華嚴經 品三十九 入法界品 · 釋女瞿波（寄法雲地）Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Entering the Dharma Realm · Gopā, Daughter of the Śākyas (Assigned to the Dharma Cloud Ground)

Where This Section Stands within the Whole Pilgrimage

Sudhana began his consulting with the monk Cloud of Virtue, and by the time he reaches this Śākya woman Gopā she is the fortieth good friend. When Chengguan outlines this section, his very first clause is “tenth, the Śākya woman Gopā, assigned to the Dharma Cloud Ground” — the tenth of the ten grounds, the Dharma Cloud Ground. And at the close of this section the commentary sets down one summing clause: “the marks of the practice assigned to the stations above are finished.”

A misreading must be set aside first: “assignment to a station” is not something the scripture text says of itself. Chengguan already made this plain where he set up the five aspects of this assembly. Of old, Dharma Master Yi and the line of the Taishan lun only glossed as the text ran and made no separate matching at all; it was Preceptor Guangtong and the rest who matched the good friends one by one to the stations. Chengguan first judges that “both have their reason” — matching and not matching each have their own ground.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

But Chengguan's word has a latter half. The two positions having been raised, he sets down his own judgment: “yet within the absence of graded stations the graded stations are not hindered, and to display the stations is the constant rule, so that to match them is likewise no fault” — where there are no graded stations to speak of, speaking of graded stations is not thereby hindered, and to display the order of stations is the constant rule, so that matching them is no fault at all; and only at the last does he say “for now, following the ancient worthies, matching them as five aspects.” So he does not set out two positions and withhold his own: he judges outright that to match them is no fault, and only declines to use that judgment to throw out the position that does not match. “Gopā assigned to the Dharma Cloud Ground” is therefore a pair of spectacles Chengguan himself allows; the reader must not read it as the scripture text judging of itself.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading this section you in fact hold two measuring rods. One is the scripture text's own order — Sudhana comes, asks, listens, looks, and goes. The other is the rod of the stations as the ancient worthies matched them — this is the fortieth, and it is the close of the one mark of assignment to the stations. Use both rods, but know which rod belongs to whom.

What He Was Thinking About While He Walked (Chengguan's Outline · Seeking in Accord with the Teaching)

The opening clause of this section has Sudhana walking toward the city of Jiapiluo, and all along the way “pondering and cultivating the liberation of taking birth, making it grow and become vast, calling it to mind and not letting it go.” This is the Dharma gate that the good friend before him, the goddess of the Lumbinī Grove, displayed, and he carries it with him as he walks.

Why record this one clause? Because consulting is not a matter of changing the topic at each stop. Chengguan outlines this one division as “first, the cultivating and realizing in reliance upon the one before; after, from ‘step by step’ onward, the seeking of the next friend” — first there is the cultivating in reliance upon what the one before realized, and only then the seeking of the one who comes next. What was gained at the last stop is the provision for walking to the next.

A misreading to be set aside: that to consult forty friends is to have changed Dharma gates forty times. Were it so, the scripture text would need only to write “next he went to such a place,” and would have no need to add at the head of this section the clause about cultivating in reliance upon the one before.

Bringing it to the ground: what turns over in your mind along the stretch of road after you leave one teacher decides what you will be able to see when you reach the next.

The One Who Welcomes Him Speaks First: The Spirit Sorrowless Virtue's Four Passages of Praise (Chengguan's Outline)

Before Sudhana has yet seen Gopā he first meets the spirit Sorrowless Virtue within the lecture hall. This spirit is not the good friend, yet he speaks a long passage first. Chengguan judges this passage as four, saying: “within the second there are four: first, the praising that his practice is ultimate; second, from ‘I see that you, kind sir, cultivate the many’ onward, the praising of his vigor and the fruit he gains; third, from ‘I see that you, kind sir, are valorous’ onward, the praising of his vigor and the Dharma he gains; fourth, from ‘why is this’ onward, the establishing of it by reasoning.”

The first passage praises that his practice is already ultimate: he has great wisdom, has great valor, is able to cultivate the inconceivable liberation of ease, in mind does not forsake the vast vow, and has accomplished the great sea of the merit and virtue of the Tathāgatas. What this passage speaks of is the ‘already so.’

The second and third passages both begin with ‘I see that you, kind sir,’ and what they speak of is the ‘to be so’ — before long he will gain the pure and adorned unsurpassed three karmas, before long he will gain the seeing everywhere of the buddhas of the three times, will gain the many samādhi joys, and will enter the profound liberation. One passage belongs to the fruit and one to the Dharma.

The fourth passage argues the reason, and it gathers upon a single clause, ‘why is this’: because he who sees a good friend draws near and makes offerings, hears and receives his teaching, calls it to mind and practices it, is without sloth and without turning back, without sorrow and without regret, and without hindrance, therefore Māra cannot trouble him, and therefore before long he accomplishes the unsurpassed fruit.

A misreading to be set aside: that this is a courteous speech of welcome. Were it mere courtesy, there would be no need to set up a passage upon ‘why is this.’ This passage joins the ‘already so’ and the ‘to be so’ of the three passages before it — everything is fastened to the one matter of ‘serving the good friend.’ And this one matter is precisely the bone of the two sets of ten dharmas that Gopā is about to expound below.

Bringing it to the ground: how a person will fare hereafter may be seen in how he treats, now, the one who teaches him.

Sudhana's Reply: He Does Not Only Say “May I Gain It All” (Chengguan's Outline · Sudhana Receives and Sets Forth)

Sudhana answers with one clause, “Holy one! May I gain everything just as you have said,” and this is the receiving. But what he says next is a long passage, and this passage is the weightiest one in the first part of this section.

Chengguan judges this passage as two: “within it there are two: first, the making clear of the four equalities that gather in beings; after, the making clear of the myriad virtues that benefit beings. Within the former there are four, namely the Dharma, the simile, the joining, and the gloss. In the Dharma there are kindness and compassion; within the joining, joy is included; within the gloss, non-covetousness, and equanimity is also made clear.”

The four equalities are kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. The scripture text does not list the four graphs ‘kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity’ at all; the four measureless minds are hidden within the structure of these four passages of Dharma, simile, joining, and gloss. In the passage of the Dharma, ‘I vow that all beings may quiet the many burning torments and leave behind the many evil deeds’ is kindness, and ‘when the bodhisattva sees this, sorrow arises in his mind’ is compassion; the passage of the simile is the simile of the only son; the passage of the joining says that when he sees beings raise up the three kinds of good karma, ‘great gladness arises’ — and joy lies within the joining; the passage of the gloss says ‘he does not covet the desires and pleasures of birth and death’ and ‘he does not cling with relish to the joy of the meditative concentrations’ — and equanimity lies within the gloss.

A misreading to be set aside: that to read the four measureless minds one must find four technical names. This passage is an instance of the scripture text expounding by structure — the names do not appear, yet the meaning is complete; and what allows one to read out this layer is the outlining of the ancient worthies.

Bringing it to the ground: real compassion is not thinking that one ought to be compassionate; it is that the mind aches of itself at the sight of suffering, and rejoices of itself at the sight of good, and in both of these places takes no sweetness for oneself.

The Simile of the Only Son: Why This Simile

The scripture text takes its figure, saying “it is as when there is a man who has an only son, whose love reaches to the utmost, and who suddenly sees the child's limbs cut off by another, and whose mind is so pierced with pain that he cannot compose himself,” and only then says “so it is also with the bodhisattva mahāsattva.”

Why take an only son? Because the matter of an only son has two features: first, he is beyond replacing — he is not one among many sons, and so the pain cannot be shared out; second, love reaches to the utmost, and it is not a duty held on reasoned grounds. When the bodhisattva sees beings fall into the three evil destinies, the nature of the pain is of just this kind.

A misreading to be set aside: that great compassion is a very large goodwill spread very evenly over beings. This simile is exactly the opposite — it writes the compassion felt for all beings as that sort of pain felt for one person. Breadth does not come by dilution.

Bringing it to the ground: to test your own mind of compassion, do not look at how many people it has cared for; look at whether the mind can stir at all when it meets one particular person who suffers.

Not Seeking All-Knowledge for One's Own Sake: The Purity of the Raising of the Mind (Chengguan's Outline · Within the Gloss, Non-Covetousness, and Equanimity Also Made Clear)

In the ‘gloss’ passage of the four equalities the scripture text sets down several ‘nots’ one after another: he does not seek all-knowledge for his own sake, he does not covet the desires and pleasures of birth and death, he is not turned about by the inversion of perception, the inversion of view, the inversion of mind, the fetters, the latent tendencies, or the force of craving and views, he does not raise up the many notions of pleasure regarding beings, nor does he cling with relish to the joy of the meditative concentrations, and it is not through hindrance, weariness, or turning back that he dwells within birth and death.

This string of ‘nots’ must be seen in two classes. The first several exclude the defilement of the ordinary man — coveting desire and pleasure, following inversion. The last two exclude the defilement of the practitioner: ‘he does not cling with relish to the joy of the meditative concentrations’ excludes the sweetness of one who cultivates concentration, and ‘it is not through hindrance, weariness, or turning back that he dwells within birth and death’ excludes that state of mind which says ‘I am only staying in birth and death because I have no choice.’

A misreading to be set aside: that the bodhisattva's dwelling in birth and death is a kind of sacrifice, a staying on under constraint. The scripture text says plainly that it is not — he dwells in birth and death not because he cannot get out, but because “he only sees that beings, within the many kinds of existence, undergo in full measure measureless sufferings of every kind, and therefore raises up the mind of great compassion and by the force of the great vow gathers them in everywhere.”

Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a raising of the mind is pure, look forward at how much desire and pleasure it has excluded, and look back at whether it can exclude the single thought ‘I have been hard done by.’

The Sixteen Clauses of Separate Similes: What the Bodhisattva Is to Beings (Chengguan's Outline · The Myriad Virtues That Benefit Beings)

The second passage of Sudhana's setting forth of what he himself does runs sixteen clauses in a row, and each clause begins with ‘is a so-and-so’: is an adornment, is father and mother, is a nurse, is a guard, is a ferryman, is a refuge, is an ultimate, is a ford, is a guide, is a wondrous blossom, is an ornament, is a delight, is a thing revered, is Samantabhadra, is a great brightness, is a great cloud. Chengguan judges of them, “at the first there are sixteen clauses, displaying them separately by way of simile, as what beings turn toward,” and only after them comes the clause concluding the benefit to beings.

