華嚴經 品三十九 入法界品 · 解脫長者（寄具足方便住）Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Entering the Dharma Realm · The Elder Liberation (Assigned to the Abode of Fully Endowed Skillful Means)

A Stretch of Road That Took Twelve Years to Walk: Sudhana Carries the Teaching of the Previous Good Friend with Him

After Sudhana left Megha, the sūtra text does not let him meet the next good friend at once; it first gives a very long stretch of narrative. He “ponders the bodhisattvas' gate of adornment by the light of the dhāraṇī of unobstructed analytic understanding,” and then enters deeply into the gate of the ocean of speech, holds in mind the gate of minutely fine skillful means, observes the gate of the pure mind, accomplishes the gate of the light of roots of goodness, purifies the gate of transforming beings, makes bright and keen the gate of the wisdom that gathers beings in, makes firm the gate of vast aspiration and delight, holds and maintains the gate of surpassing aspiration and delight, purifies the gate of the various kinds of faith and understanding, and ponders the gate of the measureless good mind—eleven sentences in all.

Chengguan outlines this stretch as the first half of ‘seeking in accord with the teaching,’ and judges that “the first eleven sentences are the pondering and cultivating of the former Dharma; the first is the general and the rest are the particulars.” That is to say, the first sentence is the general, and the ten below it are the particulars. What is called ‘pondering and cultivating the former Dharma’ is to take the Dharma conferred by the previous good friend, hold it in hand, and ponder it and cultivate it the whole way along—not to have done with it as soon as it is heard.

Going through the ten particular gates one by one, one finds that the sūtra text fits a verb to each gate, and that the verbs are chosen: there are ten occurrences of the verb across the ten gates but only nine forms—‘purifying and governing’ occurs twice, and each of the other eight gates uses a form of its own. The second gate uses “entering deeply into,” and what is entered deeply is the ocean of speech—a good friend's teaching is handed on by speech, so the first thing is to go into the depth of speech, not to stop at having heard. The third gate uses “holding in mind,” and what is held in mind is the minutely fine skillful means of knowing all beings—skillful means are the finest thing and the easiest to forget the moment they pass the eye, so “holding in mind” is fitted to them. The fourth gate uses “observing,” and what is observed is the gate of the pure mind—the mind is there to be looked at, not to be thought about. The fifth gate uses “accomplishing,” and what is accomplished is the light of the roots of goodness. The sixth gate uses “purifying and governing,” and what is governed is the gate of transforming beings—the very thought with which one speaks Dharma for another is the likeliest to have oneself mixed into it, so it must be governed. The seventh gate uses “making bright and keen,” and what is made keen is the wisdom that gathers beings in—if wisdom is dull it cannot hold people. The eighth gate makes “firm” the vast aspiration and delight, and the ninth “holds and maintains” the surpassing aspiration and delight: aspiration and delight are of two kinds, vast and surpassing; the vast is in danger of falling back, so firmness is fitted to it, and the surpassing is in danger of being lost, so holding and maintaining is fitted to it. The tenth gate uses “purifying and governing” a second time, and what is governed is the various kinds of faith and understanding. The eleventh gate comes back to “pondering,” and what is pondered is the measureless good mind—the same word as the first gate, one opening and one closing.

Set aside a misunderstanding: these ten gates are easily taken for a heap of ten names. What the sūtra text writes is in fact ten different ways of applying oneself—entering deeply, holding in mind, observing, accomplishing, purifying and governing, making bright and keen, making firm, holding and maintaining, purifying and governing, pondering. Brought down to the ground: upon one and the same stretch of Dharma a different hand must be laid upon different parts of it; to ask oneself which verb one is using upon a given gate is usually more use than asking whether one remembers its name.

A misunderstanding has to be set aside first. In reading the fifty-three visits, one easily puts all one's attention upon ‘whom he met and what dharma gate he obtained,’ and takes the road between two good friends for an interlude. The sūtra text refuses to be written that way. It writes what he does on the road at greater length than the meeting. Brought down to the ground: the place where a stretch of teaching truly takes effect is not in the moment of hearing it, but in that stretch of road before the next person is met.

The Long Passage After the Eleven Sentences: What Sort of Person Comes of Such Cultivation

When the eleven sentences of ‘gates’ are done, the sūtra text shifts its key, and from “his vows were firm and his mind knew no weariness” it runs on and on—adorning himself with every sort of armor, the deep mind of his vigor unable to be turned back, complete in unbreakable faith, his mind firm as the vajra and as Nārāyaṇa, keeping and maintaining the instructions of all good friends, pure in the universal gate, full in the light of wisdom, complete in the light of the holding-entire of the grounds, knowing the various differences of the Dharma realm, with nothing to rely on and nowhere to abide, equal and without duality … on to “he accomplished the great vow that his body should pervade all the nets of Buddha-fields, and that all the Dharma realm should universally enter into his body.”

Chengguan judges this to be “from ‘his vows were firm’ onward, the displaying of the benefit of the cultivation”—this long stretch is not the raising of another matter; it is the fruit of cultivating the eleven sentences above.

This long stretch may be looked at in several further sections. The four sentences at its head speak of vow and faith: his vows were firm, his mind knew no weariness, he adorned himself with every sort of armor, the deep mind of his vigor was unable to be turned back, and it closes with “complete in unbreakable faith”—armor is a figure, and what it says is that he is not pierced through by objective realms; being unable to be turned back and being unbreakable in faith are two ways of saying one thing, the one in terms of practice and the other in terms of faith. Then the firmness of his mind is concluded by the two figures of the vajra and Nārāyaṇa, and it turns to “keeping and maintaining the instructions of all good friends, and obtaining among all objective realms an unbreakable wisdom”—this sentence brings the faith above down onto actual matters: what is kept is the instruction of good friends, and what is obtained is a wisdom unbreakable amid objective realms.

The next section speaks of what he practices and what he illumines: pure in the universal gate, unobstructed in what he practices, full in the light of wisdom, universally illumining all; and then “complete in the light of the holding-entire of the grounds, knowing the various differences of the Dharma realm, with nothing to rely on and nowhere to abide, equal and without duality.” Difference and equality are told within this one sentence, and it is the ground of what comes later, where the fields appear within the body and yet are “not jumbled together.”

Six sentences in this section must not be skipped either, for the sūtra text runs on in one breath from the sentences cited above. The first three are “pure in self-nature and universally adorned, reaching the ultimate in all that he practices, pure in wisdom and apart from all clinging”: purity of self-nature stands first and universal adornment after—it is not that one adorns first and then seeks purity, but that, being originally pure, whatever is adorned is adornment through and through; reaching the ultimate in all that he practices is said of the end of practice, not of the amount of it; and wisdom being pure, what is left behind is clinging, from which it may be seen that ‘purity’ here does not mean breadth of knowing and seeing but not sticking. The latter three are “pure and wondrous dharmas fill his mind, the samādhi of universal wisdom brightly illumines his mind, his mind ever universally enters the realm of equality,” and all three are fastened upon the ‘mind’: dharmas fill that mind, concentration illumines that mind, and that mind enters the realm of equality—what fills, what illumines, and what is entered stand in plain order: first the dharmas are in the mind, next concentration illumines this mind, and only at the end does this mind ever enter equality. Taking the six together, the first three are said of self-nature, of what is practiced, and of wisdom, and the latter three of what the mind receives, what illumines it, and what it enters. Only when these six are complete is there anything to receive the five sentences of the differences of the ten directions below: it is because he can enter equality that he is not thrown into confusion amid difference.

The third section is the five sentences of the ten directions: he knew the differing dharmas of the ten directions, went to the differing places of the ten directions, was clear about the differing deeds of the ten directions, saw appear the differing Buddhas of the ten directions, and entered deeply the differing times of the ten directions—dharmas, places, deeds, Buddhas, times, counted out one by one as five. Each sentence is set up upon the word ‘differing,’ and what differs is not the same in each: the first is the dharmas known, the second the places gone to, the third the deeds understood, the fourth the Buddhas seen, the fifth the times entered.

The last section is the sustaining by the Buddhas' power: touched by the illumining of the Tathāgatas' wisdom, the stream of all-knowledge continuing unbroken, in body and in mind not apart from the Buddha-dharma, sustained by the spiritual power of all the Buddhas, illumined by the light of all the Tathāgatas; and only then “he accomplished the great vow that his body should pervade all the nets of Buddha-fields, and that all the Dharma realm should universally enter into his body.”

Look at the direction of these four sections: from his own vow and faith, to practice and wisdom, to the differences of the ten directions, to the sustaining by the Buddhas' power, and only at the end does it dare to say that the Dharma realm universally enters his body. Brought down to the ground: a sentence that looks like the largest is propped up rung by rung by a string of smaller sentences before it; pull out any one rung, and the large sentence becomes an empty one.

What is worth noticing is the direction this stretch takes. It begins with words very near to a person, such as “his mind knew no weariness,” walks on to “he knew the differing dharmas of the ten directions,” “he went to the differing places of the ten directions,” “among the differing Buddhas of the ten directions there was not one he did not see appear,” and comes down at last upon “all the Dharma realm should universally enter into his body.” How can one person's body have the Dharma realm universally enter into it? Here this sentence looks like exaggeration, but in fact it is a post set in advance—what the Elder Liberation manifests below is precisely the containing of all Buddha-fields within a body. The sūtra text says it once upon Sudhana's body before it plays it out once upon the good friend's body. Brought down to the ground: when you come to a sentence of description that looks lavish, do not skip it first; look and see whether it is setting a pillar for the text to come.

