華嚴經 品三十八 離世間品 · 序·三昧·發起·起·請分Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Detachment from the World · Prologue: The Samādhi, the Prompting, the Rising, and the Request

A Question First: In a Portion That Teaches Practice, Why Begin from Where the Buddha Is Sitting

The scripture opens by saying one thing only — that the World-Honored One was in the palace of Universal Light within the wilderness place of awakening of the Dharma in the country of Magadha, seated upon the lion seat of the lotus treasury. A single clause naming the place of speaking looks like no more than a note of location; in truth it is the fixed pole-star of the whole chapter.

Why is it noted at all? Because this assembly is ‘the return to the palace of Universal Light’. Chengguan glosses this thus: the present portion is the portion of entrusting to the Dharma and advancing in cultivation so as to accomplish practice, whereas the great portion before it was the portion of cultivating the cause that answers to the fruit and so giving rise to understanding — what came before taught ‘understanding’, and what comes here teaches ‘practice’; understanding may pass through many places and grow clear by degrees, while practice must be gathered back to one place and arise all at once. And so he says that the assembly, named by its place, is called the assembly of the third gathering at the palace of Universal Light, and he fastens the reason for it upon “because at the end the assembly returns to the beginning.”

One misreading must be set aside first: this is not the Buddha walking back for another visit. Li Tongxuan puts it most plainly. He judges the Chapter on the Ten Concentrations and the Chapter on Detachment from the World to be alike the gate of substance and function, running through from beginning to end, and so both chapters open by looking back to the scenes of the first and second assemblies; that is “not a coming again to gather in assembly,” and the reader must not take it in the worldly way and picture the Buddha coming and going. He offers besides a comparison easy to remember: hang a hundred thousand jewelled mirrors in the air and set a single buddha-image on the ground, and in all the hundred thousand mirrors it appears all at once, the images in mirror after mirror entering into one another while in truth there is no coming or going at all.

Coming down to the reading: when you see the four graphs “the palace of Universal Light,” what is to be read out of them is not a point on a map, but this turn: ‘understanding is accomplished; it is time to set out in practice’.

Twenty-One Clauses of the Buddha’s Virtue: Establishing First ‘What Kind of Buddha This Buddha Is’

Next the scripture praises the Buddha in a long string of clauses: his subtle awakening full in every part, the two practices forever cut off, the markless Dharma penetrated, abiding in what the buddhas abide in, gaining the evenness of the buddhas, reaching the place where there is no obstruction and the Dharma that cannot be turned, all he practises unhindered, what he establishes inconceivable, seeing universally the three times.

Ask first: is this long string mere praise, or has it a structure? Chengguan glosses this thus: this passage is the fullness of the world of right and equal awakening, and what is praised in it is the twenty-one surpassing merits of a buddha; the first clause, “his subtle awakening full in every part,” is the general, and the clauses that follow are the particulars; and among the particulars the first four are for his own benefit while the rest are for the benefit of others. He also matches meaning to clause as he goes: the two practices forever cut off says that with regard to what is knowable he is throughout without obstruction; the markless Dharma penetrated says that he is able to enter the suchness, most surpassingly pure, in which being and non-being are not two marks. And he honestly sets down one further note — that by the sequence given in the treatises this scripture lacks the last clause, “to the end of the future,” and that the general and the particulars taken together are what make twenty-one clauses.

Ask first: where do these twenty-one clauses come to rest? In the last four — furnished with the equal liberation of a tathāgata, realizing the equal ground of the buddhas that has neither middle nor edge, to the end of the dharma realm, equal to the realm of space. Chengguan matches them one by one: furnished with the equal liberation of a tathāgata is matched with the merit of displaying differing buddha-lands according to the resolve of beings — “liberation” here, he says, is that very resolve, and as is fitting to the resolve of each thing, a tathāgata’s own resolve can display lands of gold and of silver, and it is so with buddha after buddha, and therefore it is called equal; realizing the equal ground of the buddhas that has neither middle nor edge is matched with the merit that the three buddha-bodies have no limit of place, Vasubandhu saying that the Dharma body of a buddha cannot be limited to so many places, nor can the enjoyment and transformation bodies be said to be so many worlds; to the end of the dharma realm is matched with the merit of constantly appearing to benefit and gladden all beings to the very limit of birth and death; and equal to the realm of space is matched with the merit of inexhaustibility, because a buddha’s real wisdom is inexhaustible as space.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “to the end of the dharma realm” and “equal to the realm of space” as descriptions of extent. The first says that there is no interruption in time — benefit and gladdening to the end of the future; the second says that there is no bottom to the substance of wisdom — the point is not how large a buddha’s body is, but that a buddha’s wisdom cannot be drawn dry.

Coming down to the reading: these four clauses are where the twenty-one close. The seventeen before them say how a buddha knows and how he acts; the last four say that all of this has no edge, no bottom, and no stopping.

Two misreadings must be set aside. The first: “the two practices forever cut off” does not mean that two kinds of cultivation have been broken off. Chengguan glosses this thus: to have knowing and to have not-knowing is the two practices, and now there is nothing that is not known, and therefore it is called forever cut off. The second: what is praised in this passage is not some other buddha, but the very same buddha who is the subject of the questions presently to be put — ‘how does he dwell in Tuṣita, how does he dwell in the womb, how does he subdue Māra’ — the prologue establishes the virtue of the fruit first, so that the practice asked after in the two hundred questions may have somewhere to come home to.