These sixteen clauses are not an array upon one level. The first several are similes of human kinship (father and mother, nurse, guard); the middle several are similes of ferrying across (ferryman, refuge, ultimate, ford, guide); the last several are similes of bodily marks and of the virtue sent forth (wondrous blossom, ornament, delight, thing revered, Samantabhadra, great brightness, great cloud). From kinship to ferrying, and from ferrying to virtue, is a single line running upward from below.

A misreading to be set aside: that this is a heaping up of rhetoric, and that having read one clause one may infer the rest. Were it so, there would be only one thing that beings turn toward; but since the scripture text sets up sixteen, there are sixteen different ‘needs’ turned toward — the need to be raised, to be guarded, to be ferried, to be shown the road, to see what is beautiful, to have something to revere.

Bringing it to the ground: beings do not need one thing only from a good friend. What you need at this moment is a ferryman; what you need at the next may be no more than a single wondrous blossom.

The Scattering of Blossoms and the Ten Verses: Why the Spirit Sees Him Off This Far (Chengguan's Outline · The Spirit's Reverence Grows Deeper)

As Sudhana is about to ascend the Dharma hall, the spirit Sorrowless Virtue and the host of spirits scatter blossoms as an offering and speak ten verses. Chengguan says the reason this passage exists is that “fourth, the spirit's reverence grows deeper, because of hearing the Dharma above” — it is because he heard that passage above that his reverence deepened.

As to the judging of the ten verses, Chengguan has “the ten verses divide into two: the first three praise the practice of benefiting beings below; the last seven praise the practice of seeking above without hindrance.”

The first three verses face downward: the first verse says that he appears in the world as the world's great lamp and everywhere for beings diligently seeks unsurpassed awakening; the second, that the sun of merit and virtue comes forth and extinguishes the world's darkness, and that he is hard to meet with; the third, that seeing beings covered over by inversion and delusion he raises great compassion and seeks to realize the way awakened to without a teacher. The landing place of all three verses is ‘for the sake of beings.’

The last seven verses turn upward: the fourth says that with a pure mind he seeks the Buddha's awakening and serves good friends without begrudging body and life; the fifth, that within the world he has nothing to depend on and nothing to cling to and his mind is pure as empty space; the sixth, that he cultivates the practice of awakening and his merit and virtue is complete and he sends forth the light of knowledge illumining all worlds; the seventh, that he does not leave the world nor cling to it, and moves within the world unhindered as the wind journeys in space; the eighth takes the fire that nothing can put out as a figure for the fire of his vigor; the ninth says he is valorous and firm as the lion of adamantine wisdom; the tenth says he is able to go to all the seas of lands of the Dharma realm and draw near to good friends. The landing place of all seven verses is ‘seeking the way.’

A misreading to be set aside: that praise is an ornament given by an outsider. After these ten verses the scripture text adds one clause: “because he loved and delighted in the true Dharma he followed along after Sudhana and constantly would not forsake him” — the one who spoke the praise has himself set out upon the road. Praise here is not a giving; it is a being moved.

Bringing it to the ground: when a person is truly on the way, those beside him will walk a stretch of it with him; and this is more solid than any commendation.

Seeing the Host and Seeing the Companions: Why the Maidens Are Widely Praised and Gopā Is Not (Chengguan's Outline)

Sudhana enters the hall and sees Gopā seated upon a lion throne of jeweled lotus blossoms, surrounded by eighty-four thousand maidens. Of Gopā herself the scripture text writes only a seat; of the maidens it writes a long passage of surpassing virtues: born from a royal clan, cultivators of the bodhisattva practices, planters of the same roots of goodness, givers and speakers of kindly speech, seeing clearly the objective realm of all-knowledge, constantly abiding in right concentration, constantly roaming in great compassion, gathering in beings everywhere as an only child, complete in the mind of kindness, pure in retinue, gaining irreversibility, furnished with the perfections, free of the many graspings, pure in mind though moving within the many kinds of existence, free of the net of hindrances and coverings, displaying transformed forms from the Dharma body, bringing forth the practice of Samantabhadra, with the sun of knowledge and the lamp of wisdom both complete.

Upon this Chengguan sets down an excellent judgment: “first, the seeing of the host; after, from ‘eighty’ onward, the seeing of the companions. He widely praises the surpassing virtues of the attendant companions, for the virtue of the host is already beyond words.”

“The virtue of the host is already beyond words” — it is not that it goes unwritten, but that it cannot be written. Since the virtue of the companions is already such, the virtue of the host needs no telling. This is a way of writing that sets off the principal by way of what stands beside.

A misreading to be set aside: that fullness and brevity in the scripture text are arbitrary. The brevity here is the weightiest stroke of praise in the whole section.

Bringing it to the ground: to look at a teacher, look at what the people around that teacher have become.

The Eleven Clauses of the Question: What Sudhana Is Asking (Chengguan's Outline)

As to Sudhana's question, Chengguan judges that it “has eleven clauses, asking about the practice of compassion and knowledge, of the contrary and the compliant, of the provisional and the real, and the twofold practice of quiescence and function without hindrance,” and gathers the first ten clauses into five pairs: “the first ten clauses are gathered into five pairs: first, the pair of passing beyond the ordinary and going past the lesser; second, the pair of leaving the fruit and going beyond the cause; third, the pair of displaying birth and displaying form; fourth, the pair of the utmost mark and the exhausting of speech; fifth, the pair of converting below and making offerings above. The eleventh displays in general the twofold practice of the real and the conventional in all good things.”

The form of the five pairs is the same throughout: the first half is ‘already thus,’ and the second half is ‘and yet still so.’ To be within birth and death and not defiled by birth and death is passing beyond the ordinary; to penetrate the own-nature of the Dharma and not abide in the stage of the two vehicles is going past the lesser — this is the first pair. To be furnished with the Buddha's Dharma and yet cultivate the bodhisattva practices is leaving the fruit; to abide in the bodhisattva grounds and yet enter the objective realm of the buddhas is going beyond the cause — this is the second pair. To go beyond the world and yet take birth in the world, to accomplish the Dharma body and yet display bodily form, is the third pair. To realize the markless Dharma and yet display the many marks, to know that the Dharma is beyond speaking and yet widely expound the dharmas, is the fourth pair. To know that beings are empty and yet not forsake the work of converting beings, to know that the buddhas neither arise nor perish and yet make offerings diligently without turning back, is the fifth pair. The eleventh clause, ‘to know that the dharmas have no karma and no recompense and yet cultivate the many good practices constantly without ceasing,’ gathers up the first ten and runs through both sides, the real and the conventional.

Chengguan's Yanyi chao carries this one step further. He says that within what the commentary calls “the twofold practice, without hindrance, of compassion and knowledge, of the contrary and the compliant, of the provisional and the real, of quiescence and function,” the kinds of non-hindrance contained are in fact only four — “within this the commentary has four kinds of non-hindrance, also named the four twofold practices.” Clause by clause all eleven are twofold practice, and with respect to the matters of twofold practice there are ten differences, while the twofold practices themselves have only four distinctions. Matched clause by clause: the first, “how is one within birth and death and yet not defiled by the faults of birth and death,” is the non-hindrance of compassion and knowledge — to be within birth and death is to have great compassion, and not to be defiled by the faults of birth and death is to be furnished with great knowledge; the second, penetrating the own-nature of the dharmas and yet not abiding in the stage of the two vehicles, is the twofold practice of quiescence and function; the third is the provisional within the real, the fourth the real within the provisional; the fifth is the twofold practice of the contrary and the compliant; the sixth is again the twofold practice of quiescence and function; the seventh and eighth are both the provisional within the real; the ninth and tenth are both the twofold practice of the provisional and the real, the ninth with respect to converting beings and the tenth with respect to making offerings to buddhas; the eleventh is the twofold practice of the real and the conventional. So these eleven questions are not eleven kinds of non-hindrance; they are four kinds of non-hindrance spoken of in eleven places — and “each has its own distinct mark,” for one and the same twofold practice does not display the same mark in every clause.

A misreading to be set aside: that these eleven questions are eleven topics. They are in fact one topic asked eleven times over — how emptiness and existence can both be true at once.

Bringing it to the ground: at a certain stage of practice the hard thing is no longer ‘whether one believes in emptiness,’ but ‘whether, having believed it, one can still go on doing those things.’ These eleven questions ask exactly this.

The Ten Dharmas of Indra's Net: Ten Conditions Set Side by Side — Why Are They Called Indra's Net (Chengguan's Outline · The Meaning of the Dharma)

After Gopā grants the telling, the first passage of Dharma is the ten dharmas that complete “the bodhisattva practice of the light of universal knowledge that is Indra's net”: relying on good friends, gaining vast superior resolve, gaining pure desire and delight, gathering all merit and knowledge, hearing the Dharma in the presence of the buddhas, in mind constantly not forsaking the buddhas of the three times, practicing together with all bodhisattvas, being guarded and borne in mind by all the Tathāgatas, having great compassion and wondrous vows wholly pure, and being able by the power of knowledge to cut off everywhere all birth and death. There is a setting forth, there is a gloss, and there is a conclusion.

Indra's net is the jeweled net of the palace of Śakra, with pearls knotted upon the net, each pearl reflecting all the others, one pearl displaying within itself all the pearls, layer upon layer without end. Why do these ten dharmas gain this name? Chengguan's gloss sets up no separate meaning outside the ten dharmas, but says “first, the making clear of the practice of the light of knowledge that is Indra's net, meaning that in reliance upon these ten one illumines the layered and endless dharmas.”

Further down, at the verses, he makes it more transparent: the prose gave only one general name, while in the verses the first two verses take the general name and the last eight each set up a separate designation, so that “then one knows that each one of the ten names runs through all ten practices, layer upon layer without hindrance, and only so does it receive the name of Indra's net.” That is to say — these ten dharmas are not ten conditions set side by side, but ten mutually containing aspects: within relying on good friends the remaining nine dharmas are already complete, and so too within gathering merit and knowledge.

A misreading to be set aside: that this is a checklist, and that ticking off the items one by one counts as completion. If the ten dharmas were merely set side by side, it would be enough to call them the ‘practice of the ten dharmas,’ and there would be no need to call them Indra's net.

Bringing it to the ground: when one actually sets to work one finds that carrying any one of these ten through to the end brings the other nine along within it; and that failing to carry any one through is always because the other nine have not kept pace.

