan ‘ten’ is not a counting but a betokening of the inexhaustible. So the ten forbearances are not ten steps of a stair but one and the same illumining wisdom appearing ten times over upon ten kinds of object: upon sound, upon dharmas, upon arising and ceasing, upon illusion, heat-haze, dream, echo, reflection, transformation and space. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is reading the ten forbearances as a table of stages that must be filled out one grade at a time — the scriptural text never says that the first forbearance must be finished before the second can begin; rather, each forbearance says of itself, complete in itself, ‘this is called the such-and-such forbearance.’ The verses’ last words, ‘his wisdom and the practice he practices, sentient beings have no power to fathom,’ carry on from the clause before them, ‘sentient beings and the dust motes of the fields — the number of these may yet be known; but the manifold merits of the bodhisattva — there is no one who can fathom their limit’: the number of dust motes may be reckoned, this virtue cannot be measured. Where it comes down: what one ought most to carry away from reading the ten forbearances is not ten technical names but one sentence — the look of the world is settled by the eyes that look at it.

Lineage

The ‘forbearance’ of this chapter and the ‘forbearance’ of the consciousness-only line share a name but differ in their opening and combining. The Yuqie shidi lun and the Cheng weishi lun both gather the perfection of forbearance under three forbearances — the forbearance that bears with the harm done by foes, the forbearance that accepts suffering with equanimity, the forbearance that examines dharmas with discernment; this chapter opens ten gates, the first three in terms of dharmas and the latter seven in terms of similes, and the two do not gather one another in. Again, the one name ‘the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas’ is used by both axes: this chapter lists it as the third forbearance and attaches it to no station of the grounds, while the Yuqie attaches it to the abiding of the eighth, the Immovable Ground, that is without exertion, without effort and without marks. The name is the same and the station attached to it is not the same; each follows the judgement of its own house, and it is recorded without adjudication. On the side of the treatises of the Huayan house, in the whole of Fazang’s Huayan yisheng jiaoyi fenqi zhang the term ‘the ten forbearances’ does not occur, and there are only two places with ‘the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas,’ both belonging to the sense of the stations of the five teachings and the vehicles they are lodged in, and not an explanation of this chapter passage by passage. As to the one question, at what station the ten forbearances belong, three sayings of the ancient masters run side by side: Chengguan sets it up by ‘lodging them in the perfect, he displays ten’; Fazang divides two judgements, the gradual teaching (lodged in the station of equal awakening after the ten grounds) and the perfect teaching (running through all five stations everywhere); Li Tongxuan, by ‘setting up the name according to practice,’ runs it from the first mind of the ten abidings as far as the skillful means of benefiting beings after the fruit of buddhahood. As to the number of the gate of forbearance, Fazang records the unmatched openings and combinings of the several houses — one forbearance (the forbearance of non-arising), two forbearances (the forbearance of the two selflessnesses), the forbearance of the three non-natures, three forbearances (faith, conformity, non-arising), the four kinds of non-arising, five forbearances; and Chengguan, in the passage of listing the names, also records the differing matchings of the similes by four houses, Guangtong, the ancient masters, the Shedacheng lun and Master Yuan, of which Master Yuan’s taking of the simile of space as a simile for the unconditioned dharma is appraised by Chengguan as ‘not that there is no principle in it, but it goes against the sūtra below.’ These are settled sayings of the several houses; they are recorded side by side, without judging which is higher and which lower.