Coming down to the reading: passages praising the Buddha are the easiest of all to slide past, when in truth every clause here is laying down a foundation for what comes later.

The Body Pervading and the Wisdom Penetrating: From “Filling and Pervading” to “None Able to Measure”

The scripture goes on: his body constantly filling and pervading all lands, his wisdom constantly clear and penetrating all dharmas; knowing all practices, exhausting all doubts, none able to measure his body.

Ask first: if the body “fills and pervades,” why is it then said that “none can measure” it? The two clauses look like a contradiction. The answer lies in Chengguan’s clause-by-clause matching of meaning — his body constantly filling and pervading all lands is matched to the merit of manifesting the enjoyment body and the emanation body in all worlds, and speaks of two bodies pervading two kinds of land; his wisdom constantly clear and penetrating all dharmas is matched to the merit of cutting off doubt, and speaks of his being well able to decide concerning every object himself and therefore able to decide the doubts of others; none able to measure his body is matched to the merit of manifesting according to their resolve, and speaks of his manifesting a golden-hued body and the rest according to the various resolutions of beings, and yet, while manifesting this body, being without discrimination.

And so the contradiction unties itself: filling and pervading speaks of there being nowhere that what is manifested does not reach, while none able to measure speaks of the one who is able to manifest being beyond reckoning. The former speaks from what beings see; the latter from that whereby the Buddha is able to manifest at all.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “filling and pervading” as a filling up of volume. The scripture goes straight on to say “the wisdom that all bodhisattvas alike seek, reaching the further shore of the Buddha’s ultimate non-duality,” from which it is plain that what pervades is wisdom and not bulk.

Coming down to the reading: whenever you read of the marks of a buddha’s virtue, first make plain which clause speaks from what is manifested and which from what is able to manifest, and every clause will settle into its own place.

Who the Assembly Are: Those Who after One More Birth Will Attain Unsurpassed Awakening, Each Come from Another Quarter

The scripture says that those together with the Buddha were bodhisattva-mahāsattvas as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-lands, all of them persons who after one more birth would attain unsurpassed perfect awakening, and that each from the various lands of other quarters had come together and gathered.

Ask first: why is it pointed out expressly that they are “after one more birth” and “each from other quarters”? Chengguan glosses this thus: this section belongs to the fullness of the world of beings, and it raises the number first and praises the virtue, which is to say that the many are furnished with virtue. Only after the number is raised are the names set out, which is to say that the surpassing ones are furnished with virtue — universality established first, and then the standard.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not suppose that this is boasting of a crowd. What this chapter is to ask, later on, runs from the earliest practice all the way to becoming a buddha and displaying parinirvāṇa; the hearers fit to bear such asking must be persons whose practice is on the point of fulfilment. Were they an assembly of beginners, two hundred questions asked in one breath would be more than the hearers could take. The scripture fixes the standing of its hearers with “after one more birth” precisely so that the questions and answers of that single breath may have something to lodge in.

Coming down to the reading: when reading any scripture, look first at who the hearers are, and you will often know at once to what pitch this scripture is speaking.

Nineteen Clauses of Skillful Means and Wisdom: From Well Contemplating to Not Destroying Deeds and Their Fruits

In a long passage the scripture sets out the virtues of the bodhisattvas: well contemplating all beings and by skillful means causing them to be tamed, well contemplating all worlds and going universally to them all, well contemplating the state of nirvāṇa and cultivating wondrous practice without interruption, well taking in all beings, well entering the measureless dharmas of skillful means and knowing that beings are empty and have nothing whatever while yet not destroying deeds and their fruits, well knowing the various distinctions of the minds and the proclivities and the faculties and the objects of beings, upholding entire the Dharma of the buddhas of the three times, gaining understanding themselves and expounding it for others, well abiding in the measureless dharmas of the world and beyond the world and knowing their reality, well contemplating all dharmas conditioned and unconditioned and knowing that there is no duality.

Ask first: is there a sequence in these clauses? Chengguan glosses this thus: among the particulars, the nineteen clauses none of them fall outside skillful means and wisdom; the first ten clauses praise the virtue of their own portion, and the nine clauses from “in a single thought” onward praise the virtue of advancing beyond; the first eight clauses all have wisdom and have skillful means, function raised upon substance, and among them the first five begin with the words “well able.”

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “knowing that beings are empty and have nothing whatever” and “not destroying deeds and their fruits” as contradicting one another. This very clause is the first form of what makes “detachment from the world” possible in this chapter at all — because he knows emptiness he can be detached, and because he does not destroy deeds and their fruits he can practise within the world. When Chengguan explains the sense of detachment from the world he says that detachment has two gates, detachment in nature and detachment in fact: detachment in nature is that the nature of the world being empty is itself what transcends the world, and detachment in fact is that practice is accomplished and undefiled. In this one clause both gates are present together.