The Ten Dharmas of Serving Good Friends: The Dharma Must Be Spread by People (Chengguan's Outline)

The second passage of Dharma is the serving of good friends with ten dharmas: having no regard for one's own body and life, having no coveting mind toward the pleasurable things of the world, knowing that the natures of all dharmas are equal, never turning back from or forsaking the vow of all-knowledge, contemplating the true mark of all the Dharma realms, in mind constantly forsaking all the seas of existence, knowing that the Dharma is like empty space and that the mind has nothing to depend on, accomplishing the great vows of all bodhisattvas, being constantly able to display all the seas of lands, and purely cultivating the bodhisattva's unhindered wheel of knowledge.

Why, having finished the ten dharmas of Indra's net, must a further passage be set up? Chengguan gives the reason: “after, from ‘son of the Buddha, if a bodhisattva’ onward, the practice of serving good friends. The former made clear the reliance upon the Dharma; this discriminates the reliance upon the person, for the Dharma is spread by borrowing the person.” The former passage is reliance upon the Dharma, this one is reliance upon the person; the Dharma must be spread by people, and so besides relying upon the Dharma one must also rely upon the person.

And among these ten items, only the first two look like what is ordinarily called ‘serving a teacher’ (not begrudging body and life, not coveting worldly pleasures); the other eight are all matters of the Dharma — knowing the equality of the natures of dharmas, not turning back from the vow of knowledge, contemplating the true mark of the Dharma realms, forsaking the seas of existence, knowing that the Dharma is like empty space, accomplishing the great vows, displaying the seas of lands, purely cultivating the wheel of knowledge.

A misreading to be set aside: that serving good friends is a matter of labor and offerings. Among the ten dharmas the scripture text lists, labor and offerings and the like take up only the beginning; the other eight say this — how far you have come in the Dharma yourself decides how far a good friend you are able to serve.

Bringing it to the ground: the most solid offering to a teacher is actually to walk to the end of the stretch that the teacher taught.

The Twelve Verses in Repetition: The Form of the Verse Is the Form of the Meaning (Chengguan's Outline)

Gopā puts the foregoing Dharma into twelve verses. Chengguan judges, “after, within the verses, there are twelve verses divided into two: the first ten verses put into verse, in order, the foregoing ten practices of Indra's net,” while of the last two he says, “the last two verses put into verse the last two of the foregoing ten dharmas of serving the friend, for the last two are hidden in their marks, and the rest are left aside and not versified.”

The first ten verses put the ten practices of Indra's net into verse one by one, and the last line of each verse sets up a name of practice: the first verse, revering good friends as one reveres the buddhas, is named the practice of Indra's net; the second, superior resolve vast as empty space, with the lands, beings, and buddhas of the three times all entering into it, is named the practice of the light of universal knowledge; the third, aspiration like empty space, forever cutting off afflictions, cultivating merit and virtue in the presence of all buddhas, is named the practice of the cloud of the body; the fourth, cultivating all-knowledge and purifying the body of merit and knowledge, is named the practice of no defilement; the fifth, hearing the Dharma in the presence of the buddhas without being sated and giving rise to the lamp of the knowledge of the true mark, is named the practice of illumining everywhere; the sixth, entering in a single thought the buddhas of the ten directions and in mind not forsaking the Tathāgatas, is named the practice of the great vow; the seventh, entering the assemblies of the buddhas, the sea of the bodhisattvas' samādhis, the seas of vows and of skillful means, is named the practice of Indra's net; the eighth, sustained by the buddhas and to the end of the future cultivating everywhere the way of Samantabhadra, is named the practice of dividing the body; the ninth, seeing beings undergo suffering and raising kindness and compassion and displaying himself in the world and expounding the Dharma to dispel gloom, is named the practice of the sun of knowledge; the tenth, seeing beings within the destinies and gathering the wondrous wheel of the Dharma to make them cut off the stream of birth and death, is named the practice of Samantabhadra.

The first verse and the seventh bear the same name, the practice of Indra's net; the tenth is named the practice of Samantabhadra; and the rest each set up a separate designation — Chengguan has a further layer of outline: “the first two take the general name of what came before, and the last eight practices each set up a separate designation” — his “first two” are the first and second verses, which take in turn the general name of the prose, “the practice of the light of the jeweled net” (the net, the light); this is a different matter from the first and seventh verses sharing the name of the practice of the jeweled net, and the two are not to be mixed into one grouping. That one and the same name of practice appears twice within the ten verses is itself the shape of the layered mutual containing in the meaning.

The last two verses turn to versify the last two of the ten dharmas of serving good friends: the eleventh says that the bodhisattva cultivates these skillful means and in accord with the minds of beings displays his body, converting and delivering conscious beings everywhere within the destinies; the twelfth says that by the force of great kindness, compassion, and skillful means he displays his body everywhere and preaches the Dharma in accord with their understanding and desires so as to turn them toward awakening. Why versify only the last two? Chengguan says it is because ‘the last two are hidden in their marks’ — the first eight were already manifest in the prose, while the last two were hidden and unshown, and so the verses point them out expressly.

A misreading to be set aside: that the verses in repetition say the prose over again. Here the verses do at least three things the prose did not: they give each of the ten practices a separate name, they make the name of Indra's net appear twice, at the first verse and at the seventh, so as to display mutual containing, and they bring out the two items that were hidden and unshown in the prose.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading the verses of the Avataṃsaka, do not skip them. The prose gives you the meaning; the verses often give you the shape of the meaning.

The Name of the Dharma: The Two Graphs, Deep and Broad, Each Have What They Are Matched To (Chengguan's Outline · The Name of the Dharma)

When the verses are done, Gopā at last utters the name of the Dharma gate: “I have already accomplished the liberation gate of contemplating the sea of the samādhis of all bodhisattvas.”

Chengguan glosses this name graph by graph, saying that this gate means “that the Samantabhadra samādhi of all bodhisattvas is deep and broad as the sea — deep because it is like the Dharma realm, broad because it is like the names of beings — and that with extraordinary and wondrous knowledge one contemplates it in thought after thought, and therefore this name is set up.”

‘Sea’ as a figure is here split into two meanings, deep and broad. What depth is matched to is the Dharma realm — the Dharma realm has no bottom, and so it is deep; what breadth is matched to is the names of beings — beings are measureless, and so it is broad. And the two graphs ‘contemplating’ fasten upon knowledge, not upon seeing: it is a contemplating in thought after thought with extraordinary and wondrous knowledge, not a chancing to catch sight.

A misreading to be set aside: that ‘the sea of samādhis’ means that the concentrations she enters are many and large. The ‘sea’ within the name is not a measure word; it is the nature of the objective realm contemplated. And what makes the contemplating possible lies in the two graphs ‘thought after thought.’

Bringing it to the ground: what is called depth is that there is no bottom below; what is called breadth is that there is no edge outside. If at some place you feel ‘this far and no farther,’ then you have not yet touched the sea.

The Working, First: Knowing the Causes and Fruits, Good and Evil, of the Sahā World (Chengguan's Outline · The Working of the Dharma)

Sudhana asks what the objective realm of this liberation gate is, and Gopā first answers as to the breadth of what she knows. The first layer is knowing, within the kalpas as many as the dust motes of a buddha-land of this Sahā world, all beings who die here and are born there, do good and do evil, and undergo the many recompenses, those who seek release and those who do not, the rightly fixed, the wrongly fixed, and the not fixed, and on to roots of goodness with afflictions and roots of goodness without afflictions, complete and not complete, roots of goodness gathered in by roots of non-goodness and roots of non-goodness gathered in by roots of goodness.

The most important thing to look at in this string is the last pair. ‘Roots of goodness gathered in by roots of non-goodness’ and ‘roots of non-goodness gathered in by roots of goodness’ are two items set against each other, and together they make one pair, not two. For the former, the example Chengguan gives is “as when one upholds the precepts with a mind of anger” — a good deed whose root is not pure; the latter is to do what is not good with a good mind. Li Tongxuan takes the matter wider: the worldly roots of goodness of gods, men, and non-Buddhist practitioners are gathered in by worldly roots of goodness and yet cannot cut off the karma of suffering of the three realms, and so Li Tongxuan judges them to be a root of non-goodness; while the two vehicles and the bodhisattvas of the pure lands subdue the karma of the three realms so that it does not manifest, which is gathered in by a root of goodness, yet they have not been able to reach and awaken to the knowledge and compassion of the Tathāgata, and so this is again a root of non-goodness gathered in by a root of goodness. The scripture text sets out these two mixed conditions separately just because this is the class hardest to judge.

A misreading to be set aside: that karmic fruit falls into only two heaps, good and evil. Among the four pairs the scripture text lists, the last one is mixed — and it is upon just that pair that the ancient worthies spend the most ink.

Bringing it to the ground: what you really need another person to see clearly for you is usually not the plain evil, but those matters of which you yourself cannot say whether they are good or evil.

The Working, Second: Knowing the Causes and Fruits of the Buddhas and the Assemblies of the Three Vehicles

The second layer is knowing the names and the order of the buddhas within those kalpas, and knowing how those buddhas from their first raising of the mind sought all-knowledge by skillful means, brought forth the great seas of vows, made offerings to the buddhas, cultivated the bodhisattva practices, accomplished right and perfect awakening, turned the wondrous wheel of the Dharma, displayed great spiritual powers, and converted and delivered beings — this is knowing the causes and fruits of the buddhas.

Further down is knowing the assemblies of the buddhas: knowing the roots of goodness the śrāvaka hosts cultivated in the past and the knowledge they gained; knowing the roots of goodness the pratyekabuddhas had, the awakening they gained, their quiescent liberation, their spiritual powers and transformations, their ripening of beings, and their entering of nirvāṇa; knowing how the bodhisattva hosts from their first raising of the mind cultivated roots of goodness, brought forth vows and practices, and accomplished the perfections, and on to their entering the grounds, abiding in the grounds, contemplating the grounds, and purifying the grounds, together with the marks of the grounds, the knowledge of the grounds, the gathering knowledge, the knowledge of teaching and converting beings, the knowledge of establishing, the objective realm of vast practice, the practice of spiritual power, the sea of samādhis, and skillful means, and together with the seas of samādhi entered in thought after thought, the light of all-knowledge gained, the lightning-cloud of all-knowledge obtained, the forbearance of the true mark gained, the all-knowledge penetrated, the seas of lands abided in, the seas of the Dharma entered, the seas of beings known, the skillful means abided in, the vows made, and the spiritual powers displayed.

Among the three vehicles, the class of the bodhisattva is opened out most finely. This is not partiality; it is that the bodhisattva's practice has of itself the most layers — the grounds have the four layers of entering, abiding, contemplating, and purifying, and what is gained in thought after thought forms a sea of its own.