Twelve Years and the City of Abiding Grove: What the Ancient Worthies Read Out of These Two Names

What comes next is only one sentence: “Little by little he journeyed on, and after twelve years he came to the city of Abiding Grove, and searched everywhere for the Elder Liberation.”

The number twelve years is one the ancient worthies did not let pass. Chengguan raises three readings—“as for the twelve years, of old it was said that in one's own portion and in the advance one cultivates the six perfections in each, and further that it displays the universal observing of the twelve abodes; and further that it signifies not abiding in the twelve links, and so it says journeying on.” The first sense is the old statement: one's own portion and the advance, two layers, six perfections cultivated in each, twelve together. The next sense is the universal observing of the twelve abodes. The third sense weighs most: it signifies not abiding in the twelve links of dependent origination, and so it is called ‘journeying on’—walking and not abiding, and this is what joins up with the name of the good friend below. Chengguan himself draws this line to the end: if one does not abide in the links then one obtains liberation, and so the text below says ‘he got sight of him.’

Fazang takes only the ancient men's one sense of the six perfections. Li Tongxuan speaks solely in terms of the twelve links, and sets it against the twelve years of the second good friend, the monk Ocean Cloud—Ocean Cloud dwelt in the land of Sea Gate twelve years, observing the twelve links and coming forth from the world; the twelve years of the Elder Liberation here Li Tongxuan judges to be practicing within the world amid the dharmas of the twelve links of birth. One and the same number: one signifies coming forth, and one signifies dwelling amid the common world.

As for the name ‘the city of Abiding Grove,’ Fazang gives three readings: the establishing of the virtue of practice is called a grove, and being settled, firm, and unmoving is called abiding; and further, this elder perched in a place of great groves and long roads, and the name was taken from that; and further, this elder abides within samādhi, and within his body the realm of the Buddhas, both dependent and proper, both cause and fruit, appears widely, as many as a grove. Li Tongxuan says directly that the city is named Abiding Grove because all minds and objective realms are of themselves the grove of the unobstructed liberation and dhyāna of the Dharma realm.

Set aside a misunderstanding: these glosses upon names are not word-games. They are a way the ancient worthies read the sūtra—first asking why this name appears here, rather than treating it as no more than a point upon a map. Brought down to the ground: when you come to a proper name, it is worth asking one question, ‘set upon this good friend, does this name fit?’

The First Thing Done at the Meeting: Casting the Five Parts of the Body to the Ground

“Having seen him, he cast the five parts of his body to the ground, rose and stood, joined his palms, and spoke”—Chengguan outlines this as the first of ‘seeing, paying respect, and inquiring,’ that is, ‘seeing and paying respect.’

In these fourteen graphs there are four actions: casting to the ground, rising and standing, joining the palms, and speaking. Li Tongxuan reads a further layer here: that having seen him he cast the five parts of his body to the ground is the true and the common having nothing to rely on, the five stages meeting together; that joining the palms is the true and the common meeting and being not two. This is his constant track of reading what things signify, plainly attributed to him, and not to be mixed with what the sūtra text says of itself.

What has to be brought out is the sequence: body first, mouth after. Sudhana does not open his mouth and ask about the Dharma the moment he meets him; he first puts his body on the ground. Brought down to the ground: the posture of seeking the Dharma is not to set out one's questions first, but to set oneself low first.

Ten Words for ‘Hard’: Why Praising a Good Friend Takes So Many Words of Negation

As soon as Sudhana opens his mouth, he does not ask about the Dharma; he speaks first of what is hard—“such a one as a good friend is hard to get sight of, hard to get hearing of, hard to appear in the world, hard to obtain the chance to serve, hard to obtain nearness to, hard to obtain the receiving of, hard to meet with, hard to obtain dwelling together with, hard to gladden, hard to obtain the following after without parting.” Ten words for ‘hard’ run on one after another, and it closes with “that today I am able to meet with him—this is to have obtained a good gain.”

Chengguan gives only one gloss upon this, and yet it is very telling: “that he congratulates himself is because he has hoped for many years.”—the reason he congratulates himself is that he has looked forward to this for many years. Just above it says he walked twelve years, and so the ten hard things here take on weight: they are not the modest words of rhetoric, but words that only one who has walked that road could say.

Set aside a misunderstanding: a reader easily takes these ten sentences for a courteous eulogy. The sūtra text is in fact doing something else—it is setting a price upon the good friend. The higher it is set, the more the Dharma requested below can be borne. Brought down to the ground: to hold the Dharma precious grows out of holding the one who confers it precious; in this stretch Sudhana first sets straight the price in his own mind.

The Marks of Giving Rise to the Mind (One): In Order to Exhaust the Realm of the Buddhas

Next Sudhana states his own giving rise to the mind. Chengguan judges this stretch to be “first the general, and after that, from ‘for the sake of’ onward, the separate setting out of the marks of giving rise to the mind,” and the separate setting out is again threefold, the first being the wish to exhaust the realm of the Buddhas above.

The sūtra text begins from “for the sake of serving all the Buddhas,” serving the Buddhas, meeting the Buddhas, seeing the Buddhas, observing the Buddhas, knowing the Buddhas, and then turns deeper—“for the sake of realizing the equality of all the Buddhas,” and then turns to vows, the light of wisdom, the many practices, spiritual powers, the powers, and fearlessness.

The separate setting out of the marks of giving rise to the mind counts out as thirty-one sentences, and the three parts Chengguan divides are thirteen, five, and thirteen: the first part, exhausting the realm of the Buddhas above, thirteen sentences; the second, exhausting the source of the Dharma, five; the third, being equal to the practice of the bodhisattvas, thirteen. The shortest of the three is the second, with only five. Thirteen at either end and only five in the middle—the shape itself has something to say: the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas are told at length while the Dharma is told briefly, because the business of the Dharma lies in the five words hearing, receiving, holding, understanding, guarding, and more words are no help.

The thirteen sentences of the first part, item by item, run: serving the Buddhas, meeting the Buddhas, seeing the Buddhas, observing the Buddhas, knowing the Buddhas—these five are the coming into contact with the Buddhas; realizing the equality of all the Buddhas is the one sentence that turns the hinge; below it, giving rise to the great vows of all the Buddhas and fulfilling the great vows of all the Buddhas are two sentences, the giving rise and the fulfilling told apart—the giving rise is the beginning and the fulfilling is the reaching of the end, and the sūtra text will not run them into one sentence; and below these, being complete in the light of wisdom, accomplishing the many practices, obtaining spiritual powers, being complete in the powers, and obtaining fearlessness are five sentences, the virtues the Buddhas possess. Five, one, two, five, making thirteen.

Brought down to the ground: when reading a string of parallel sentences, first count how many there are, and then see where it takes breath. The place where it takes breath is the joint of the doctrine.

Look at its sequence: first the contact outside (serving, meeting, seeing), then the knowing within (observing, knowing), then equality with the Buddhas, and only at last the virtues the Buddhas possess. This string is not laid out at random; it is one road, from drawing near to realizing and entering. Brought down to the ground: if the giving rise to the mind stops at ‘I want to see the Buddha,’ it is still in the first stretch; the sūtra text pushes it all the way to ‘realizing the equality of all the Buddhas.’

The Marks of Giving Rise to the Mind (Two): In Order to Exhaust the Source of the Dharma

The second stretch begins from “for the sake of hearing all the Buddha-dharma.” Chengguan outlines this as “the wish to exhaust the source of the Dharma.” Hearing, receiving, holding, understanding, guarding—five verbs run on one after another, and they are a complete attitude toward the Dharma: to hear it in, to take it up, to keep it, to penetrate it, to guard it.

Then it turns into the Saṅgha—“for the sake of being of one substance with all the assemblies of bodhisattvas,” “for the sake of being equal to and no different from the roots of goodness of all bodhisattvas,” and on to the pāramitās, the practices cultivated, and the pure vows. Chengguan judges here, “third, from ‘for the sake of being with all’ onward is the wish to be equal to the practice of the bodhisattvas, which is likewise the objective realm of the jewel of the Saṅgha.”

Set aside a misunderstanding: the notion that the purpose of hearing the Dharma is to know a great deal. Of the five verbs in the sūtra text, only one is “understanding”; the other four are all actions—hearing, receiving, holding, guarding. Brought down to the ground: to examine one's own relation to a stretch of Dharma, one may go through these five words one by one and see upon which one it breaks off.

The Marks of Giving Rise to the Mind (Three): Five of Practice and Eight of Treasury—Five Sentences on the Practice of the Bodhisattvas, Eight That Are ‘Treasuries’

The third stretch begins from “for the sake of being of one substance with all the assemblies of bodhisattvas,” and its thirteen sentences fall into two cuts: the first five speak in terms of the practice of the bodhisattvas—being of one substance with the assemblies of bodhisattvas, being equal to and no different from the roots of goodness of the bodhisattvas, fulfilling the pāramitās, accomplishing the practices cultivated, bringing forth the pure vows; and only the latter eight are a whole string of ‘treasuries’: the treasury of majestic spiritual power, the great light of the inexhaustible wisdom of the treasury of the Dharma, the vast treasury of samādhis, the treasury of spiritual powers, the treasury of great compassion, the treasury of spiritual transformations, the treasury of sovereignty, the pure treasury.