As for those nine clauses of the virtue of advancing beyond, Chengguan puts it very briefly — the first clause is the general, setting out in general the swift accomplishing of the wisdom of the fruit; the rest are all the operation of that wisdom of the fruit; and after them stands a separate summing up. Read in that order the passage lies open. “In a single thought they are all able to obtain the wisdom possessed by the buddhas of the three times” is the general: in one thought the wisdom of the buddhas of the three times is gained all at once, and this is the wisdom of the fruit already accomplished. The eight clauses that follow are that wisdom of the fruit raising its operation. “In thought after thought they are all able to display the accomplishing of right and equal awakening, causing all beings to give rise to the mind and to attain the path” is its operation upon the mark of becoming a buddha — one accomplishes it in the sight of others, and those who see it give rise to the mind. “Upon the object that a single being’s mind takes as its condition they know entire the states of all beings” is its operation upon the discerning of capacity — from the one object that one person’s mind conditions, they see through to the states of all beings. “Though they have entered the ground of the Tathāgata’s all-knowing wisdom, they do not abandon the various works that are done in the practice of a bodhisattva” is its operation upon not falling back from the practice that is the cause — realizing the fruit and yet not discarding the cause. “Using wisdom and skillful means while in truth doing nothing that is made” is its operation upon effortlessness — acting without seeing that there is acting. “For the sake of each and every being they abide in the world for measureless kalpas” is its operation upon time — not for beings in the mass, but for each one. “And in asaṃkhyeya kalpas they are hard to encounter” is its operation upon rarity — they abide long and yet do not appear cheaply, and so whoever meets them knows what he has met. “In turning the wheel of the right Dharma and taming beings, nothing is spent in vain” is its operation upon effect — those taught must gain something, and no turning is ever wasted. And the last, “the pure practices and vows of the buddhas of the three times they are already furnished with entire,” is still the operation of the wisdom of the fruit, gathering the operation of the eight clauses back into practice and vow; what follows it, “having accomplished such measureless merits, all the tathāgatas could not tell them to the end in boundless kalpas,” is what Chengguan calls the summing up.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “advancing beyond” as some further road higher than one’s own portion. One’s own portion is what one has already accomplished in practice; advancing beyond is that accomplished virtue pressing on toward the ground of the fruit — the latter half of one road, not a change of roads.

Coming down to the reading: those who practise are forever swaying between ‘everything is empty’ and ‘cause and effect are not void’, and the answer this clause gives is not a compromise but a simultaneity.

The Ten Foremost Named with “Universal”: The Name Is the Virtue

The scripture sets out their names: Samantabhadra (Universally Worthy), Universal Eye, Universal Transformation, Universal Wisdom, Universal Seeing, Universal Light, Universal Beholding, Universal Illumining, Universal Banner, Universal Awakening. Of the ten foremost there is not one whose name does not begin with the graph “universal” — Samantabhadra being, in the Chinese, “Universally Worthy.”

Ask first: is this a coincidence? Chengguan glosses this thus: of these ten clauses the first is the general and the rest are the particulars, and he matches virtue to name one by one — the first is the fulfilment of the vow that accords with principle, because the universal eye is complete; the second is being foremost in gathering in the Dharma, because of universal transformation; the third is upholding the right Dharma, because there is universal wisdom. Having finished the matching he says: the general clause is Samantabhadra, and the remaining nine have in order been matched and explained above. Which is to say that these ten names are in truth ten faces of the single virtue of Samantabhadra.

The nine clauses Chengguan matches are not only the first three; to the remaining six he likewise gives names — the fourth is not cutting off the buddha-seed, because he universally sees that beings have the nature; the fifth is knowing the manner in which the buddhas transform the world, because his light penetrates universally; the sixth is displaying the accomplishing of buddhahood, because he contemplates and sees where there is none; the seventh is purifying defiled capacities, because he illumines their source; the eighth is crushing the obstacles of others, because he has the banner of wisdom; the ninth is realizing the dharma realm, because he awakens to the nature of dharmas. Set these nine names back against the clauses of praise in the scripture and they answer one to one. “Wherever any buddha arises in the world, they are all able to go there and request the turning of the Dharma wheel” is the virtue of being foremost in gathering in the Dharma — where a buddha arises they must go, and the Dharma they must request, and so it is said that they gather in the Dharma for the sake of universal transformation. “They do not cut off the seed of any of the buddhas” is the virtue of not cutting off the buddha-seed — they universally see that beings have the nature, and so in their hands the buddha-seed is not cut off. “They well know the sequence of the predictions of all the buddhas arising in the world, their names, their lands, their accomplishing of right and equal awakening, and their turning of the Dharma wheel” is the virtue of knowing the manner of transformation — the whole sequence by which a buddha transforms the world is illumined for them, and so it is said that their light penetrates universally. “In worlds without a buddha they display a body and accomplish buddhahood” is the virtue of displaying the accomplishing of buddhahood — there was no buddha there, and seeing that there was none they display a body to supply it. “They are able to cause all defiled beings to be made wholly pure” is the virtue of purifying defiled capacities — the defilement is not washed away; its source is illumined, and it clears of itself. “They are able to extinguish all the karmic obstacles of bodhisattvas” is the virtue of crushing the obstacles of others — what is crushed is another’s obstacle, not one’s own. “They enter the unobstructed pure dharma realm” is the virtue of realizing the dharma realm — they awaken to the nature of dharmas, and this clause is where the nine come home.

A misreading to be set aside: do not suppose that these nine clauses are nine persons each holding one item. The scripture says expressly “all of them had accomplished,” which is the ten holding them in common; and Chengguan too says that the general clause is Samantabhadra and the remaining nine have in order been matched above — the nine clauses are nine faces of one person’s virtue, not a division of labor among nine.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read the setting out of names as a roll-call. Straight after the names the scripture praises their virtue — “all of them had accomplished the practices and vows of Samantabhadra, and their deep minds and great vows were already fulfilled” — from which it is plain that name and virtue are one matter.