A misreading to be set aside: that ‘knowing’ means knowing a set of facts. Every item known here is a ‘practice’ — what is cultivated, what is gained, what is entered, what is vowed, what is displayed. The object of the knowing is not data; it is the whole course of practice.

Bringing it to the ground: a good friend is able to help you not because he knows your affairs, but because he can recognize which stretch of road you are walking.

The Working, Third: The Sixfold Knowing by Kinds, Each Later One Broader Than the One Before

Next Gopā says: she knows the Sahā world and all its seas of kalpas to the end of the future, unfolding without a break; and as she knows the Sahā world, so she also knows the worlds as many as the dust motes within the Sahā world, all the worlds within the Sahā world, all the worlds within a dust mote of the Sahā world, the worlds abiding without interval in the ten directions outside the Sahā world, the worlds gathered in by the world-seed to which the Sahā world belongs, and the worlds gathered in by the measureless world-seeds of the ten directions within the Flower-Treasury sea of worlds.

Chengguan judges the layering, saying “here at the first there is a sixfold knowing by kinds, each later one broader than the one before” — each layer is broader than the last. The first two layers both gather many lands within the whole land, but the first gathers only those of the same kind, and so it says ‘as many as the dust motes’; the second gathers those of a different kind, and so it says ‘all.’ The third layer gathers lands within a dust mote, and is finer than the ones before. The fourth is the realms of the outer ring. The fifth is what the land-seed belonged to gathers in, running through the twenty layers. The sixth is the whole Flower-Treasury sea of worlds.

Below this are also listed ten shapes of what is known, and Chengguan glosses them one by one: the first is vastness, that is, the world-seed relied upon; the second is establishment, that is, causes and conditions, or that which is dwelt in and relied upon; the third is the encircling wheel; the fourth is the site within that wheel; the fifth is that their substances and kinds each differ, their shapes and classes being not the same; the sixth is turning — and upon this one name Chengguan gives two senses: one, that it turns like the form of a wheel upon its side, for which he cites this scripture's own Chapter on the Formation of Worlds, “some worlds turn along with a wheel”; two, that kalpas turn and change; the seventh is the lotus blossom relied upon; the eighth is the Sumeru within that blossom; the ninth is the name set up according to conditions; and the tenth is not a shape at all but the gathering of the fruit of the first nine back to its cause — “the tenth is the concluding of the fruit as belonging to the cause, meaning that the Flower-Treasury sea of worlds is what the Buddha's original vow adorned, and so it says ‘because of the power.’” So the last clause, ‘because of the power of the original vow of the World-Honored One Vairocana,’ is not a closing remark; it is the tenth item itself.

The one name ‘turning’ has another gloss besides. Li Tongxuan says, “as to the turning of worlds, it is a great number of the western region” — reading ‘turning’ as the name of a great number used in the western lands, which differs from Chengguan's two senses of wheel-turning and kalpa-change. The two glosses are recorded together without judgment. Li Tongxuan glosses several other names in this passage as well: ‘wheel’ is order — “‘wheel’ means order, for they come to be in order one after another”; and as for ‘the site of worlds,’ “one may take the Dharma gate practiced as the site of worlds; and again, a site is level, and being able to level the high and the low it is a site” — one taking the Dharma practiced as the site, one taking the levelness of a site that can level high and low. And for the name ‘world-seed’ he points back to this scripture's Chapter on the Flower-Treasury World, saying that what a world-seed gathers in is one great world with lands of its retinue, as many as the dust motes of ten buddha-lands, encircling it on its four sides.

A misreading to be set aside: that this merely says her experience is wide. The pushing out of the six layers is an expanding layer by layer; and the last clause gathers the whole of what is known back to the power of the original vow — what is known is endless because the things known are themselves made by vow.

Bringing it to the ground: how large a world a person can see depends upon how large a vow there is in his mind.

The Working, Fourth: Calling to Mind Vairocana's Causes and Conditions of the Past

The next passage displays separately the causes and fruits of Vairocana: gathering together the skillful means of the vehicles, abiding for measureless kalpas in the bodhisattva practices, purifying buddha-lands, teaching and converting beings, serving the buddhas, raising up dwelling places, hearing and receiving the preaching of the Dharma, obtaining the many samādhis, gaining the many kinds of ease; cultivating the perfection of giving and entering the sea of the Buddha's merit and virtue, upholding the precepts and ascetic practice, being furnished with the many forbearances, valorous vigor, accomplishing the many meditative concentrations, completing pure wisdom; displaying the taking of birth in all places, the practices and vows of Samantabhadra wholly pure, entering everywhere into the lands, purifying everywhere the buddha-lands, entering everywhere the sea of the Tathāgatas' knowledge, gathering in everywhere the awakening of the buddhas, gaining the great light of the Tathāgatas' knowledge, realizing the nature of all-knowledge of the buddhas, accomplishing right and perfect awakening, and turning the wondrous wheel of the Dharma; together with the roots of goodness planted in past ages by all beings within the assemblies at the place of the Way, their first raising of the mind, their ripening of beings, their cultivating of skillful means, their growth in thought after thought, and their obtaining of the many samādhis, spiritual powers, and liberations.

At the last it gathers upon a ‘why is this’: the reason she can know all this is that this liberation can know the mental activities of all beings, the roots of goodness they cultivate, their defilement and purity, and their many differences, and can know the gates of samādhi of all śrāvakas, the quiescent samādhis and spiritual powers and liberations of all pratyekabuddhas, and the light of the liberation of all bodhisattvas and all Tathāgatas.

A misreading to be set aside: that ‘calling to mind the Tathāgata's causes and conditions of the past’ is recalling a life of the Buddha. What is called to mind is the whole course of the six perfections and of vow and practice, and at the last it comes back to ‘being able to know the mental activities of beings’ — to know the causes of the buddhas is precisely for the sake of knowing the capacities of beings.

Bringing it to the ground: to read the Buddha's original practice is not to read anecdotes; it is to set your own present step back onto that line and look at it there.

One Short Question Brings Back Half a Book of Former Lives (Chengguan's Outline · The Root of the Dharma)

Sudhana next asks only four graphs: how long ago did she gain this liberation. And Gopā's answer is a whole account of causes and conditions of a past age.

Why is the question so short and the answer so long? Chengguan breaks it open: “though within the question he only asks how long ago the Dharma was gained, the meaning already contains how long the practice was, since it was by that that the Dharma gate was gained.” To ask how long ago the Dharma was gained is already to have asked how long the practice was — because the Dharma is gained by cultivation.

Chengguan further judges this answer into four divisions: first, the making clear of the raising of the mind and the practice in the presence of the first buddha; second, the practice in the presence of the many buddhas in between; third, the direct making clear of the time of gaining the Dharma; fourth, the burnishing of this Dharma through many kalpas. The skeleton of the whole second half of this section is just these four divisions.

A misreading to be set aside: that the account of the former life is a story, an extra thrown in beyond the main text. It is the only honest way of answering the two graphs ‘how long’ — to answer with a mere number would be to have given no answer.

Bringing it to the ground: ask a person how long he has practiced, and the most solid answer is not a count of years but the road he has walked.

The Former Life, One: The Royal Capital, the Prince, and the Thirty-Two Marks (Chengguan's Outline · Within the Former Part It Divides into Ten)

The former life begins with a kalpa named Surpassing Practice, a world named Fearless, four continents named Peace and Ease, and a royal city named Lofty and Surpassing Tree, foremost among eighty royal cities. The king was named Lord of Wealth, with sixty thousand maidens, five hundred great ministers, and five hundred princes. The crown prince was named Lord of Majestic Virtue, and below this the marks and signs are listed one by one: soles level and full, wheel marks complete, insteps arched, fingers and toes webbed, heels even and straight, hands and feet soft, calves of the aiṇeya deer king, seven places rounded and full, male organ hidden within a sheath, upper body like a lion king, shoulders level and full, arms long, bodily form upright and straight, three lines upon the neck, cheeks like a lion's, forty teeth even and close, four canines bright and white, tongue broad and long sending forth a Brahmā voice, eyes dark blue, lashes like a bull king's, the hair mark between the brows, the fleshy topknot upon the crown, skin of the color of true gold, body hairs curling upward, hair of the color of Indra's sapphire, body full and ample like a nyagrodha tree.

Chengguan judges the former part of the former life into ten passages, and these are the first two: first, the time and place of the royal capital; second, the prince's surpassing of all others — and within the passage of the prince, first the marks and then the going out to roam and look.

Upon the words ‘first the marks’ Chengguan's Yanyi chao has a gloss of its own: the scripture has thirty-two marks here, and “the text before points to this passage for their full setting forth, because the text here is complete” — the reason they are not listed earlier is that the text here is already complete, and so the earlier text points forward to this place. The Chao then lists the names of the thirty-two marks once in the order given by the Mahāprajñāpāramitā, and once again in the order of this passage of our scripture, annotating the one against the other, and concludes, “the above briefly joins the two scriptures.” The two scriptures differ in two respects: first, this passage of our scripture lacks the mark of ‘the constant light of one fathom,’ which the Chao says is contained within ‘what people delight to see’; second, if one follows the Yogācārabhūmi and counts ‘the forty teeth’ and ‘the canines bright and white’ separately, the number then fills out thirty-two. So in reading this long string of marks and signs one need not count them for oneself — the ancient worthies have already set out where the two witnesses diverge.

A misreading to be set aside: that this long string of marks and signs is a heaping up of adjectives. It has a definite function within the text — what the mother says below in dissuading her daughter, ‘this man is furnished with the marks of a wheel-turning king and hereafter is to succeed to the throne and become a wheel-turning king,’ and at the last the coming of the seven jewels to the prince and his becoming in fact a wheel-turning king, are all set up by this passage beforehand. The marks and signs here are a laid thread, not an ornament.

Bringing it to the ground: when you meet a long passage describing marks and signs in a scripture, do not skip it first; ask, ‘what has this passage prepared for, further on?’

The Former Life, Two: The Two Layers of Display in the Passage of Roaming and Looking

The prince, having received his father's command, goes with ten thousand maidens to the Fragrant Sprout Park to roam and look. The scripture text writes his chariot, his throne, the five hundred maidens taking up jeweled cords and driving, the hundred thousand myriads of men holding canopies and banners and pennants and making music and burning incense and scattering blossoms, and further the level road, the rows of jeweled trees, the spread jeweled nets, the towers stretching out.

And the passage of the towers suddenly turns direction: within those towers some have jewels heaped up, some have adornments set out, some have food and drink laid out, some have garments hung, some have the goods of livelihood provided — and the last clause is “whatever anyone had need of was wholly given to him.”