‘Treasury’ has the sense of containing what has not yet been wholly brought out. What this string seeks is not one ready-made virtue after another, but the storehouse that can bring virtues forth. The last sentence deserves particular notice—“for the sake of entering into the pure treasury and adorning it with all marks.” Chengguan's Yanyi chao points out that this sentence and the question below are of one breath: what is said above, ‘for the sake of entering into the pure treasury and adorning it with all marks,’ is precisely for the sake of asking ‘how may one enter into the pure treasury.’ Every sentence in the marks of giving rise to the mind has in fact a question buried in it.

Two of the eight treasuries are not mere names: the sūtra text gives each a qualifying clause, and these must be read out separately. The first is the treasury of great compassion, where the text runs “for the sake of teaching, transforming, and taming all beings by the treasury of great compassion, causing them all to reach the ultimate, to the very limit.” This sentence does not say ‘obtaining’ the treasury of great compassion but ‘by means of’ it—here the treasury is what is used, not what is gathered in; and used for what? For teaching, transforming, and taming all beings. To what point? “Causing them all to reach the ultimate, to the very limit.” The vows of the preceding seven sentences mostly stop at what is gained in one's own portion; this one alone turns toward beings, and sets the limit at the very limit—it is the one sentence among the eight treasuries that writes the ultimate of others into what is vowed. The second is the treasury of sovereignty, where the text runs “for the sake of gaining sovereignty by one's own mind in all the treasuries of sovereignty.” It does not say that sovereignty is gained within the treasury; it says it is gained “by one's own mind”—what sovereignty rests upon is the mind, not the treasury. This sentence lies on one line with the close of this stretch, that the Buddhas seen are all by one's own mind: the Dharma realm the Elder shows lies in the mind, and the vow Sudhana gives rise to likewise takes the mind as the place where sovereignty is gained. The last, the pure treasury, with its “adorning with all marks,” was spoken of above. Taking the three together, the last three of the eight treasuries each have their own landing place—one lands upon beings, one upon one's own mind, one upon adornment.

Look at this order: first there is set out being of one substance with the bodhisattvas and no different in roots of goodness, and only then are the pāramitās and the practices cultivated spoken of, and only at the end is the storehouse that can bring all things forth sought. That is to say, the ‘treasury’ is listed after being of one substance and equal in roots of goodness; it is the latter half of one and the same string of vows, not a separately begun object of seeking. Brought down to the ground: being of one substance and equal in roots of goodness stands first and the seeking of the treasury comes after; this is the order of the vows, not a threshold of qualification.

Brought down to the ground: if the vow one gives rise to can be said, then the Dharma one asks after can be asked precisely; when no question comes out, it is most often that the vow has not yet been said clearly.

It Is with Such a Mind That I Have Come: Concluding What Precedes and Giving Rise to What Follows

“Holy one! Today it is with such a mind, such an intent, such a delight, such a desire, such a hope and seeking, such a pondering, such a reverence, such a skillful means, such an ultimate, and such a humbling of myself that I have come here to the holy one.”

Chengguan outlines this as the first of the three divisions of the inquiry—“first, concluding what precedes and giving rise to what follows: that is, it concludes the marks of the giving rise to the mind above and thereby becomes the opening of the inquiry, and so it says, with such a mind … he came to where the holy one was.” The ten “such” point back, one by one, to the mind given rise to above. This is a joint: it gathers that whole long stretch of giving rise to the mind into one sentence, ‘these are what I have come carrying.’

Notice the last word: the humbling of myself. The first nine all speak of the loftiness and reach of the mind, and the last turns back to what is low. Brought down to the ground: to give an account of oneself before asking about the Dharma is not to report one's own merits, but to let the other know to what sort of mind he is to speak—and the last sentence of that account is humility.

Praising His Skill in Drawing On and Instructing: The Sūtra Text Lists More Than Twenty Things a Good Friend Does

From “I have heard that the holy one is well able to draw on and instruct the assemblies of bodhisattvas” onward, Chengguan outlines it as ‘praising his skill in drawing on and instructing.’ The sūtra text first says four things: making clear what he has obtained, showing them the road, giving them a ford and a bridge, and conferring upon them a dharma gate; and then a long string of “making”—making them take away the obstruction of confusion and inversion, drawing out the arrow of hesitancy, cutting through the net of doubt, lighting up the dense forest of the mind, washing the filth and turbidity of the mind, making the mind clean and white, making the mind cool, making a fawning and crooked mind straight, cutting off the mind's birth-and-death, stopping the mind's unwholesomeness, loosening the mind's clinging.

The likenesses in this string are very concentrated: obstruction, arrow, net, dense forest, filth and turbidity. Doubt is a net, hesitancy is an arrow, the afflictions are a thick forest—all of them things that bind and are hard to get out of. And the verbs used are taking away, drawing out, cutting through, lighting up, washing.

Below this it turns again: “to make the mind liberated in the very place of clinging, and to make the mind turn about in the very place of defiled love”—these two sentences show the hand and eye most. It is not that the place of clinging is moved aside, but that in the very place of clinging the mind is made liberated; not that one leaves defiled love, but that in the very place of defiled love the mind is made to turn about. It closes with “universally, toward all, that their minds should be equal.”

After these two sentences the sūtra text has ten further matters before it comes down upon “universally, toward all, that their minds should be equal.” Counted out item by item they are ten: making them swiftly enter the realm of all-knowledge, making them quickly arrive at the unsurpassed city of Dharma, making them abide in great compassion, making them abide in great loving-kindness, making them enter the practice of the bodhisattvas, making them cultivate the gates of samādhi, making them enter the station of realization, making them observe the nature of dharmas, making them increase their power, making them cultivate practice.

These ten may be cut into three. The first two both carry the sense of the word ‘quickly’—swiftly entering the realm of knowledge, quickly arriving at the city of Dharma—and what they tell of is the good friend's power to spare a person the road. The middle four are the ground of the mind and the gates of practice: abiding in great compassion, abiding in great loving-kindness, entering the practice of the bodhisattvas, cultivating the gates of samādhi. Notice that the sūtra text puts compassion before loving-kindness, the reverse of the usual order in which the two are said together: first the being moved to draw out suffering, and after that the giving of ease. The last four are realization and contemplation: entering the station of realization, observing the nature of dharmas, increasing power, cultivating practice—the last is not the highest of them, and yet it is the most solid, and the whole string comes back at this point onto the three words of cultivating practice.

The closing sentence, “universally, toward all, that their minds should be equal,” is not within the ten; it is the general gathering up. Every one of the things made to happen above has an object and a leaning, and this sentence levels the leaning. Brought down to the ground: what a good friend gives is not only ten rungs going up, but also that last sentence which lays the ladder flat.

Brought down to the ground: the use of a good friend is not to carry objective realms away for a person, but to loosen the mind upon the objective realms that are already there.

Requesting the Telling of What He Doubts: The Sentence That Asks It Through to the End

“I only pray that the holy one will expound for me: how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva? And in accord with what he cultivates, how may he swiftly obtain purity and swiftly obtain clear understanding?”

This is the form of question shared by all the fifty-three visits, and here there is a latter half besides—not only asking how to cultivate, but asking how to cultivate so as swiftly to obtain purity and swiftly to obtain clear understanding.

Fazang sets up here a general rule worth keeping in mind: he says that all the passages first state one's own giving rise to the mind of awakening and afterward request the Dharma; from this it may be verified that to receive the great Dharma one must first give rise to this mind, and that without giving rise to this mind one is not a vessel for this Dharma. And he adds one more sentence—this is the great rut of the Buddha-dharma, and it ought to be pondered and remembered.

Set aside a misunderstanding: the notion that asking about the Dharma is throwing out one's questions. The sequence of the sūtra text is the giving rise to the mind first and the question after, and the question is only the last sentence of the giving rise to the mind. Brought down to the ground: when no good question comes out, to look back and see whether the vow has been given rise to concretely enough is often more use than thinking up more questions.

An Answer Without Opening the Mouth: He First Enters Concentration

The asking done, the sūtra text gives no answer; it gives an action: “At this time, the Elder Liberation, by the power of roots of goodness in the past, by the power of the majestic spiritual power of the Buddha, and by the power of the mindfulness of the youth Mañjuśrī, at once entered a bodhisattva's gate of samādhi, named: the dhāraṇī of the boundless whirling that universally gathers in all the Buddha-fields.”

Chengguan outlines ‘directly showing the Dharma realm’ into two, the first being the silent showing by entering concentration and the latter the answering in words after coming out of concentration, and he explains why the entering of concentration must come first here—he says that the showing by entering concentration here also displays that in the stage to which this one is assigned concentration is predominant.

The three powers also each signify something. Chengguan glosses: first is the making clear of the cause and condition of entering the concentration, past goodness being the cause, which signifies self-cultivation; the latter two are conditions, the majestic power of the host Buddha signifying original awakening, and the power of Mañjuśrī's mindfulness displaying faith and wisdom. Fazang has another reading of Mañjuśrī's power, saying it is the power by which Sudhana and the good friend do not let go of each other.

Nor is the name of the concentration set down at random. Chengguan glosses this name saying that it is the universal gathering in of the fields within the body, and that by a mind-only wisdom that holds entire in accord with the nature it makes substance and function whirl unobstructed, and so it takes this name. Fazang divides it in terms of the objective realm and of wisdom: the gathering in of the fields takes its title from the objective realm, and the whirling and holding takes its name from wisdom.