Coming down to the reading: in this chapter Universal Wisdom asks and Samantabhadra answers. The one who asks is named Universal Wisdom and the one who answers is named Samantabhadra; Chengguan glosses this thus: Universal Wisdom asks because his is the wisdom that answers to the Dharma realm and is able to set practice going — the asking and the answering are in truth the two ends of one and the same course of practice.

The Samādhi of the Adornment of the Buddha-Flower: Why the Host of the Assembly Enters Concentration First

The scripture uses a single clause: the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Samantabhadra entered a vast samādhi, named the Adornment of the Buddha-Flower.

Ask first: why is the samādhi called by this name? Chengguan glosses this thus: Samantabhadra enters concentration because he is the host of the assembly and is to expound the practice of Samantabhadra; and the sense of the adornment of the buddha-flower is that the myriad practices spread open and adorn the Dharma-body. He says further that this samādhi has for its substance the mind-ocean of the gate of practice of the Dharma realm, because it is able to sustain without limit; and for its function the expounding of the Dharma so as to accomplish practice, and the prompting, because it is upon this concentration that such capability rests.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read entering concentration as the one who enters concentration having laid his work aside for a while. Chengguan adds elsewhere a most important sentence — to gather in understanding and make it into practice, one must still enter concentration. Concentration is not an interruption of practice; it is where practice draws its source.

Coming down to the reading: anyone who reads diligence as an unbroken doing should turn back at this clause. For a flower to open there must first be a root; before the myriad practices spread open, there is first the mind-ocean.

Quaking in Six Kinds and Eighteen Aspects: For Whose Sake Are the Auspicious Signs Shown

The scripture says: when he entered this samādhi, all the worlds there are in the ten directions quaked in six kinds and in eighteen aspects, and sent forth a great sound that there was no place where it was not heard.

Ask first: the quaking of the ground and the sending forth of sound — what is each for? Chengguan glosses this thus: the quaking of the ground is set out first in order to rouse and alert the various capacities, and the sending forth of sound is shown after in order to make the assembly hear the Dharma — the one wakes people up, the other carries the Dharma to them.

Here lies a joint peculiar to this chapter. Chengguan says that in all the assemblies before this one there was “empowering but no prompting,” that is, there was the Buddha’s empowering but not this passage of quaking that prompts; in this assembly it is the reverse, there being “prompting but no portion of empowering.” Why? He fastens the reason down with the utmost clarity: what went before displayed that understanding may be had from another, and so there was empowering from another; here it displays that practice must be established by oneself, and so the prompting comes by one’s own strength. And he adds one further sense — practice arises in dependence upon understanding and is no separate dharma, and therefore there is no need of empowering again.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not suppose that because there is no ‘empowering by the Buddha’ this assembly stands lower than those before it. Quite the contrary: the absence of empowering is precisely where the guiding purport of this chapter lies.

Coming down to the reading: another can teach you to understand, and no one can walk in your place. This passage of quaking is that sentence in the form of scripture.

Rising from the Samādhi: That One Step between Concentration and Speaking

The scripture passes over it in a single clause: and after that he rose up out of that samādhi. Chengguan says here only “the three senses are as before,” and outlines it as a portion standing on its own — the portion of the rising.

Ask first: why should coming out of concentration be set apart as a portion of its own? Because the five portions — prologue, samādhi, prompting, rising, request — are one complete line: first the place and the assembly (prologue), next the concentration (samādhi), next the auspicious signs that the concentration prompts (prompting), next the coming out of concentration (rising), and only then the asking (request). Lacking this one step of coming out of concentration, the asking would have no one to ask. Entering concentration is drawing the source; coming out of concentration is joining that source to speech. Everything asked and answered after this passage stands upon this one rising.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read the coming out of concentration as the samādhi being over. What the scripture says is a “rising” from the samādhi, not an exhausting of it. What Chengguan later calls the answer of ‘two thousand practices’ is precisely the continuance of this same samādhi.

Coming down to the reading: between stillness and speech there is one step, and the scripture has marked that step out for us.

Universal Wisdom Asks Alone: Why Not Many Askers

The scripture says: the bodhisattva Universal Wisdom, knowing that the assembly had already gathered, asked the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, saying.

Ask first: in the earlier assemblies the askers are often more than one; why is there only a single one here? Chengguan glosses this thus: Universal Wisdom puts the question because his is the wisdom that answers to the Dharma realm and is able to prompt practice; and “that one person asks is because practice is accomplished alone, and it is not as it is with understanding” — understanding requires many conditions to draw one another forth, and therefore many ask; practice is a matter each accomplishes for himself, and therefore one asks.

There is a still more obvious turning-about: in all the assemblies before, the asking came first and the concentration after, while in this assembly the concentration comes first and the asking after. Chengguan brings out two senses. The first is that the manner of expounding has no fixed form: what went before displayed the weight of the Dharma, a stirring first and a response after; here it displays the depth of compassion, observing the capacities and wishing to speak — the assembly having already gathered, he therefore enters concentration first, so that people may know who the host of the exposition is. The second is that what is displayed differs: before, it was entering the real by way of the marks so as to accomplish right understanding; here, it is raising function upon substance so as to accomplish right practice.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “one person asks” as meaning that others need not ask. That practice is accomplished alone says that the accomplishing of practice rests with oneself; it does not say that the Dharma is given to one person only.