A misreading to be set aside: that the first half of the display is there to show wealth and honor. The first half is indeed wealth and honor, but the second half turns that wealth and honor into giving — everything set out along the road is there for people to take. With this turn the prince is joined to the vow below, ‘to the end of the future to practice the perfection of giving.’

Bringing it to the ground: with the same wealth, see whether it is being hoarded or is flowing, and you know what it will become.

The Former Life, Three: The Jeweled Maiden's Virtue and “If My Wish Is Not Fulfilled, I Shall Put an End to Myself”

The matron Excellent Manifestation brings the young girl Complete in Wondrous Virtue out of the city and goes before the prince. The scripture text first lists the girl's virtues: face upright and fine, form and features dignified and clean, stoutness and slenderness as they should be, tallness and shortness fitly measured, eyes and hair dark blue, voice like a Brahmā voice, skilled and penetrating in the crafts, thoroughly versed in disputation, respectful and diligent and never slothful, kind and doing no harm, furnished with shame and conscience, gentle and upright, free of delusion and of little desire, without the many flatteries and deceits. Chengguan judges this passage as the head of ‘the jeweled maiden seeking to belong to him,’ saying that within it there is “first, the being furnished with virtue and upright fineness.”

Next she sees the prince and love and attachment arise in her mind, and she tells her mother that she wishes to serve this man with reverence, and that if the wish is not fulfilled she will put an end to herself. Her mother enjoins her, saying that this man is furnished with the marks of a wheel-turning king and is hereafter to become a wheel-turning king, and that a jeweled woman will appear who soars through the air at ease, and that we are lowly and no match for him.

A misreading to be set aside: that the scripture text here approves this thought of love and attachment. The scripture text does not approve it; the mother enjoins her on the spot. As for the verse in the closing set, ‘though it was with a mind of love and attachment that I made offering to that son of the Buddha; for two hundred and fifty kalpas I did not fall into the three evil destinies,’ what it tells of is not this passage of the girl Wondrous Virtue seeing the prince, but an earlier stretch of causes in a far-distant kalpa — when she was the daughter of the householder Excellent Renown and was named Light of the Pure Sun, and seeing the monk Excellent Light gave rise to defiled attachment, and loosed her necklace and put it with its pearls into his bowl. Both stretches are a defiled mind; but here the scripture text first has the mother enjoin her, while there it says that even so, because of the offering, for two hundred and fifty kalpas she did not fall into the evil destinies.

Bringing it to the ground: an impure motive cannot be washed clean by calling itself pure; but if it meets the right object, it may still become a starting point.

The Former Life, Four: Dreaming of the Buddha and What the God Told Her

Beside the Fragrant Sprout Park is a place of the Way named Dharma Cloud Light, and a Tathāgata named Body of the Surpassing Sun, who has appeared seven days before. The young girl sleeps a while and dreams of that buddha; and when she wakes a god in the air tells her that the Buddha accomplished the way seven days ago, that bodhisattva hosts surround him before and behind, and that the devas and dragons and the eightfold host, and on up to the Highest Form Heaven, and the spirits of the earth, of the wind, of the fire, of the water, of the rivers, of the sea, of the mountains, of the trees, of the parks, of the herbs, and those who preside over cities, have all come and gathered for the sake of seeing the Buddha.

Chengguan judges this as “third, from ‘that fragrant sprout’ onward, the dreaming and beholding of the Buddha's arising.”

A misreading to be set aside: that the dream is a chance thing. The order in the scripture text is: first a thought arises that is outside the seeking of the way (love and attachment), then she dreams of the Buddha, then a god confirms it, then she speaks verses before the prince — and the whole working of this passage is to twist the causes and conditions of a marriage around toward the Buddha. And she says it more plainly herself in her verses of reverent compliance: in a past age there was a god of her retinue named Light of Gladness, and that god told her of a buddha arisen in the world at the place of the Way — neither the dream nor the god's telling is without a cause. As for the causes and conditions of the far-distant kalpa supplied by the verses at the end, those are an earlier stretch again: she was once the girl Light of the Pure Sun, who made offering with a mind of love and attachment to the monk Excellent Light as he begged food.

Bringing it to the ground: what is called the ripening of roots of goodness is often not a sudden turning for the better; it is that old matters, at some one moment, suddenly answer to each other.

The First Verses of the Girl Wondrous Virtue: A Turn within the Ten Verses (Chengguan's Outline)

The young girl speaks ten verses before the prince. Chengguan judges the first three as “setting forth her own virtue as fit,” and the last seven as “praising him and asking to be received.”

The first three verses speak of herself: the first says that her body is most upright and fine, her name heard in the ten directions, her wisdom beyond compare, and her skill in the crafts penetrating; the second says that measureless hundreds of thousands seeing her give rise to covetous attachment, while her mind gives rise to not the least desire toward them; the third says that she is without anger and without hatred, without aversion and without delight, and only raises the vast mind to benefit beings.

The most important of the three are the second and the third. The second says that she herself raises no desire toward others — and this clause marks off what follows, ‘in my mind I wish to serve you,’ from the passion of men and women in the world. The third says that what she raises is the vast mind and what she works for is the benefit of beings.

The last seven verses turn to praising the prince and asking to be received: the fourth says that seeing the prince furnished with the marks of merit and virtue her mind is greatly delighted and her faculties are glad; the fifth praises his color like a jewel of light, his fine hair curling to the right, his broad forehead and arched brows, and says ‘in my mind I wish to serve you’; the sixth takes an image of true gold and a mountain of great jewels as figures for the radiance of his bodily marks; the seventh praises his broad dark blue eyes, his moon-like face and lion-like cheeks, his glad countenance and fine voice, and begs ‘may you have pity and receive me’; the eighth praises the mark of his tongue, broad and long like the color of red copper, and his Brahmā voice like a kiṃnara's; the ninth praises his square mouth and white teeth, and that when he speaks a smile appears and those who see it are glad; the tenth praises his pure body free of defilement furnished with the thirty-two marks, and declares that ‘you must surely, within this world, take the seat of a wheel-turning king.’

A misreading to be set aside: that these ten verses are a proposal of marriage. On the face of the text they are; but not one clause of what the seven verses praise is wealth or power — all of it is the marks and signs and the virtue they display, and the last verse comes down upon the station of a wheel-turning king. What is sought is in fact a place upon one and the same road.

Bringing it to the ground: to see what a person seeks, do not look at whom he seeks; look at which side of the other person it is that he praises.

The Prince's Twelve Questions: The Passage Where the Bone Shows Most in This Section (Chengguan's Outline)

The prince first asks in prose, “Whose daughter are you? By whom are you guarded? If you already belong to another, then I ought not to raise a mind of love and attachment,” and then asks in twelve verses. Chengguan judges, “fourth, the prince examines her, in twelve verses divided into three: the first two ask about the condition of whom she belongs to; the next three examine her inward faults; the last seven invite her onward into the good.”

The first two verses ask whom she belongs to: the first asks in whose place she dwells; the second asks who are her father and mother and to whom she now belongs, and says that if she already belongs to another then that man has received her. These two verses are of one intent with the prose — first to ask clearly whether she already belongs to another.

The next three verses examine her inward faults: the third asks about not stealing the goods of others, not having a mind to harm, not committing unchastity, and upon what speech she abides; the fourth asks about not speaking the evil of others, not breaking apart the kin of others, not encroaching upon the boundaries of others, and not being angry at others; the fifth asks about not giving rise to wrong and perilous views, not doing deeds that contradict one another, and not using the power of flattery and crookedness to deceive the world. What the three verses ask about is just the three faults of body, the four of speech, and the three of mind.

The last seven verses invite her onward into the good, one verse to a set: the sixth asks whether she honors father and mother, reveres good friends, and can raise a gathering mind at the sight of the poor; the seventh asks whether toward the Dharma taught her by a good friend she can raise a firm mind and honor it to the end; the eighth asks whether she loves and delights in the buddhas, understands the bodhisattvas, and reveres the sea of merit and virtue of the host of monks; the ninth asks whether she can know the Dharma, can purify beings, and whether she abides within the Dharma or within what is not the Dharma; the tenth asks whether she can raise a mind of kindness at the sight of the orphaned and alone, and great compassion at the sight of beings of the evil destinies; the eleventh asks whether she can be glad when others gain glory and joy, and be without anger when others press upon her; the twelfth asks whether, raising the intent of awakening, she can enlighten beings, and whether in practice through boundless kalpas she can be without weariness.

A misreading to be set aside: that these are the conditions of choosing a spouse. What the eighth verse asks about is the three jewels, and what the twelfth asks about is the mind of awakening and freedom from weariness — this is no longer a question of marriage; it is an examination of qualification as a fellow traveler. And so Chengguan judges the last seven verses as ‘inviting her onward into the good,’ not as ‘asking whether she has this or that.’

Bringing it to the ground: to walk a long road with someone, the first question is not whether he likes you, but whether he can bear up under the road.

The Girl's Mother's Thirty-One Verses in Answer: How a Mother Presents Her Evidence (Chengguan's Outline)

The girl's mother answers for her, and Chengguan judges, “thirty-one verses divided into six: the first eleven verses display in general the excellence of her recompense; the next three verses praise separately her upright fineness; the third, three verses making clear that she is without peer; the fourth, five verses on her skills being full within; the fifth, eight verses on her being free of faults and furnished with virtue; the last one verse concluding in praise of what befits her,” and he says the intent of this passage is to “make clear that she has virtue and is without fault, and does not belong to another, and therefore ought to be received” — answering exactly to the three things the prince asked about.

The first eleven verses tell of the excellence of the recompense, and bring it out as narrative: the opening verse says that she now tells of the girl's birth and growing up and all the causes and conditions; next, that upon the day the prince was born this girl too was born from a lotus blossom, her eyes pure and long and broad, her limbs and joints complete; next, a recollection of roaming in the Sāla Park in the spring months, seeing the herbs luxuriant, the extraordinary trees putting forth blossoms like auspicious clouds, the fine birds calling in harmony, and eight hundred women roaming with her; next, that in the park was a bathing pool named Lotus Banner, and that she sat upon the bank surrounded by maidens; next, that within the pool there suddenly grew a thousand-petaled blossom, with jeweled petals and a lapis stalk and jāmbūnada gold for its dais; next, that as the night ended and the sun came forth the lotus just then opened and sent forth a great pure light; next, that the light was blazing like the sun first rising, illumining Jambudvīpa so that the multitude sighed that they had never seen the like; next, that she then saw this jade-like girl born from the lotus blossom, her body utterly pure and her limbs rounded and full; and the last verse settles it, saying that this is a jewel among men, born of pure karma, whose causes of past ages were not lost or spoiled, and who this day receives this recompense. Eleven verses run on together, and only the last verse points out the reason — it is not a marvel; it is karma.