Brought down to the ground: what most repays turning over in this stretch is the form itself—asked a question about ‘how to cultivate,’ the answer is first to close the mouth and enter concentration. Some dharmas are not first explained clearly and then shown; they are first seen and then spoken of.

The Buddha-Fields of the Ten Directions Appearing Within a Body: What Appears Is Not the Buddhas Only

“Having entered this samādhi, he obtained a pure body. Within his body there appeared Buddhas as many as the dust motes of ten Buddha-fields in each of the ten directions”—and then the sūtra text adds layer upon layer. First the Buddhas, then their lands, assemblies, places of awakening, lights, and adornments; then the spiritual transformations, great vows, dharmas that aid the path, practices of coming forth, and pure adornments those Buddhas had in the past; then the seeing of the Buddhas accomplishing equal right awakening, turning the wondrous wheel of the Dharma, and transforming beings.

Further down is the whole layout from “dwelling in the Tuṣita palace” to “raising stūpas and temples”: dwelling in the Tuṣita palace, passing away from the Tuṣita palace, dwelling in the womb, being born, dwelling within the palace, going forth from the household, going to the place of awakening, breaking the armies of Māra, being surrounded by gods and nāgas, being requested by the lords of the world to tell the Dharma, turning the wheel of the Dharma, entering parinirvāṇa, dividing the relics, raising stūpas and temples. In this stretch the eighty-fascicle text sets out sentence by sentence fourteen matters as they are actually counted; Fazang's Tanxuan ji, upon the sixty-fascicle text, judges this to be ‘manifesting the eight marks of the Buddha, the provisional transformation that gathers beings in,’ which is a number set up by a commentator upon that text, and the eighty-fascicle sūtra text has not the two words for ‘eight marks,’ so a reader should not take the name of the eight marks as a judgment the sūtra text has of itself. Last is the Buddhas telling the Dharma to every sort of being, in every sort of place of awakening, with every sort of dharma gate.

The word ‘various’ in this stretch is not a vague word; everywhere it can be counted. The beings it faces count out item by item as nine kinds: assemblies, worlds, destinies of birth, families, desires and delights, deeds and practices, languages, faculties and natures, afflictions with their latencies and habit energies—laid out from outward to inward, the first four the circle one is in and the stock one comes of, the middle three what one likes, what one does, and what one says, and only the last two the faculties and the delusions, the deepest item set last. The places of awakening it is in count out as five kinds: the minutely fine place of awakening, the vast place of awakening, one of a yojana's extent, one of ten yojanas' extent, and one of the extent of yojanas as many as the dust motes of Buddha-fields beyond all telling—beginning from the smallest and stopping at the largest, the two middle steps being countable extents and the last an extent beyond telling, five steps drawn open in one breath. The teaching it gives counts out as six gates: spiritual powers, words, voices, dharma gates, gates of the holding-entire, gates of eloquence—the first three the instruments that can carry, the latter three the Dharma carried and the power to hold it and to speak it.

Set the three numbers nine, five, and six side by side, and they say exactly what the four graphs above said. “Not jumbled together” does not mean one undifferentiated blur of light; it means that nine kinds of beings are not mixed into one kind, five grades of place of awakening are not run into one grade, six gates of teaching are not kneaded into one gate. The body holds all of this, and each item is still each its own. Brought down to the ground: when a string of ‘various’ comes, there is no need to hurry past it—count how many kinds it actually is. That the sūtra text can be counted at all is precisely what proves those four graphs.

Two sentences have to be brought out. One is “all such things as these appeared wholly within his body without obstruction”; the other is “every sort of form and mark, every sort of sequence, abode as it originally was, without confusion among them.” The former sentence says that it holds them; the latter says that it does not blend them. To hold them and yet not blend them is the marvel of this stretch—it is not that the myriad things are pressed into one mass and stuffed into a body, but that each abides as its own original mark.

Chengguan judges that the name of the dharma gate, ‘the Tathāgatas' unobstructed adornment,’ has five senses: that every Tathāgata is possessed of every unobstructed adornment; that each single Tathāgata pervades the others unobstructed; that all the adornments of all the Tathāgatas enter into the elder's body; that the elder sees through to the ocean of Buddhas of the ten directions; and that the elder's wisdom holds them and does not take them for an obstruction. His Yanyi chao carries the third sense the furthest: since the body is not large and the fields are not small, and there is no coming and going either, they pervade one another unobstructed; the body that contains the fields enters into the fields within the body, and the body within the fields within the body can contain fields again, and the fields so contained can have bodies again, and therefore body upon body is without end and field upon field is without exhaustion.

Fazang sets up only four senses, and has not the fifth, that of the wisdom that holds. Recorded without judgment.

The Benefit Sudhana Obtains Within the Concentration: He Is Not a Bystander

“Of all the words those Tathāgatas spoke, the youth Sudhana was wholly able to hear and receive them; and he saw as well the inconceivable samādhis and spiritual transformations of the Buddhas and of the bodhisattvas.”

Chengguan outlines this as “third, from ‘all the words those Tathāgatas spoke’ onward. Causing Sudhana to hear and see,” while Fazang says that Sudhana entered the Dharma realm manifested above, heard the Dharma told by the Buddhas within that body, and saw the spiritual power of the Buddhas within that body.

This sentence is very short, and yet it is the joint upon which the whole silent showing by entering concentration stands or falls. If it were only that the Elder Liberation himself saw the Buddhas within concentration, it would have nothing to do with Sudhana; the sūtra text says plainly that Sudhana “was wholly able to hear and receive”—he was not standing outside watching a man enter concentration; he went in.

Brought down to the ground: in a true showing of the Dharma the hearer is carried in, not talked at.

The Name Is Given Only After Coming Out of Concentration: First the Seeing, Then the Name

“At this time, the Elder Liberation rose from the samādhi and told the youth Sudhana, saying: ‘Son of good family! I have entered and come out of the Tathāgatas' gate of liberation of unobstructed adornment.’”

Chengguan outlines the stretch after coming out of concentration into four: first, the making clear of the rising from concentration; second, the showing of the name and substance of the concentration; third, the making clear of the working of the concentration; fourth, the displaying of the substance and marks of the concentration. The name stands in the second place—Sudhana is first let to watch the whole of it, and only after coming out of concentration is he told what it is called.

Note that the verb is “entered and come out of,” not “entered.” A concentration that can be entered but not come out of is of no use; the sūtra text gives both words, and the sentence of humbling himself below still reads “obtained entering and coming out,” answering head to tail. The sixty-fascicle text here reads “accomplished,” and in the last stretch “cultivated this,” not using the two words for entering and coming out—recorded without judgment.

Brought down to the ground: the name of a dharma gate is a label for the use of one who has already seen; it is not the key to the door. Read the sequence backward, and one easily takes the name for the Dharma.

One Buddha in Each of the Ten Directions: Ten Sentences, One Sentence Pattern, and Not One Name Repeated

Next comes the most evenly ordered piece of layout in this stretch. The Elder Liberation tells what he sees when he enters and comes out of this gate—

The east, the world Jambū-River Gold Light, the Tathāgata Dragon Sovereign King, with the bodhisattva Vairocana Treasury as foremost; the south, the world Swift Power, the Tathāgata Universal Fragrance, with the bodhisattva Mind King as foremost; the west, the world Fragrant Light, the Tathāgata Sumeru Lamp King, with the bodhisattva Unobstructed Mind as foremost; the north, the world Kāṣāya Banner, the Tathāgata Unbreakable Vajra, with the bodhisattva Vajra Stride Valiant as foremost; the northeast, the world All Supreme and Wondrous Jewels, the Tathāgata Eye of the Realm of Nothing Obtained, with the bodhisattva Good Transformation of Nothing Obtained as foremost; the southeast, the world Fragrant Flame Light and Sound, the Tathāgata Fragrant Lamp, with the bodhisattva Vajra Flame Wisdom as foremost; the southwest, the world Sun of Wisdom Universal Light, the Tathāgata Dharma-Realm Wheel Banner, with the bodhisattva Manifesting All Transformations Banner as foremost; the northwest, the world Universally Pure, the Tathāgata Banner Lofty and Surpassing among All Buddha-Jewels, with the bodhisattva Dharma Banner King as foremost; above, the world Buddhas Appearing in Succession Without End, the Tathāgata Full Banner of Boundless Light of Wisdom, with the bodhisattva Dharma-Realm Gate Banner King as foremost; below, the world Buddha Light, the Tathāgata Unobstructed Wisdom Banner, with the bodhisattva Banner King of All the Fields of the World as foremost.