Coming down to the reading: before asking about the Dharma, look first at whether what you want is understanding or practice — if understanding, there is no harm in asking much; if practice, in the end you must ask yourself.

The Outline of the Two Hundred Questions: A Way of Reading Carried On from the Ancient Worthies

From “What is the support of a bodhisattva-mahāsattva?” to “Why does the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One, display his entry into parinirvāṇa?” Universal Wisdom asks straight through in a single breath, with not one answer between. How is this passage to be read?

Here the attribution must be made plain first. The scripture itself gives these two hundred lines no name of a stage whatever. Chengguan glosses this thus: within the setting out of the questions proper there are two hundred lines, and the separately circulating Dushi jing makes of them six rounds of question and answer, each round being first the asking, next the answering, and last the quaking of the ground and the showing of auspicious signs; and the ancient worthies of old all took the text of that version and by it outlined this scripture, dividing it into six segments — first twenty lines, next twenty, next thirty, next twenty-nine, next fifty, next fifty-one — matching them in order to the practice of the ten faiths, the practice of the ten abodes, the practice of the ten practices, the practice of the ten dedications, the practice of the ten grounds, and the practice in which the cause is fulfilled and the fruit complete. Chengguan explains while carrying on this old outline; he does not set up a new judgement of his own. So in what follows, when the six segments are spoken of, remember throughout: this is the ancient worthies’ outline drawn from the Dushi jing, and Chengguan carried it on.

The count of lines in the fourth segment has one small joint besides: counted graph by graph it is thirty lines, and Chengguan says that among them the one line “unobstructed operation” is an empty clause of general heading, so that in fact there are twenty-nine. Checking the scripture graph by graph, the whole passage has two hundred and one question marks; subtract this one empty heading and it is exactly two hundred — the ancient worthies’ outline and the scripture’s own count fitting together without a seam.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read the six segments as chapters the scripture divided for itself. Nor, on that account, suppose that the outline might as well be dispensed with — it has a version of the text for its ground, and that ground is the six rounds of the Dushi jing.

Coming down to the reading: hold these six segments in mind while reading the two hundred questions, and the asking is no longer a field of question marks but a single line running from the earliest beginning to the becoming of a buddha.

Segment One · Twenty Lines: The Asking Begins from “Support”

The first segment of twenty lines begins from “What is the support of a bodhisattva-mahāsattva?” and passes through the extraordinary thought, practice, the good friend, diligent exertion, the mind’s gaining of peace and ease, the maturing of beings, moral discipline, and knowing for oneself that one has received the prediction, asking all the way to entering into the bodhisattva, entering into the Tathāgata, entering into the mind and conduct of beings, entering into worlds, entering into kalpas, speaking of the three times, entering into the three times, giving rise to a mind that never wearies, the wisdom of distinctions, dhāraṇī, and expounding the Buddha.

Ask first: why is the very first word “support”? Practice must have something to lean upon before it can stand, and this is the first thing in the order of sequence. Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges these twenty lines to ask after the practice of the ten faiths; and he explains particularly why the ten faiths are taken and equal awakening not opened out — in the passages before, the intent lay in the stages, and the telling was by taking the stages; here the intent is upon practice, and so the practice of the ten faiths stands exactly at the beginning of practice. He cites besides a saying of Xianshou in evidence: that a bodhisattva’s setting his mind upon seeking awakening is not without cause and without condition, and that this is precisely what the giving rise to the mind leans upon.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not suppose that what is asked here is the stage called “faith.” Chengguan says it very plainly: this scripture speaks of the six stages three times over, and this is the round that speaks in terms of practice, taking the practice within the stages and not taking the stages.

Coming down to the reading: the twenty matters asked after in the first segment are every one of them things a beginner can measure himself against — what you lean on, whom you keep close to, whether you hold the precepts, whether your mind is at ease.

Segment Two · Twenty Lines: The Asking Begins from “Giving Rise to the Mind of Samantabhadra”

The second segment begins from “What is giving rise to the mind of Samantabhadra?” and asks after the dharmas of the practice of Samantabhadra, the cause from which great compassion arises, the causes and conditions of giving rise to the mind of awakening, giving rise to a mind of reverence toward the good friend, purity, the pāramitās, wisdom’s following and awakening, realizing and knowing, power, evenness, the clause of the real meaning of the Buddha’s Dharma, expounding the Dharma, holding, eloquence, mastery, the nature of non-attachment, the mind of evenness, bringing forth wisdom, and transformation.

Ask first: the first segment has already asked about the good friend; why does this segment ask again about “giving rise to a mind of reverence toward the good friend”? The former asks what a good friend is; the latter asks what mind one raises toward him — the one asks after the object, the other after the attitude. Repetitions of this kind are not few among the two hundred questions; they look like repetition, and in fact the level of the asking has shifted by one layer.

Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges these twenty lines to ask after the practice of the ten abodes. Here there is a further exchange between two houses. The Yanyi chao labels them expressly: the one who raises the difficulty and then offers a rescue is Huiyuan in the Kanding ji; the one who answers and breaks it is “the present commentary,” that is, Chengguan himself. The Kanding ji first asks why the opening segment takes faith and why the six-segment outline opens no stage of equal awakening; Chengguan answers that “there is a deep intent in this,” stating in general that what is asked after is practice throughout, and so faith comes first. The Kanding ji then puts forward its rescue: since the first segment already had reliance and the mind of awakening, is that not the abode of giving rise to the mind? — wishing to make the first segment ask after the ten abodes. Chengguan breaks it: this objection is even less to the point — the “giving rise to the mind of Samantabhadra” that opens the second segment, is that not even more like the abode of giving rise to the mind? And at the beginning of the ten faiths, is there then no giving rise to the mind at all? The text it cites does not get the sense of the text. The judgments of the two houses are recorded without adjudication; and it is plain from the exchange that to identify a stage by some one word is a way of reading that does not get to the bottom of the intent.

Coming down to the reading: when you meet a question that recurs, do not skip it; ask first, ‘which layer is being asked about this time’.

Segment Three · Thirty Lines: The Asking Begins from “Upholding by Power”

The third segment of thirty lines begins from “What is upholding by power?” and asks after gaining great gladness and comfort, entering deeply into the Buddha’s Dharma, reliance, giving rise to a fearless mind, giving rise to a mind without doubt, the inconceivable, skillful secret speech, the wisdom of skillful discrimination, entering samādhi, entering everywhere, the gate of liberation, the spiritual penetrations, clear knowing, liberation, the gardens and groves, the palaces, what is delighted in, adornment, giving rise to an unmoving mind, not abandoning the deep and great mind, contemplation, expounding the Dharma, purity, the seal, the shining of the light of wisdom, the abiding without equal, the mind without anything base, and the surpassing mind that is like a mountain, on to entering the ocean-like wisdom of unsurpassed awakening.

Ask first: words like gardens and palaces mixed in among liberation and the spiritual penetrations — is this wandering from the subject? It is not. What the scripture asks after is a bodhisattva’s gardens and a bodhisattva’s palaces — the realms he ranges in and the places he dwells in are themselves a part of practice from the first. That this segment has the most miscellaneous headings is precisely because what it asks after is practice in its breadth.

Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges these thirty lines to ask after the practice of the ten practices. In his general explanation of the two thousand practices he says something that may be borrowed for reading this segment: a single practice must pervade all and yet be never confused; because it is not confused, the sense of particularity is distinct and divided, and because it must pervade, the sense of universality gathers all in — like the figures in brocade, where many colors make the figure, ever universal and ever particular, thread interpenetrating thread.

Coming down to the reading: the gates of practice look like one item after another with nothing to do with each other, when in truth a thread runs through them all.

Segment Four · Twenty-Nine Lines: The Asking Begins from “The Abiding That Is Like a Jewel”

The fourth segment begins from “What is the abiding that is like a jewel?” and asks after giving rise to the mind of the great vow of the Great Vehicle that is like a vajra, the great giving rise, the ultimate great matter, unbreakable faith, receiving the prediction, the dedication of roots of goodness, gaining wisdom, giving rise to a boundless and vast mind, the hidden treasury, the code of discipline, and mastery; then comes the one general heading, unobstructed operation, and below it ten lines of unobstructed operation upon beings, upon lands, upon dharmas, upon bodies, upon vows, upon objects, upon wisdom, upon the spiritual penetrations, upon spiritual power, and upon power; and then it asks after play, the objects, power, fearlessness, the exclusive dharmas, karma, and the body.

Ask first: why is “unobstructed operation” set out expressly and then ten lines opened below it? This is exactly what Chengguan calls the empty clause of general heading — a general name is established first, and the ten lines below each speak of its unobstructedness with regard to one matter. Counted graph by graph it is thirty; in real sense it is twenty-nine.

Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges this segment to ask after the practice of the ten dedications. What deserves notice is that the line “the dedication of roots of goodness” falls within this very segment, while what the segment asks after by no means stops at dedication — which reminds the reader too that the ancient worthies’ outline matches by the momentum of a whole segment, and does not require every single line to answer to the name of a stage.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read “unobstructed operation” as a display of spiritual powers. Of the ten unobstructed operations the scripture sets out, beings, lands, dharmas, bodies, vows, objects, and wisdom are all included, from which it is plain that what is called unobstructed is a penetration pervading every place, and not one particular extraordinary faculty.

Coming down to the reading: when you come to a string of terms, look first for the clause of general heading, and the string will not fall apart.

Segment Five · Fifty Lines: The Asking Begins from “Bodily Karma”

The fifth segment of fifty lines begins from “What is bodily karma?” and asks after the body, speech, cultivating the karma of speech in purity, gaining protection, and bringing the great matter to accomplishment; then the mind, giving rise to the mind, the all-pervading mind, the faculties, the deep mind, the surpassing deep mind, diligent cultivation, settled resolve and the entering of worlds and of the realm of beings by settled resolve; then it asks after the habit-energies, grasping, cultivating, accomplishing the Buddha’s Dharma, the path of falling away from the Buddha’s Dharma, the path of leaving birth, the settled Dharma, the path of bringing forth the Buddha’s Dharma, and the designation of a great man; next a run of questions upon the path — the path, the measureless path, what aids the path, cultivating the path, adorning the path; and it closes at last with the feet, the hands, the belly, the treasury, the heart, the armor that is put on, the weapons that are held, the head, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, the intent, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, the place where he abides, and the place where he walks.