The next three verses praise separately her upright fineness: dark blue hair and blue-lotus eyes, Brahmā voice and golden radiance, flower garland and jeweled topknot, pure and without defilement; limbs and joints complete and nothing lacking, like an image of true gold set amid jeweled blossoms; sandalwood fragrance from her pores perfuming all things, and blue-lotus fragrance from her mouth, constantly sending forth a Brahmā voice.

The third passage, in three verses, makes clear that she is without peer: where this girl dwells there is constantly the music of the gods, and she should not be matched with one of low degree; in the world there is no man fit to be her husband, none but him whose body the marks adorn; neither long nor short, neither coarse nor fine, upright and fine in every way. The latter two of the three verses come home to ‘may you look with favor and receive her.’

The fourth passage, in five verses, tells of her skills being full within: penetrating graphs and reckoning and the crafts and arts; skilled in the arts of war, deft at settling disputes, able to tame the hard to tame; her body pure and those who see it never sated, her merit and virtue adorning her of itself; skilled in penetrating the arising through conditions of the ailments of beings and giving medicine according to the ailment; penetrating the methods of speech of Jambudvīpa and on down to the sounds of music.

The fifth passage, in eight verses, tells of her being free of faults and furnished with virtue: whatever a woman can do she knows it all and yet is without the faults of women; not jealous and not stingy, without greed and without ill will, upright and soft and far from coarseness and harshness; reverent toward those to be honored, serving without opposing, delighting in cultivating good practices and so able to be in accord with him; constantly raising great kindness and pity at the sight of the aged, sick, poor, and those in hardship without rescue; constantly contemplating the highest meaning, not seeking benefit and joy for herself but vowing only to benefit beings and adorning her mind with this; without heedlessness in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and glad to those who see her whether she speaks or is silent; without a mind of defiled attachment though she is in all places, and delighting to look, never sated, upon one who has merit and virtue; honoring good friends, delighting to see those who have left evil behind, her mind not restless and her thinking coming before the deed.

The last verse concludes in praise of what befits her: adorned with merit and knowledge, without any hatred, highest among women, and fit to serve the prince.

A misreading to be set aside: that these thirty-one verses are a mother boasting of her daughter. Look closely at the order of the six passages: recompense, bodily marks, being without peer, skills, freedom from fault and possession of virtue, and the concluding praise — the first three passages belong to the outward and the last three to the inward, and the last three grow more and more into matters of the Dharma: constantly contemplating the highest meaning, vowing only to benefit beings, honoring good friends. Among the prince's twelve verses seven asked about ‘going onward into the good,’ and here eight verses answer as to ‘freedom from fault and possession of virtue’ — question and answer match.

Bringing it to the ground: evidence should be brought to what has actually been asked. If the other asks about your mind, do not keep talking about your appearance.

The Prince Invites Her Again: Saying the Hardest Thing First (Chengguan's Outline)

Having heard this, the prince does not receive her at once, but first speaks a passage of prose. Chengguan judges this passage as “sixth, the prince invites her again, meaning that if she will not hinder the way, he will follow her wish,” and the prose divides in two: first he sets forth the depth of his practice, and after he fears that she may make hindrance.

In the passage setting forth the depth of his practice, he says that he seeks awakening and will through measureless kalpas to the end of the future gather the dharmas that aid the way to all-knowledge, cultivate boundless bodhisattva practices, purify all the perfections, make offerings to all Tathāgatas, uphold and guard all the buddhas' teachings, and adorn and purify all buddha-lands; that he will cause the Tathāgatas' lineage not to be cut off, ripen beings everywhere in accord with their lineage, extinguish the suffering of birth and death of beings and set them in ultimate ease and joy, purify the eye of wisdom of beings, cultivate all that bodhisattvas practice, abide in the mind of equality, accomplish the grounds walked, and make all beings glad everywhere; that he will give up all things, and to the end of the future practice the perfection of giving, and on to garments and food and drink, wives and consorts and sons and daughters, head and eyes and hands and feet, and that all he has within and without he will renounce and give without begrudging.

In the passage fearing that she may make hindrance, each clause is heavier than the last: when he gives away goods and wealth her mind will begrudge them; when he gives away sons and daughters her mind will be pained; when he cuts off his limbs her mind will be distressed; when he forsakes her and leaves the household life her mind will be filled with regret.

A misreading to be set aside: that this is meant to frighten her off. It is a laying out of the worst case beforehand. The prince does not say ‘do not hinder me’; what he says is ‘when that time comes, you may perhaps’ — he speaks for her, beforehand, the difficulty that will be hers.

Bringing it to the ground: to invite someone to travel with you without telling how hard the road is, is a dishonest invitation.

The Prince's Ten Verses of Inviting Again: Six Verses on the Practice, Two and a Half on Not Hindering, One and a Half on Considering Carefully (Chengguan's Outline)

Chengguan judges these ten verses, saying “after, the verses, ten verses divided into three: the first six verses put into verse the depth of his practice; the next two and a half invite her not to make hindrance; the last one and a half conclude by bidding her consider carefully.”

The first six verses versify the depth of the practice: the first says that out of pity for beings he has raised the mind of awakening and will through measureless kalpas practice all-knowledge; the second, that within measureless kalpas he will purely cultivate the seas of vows, and that the entering of the grounds and the countering of hindrances will each pass through measureless kalpas; the third, that in the presence of the buddhas of the three times he will study the six perfections, be furnished with the practice of skillful means, and accomplish the way of awakening; the fourth, that the defiled lands of the ten directions he will wholly adorn and purify and from the hardships of the evil destinies he will make them forever come forth; the fifth, that he will by skillful means widely deliver beings, extinguishing the darkness of delusion and setting them in the Buddha's way of knowledge; the sixth, that he will make offerings to all buddhas and purify all grounds, and raising great kindness and compassion give away all things within and without.

The next two and a half verses invite her not to hinder: the seventh says that when she sees those who come to beg she may give rise to a stingy mind, while his mind constantly delights in giving, and she should not go against him; the eighth says that if she sees him give away his head she should by no means give rise to sorrow, and that he tells her beforehand to make her mind firm; the first half of the ninth says that even when he cuts off hand and foot she should not hold the beggar in aversion.

The last one and a half verses conclude by bidding her consider carefully: the second half of the ninth says that now that she has heard his words she should ponder them truly; the tenth says that sons and daughters and the things he loves he will all give away, and that if she can be in accord with his mind he will fulfill her intent.

A misreading to be set aside: that Chengguan's ‘two and a half verses’ and ‘one and a half verses’ are cut arbitrarily. Look at the content and you see that they are not — the first half of the ninth verse is still speaking of ‘not hindering’ (do not hold the beggar in aversion), while the second half has turned to ‘think it through for yourself.’ The turn of the meaning falls within a half verse, and so the outline can only be cut at a half verse.

Bringing it to the ground: in reading the outlines of the ancient worthies, where you meet an uneven cutting, that is usually the very joint of the meaning of the text.

The Girl's Fourteen Verses of Reverent Compliance: From Forgetting Suffering to Raising the Mind (Chengguan's Outline)

The young girl answers with four graphs, “I reverently receive what you have taught,” and then speaks fourteen verses. Chengguan judges, “seventh, the girl reverently complies. There are fourteen verses divided into three: the first three forget the suffering and cleave to his virtue; the next six hope to cultivate the surpassing practice together, which is just the raising of the mind of awakening; the last five urge him to go to the Tathāgata.”

The first three verses forget the suffering: within measureless seas of kalpas the fires of hell burning this body, in measureless places of taking birth the body crushed to dust motes, through measureless kalpas bearing upon her head a vast adamantine mountain — three things all gathered by one and the same closing clause, ‘if you can look with favor and receive me, I gladly accept such suffering.’

The next six verses hope to cultivate the surpassing practice together. The fourth says that within the measureless sea of birth and death the flesh of her body will be given away, and that when he gains the station of a Dharma king it may be granted her to be so too; the fifth says that if he receives her and is lord to her, then in life after life, wherever he practices giving, may she always be the thing given; the sixth says that out of pity for the suffering of beings he raises the mind of awakening, and since he has already gathered in beings he should gather her in too; the seventh says that she does not seek wealth and rank nor covet the joys of the five desires, but only for the sake of practicing the Dharma together vows to take him as her lord; the eighth says that his dark blue eyes, long and broad, look upon the world with pity and raise no mind of defiled attachment, and that he must surely accomplish the bodhisattva way; the ninth says that where the prince walks blossoms of the many jewels spring from the ground, and that he must surely become a wheel-turning king, and that she prays he may receive her. Upon these six verses Chengguan sets down his most important judgment — “which is just the raising of the mind of awakening.”

The last five verses urge him to go to the Tathāgata: the tenth says she once dreamed of the wondrous Dharma's site of awakening, with the Tathāgata seated beneath the tree surrounded by a measureless host; the eleventh, that in the dream the Tathāgata's body was like a mountain of true gold and with his hand he stroked the crown of her head, and that when she woke her mind was glad; the twelfth, that a god of her retinue in the past named Light of Gladness told her that at the place of the Way a buddha had arisen in the world; the thirteenth, that she once gave rise to the thought of wishing to see the prince's body, and the god replied that this very day she would see him; the fourteenth, that her aspirations of the past are now all fulfilled, and she prays only that they may go together and make offerings to that Tathāgata.

A misreading to be set aside: that the ‘I gladly accept such suffering’ of the first three verses is the speech of a lover. Were it only that, the fourth verse onward would not turn into ‘may I always be the thing given away’ and ‘only for the sake of practicing the Dharma together.’ Chengguan judges the fourth through the ninth verses as the raising of the mind of awakening because what is sought within these six verses is no longer to be received, but to cultivate and travel together.

Bringing it to the ground: a single thought of private feeling, if it is truly willing to go forward, will walk itself into a vow. What fails to do so is what stopped halfway at the matter of being received.

The Prince Receives Her, and That Woman's “Unmoved in Mind”

The prince, hearing the name of the Tathāgata Body of the Surpassing Sun, gives rise to great gladness and wishes to see that buddha, and so scatters five hundred maṇi jewels upon the woman, crowns her with a jeweled crown of the light of the wondrous treasury, and clothes her in a jeweled robe of flaming maṇi. Chengguan judges this passage, “eighth, the prince receives her, because of the gladness of his mind of reverence for the Buddha” — the cause of the receiving lies not in the woman's virtue but in his gladness at hearing the Buddha's name.