The sentence pattern is wholly the same in all ten rounds, and yet of the thirty names not one is repeated. Reading down direction by direction, one can also see the answering among the names: the world of the east takes its name from golden light, its Buddha is Dragon Sovereign King, and the foremost bodhisattva is named Vairocana Treasury, sharing the name-form Vairocana with the teaching-lord of this sūtra, which is the weight of the beginning of this string. The Buddha of the south is named Universal Fragrance, while the world of the southeast is named Fragrant Flame Light and Sound and its Buddha Fragrant Lamp—the one sense of fragrance runs across two directions. Sumeru Lamp King in the west and Full Banner of Boundless Light of Wisdom above take their names, the one by a lamp and the other by light, both upon illumining. The world of the north is named Kāṣāya Banner, its Buddha Unbreakable Vajra, and its foremost Vajra Stride Valiant—all three names set up upon firmness and valiant advance. The northeast is marked by raising two names of ‘nothing obtained’ side by side. The world of the southwest is named by the sun of wisdom, while its bodhisattva is named Manifesting All Transformations Banner. The northwest sets up the name of its world by purity, while its Buddha is named Lofty and Surpassing Banner and its bodhisattva Dharma Banner King, the one sense of banner carried on. The Buddha of the direction below is named Unobstructed Wisdom Banner, answering exactly to the two words ‘unobstructed’ in the name of the dharma gate, and it is the gathering up of the ten rounds.

Li Tongxuan judges here that the manifesting of ten Buddha-fields in each of the ten directions makes clear that the substance of the concentration pervades everywhere and is full, and therefore ten is taken as the round number; and he says separately that the ten Tathāgatas seen within the concentration and the foremost bodhisattvas are the Buddha-fruit and the practice of this very stage manifested by the samādhi.

Set aside a misunderstanding: this piece of names is easily taken for layout that may be skipped. Yet it is precisely by the ‘no repeating’ of these ten rounds that the sūtra text plays ‘unobstructed’ out for a person to see—if what appeared within the body were only a blur of light, that would not be called unobstructed; that would be called blended into one. The names are each distinct and not mixed together, and this is the making good of “abode as it originally was, without confusion among them” above.

Not Coming and Not Going: The Pivotal Sentence of the Whole Stretch

“Son of good family! I see Tathāgatas such as these, as many as the dust motes of ten Buddha-fields in each of the ten directions. Those Tathāgatas did not come here, and I did not go there.”

Chengguan judges this sentence to be “concluding what is seen above as being without coming or going in substance,” and says that only after it does the text “display widely the substance and marks of seeing the Buddhas in accord with the mind.” This sentence is the pivot of the whole stretch. So much has been said above of what is seen that, without this sentence set down, a reader would suppose that the Buddhas shifted their seats and came, or that the elder went by the power of spiritual travel. The sūtra text denies both sides in one breath.

This sentence in the sixty-fascicle text reads “those Tathāgatas did not come here, and I did not go there,” word for word the same as the eighty-fascicle text—it is the place in this stretch where the two translations stand closest.

Set aside a misunderstanding: not coming and not going does not say ‘he did not really see them.’ The sūtra text says plainly that he saw, and saw with perfect clarity, down to being able to count off the names of the foremost bodhisattvas. What is denied is not the seeing; it is the mark of coming and going within the seeing. Brought down to the ground: a thing may really have happened, and yet the way it happened need not be the sort of moving you supposed.

If I Wish to See, Then According with My Intent I See: From What Is Seen to That Which Sees

“If I wish to see the Tathāgata Amitābha of the world Peace and Bliss, then according with my intent I see him”—and then the Tathāgata Vajra Light of the world Sandalwood, the Tathāgata Jewel Light of the world Wondrous Fragrance, the Tathāgata Jewel Lotus Flower Light of the world Lotus Flower, the Tathāgata Quiescent Light of the world Wondrous Gold, the Tathāgata Unmoving of the world Wondrous Joy, the Tathāgata Lion of the world Well Abiding, the Tathāgata Moon Awakening of the world Mirror Light, the Tathāgata Vairocana of the world Jewel Lion Adornment, closing with “all such as these I see at once, then and there,” and adding one more sentence, “and yet those Tathāgatas did not come here, and my body did not go there.”

Chengguan judges this stretch to be “displaying widely the substance and marks of seeing the Buddhas in accord with the mind,” and opens four sub-outlines: first, making clear that in being mindful of the Buddhas in accord with the mind the Buddhas are present; second, directly displaying the substance of the contemplation of mind-only mindfulness of the Buddha; third, taking the mind-only contemplation to run through the myriad dharmas; fourth, concluding by exhorting to cultivation and study so as to realize mind-only. And under the first sub-outline he says one sentence that weighs much—since one has understood that the objective realm is mind-only and understood that mind is the Buddha, therefore whatever is held in mind is nothing but the Buddha, and what is hard about seeing him?

The former piece of ten rounds is what appeared within the concentration, presented passively; this piece of nine Buddhas is seeing according with the intent, a matter on the side of that which sees. From what is seen to that which sees—this is the turning axle of the doctrine of this stretch. And the sūtra text repeats the not coming and not going once more here—the repetition is not superfluous; it binds the two pieces to one and the same principle.

Brought down to the ground: to shift one's attention from ‘what I have seen’ to ‘how this seeing came about’ is the way of looking that this stretch teaches.

The Four Similes: Dream · Reflected Image · Illusion · Echo

“I know that all the Buddhas and my own mind are wholly like a dream; I know that all the Buddhas are like a reflected image and that my own mind is like water; I know that all the color and mark the Buddhas have, and my own mind as well, are wholly like an illusion; I know that all the Buddhas and my own mind are wholly like an echo. Knowing thus and holding it in mind thus: the Buddhas that are seen are all by one's own mind.”

What the four similes have in common has to be pointed out first: every one of them raises both the Buddha and the mind, and there is not one that likens the Buddha alone. This is a place easily read past—if the four similes likened the Buddha only, it would fall into ‘the Buddha is false’; the sūtra text likens one's own mind along with him, and only when both sides are empty at once does the mark of coming and going truly fail to stand.

Chengguan judges that “the text has four pairs, and the sense contains the general and the particular,” and says that the general is the displaying of mind-only and the likening of the absence of coming and going, and the particular is that each simile likens mind-only and makes clear besides the absence of going out and coming in, and so on. Upon each simile he gives a gloss: the dream simile is what mind-only makes, being at once existent and empty, and therefore without coming or going; upon the simile of the moon in water he speaks most finely—when the full moon is in the autumn sky it appears according with the water, and if the clear pool is bright and pure then the moon's image is round and clear, and if the water is turbid and the waves surge then the light is dim and the image scatters; where there is water the moon appears, and when did it ever come in, and where there is no water the image is empty, and when did it ever go out; and at the end he turns it into words of cultivation: though one sees the moon in the water, who can hold it fast? The settling and scattering of the mind are to be pondered and chosen upon this simile. The illusion simile he judges to be the unobstructedness of emptiness and existence—being illusory and not real, then mind and Buddha both vanish, and yet the illusory mark is not nothing, and so mind and Buddha are not destroyed; therefore the absence of coming and going does not hinder universal seeing, and the seeing is a seeing that is no seeing and constantly accords with the Middle Way. The echo simile he says is that with the mind as condition the Buddha answers as an echo, and it is only a general likening of the sense of being formed by conditions.

Chengguan also cites here scriptural grounds for mindfulness of the Buddha. He cites the dream simile of the Banzhou sanmei jing, and cites as well a stretch about one who heard the name of a woman of Śrāvastī and then dreamed of her, saying ‘she did not come and I did not go, and yet the delightful matter was vivid,’ which is precisely to liken a substance without coming or going that yet changes according with the mind; and where he concludes upon mind-only, he cites the stretch ‘this mind is the Buddha’ of the Wuliangshou guan jing. These are what Chengguan cites, and they are attributed to him.

Fazang has another track here. His second simile is not the moon in water but lightning—this is because the sixty-fascicle text here originally reads “are wholly like lightning” and “like an image in water.” From lightning he opens out four senses of the great function of the Buddhas, and concludes at the end that when the water of the mind is settled and clear it can manifest that image, and the water does not go and the lightning does not come, and yet there is no image that is not manifested. His illusion simile he attaches to the gate of the mutual reliance of dependent arising, saying that because the illusory mind is unobstructed it can manifest an unobstructed illusory Buddha. Chengguan's Yanyi chao also notices that the general and the particular of the similes differ between the two translations, judging upon the eighty-fascicle text that the reflected image alone is a particular simile and the other three are all general, and judging upon the forty-fascicle text (the new translation) that the dream and the echo have both the general and the particular while the reflected image and the illusion are particular only and not general. These divergent glosses are all settled statements of the ancient worthies; they are recorded without judgment.

Chengguan's Yanyi chao has several further layers beneath the four similes, and they are best read on from here. First, he does not gloss the dream simile once only but gives three ways of matching it: in terms of the one who practices, the nature of mind is as the object, the contemplation as the thinking upon a condition, and the contemplation accomplished as the dream; in terms of the realm of the Buddhas, the Dharma body is as the object, the reward body as the thinking, and the response body as the dream; and in terms of both stimulus and response, that Buddha is as the object, the practitioner as the thinking, and the seeing of the Buddha as what is seen in a dream. All three gloss one and the same sentence of the sūtra—that all Buddhas and one's own mind are alike as a dream; change the matching, and the matter illumined changes a layer, while the simile itself does not move. Second, he opens the water simile into four kinds: clear, turbid, moving, still; and the four cross to make four cases—turbid and moving, having delusion and no faith and many scattered thoughts; turbid and unmoving, having delusion and no faith but no grasping after objects; clear and moving, without delusion and having faith but with much examining thought; clear and still, without delusion and having faith and settled. What the four persons see of the Buddha differs accordingly, and he comes to rest on the fourth: the form is upright and fine, settled and unconfused, and the more it is contemplated the brighter it grows. The words cited above, that the settling and the scattering of the mind are to be weighed by the simile, have their real content in these four cases. Third, he sets up four contemplations upon the four similes: the direct simile of mind-only, emptiness because of mind-only, the provisional because of mind-only, and the middle because of mind-only, taking the fusing of them without obstruction as this sūtra's intent; and as for why the four similes are not collapsed into one, he refers it to their several strengths—the dream simile shows no coming and no going, the reflected image no going out and no coming in, the illusion neither existent nor non-existent, the echo neither joined nor scattered—while the first three liken the seeing of the Buddha's body and the last also likens the hearing of the Dharma, the dream matching the Dharma body, the image the reward body, and the illusion the transformation body. Fourth, after the gathering of objects back into mind he still sweeps one layer more: the mind is that which sees and the Buddha is what is seen, and if subject and object remain, then mind-only too becomes one more pair set against each other; so he raises the question of the knife that does not cut itself and the finger that does not touch itself—how should one's own mind turn and see one's own mind? Only where subject and object are not divided is the mark of seeing cut off. This sweeping is Chengguan's own addition and attaches to him; and once the reader has found a place to come to rest in the sentence that they are all by one's own mind, this layer is the guard that keeps the resting place from becoming a new clinging.