Ask first: the feet, the hands, the belly, the treasury — these parts of the body, is it the flesh that is being asked about? It is not. What the scripture asks after is a bodhisattva’s feet and a bodhisattva’s hands, which, like the armor and the weapons before them, all set forth the Dharma by way of the parts of a body — this is a manner of speaking used throughout the scripture, and the answers later on will give the sense set forth by each in turn.

Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges these fifty lines to ask after the practice of the ten grounds. The whole segment begins from the three kinds of karma of body, speech, and mind, passes through the mind and the faculties in the middle, and ends with walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, the sequence going from the coarse into the fine and from within out to without.

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not suppose, because this segment also asks after “the path of falling away from the Buddha’s Dharma,” that it is teaching about backsliding. Asking about falling away is precisely in order to know advancing; the scripture goes straight on to ask after the path of leaving birth and the path of bringing forth the Buddha’s Dharma.

Coming down to the reading: to ask about accomplishing and about falling away within one segment is to have a person recognize both ends clearly.

Segment Six · Fifty-One Lines: The Asking Runs from “Contemplating” to the Becoming of a Buddha

The sixth segment of fifty-one lines begins from “What is contemplating?” and asks after contemplating universally, the surge of vigor, and the lion’s roar; then the ten lines of pure giving, keeping of the precepts, patience, exertion, concentration, and wisdom, with loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity; then it asks after the meaning, the Dharma, the equipment that aids the path in merit, the equipment that aids the path in wisdom, the fullness of clear knowing, seeking the Dharma, understanding the Dharma clearly, and practising the Dharma; and next Māra, the work of Māra, forsaking the work of Māra, seeing the Buddha, the work of the Buddha, the work of conceit, and the work of wisdom, together with being taken in and held by Māra, by the Buddha, and by the Dharma.

Ask first: why are Māra and the Buddha set side by side in the asking? Because by this segment what is asked after is already the choosing that lies near the place of fulfilment. The words “taken in and held” are asked three times over — held by Māra, held by the Buddha, held by the Dharma — and what is asked is precisely ‘who is holding you at this moment’.

Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges these fifty-one lines to ask after the practice in which the cause is fulfilled and the fruit complete; and he says besides that among them only the last four lines belong to the stage of wondrous awakening, while the rest all belong to equal awakening. He explains too why equal awakening is gathered into the fulfilment of the cause — that here the intent is to speak of practice, and so the stage of equal awakening is not opened out separately.

Coming down to the reading: this segment is the sharpest of all the two hundred questions, because what it asks after is where one may still go astray upon that last stretch of the road.

The End of Segment Six: The Eight Aspects of Attaining the Path, and Why the Asking Is “Why”

At the end of the sixth segment the tone of the asking suddenly changes. Nearly all of the two hundred lines before are “what is,” and here they turn into “why” and “how” — after the work done while dwelling in the Tuṣita heaven: why does he display the ending of his life in the palace of the Tuṣita heaven, why does he display dwelling in the womb, what is displaying the subtle courses, why does he display his first being born, why does he display his smiling, why does he display his walking seven steps, why does he display the stage of a young boy, why does he display dwelling within the inner palace, why does he display leaving the household life, why does he display austerities, how does he go to the place of awakening, how does he sit at the place of awakening, what are the extraordinary marks when he sits at the place of awakening, why does he display the subduing of Māra, what is accomplishing the powers of the Tathāgata, how does he turn the wheel of the Dharma, why is it that by turning the wheel of the Dharma he gains the white and pure dharmas, why does the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Awakened One, display his entry into parinirvāṇa.

Ask first: why does the manner of asking change? Because the matter asked about has changed. What was asked before is what a bodhisattva cultivates for himself; what is asked here is why, having already become a buddha, he must yet display each of these things. Displaying is not something that cannot be helped, and therefore one must ask “why.”

The misreading to be set aside is this: do not read this string as a life of the Buddha. What the scripture asks after is the reason of each aspect — even the smiling and the walking of seven steps are within the asking, from which it is plain that the weight lies not in the events but in the intent. Chengguan, carrying on the ancient worthies’ outline, judges the last four lines of this segment to belong to the stage of wondrous awakening, which is to say from “accomplishing the powers of the Tathāgata” onward.

Among this run of “why” there is lodged one “what is displaying the subtle courses,” the manner of asking turning back suddenly to “what is,” and it is easily read past. Ask first: why is this question inserted between dwelling in the womb and being first born? Because what is to be said next, after the dwelling in the womb, is precisely what is displayed within the womb. Later in this chapter the scripture answers the question itself: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of exceedingly subtle courses — within the mother’s womb he displays the first arousing of the mind of awakening and so on up to the ground of consecration; within the mother’s womb he displays dwelling in the Tuṣita heaven, displays his first being born, displays the stage of a young boy, displays dwelling in the royal palace, displays leaving the household life, displays austerities and going to the place of awakening and accomplishing right and equal awakening, displays turning the Dharma wheel, displays parinirvāṇa; and the last is that within the mother’s womb he displays the great subtlety, that is, the measureless gates of distinction of all the practices of bodhisattvas and of all the sovereign spiritual power of the tathāgatas.

The misreading to be set aside is this: “subtle” does not mean small. It is called subtle because the whole set of the eight aspects is gathered into the one place of the womb and displayed there — the place is at its smallest and what is displayed at its widest, and it cannot be measured by coarse marks. Coming down to the reading: the order of the questions speaks for itself — the subtle courses come directly after dwelling in the womb, and that is to tell you that the “dwelling in the womb” is no blank of ten months; the eight aspects have already been played out once within it.