And the clause the scripture text adds next is the one most worth pausing at: that woman at that time was “unmoved in mind and had no mark of gladness either; she only joined her palms in reverence and gazed up at the prince, her eyes not turning away for a moment.”

A misreading to be set aside: that one who gains what she sought must be glad. Here she is precisely not glad. The one who a moment ago in fourteen verses so ardently sought to be received, when she truly is received has no mark of gladness — because what she sought had already turned into ‘practicing the Dharma together,’ and the jeweled crown and jeweled robe are not the thing sought.

Bringing it to the ground: when a thing is obtained and there is no great rise and fall in the mind, that is what shows that the thing sought at the outset was not that thing.

The Mother's Ten Verses Setting Forth Her Joy: The Order of the Four Passages (Chengguan's Outline)

The mother Excellent Manifestation speaks ten verses before the prince. Chengguan judges, “ninth, the mother sets forth her joy that it has been fulfilled, and therefore again praises the girl's virtue,” and that “the ten verses divide into four: the first one sets forth that her aspiration has been fulfilled; the next two, that her virtuous conduct is wholly the same; the next four, that her bodily and verbal karma surpass all others; the last three, the virtue stored within her mind.”

The first verse sets forth that her aspiration has been fulfilled: this girl is utterly upright and fine, merit and virtue adorn her body, in the past she vowed to serve the prince, and this day her intent is satisfied.

The next two verses say that her virtuous conduct is wholly the same as the prince's: one verse says she upholds the precepts and has wisdom and is furnished with merit and virtue and is everywhere in all the worlds most excellent and without peer; one verse says this girl was born from a lotus blossom, that in her clan there is nothing to reproach or shame, that she is of one and the same practice with the prince, and that she has left far behind all faults.

The next four verses say that her bodily and verbal karma surpass all others: her body soft as the silk floss of the heavens, so that wherever her hand touches the many afflictions are quenched; wondrous fragrances from her pores, so that those who smell them abide in pure precepts; the color of her body like true gold as she sits upright upon a dais of blossoms, so that those who see her leave harm behind and are furnished with a mind of kindness; her speech and voice utterly soft, so that those who gain the hearing of it leave behind the many evil deeds. Of the four verses the first three belong to the body and the last to speech, and every verse does more than describe the marks — each adds a clause on ‘what happens if beings see or hear’: the virtue of the bodily marks here does work.

The last three verses tell of the virtue stored within her mind: her mind pure and without flaw, far from crooked flatteries, speaking in accord with her own mind so that those who hear are glad; tamed and gentle and furnished with shame and conscience, reverent toward her elders, without greed and without deceit, and pitying toward beings; her mind not relying upon her form and features nor upon her retinue, but only with a pure mind reverent toward all buddhas.

A misreading to be set aside: that the mother has simply praised her over again. The thirty-one verses before were for the sake of asking that she be received; these ten verses are the rejoicing after it has been fulfilled. And the last verse says ‘she does not rely upon her form and features nor upon her retinue’ — setting down again everything that was praised before.

Bringing it to the ground: the best last clause in praising a person is to say that he does not lean upon the things you have praised.

Going to the Buddha, the Offerings, and the Ten Samādhis (Chengguan's Outline · The Tenth, Rightly Cultivating Together)

Chengguan judges the last passage of the former life as “tenth, rightly cultivating together,” and it divides below into ten passages. The first is going to the Buddha and making offerings: the prince, the girl Wondrous Virtue, ten thousand maidens, and their retinues come out from the Fragrant Sprout Park and go to the place of the Way called Dharma Cloud Light; having arrived they get down from their chariots and go forward on foot, see that the Buddha's bodily form is dignified and quiescent, his faculties tamed and compliant, pure within and without like a great dragon pool without defilement or turbidity, and all give rise to pure faith and leap for gladness, bow to the Buddha's feet and circle him numberless times, each scattering five hundred wondrous jeweled lotus blossoms as offering upon that buddha, the prince also building for the Buddha five hundred vihāras.

The second passage is hearing the sūtra and gaining the Dharma: the Buddha expounds for them the sūtra of the gate of the universal-eye lamp, and having heard it he gains within all dharmas the seas of samādhi, ten in all: the samādhi of illumining everywhere the sea of the vows of all buddhas, of illumining everywhere the treasury of the three times, of seeing directly the sites of the Way of all buddhas, of illumining everywhere all beings, of the lamp of knowledge illumining everywhere all the worlds, of the lamp of the knowledge of the faculties of all beings illumining everywhere, of the cloud of light that rescues and guards all beings, of the great lamp illumining everywhere all beings, of expounding the wheel of the Dharma of all buddhas, and of being furnished with the pure practice of Samantabhadra. What the girl Wondrous Virtue gains is only one, named Treasury of the Sea Hard to Surpass, and she becomes irreversible in awakening.

A misreading to be set aside: that those who hear one and the same sūtra should gain the same thing. The scripture text says plainly that they do not — the prince gains ten and the woman gains one, and hers is named ‘Treasury of the Sea Hard to Surpass’ and is fastened to irreversibility. The difference in what is gained reflects exactly the difference in what each has cultivated.

Bringing it to the ground: from one and the same lesson, what each person carries away will not be the same; this is not a matter of who listened better, but of what each brought when he came.

Telling the Father, Yielding the Throne, and the Simile of the Poor Man Gaining a Hidden Treasure

The prince returns to the palace and tells his royal father that the Tathāgata Body of the Surpassing Sun accomplished the way not long ago. The king asks who told him, and the prince answers that it was the girl Complete in Wondrous Virtue. The king, hearing it, is gladdened beyond measure, “as when a poor man gains a great hidden treasure,” and makes the thought that the Buddha is an unsurpassed jewel hard to meet with, that the Buddha is like a king of physicians able to cure the illnesses of the afflictions, and that the Buddha is like a guide able to bring beings to the place of ease. Having made this thought, he gathers the lesser kings, ministers, retinues, kṣatriyas, brāhmaṇas, and the rest of the great multitude, gives up the throne and confers it upon the prince, and when the anointing is done goes with ten thousand men to the Buddha's place.

Chengguan judges this as the third, fourth, and fifth of the passages: taking leave and telling the father; the king examining and rejoicing at what he hears; yielding the throne and going to look.

A misreading to be set aside: that the giving up of the throne is an impulse of the moment. Before the giving up of the throne the scripture text first writes the three similes of ‘he made this thought’ — first there is the seeing, and then the act. And he does not simply walk away: he first gathers the multitude, first confers the throne, first performs the anointing, and only then goes.

Bringing it to the ground: a true relinquishing is relinquished cleanly and also settled cleanly.

The Buddha Sends Forth Light, Expounds a Dhāraṇī, and the Assembly of That Time Is Benefited

The Tathāgata, contemplating that king and the great multitude, sends forth from the mark of the white hair a great light named Lamp of the Mind of All the Worlds, illumining everywhere the ten directions and abiding before all the lords of the worlds, displaying the power of great spiritual power and causing everywhere all who are fit to be converted to gain purity of mind; and further, with spiritual power of ease, displays a body that goes beyond all the worlds, and with a perfect voice expounds for the great multitude a dhāraṇī named Lamp That Leaves Behind the Gloom of the Meaning of All Dharmas, having dhāraṇīs as many as the dust motes of a buddha-land for its retinue.

Its benefit falls into four classes: that king at once obtains the great light of knowledge; within his assembly bodhisattvas as many as the dust motes of Jambudvīpa at the same time realize this dhāraṇī; six hundred thousand nayutas of men exhaust the outflows and their minds gain liberation; ten thousand beings leave the dust and part from defilement and gain the pure Dharma eye; and measureless beings raise the mind of awakening. Thereafter the Buddha again widely displays spiritual transformations and in the ten directions expounds the Dharma of the three vehicles and converts and delivers beings.

A misreading to be set aside: that the benefit of one preaching of the Dharma is uniform. What is listed here — those who realize the dhāraṇī, those who exhaust the outflows, those who gain the pure Dharma eye, and those who raise the mind of awakening — are each a class, and what they gain is deep or shallow in different measure, and yet all are within one assembly.

Bringing it to the ground: one and the same clause of the Dharma becomes a different medicine for different people, and this is the very reason why one who preaches need not hesitate at the unevenness of his hearers.

The Royal Father Leaves the Household Life: One Thought and the Whole Road After It

The royal father makes the thought, ‘if I remain in the household I cannot realize such a wondrous Dharma; if in the Buddha's presence I leave the household life and study the way, then I shall accomplish it,’ and so tells the Buddha and asks to leave the household life, and the Buddha answers, ‘as you wish; know for yourself when the time is fitting.’ The king Lord of Wealth and ten thousand men leave the household life at the same time. Before long they all gain the dhāraṇī Lamp That Leaves Behind the Gloom of the Meaning of All Dharmas, and gain also the gates of samādhi as above, and the bodhisattva's ten gates of spiritual power, boundless eloquence, and unhindered pure body, and go to the presence of the Tathāgatas of the ten directions to hear and receive their Dharma and as great Dharma masters expound the wondrous Dharma; and again by spiritual power they go throughout the lands of the ten directions and in accord with the minds of beings display their bodies, praising the appearing of the buddhas, expounding the original practice of the buddhas, revealing the original conditions of the buddhas, extolling the Tathāgatas' spiritual power of ease, and upholding and guarding the teachings the buddhas preach.

A misreading to be set aside: that leaving the household life is for the sake of gaining the Dharma oneself. The order of this passage is first gaining the Dharma, then becoming Dharma masters, then displaying bodies throughout the ten directions to preach the Dharma and guard the teaching — everything gained is at the last turned outward.

Bringing it to the ground: to judge whether a retreat or a stretch of intensive practice has come to anything, see whether, after coming out of it, it has become someone else's road.

The Prince Succeeds to the Throne: The Seven Jewels and the Monastic Dwellings of the Eighty Royal Cities

On the fifteenth day the prince, upon the main hall and surrounded by maidens, has the seven jewels come to him of themselves: the wheel jewel named Unhindered Course, the elephant jewel named Adamantine Body, the horse jewel named Swift Wind, the pearl jewel named Treasury of Sunlight, the woman jewel named Furnished with Wondrous Virtue, the treasurer jewel named Great Wealth, and the general jewel named Eye Free of Defilement. The seven jewels being complete he becomes a wheel-turning king, rules as king over Jambudvīpa, governs the world with the true Dharma, and the people are happy; the king has a thousand sons, upright and fine and valorous and strong, able to subdue enemies.