This stretch has another side: the ampler text preserved in Prajñā's forty-fascicle translation of the Avataṃsaka. The forty-fascicle text runs wider than the eighty-fascicle, and reading it one sees how the same stretch of Dharma is opened out in another translation; but the seven matters below are all the text of the forty-fascicle version, and may not be filled back in as what the base text says outright. First, the conditions for entering concentration: the eighty-fascicle text has three (former roots of goodness, the Buddha's majestic power, Mañjuśrī's mindful recollection), and the forty-fascicle adds one more above them—the sustaining power of the original vows of the good friends of the ten directions; Chengguan, upon the base text, judges three conditions and takes former goodness as cause and the other two as conditions, so that the forty-fascicle's fourth condition does not fall within that judgment, being the translation's own amplitude. Second, the body and the Buddha-fields: where the fields appear within the body, the forty-fascicle text says outright that body and Buddha-fields enter into one another without obstructing one another—the eighty-fascicle here only says that all appear within his body without obstruction, abiding as they were and not jumbled together, and does not bring out the words ‘entering into one another’; and the sentence Chengguan's Chao cites when glossing the third sense of the unobstructed agrees with the forty-fascicle, from which it may be seen that the commentators, reading this sense, took the new translation in as well. Third, the order of the ten directions: the first eight are the same in both, while for the last two the eighty-fascicle puts above first and below after, and the forty-fascicle below first and above after; and the forty-fascicle's names carry many added graphs. The difference of order and name does not change what is signified—the ten Buddhas of the ten directions are all manifested by one mind—but it shows that the translations each have their own transmission. Fourth, the two limits of past and future: after the seeing of Buddhas at will, the forty-fascicle opens a separate part that sets up the seeing of Buddhas upon the two limits of past and future, concluding that they do not come into the present and that one's mind does not enter that past and future; the eighty-fascicle has no such part, and what it wards off lies on the side of place alone. Reading the two together, one sees that the one sense of ‘no coming or going’ may be said upon both time and place, the eighty-fascicle saying place and the forty-fascicle saying time as well. Fifth, the matching of the four similes: the eighty-fascicle raises only the similes themselves, while in the forty-fascicle each carries its matching—under the dream, that what is seen arises from discrimination and that the seeing of all Buddhas arises from one's own mind; under the image, the water in a vessel and the image in the water; under the illusion, what is made by illusion; under the echo, the empty valley that gives back an echo according to the sound, and the seeing of Buddhas according with mindfulness. The second simile is matched differently in all three texts: the eighty-fascicle takes the Buddha for the reflected image and one's own mind for the water, the forty-fascicle takes one's own mind for the water in a vessel and dharmas for the image in the water, and the sixty-fascicle reads lightning and an image in water. The particular similes Chengguan raises when glossing the dream and the echo, cited above, are word for word the text of the forty-fascicle. Sixth, the part on mind and consciousness: between the conclusion that all is by one's own mind and the ten dharmas for governing the mind, the forty-fascicle opens a long separate part, setting up the names of mind, manas, mental consciousness, and the five consciousnesses of the eye and the rest, and bringing out the words that when the Buddhas and bodhisattvas realize for themselves they turn the ālaya and obtain the wisdom of original awakening, and that the deluded grasp the various marks of activity of the ālaya; the eighty-fascicle has no text of the divisions of mind and consciousness here. This is a teaching-mark that the translation carries; what it actually has is recorded, without pouring it down upon the eighty-fascicle and without judging it as of definitive or non-definitive meaning. Seventh, the variants of the ten cultivations: both texts have ten sentences, three wholly the same (aiding with good dharmas, firmness through vigor, brightness and keenness of wisdom), the other seven all differing; and in the third the eighty-fascicle alone reads purifying and governing upon objective realms while the forty-fascicle reads governing and purifying by the wondrous Dharma—the one said of the objects faced, the other of the dharma used; while in the tenth the forty-fascicle adds the four fearlessnesses besides the ten powers. Taking the seven together, the amplitude of the forty-fascicle does not lie in setting up another dharma but in saying aloud the joints that the eighty-fascicle leaves terse. Taken as a comparison it profits the reader; taken as the base text it loses the attribution.

The four senses he opens out of lightning are worth looking at one by one. The first is the lighting of water so that a reflection appears, spoken in terms of responding to what is ready: the lightning flashes and there is a reflection upon the water's face; it is not that the lightning meant to light anyone, but that the water was there. The second is the breaking of darkness so that the road is seen, spoken in terms of destroying obstruction: the use of lightning is that in one instant it lights up a dark place, and a person thereby sees the road. The third is that it cannot be grasped and held, spoken in terms of being apart from marks and unobstructed: lightning cannot be caught, and just because it cannot be caught it does not become an obstruction. The fourth is that it perishes at once and does not abide, spoken in terms of not being gathered under the world: lightning does not stay, and so it does not fall within the time divisions of the world.

Taking the four together, the first and second speak of what lightning can do—it can make appear and it can break; the third and fourth speak of lightning's mark—no holding and no abiding. To be able and yet not to abide is just the look of the great working of a Buddha. Fazang concludes with one sentence: if the water of the mind is concentrated and clear it can make that image appear, and yet the water has never gone and the lightning has never come, while there is no image that fails to appear. This runs together with what Chengguan's simile of the moon in water gathers up, and yet the likeness each takes is not the same—the one follows the eighty-fascicle text and has a reflected image, the other follows the sixty-fascicle text and has lightning. Recorded without judgment.

Brought down to the ground: the four similes are not four figures of speech; they are four ways of taking ‘coming and going’ apart—the dream takes apart place, the reflected image takes apart going out and coming in, the illusion takes apart real existence, the echo takes apart self and other. Whichever one meets the clinging one has at present is the one to use.

By One's Own Mind: From the One Contemplation of Mindfulness of the Buddha Out to the Myriad Practices and the Myriad Fruits

“Son of good family! You should know that a bodhisattva's cultivating of the dharmas of the Buddhas, purifying of the fields of the Buddhas, gathering up of wondrous practices, taming of beings, giving rise to great vows, entering into the inconceivable gate of liberation of sovereign sporting in all-knowledge, obtaining of the Buddha's awakening, manifesting of great spiritual powers, going everywhere throughout all the Dharma realm of the ten directions, and universal entering into all the kalpas with a minutely fine wisdom—all such things as these are wholly by one's own mind.”

Chengguan judges this to be “taking the mind-only contemplation to run through the myriad dharmas,” and says it with perfect plainness: it is not only the one contemplation of mindfulness of the Buddha that is by one's own mind; the myriad practices of a bodhisattva and the substance and function of the Buddha-fruit are likewise not apart from mind.

This is the third layer of the doctrine of this stretch. The first layer is that the Buddhas seen are by mind; the second layer is that the mind that sees is likewise empty; the third layer is that the whole content of cultivation is wholly gathered under this same ‘by one's own mind.’ What is gathered counts out item by item as ten: one, cultivating the dharmas of the Buddhas; two, purifying the Buddha-fields; three, gathering up wondrous practices; four, taming beings; five, giving rise to great vows; six, entering the gate of the inconceivable liberation of sovereign play in all-knowledge; seven, obtaining the awakening of a Buddha; eight, manifesting great spiritual powers; nine, going everywhere throughout all the Dharma realm of the ten directions; ten, entering universally into all the kalpas with a minutely fine wisdom.

These ten have their order too. The first five are matters of the stage of cause: cultivating the Dharma is the studying, purifying the fields is the place relied upon, gathering up practices is what is accumulated, taming beings is whom one faces, giving rise to vows is the mind one holds. The sixth, entering the gate of liberation, is the pass through which one goes from cause into fruit. The latter four are the working of the stage of fruit: obtaining awakening is what is realized, manifesting spiritual powers is what is used, going everywhere throughout the Dharma realm is the place reached, and entering universally into all the kalpas with a minutely fine wisdom is the time entered—one item of space and one of time, gathered up at the end.

Set aside a misunderstanding: reading to this point one easily reads ‘by one's own mind’ as ‘only a matter of thinking it over in the mind.’ Of the ten matters the sūtra text lists, not one is a thinking over; every one is to be done. Brought down to the ground: mind-only does not do away with practice; it explains why practice can be carried through.