Coming down to the reading: in reading the eight aspects of a buddha, if you read them only as a story you stop at being moved; ask once “why,” and you get as far as reading for whose sake they were displayed.

The Closing Request: It Is Good, Son of the Buddha! Dharmas of This Sort and the Like — We Pray You Will Expound Them

The two hundred questions asked through to the end, Universal Wisdom adds one sentence: “It is good, son of the Buddha! Dharmas of this sort and the like — we pray you will expound them!” Chengguan outlines the portion of request into three — first the general heading of the intent of the asking, next the setting out of the questions proper, last the closing request that they be expounded; and this sentence is that third.

Ask first: the asking is all done, so why add this sentence? The head of the questions proper already carries a general request, 「願為演說」 tr. “may you expound it,” and this sentence gathers that request up again — the two hundred lines before are “asking,” and this sentence is the “closing request.” Asking sets out what is doubted; requesting entrusts the answering to another. Lacking this sentence, the two hundred questions would hang there with nowhere to come home to; having it, asking and requesting meet head to tail, and they become the occasion of an expounding of the Dharma.

Further, this sentence and the separately circulating version throw light upon each other. In the Dushipin jing the words of request stand before the questions proper, and they say expressly that the practices of the bodhisattvas are to be expounded from beginning to end — and it is this very sentence that Chengguan cites in evidence: “We pray only that you will expound the practices of the bodhisattvas, from beginning to end, so that there may be no doubt.” He says that although that scripture does not match them to the names of the ten faiths and the rest, yet since it says from beginning to end, and since at the last it further makes clear the becoming of a buddha, one knows that what is asked after is assuredly the practice of the six stages.

Coming down to the reading: every asking must come down at last upon a “we pray you will expound.” Ask without requesting, and the Dharma will not come.

Lineage

After this passage Samantabhadra addresses Universal Wisdom and the other bodhisattvas and begins to answer. The manner of answering is one question, ten answers — Chengguan glosses this thus: in answering the two hundred questions before, one question is answered with ten, so as to display inexhaustibility, accomplishing the two thousand surpassing practices of Samantabhadra; and he cites a saying of Duke Ying to picture its momentum: two hundred questions rise up like clouds, two thousand replies pour down like a vase. It is on this account that the separately circulating version has the further title Sūtra of Samantabhadra Answering Two Thousand Difficult Questions. The two hundred questions set up in this passage are the whole table of headings for the remaining six units of this chapter.

How the two thousand practices are gathered up Chengguan sets down in four layers: gathering stages by stages, the six stages each gathering in all stages, so that one stage has the two thousand entire and makes twelve thousand practices; gathering gates by gates, the two hundred gates each gathering in all gates and so making forty thousand practices; gathering practices by practices, one practice having all practices entire, so that there are two thousand times two thousand; and gathering the broad by the brief, that is, gathering the breadth of the ten directions by the brevity of a single mote of dust. These four layers are the number given in Chengguan’s explanation of the text, recorded without adjudication.

In explaining the name of the chapter the several houses differ. Chengguan sets up three senses — in terms of dharma, in terms of practice, in terms of stage; and in terms of practice he opens four clauses further, following, detaching, both, and the vanishing of both, saying that only when these four clauses are fused so that all is unobstructed is it truly detachment from the world. Fazang sets up four senses — that the world is deluded clinging and detachment is its emptiness; that detachment is the absence of intrinsic nature in dependent arising; that in terms of practice one is constantly within the world and yet not gathered in by the world; that in terms of stage, humans and gods, the two vehicles, the bodhisattva, and the fruit of buddhahood are detachment each as measured against the last. Li Tongxuan opens two senses out of the very word “detachment”: regarded from the master of the expounding, who expounds the teaching and benefits beings, the chapter may be named one of benefiting the world; regarded from the beings who hear the Dharma and dwell in the world undefiled, it is named detachment from the world — this, he says, “explains it throughout by the two senses of the master of the expounding and of those who gain the benefit.” The number of senses the three houses set up and the places to which they fasten them are wholly unlike one another, each following the version he comments upon and the standard he sets up, and they are recorded without adjudication.

Whether the assembly is a returning or not, the three houses likewise differ. Chengguan fastens it upon the assembly at its end returning to the beginning, and passes it through with the two similes of the lights of lamps entering one another and a lamp-wick giving light again; Fazang fastens it upon the former being the dharma that gives rise to understanding, which may be lodged in many places, while now practice is accomplished in dependence upon that former dharma and so the assemblies are not many; Li Tongxuan says outright that it is not a coming again to gather in assembly. They are recorded side by side without adjudication.

As for the narrative prose and the words of request in this passage, they are not found cited graph by graph in the treatises of the Huayan house (works of the kind of the Fajie xuanjing); this is set down as vacant according to the fact, and nothing from elsewhere is used to fill it out. Among the commentaries, however, they are: Chengguan’s Commentary matches the sense clause by clause, as goes without saying, and Li Tongxuan’s Xin Huayan jing lun also cites the scripture by its opening and closing graphs and makes a long outline of ten segments, of which the present section is the first five — the portion of the prologue, the portion praising the fullness of the aspiration and virtue of the great assembly of bodhisattvas, the portion setting out the names and praising the virtue, the portion of entering and rising from the concentration, and the portion of the two hundred questions.