The Ten Sentences on Governing One's Own Mind: This Stretch Is Set There Precisely to Ward Off One Misunderstanding

“Therefore, son of good family, one should aid one's own mind with good dharmas, one should moisten one's own mind with the water of the Dharma, one should purify and govern one's own mind upon objective realms, one should make one's own mind firm with vigor, one should make one's own mind level and open with patience, one should make one's own mind clean and white with the realization of wisdom, one should make one's own mind bright and keen with wisdom, one should open out one's own mind with the sovereignty of the Buddhas, one should make one's own mind vast with the equality of the Buddhas, one should illumine and examine one's own mind with the ten powers of the Buddhas.”

Of the ten sentences nine run ‘one should, with such and such, do such and such to one's own mind,’ while the third reads ‘one should cleanse and govern one's own mind upon objective realms’; and the implement used in each differs: good dharmas, the water of the Dharma, objective realms, vigor, patience, the realization of wisdom, wisdom, the sovereignty of the Buddhas, the equality of the Buddhas, the ten powers of the Buddhas. The first four are practice, the middle three are wisdom, and the last three are the virtues of the ground of the fruit—from the shallow into the deep.

Chengguan judges plainly that “the text has ten sentences,” and glosses them one by one, with something to say upon each of the ten. Of the first sentence he says it is as with a sick man, who cannot rise without a staff, so that when the sickness of the afflictions is heavy one borrows good dharmas to support one—he sets up the lowest figure first, to say why there is still cultivating to be done. Of the second he says that if there were no water of the Dharma the sprout of the Dharma would not grow: roots of goodness are a sprout, and a sprout must be watered. Of the third he says that when one forgets the mind upon an objective realm the six dusts do not defile—what is to be governed is not the realm but the very thought one has when facing it. Of the fourth he says that when the old goodness is unadulterated and new goodness is taken up and cultivated, this may be called firm: the old is not falsified, and the new is added on. Of the fifth he says that when the adverse and the agreeable do not intrude, one is level and wide open—only when neither favorable nor unfavorable circumstances come to disturb is the ground of the mind broad. Of the sixth he says that in the inward realization of still illumining one is bright and without flaw. Of the seventh he says that touching an objective realm one understands it as it is, and there is nothing not discerned: whatever one meets is clear then and there. Of the eighth he says that the six sovereign kings are the same in nature as the Buddha, and that opening the dust and bringing out their function makes knowing and seeing distinct. Of the ninth he says that being of the same suchness as the Buddha, one's substance pervades the Dharma realm. Of the tenth he says that with the ten powers by which beings are tamed one examines and finds what has been let slip—one uses the ten powers to check what one has missed. And at the end he concludes with one sentence: to cultivate the mind in this way is to make full the Buddha-dharma spoken of before.

Look at the order in which these ten are fitted: the first two say why one must cultivate and with what one cultivates; the middle five say how one cultivates upon objective realms (facing the realm, old and new, adverse and agreeable, still illumining, touching the realm); the last three say how far the cultivating goes (the six faculties sovereign, being of one substance with the Buddha, checking oneself by the ten powers). Fazang likewise judges ten sentences here, but the names of his sentences each differ, running: one, lengthening the mind by goodness; two, moistening the mind by the Dharma; three, tempering the mind upon objective realms, and so on.

And what this stretch is truly for, Chengguan lays bare most directly: he judges it to be the concluding exhortation to cultivation and study, saying that since the myriad dharmas are not apart from one's own mind, one cultivates one's own mind alone and the myriad practices are complete; and at the same time that it is to drive off the false understanding of the foolish. What is falsely understood he writes out likewise—some reckon and say that all dharmas are mind, and that letting them go as they are is the Buddha, so that to drive oneself about among the myriad dharmas is surely labor wasted. Chengguan answers it decisively: therefore today he makes it clear at length that the mind, though it is the Buddha, has long been filmed over by the dust of toil, and so one takes the myriad practices to cultivate it further and make it bright and clear; and he says as well that to say the myriad practices are by mind is not to say that not cultivating is right; and further, that since the myriad dharmas are the mind, what does cultivating obstruct in the mind?

Fazang judges this same sense, but says it in terms of cultivation and realization: the realm of the Buddhas pervades all things to begin with, and it is only because the mind's filth is set against it that it is not seen; if one governs one's own mind, causing it to leave obstruction behind and obtain concentration, the realm of the Buddhas appears then and there.

Brought down to the ground: these ten sentences are the guardrail of the whole teaching of mind-only in this stretch. The higher what is said above, the more this guardrail matters—to read “wholly by one's own mind” as meaning that one need not cultivate is precisely the understanding this stretch expressly wards off.

Humbling Himself and Deferring to the Superior: He Knows Only One Gate, and He Can Say What Others Know

“Son of good family! I have obtained entering and coming out only upon this gate of liberation of the Tathāgatas' unobstructed adornment.”—This is a form shared by all the fifty-three visits, and Chengguan outlines it as ‘humbling oneself and deferring to the superior.’

And the content of the deferring repays close looking. He lists what the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas have and he himself has not: obtaining unobstructed wisdom, abiding in unobstructed practice, obtaining the samādhi of constantly seeing all the Buddhas, obtaining the samādhi of not abiding in the limit of nirvāṇa, fully understanding the universal-gate realm of samādhi, being wholly equal toward the dharmas of the three times, being able with skill to divide their bodies throughout all the fields, abiding in the realm of the equality of the Buddhas, the realms of the ten directions being all present before them, observing with wisdom and there being nothing they do not clearly understand, and within their own bodies wholly manifesting the forming and the breaking up of all the worlds and yet not giving rise to a thought of two toward their own bodies and the worlds; and it closes with “of such wondrous practices as these, how could I know or tell?”

Note the virtue deferred to in the last sentence: manifesting the forming and breaking up of worlds within the body, and yet not making a thought of two of one's own body and the worlds. This is precisely the very matter he himself has just manifested, carried one layer further—he can manifest the Buddha-fields of the ten directions within his body, and what is deferred to here is the not giving rise even to the thought of two, of body and of field.

The virtues deferred to count out item by item as eleven, and may be looked at in four cuts. The first two are substance: obtaining unobstructed wisdom and abiding in unobstructed practice—wisdom and practice each set up upon the unobstructed, and those two graphs are the very two in the name of his own dharma gate, which shows that what he defers to is indeed within the one gate. The next two are concentration: obtaining the samādhi of constantly seeing all Buddhas, and obtaining the samādhi of not abiding at the limit of nirvāṇa—the one is the power to see, the other the not abiding; to be able to see and yet not to take the limit of nirvāṇa is where a bodhisattva differs from the two vehicles. The third cut, of three, is the equality of objective realms: penetrating the objective realm of the universal gate of samādhi, being wholly equal toward the dharmas of the three times, being able skillfully to divide his body and pervade all fields—from the realm of concentration, to the equality of the three times, to the body's reaching everywhere. The fourth cut, of four, is the unobstructedness of working: abiding in the objective realm of the equality of all Buddhas, having the objective realms of the ten directions all appear before him, observing with wisdom so that nothing is not clear, and making appear within his body the forming and decaying of all worlds without giving rise to the thought of two.

Reading them one by one, one finds this: not one of the eleven is some other kind of spiritual power outside what he has just manifested; every one of them is what he manifested pressed one layer further in. He can make fields appear within his body, and what he defers to is the forming and decaying of worlds appearing within a body; he can see the Buddhas of the ten directions, and what he defers to is having the objective realms of the ten directions all appear before him; he can enter and come out of this gate, and what he defers to is being wholly equal toward the dharmas of the three times. This is why Fazang says the deferring upward of this stretch belongs to the kind in which “within one's own dharma gate there is something deeper and finer,” and is not a deferring to the dharma of another house.

Fazang distinguishes here a general rule: the looking up and deferring in all these passages is of two kinds—one, that within one's own dharma gate there is something deeper and finer that one cannot oneself know; two, that one defers to a dharma gate of a different kind that one cannot oneself know. He says plainly that this stretch belongs to the former kind. This judgment is very useful—what the Elder Liberation defers to is not another house's Dharma; it is the place where one and the same gate goes deeper.

Set aside a misunderstanding: reading the humbling of himself as courtesy. Every sentence deferred to in the sūtra text names names and can say what the other knows—this is not courtesy; it is knowing where one's own boundary lies. Brought down to the ground: true humility is being able to say clearly the stretch that one does not know.

Pointing to the Next Friend: South, to Look for Ocean Banner

“Son of good family! From here journey south, to the shore of Jambudvīpa, where there is a land named Marigala; there is a monk there named Ocean Banner. Go there and ask him: how is a bodhisattva to study the practice of a bodhisattva and to cultivate the path of a bodhisattva?”

Chengguan has a reading for each of the three proper names here. The shore of Jambudvīpa he says is the southern edge of this continent, signifying that one is soon to border upon non-retrogression; and he says as well that it is the wisdom obtained, being at the hinder edge of the six perfections. Marigala he points out is rendered in the Jin translation as Adornment. The monk's name, Ocean Banner, he says is that the working is deep and wide and stands out high—the mind is upright and unmoving as an ocean, and it is the most lofty and surpassing.

What has to be noticed is the question: the words the Elder Liberation charges Sudhana to go and ask are not one word changed from the words Sudhana just now asked him. This question appears again and again throughout the fifty-three visits, and it is the thread that strings the whole road of the study of the visits together.

Brought down to the ground: the completeness of a good friend lies not only in what he can answer, but in his knowing to whom the person should be handed on next.

Cherishing His Virtue, Bowing, and Taking Leave: Before Going, He Thinks Through Nine Things About the Good Friend

“At this time, the youth Sudhana bowed to the feet of the Elder Liberation, circled him to the right and beheld him, extolled and praised him, pondered and gazed up with longing, and wept and shed tears”—and then a stretch of holding in mind: relying upon the good friend, serving the good friend, revering the good friend, and by the good friend getting sight of all-knowledge; toward the good friend giving rise to no going against him, having no fawning or deceit in mind, having a mind that constantly accords; toward the good friend giving rise to the thought of a kind mother, because it can leave behind all dharmas without benefit; toward the good friend giving rise to the thought of a kind father, because it can bring forth all good dharmas. Only at the end does he “take his leave and go.” What is held in mind, counted sentence by sentence as they actually are, is nine: one, relying upon the good friend; two, serving the good friend; three, revering the good friend; four, by the good friend getting sight of all-knowledge; five, toward the good friend giving rise to no going against him; six, toward the good friend having no fawning or deceit in mind; seven, toward the good friend having a mind that constantly accords; eight, toward the good friend giving rise to the thought of a kind mother; nine, toward the good friend giving rise to the thought of a kind father. What follow, “for the sake of leaving behind all dharmas without benefit” and “for the sake of bringing forth all good dharmas,” are words of reason, attached to the two sentences of the mother-thought and the father-thought, and are not counted as separate matters.

What the thought of a kind mother and the thought of a kind father are attached to must be kept distinct: the mother-thought is attached to ‘leaving behind what is without benefit,’ and the father-thought to ‘bringing forth good dharmas’—the one warding off and the one setting forth, exactly the two sides.

And the placing of this stretch has to be seen as well. It follows upon the pointing to the next friend, and does not follow upon the obtaining of the Dharma—that is to say, cherishing his virtue is not a gratitude that arises for the sake of getting something; it is at the moment of leaving that it is most complete. The road of twelve years above comes first, and the holding in mind of this stretch comes after; another stretch of road is about to begin, and what he carries is precisely these nine sentences.

Brought down to the ground: after studying a stretch of Dharma, what is most worth keeping is often not the name of the dharma gate, but how the heart toward the one who conferred it is to be settled. This stretch is what Sudhana's settling of it looks like.

Lineage

The stream this stretch of text opens below it is not in the treatises, but along two lines, that of the name and that of the sense.

The first is the line of the name. Zhiyan's Huayan jing kongmu zhang lists the names of the fifty-three good friends, and this good friend stands sixth, with the seventh, the monk Ocean Banner, immediately after him—which agrees with the sentence of the base text pointing to the next friend, and verifies the settling of the order of the visits. As for the name of the stage, ‘the abode of fully endowed skillful means,’ the sūtra text itself has it not; it is a stage assigned by Chengguan following the ancient worthies, and Chengguan's Yanyi chao glosses this stage as carrying the true while according with the common, practicing measureless skillfulness, and transforming without abiding. Whoever speaks of this stage must attribute it plainly to the commentators, and may not take it as a judgment the sūtra text makes of itself.

Zhiyan does not merely list the name of this good friend: his Souxuan ji has another outline, running on a different track from Chengguan's and from Fazang's, and it is best read out separately. He sets this stretch up in three parts: the exhortation of the teaching to go on and enter; entering on in accord with the teaching; and the setting forth of the direct realization of the Dharma realm—the first being what Mañjuśrī's teaching exhorts, the second Sudhana's practicing in accord with the teaching, and only the third the Dharma realm the Elder shows. All three names are set up between ‘teaching’ and ‘realization,’ and may be read alongside Chengguan's six parts (seeking in accord with the teaching, seeing and paying respect and inquiring, directly showing the Dharma realm, and the rest) without standing in for them. The part on entering on he opens again into eight, the last being the inquiry, and within the inquiry three again (making clear what he himself wishes for, praising the virtue, the direct request), which agrees with the order of the stretch in the base text where Sudhana speaks. The part on what he wishes for Zhiyan counts as fifteen sentences seeking the dharmas of the fruit, fourteen seeking the dharmas of the cause, and third the dharmas of practice cultivated in one's own portion; this fifteen and this fourteen attach to the text he is glossing, and are not the same outline as the base text's three parts of thirteen, five, and thirteen—the same stretch of sūtra and two houses counting differently, because the text relied upon and the bounds drawn differ, not because either has miscounted; the reader may not set the two counts side by side and judge one right and one wrong. The part on direct realization he divides in two: telling of the dharma he himself has obtained, and deferring upward; within the obtaining there are three again (making clear the obtaining of the dharma gate, setting forth the matters the dharma gate manifests, concluding the bounds of his understanding), and within the entering of concentration three again (setting forth the entering and its causes and conditions, making clear the virtue of the concentration, setting forth the name of the dharma gate). Most to be noticed is the gate on the matters manifested: Zhiyan judges it as two pairs set against each other—first self and other set one against the other, then mind and object set one against the other; and within mind and object he divides two layers, the true and the common, taking the sentence where the Elder says that the good man should know for the border between them, each layer having a setting up and an exhorting. Chengguan here judges by the general and the particular of the four similes, while Zhiyan sums it up by the single gate of mind and object set one against the other: the one enters by the general and the particular of the similes, the other by the opposition of subject and object; the gates entered differ and what both come home to is mind-only. Both outlines are settled statements of the ancient worthies; they are recorded without judgment.

The second is the line of the sense, and the ancient worthies each take their own. Chengguan takes the one sense of ‘mind-only’ as the bone of this stretch, and therefore his outline sets up its headings everywhere by the mind-only contemplation, and by the stretch on the concluding exhortation to cultivation and study he wards off the fault of ‘letting the mind be is the Buddha’; and he cites two verses from earlier in this sūtra as his grounds, the one the verse on observing the nature of the Dharma realm, all things being made by mind alone, and the other the verse that as the mind is so is the Buddha, and as the Buddha is so are beings—by which it may be seen that the mind-only of this stretch does not arise alone in this stretch, but is the sense of the earlier text of this sūtra taking on a concrete mark of practice at this stage. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle text, sets up a five-part outline, sets up four senses upon ‘unobstructed’ without Chengguan's fifth sense of the wisdom that holds, and his second pair of similes follows the sixty-fascicle text in reading lightning rather than the moon in water, so that the gates of sense he opens differ from Chengguan's as well. Li Tongxuan sets up another track, judging this stage to have the pāramitā of dhyāna as its substance with the other nine as companions, taking the Elder Liberation for a layman of the world and thereby signifying dwelling amid the common world while practicing the true, and taking the twelve years of this stretch to reflect back upon the twelve years of the second friend, the monk Ocean Cloud, the one signifying coming forth from the world and the one signifying dwelling amid the common world. What these houses set up each has its own track; they are recorded, without judging which is higher.

Li Tongxuan's track opens four further gates in fascicle thirty-five, glossing the close of this stretch—from the sentence on the bodhisattva mahāsattvas down to the sentence where Sudhana takes his leave and goes—which he judges as four gates: the deferring of virtue to the stage ahead; showing the direction and the land of the good friend; raising the good friend's name; and Sudhana's reverent cherishing, his shedding of tears, and his taking leave. The names of the four gates already show his reading: humbling oneself and deferring to the superior he does not read as words of self-deprecation but as ‘deferring virtue to the stage ahead’—the virtue deferred goes to the stage ahead that is yet to be advanced to, and therefore what follows at once exhorts Sudhana to go on seeking and to apply himself further; the ten kinds of surpassing excellence are the virtue deferred, and the applying is the practice exhorted. Under the gate of direction he glosses the three graphs for the edge of Jambudvīpa and fastens them to the stage: this stage is the abode of the rectified mind, and is the utmost edge of the two kinds of wisdom and spiritual power, that which comes forth from the world and that which dwells amid the world, and therefore the sūtra signifies it by the edge of Jambudvīpa—an edge is a boundary, and one who has come to this stage has brought each of the two functions to its boundary. Under the gate of the name he glosses the two graphs of Ocean Banner: virtue and wisdom are like the ocean, and because they can break the place of beings' karma and delusion he is named a banner; a banner has the sense of demolishing. And of the land named Mārīkara he notes that the Sanskrit original is untranslated—an honest record of what he does not know, not a forced gloss. These four gates do not attach as Chengguan's and Fazang's outlines do: Chengguan's last two parts are the humbling of oneself and the pointing to the next friend, set up by the order of the text, while Li's treatise sets up by stage and by name, and so can press out of the single phrase ‘the edge of Jambudvīpa’ the boundary of the abode of the rectified mind, and out of the single name ‘Ocean Banner’ the sense of demolishing. This is the track of Li's treatise alone; it is recorded, without judging which is higher.

As for the line of consciousness-only and the several treatises of the Huayan house, none of the texts searched has the name of this good friend, and so the lineage of this stretch is seen only in the commentators who gloss it passage by passage.

The answer of one good friend: in its first half he makes no sound, and in its latter half he does not go out of doors. The half that made no sound let a person see the Buddha-fields; the half that made a sound said only one thing—the Buddhas that are seen are all by one's own mind.