Within his Jambudvīpa there are eighty royal cities, and within each city five hundred monastic dwellings, and in each monastic dwelling a caitya of the Buddha is raised, all high and broad and ornamented with the many wondrous jewels; and each royal city invites the Tathāgata and makes offerings with inconceivable wondrous articles. When the Buddha enters a city he displays great spiritual power, causing measureless beings to plant the roots of goodness, to gain purity of mind, to be glad at seeing the Buddha, to raise the intent of awakening, to raise the mind of great compassion, to benefit beings, to cultivate diligently the Buddha's Dharma, to enter the true meaning, to abide in the Dharma nature, to penetrate the equality of dharmas, to obtain the knowledge of the three times, to contemplate the three times equally, to know the order in which the buddhas arise, to preach the many dharmas and gather in beings, to raise the bodhisattva's vow, to enter the bodhisattva's way, to know the Tathāgata's Dharma, to accomplish the sea of the Dharma, to display their bodies everywhere throughout all lands, to know the faculties and natures and desires of beings, and to make them raise the vow of all-knowledge.

A misreading to be set aside: that the station of a wheel-turning king and the way of awakening are two different matters. The whole doing of the wheel-turning king written in this passage is building monastic dwellings, raising caityas, and inviting the Buddha into the cities; and the fruit gained is not lands but beings raising the vow of all-knowledge. Station here is a thing used to do work with.

Bringing it to the ground: for one who has gained a position, look at what he has turned the position into.

Joining the Ancient and the Present: Bringing the Past Age Back to This Day (Chengguan's Outline)

Gopā asks Sudhana: that prince who at that time gained the station of a wheel-turning king and made offerings to the Buddha, could he be another? He is today's Buddha Śākyamuni. The king Lord of Wealth is the Buddha Jeweled Blossom — and she tells in detail how the Buddha Jeweled Blossom is now in the east, in such a sea of worlds, such a world-seed, such a world, and such a place of the Way, become a buddha and preaching the Dharma, and says that the buddhas of the three times who arise within that sea of worlds were all taught and converted by the Tathāgata Jeweled Blossom when he was a bodhisattva, so that they raised the mind of awakening. The girl's mother of that time, Excellent Manifestation, is today her own mother Excellent Eye. The retinue of that king is today's assembly in the presence of the Tathāgata, and they all cultivate the practices of Samantabhadra and have fulfilled the great vow, and though constantly within this assembly are able to display themselves everywhere throughout all the worlds, abiding in the equal samādhi, constantly seeing the buddhas, hearing and receiving the wheel of the Dharma, at ease in all dharmas, their names heard everywhere, going everywhere to the sites of the Way, displaying themselves everywhere before beings, taming according to what befits, and to the end of the kalpas of the future cultivating the bodhisattva way without interruption.

And the last clause is the crux: that girl Wondrous Virtue who made offerings of the four requisites to the Tathāgata Body of the Surpassing Sun — “is my own self.”

Chengguan judges here, “second, from ‘son of the Buddha, what do you think’ onward, the joining of the ancient and the present”; Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, opens it into five joinings — joining the prince, joining the royal father, joining the girl's mother, joining the retinue, and joining her own person.

A misreading to be set aside: that the joining is a way of rounding off a story. It has a real function here: it joins that seemingly worldly marriage, item by item, to the persons of this present assembly — the Śākya who preaches, the Buddha Jeweled Blossom in the east, Gopā's mother Excellent Eye, the multitude in the assembly, and this good friend who is speaking now. The matters of the past age are not of the past age; they are the origins of those seated here at this moment.

Bringing it to the ground: the person you meet at this moment is most likely not one you are meeting for the first time.

The Sixty Koṭis of Buddhas and That Long Passage of Listed Names

After the girl Wondrous Virtue and the wheel-turning king Lord of Majestic Virtue made offerings of the four requisites to the Tathāgata Body of the Surpassing Sun, after that buddha's extinction sixty koṭis of hundreds of thousands of nayutas of buddhas arose in the world within that world, and she together with the king served and made offerings to them all; and the scripture text lists the buddhas' names one by one, from Pure Body, Body of the Light of the Moon of All-Knowledge, and King of the Light of Jāmbūnada Gold on down to Wondrous Lotus Blossom of the Sea of the Dharma.

Chengguan judges this passage, “second, from ‘after that buddha's extinction’ onward, the seeing of the many buddhas in between, briefly listing forty,” and Fazang's judgment likewise reads ‘briefly listing forty’ — while the base text, counted one by one, gives forty-eight names. The word both houses use is ‘briefly listing.’

Li Tongxuan reads a layer of symbolism into this passage besides: of the first buddha, Body of the Surpassing Sun, he says “it symbolizes the fundamental knowledge”; of the sixty koṭis of hundreds of thousands of nayutas of buddhas who arose thereafter, that it is “upon the fundamental knowledge raising up the differentiating knowledge”; and “that from the first buddha Body of the Surpassing Sun down to the last buddha Vast Understanding she made offerings to fifty buddhas within that span symbolizes the causes and fruits of the preparatory practice of the five stations” — the number of buddhas served between the first and the last he reads as the causes and fruits of the preparatory practice of the five stations. Of one and the same string of buddha names, what Chengguan reads out is the length of the ‘how long ago,’ and what Li Tongxuan reads out is the order of the fundamental knowledge and the differentiating knowledge. Recorded together without judgment.

A misreading to be set aside: that this passage may be skipped in reading. The reason the names must be listed one by one is precisely that what was asked was ‘how long ago.’ A number cannot answer ‘how long ago’; a string of names can — for each name is one act of serving and making offering.

Bringing it to the ground: what is called a long term is not a stretch of time; it is one matter set down after another.

The Last Buddha and the Time of Gaining the Dharma

The last buddha was named Vast Understanding, and in his presence she gained the pure eye of knowledge. When that buddha entered the city and taught and converted, Gopā was the king's consort, and together with the king she paid respects and looked upon him and made offerings with the many wondrous things, and in his presence heard the expounding of the Dharma gate of bringing forth the lamp of all Tathāgatas, and at once obtained the liberation of the objective realm of contemplating the sea of the samādhis of all bodhisattvas.

Chengguan judges this as the third division, “the direct making clear of the time of gaining the Dharma.”

A misreading to be set aside: that the gaining of the Dharma is a sudden point. It is indeed a point — ‘at once obtained’; but behind this point are pressed the servings of sixty koṭis of hundreds of thousands of nayutas of buddhas. The point is instantaneous; the ground it stands upon is not.

Bringing it to the ground: those things that look sudden are usually only the last stroke.

Burnishing Through Many Kalpas, One: Even After Gaining the Dharma She Still Does Not Know the Body of the Bodhisattva (Chengguan's Outline)

After gaining this liberation she cultivated diligently with bodhisattvas through kalpas as many as the dust motes of a buddha-land, and through such kalpas served and made offerings to measureless buddhas — sometimes in one kalpa serving one buddha, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes unspeakably many, sometimes meeting buddhas as many as the dust motes of a buddha-land, drawing near to all of them and serving and making offerings — and the last clause is “I still could not know the shape, measure, form, and appearance of the body of the bodhisattva, nor the karma of his body, the activity of his mind, his knowledge, or the objective realm of his samādhis.”

A misreading to be set aside: that gaining a Dharma gate is reaching the top. Chengguan judges the fourth of the four divisions as ‘the burnishing of this Dharma through many kalpas’ — the Dharma is gained, and still it must be burnished. And after burnishing this long, what is still not known is ‘the body of the bodhisattva.’

Bringing it to the ground: to obtain a Dharma gate is to enter the door, not to graduate.

The Bodhisattva Is Hard to Meet, and He Who Sees Him Does Not See in Vain

A passage is inserted here: if there are beings who gain a sight of the bodhisattva cultivating the practice of awakening, whether they doubt or whether they believe, the bodhisattva gathers them all in with skillful means both worldly and world-transcending, making them his retinue and causing them to gain irreversibility in awakening.

This passage looks like a digression, but it is in fact the most important single thread in the second half of this section. Chengguan says: “the first one displays in general that the bodhisattva benefits beings, versifying beyond its place the foregoing ‘he who sees does not see in vain,’ and giving rise to the benefit of the woman's defiled mind below” — the first verse of the closing set, ‘if any see the bodhisattva cultivating practices of every kind, and give rise to a good mind or a mind that is not good, the bodhisattva gathers them all in alike,’ versifies just this passage; and that girl Light of the Pure Sun who made offering with a mind of love and attachment to a monk begging food is one instance among ‘whether they doubt or whether they believe.’

A misreading to be set aside: that one must draw near to a bodhisattva with a pure mind for there to be benefit. The scripture text says plainly ‘whether they doubt or whether they believe’ — even those who doubt are gathered in.

Bringing it to the ground: there is no need to wait until your own mind is clean before drawing near; wait so, and the time will never come.

Burnishing Through Many Kalpas, Two: Why the Ten Grounds Do Not Know the Liberation of Samantabhadra

Another passage: she cultivated in common with bodhisattvas through kalpas as many as the dust motes of a hundred buddha-lands, and in the presence of all those Tathāgatas gained the many Dharma gates of this liberation, knowing the many three times, entering the many seas of lands, seeing the many accomplishings of right awakening, entering the many assemblies of buddhas, making the many great vows, cultivating the many wondrous practices, and gaining the many liberations — and yet still could not know the liberation gate of Samantabhadra that the bodhisattva gains.

Why is this? The scripture text answers itself: the liberation gate of Samantabhadra is like great empty space, like the names of beings, like the sea of the three times, like the sea of the ten directions, like the sea of the Dharma realm, measureless and boundless; and the last clause is “the bodhisattva's liberation gate of Samantabhadra is equal to the objective realm of the Tathāgatas.”

Upon this Chengguan judges with great transparency: “first, the general displaying of its depth and breadth. It means that the reason for not knowing it is that it accords with the boundlessness of matter and principle and is equal to the objective realm of the buddhas. This then is the liberation of the bodhisattva of equal awakening, which the ten grounds do not know, and therefore it is named the liberation of Samantabhadra.”

A misreading to be set aside: that the ‘not knowing’ is this good friend's modesty. It is not modesty but a necessity in principle — the objective realm of what is not known is equal to that of the Tathāgatas, while the station she is assigned to is the ten grounds; that the ten grounds do not know the liberation of equal awakening is a matter of the order of stations, not a matter of largeness of mind. And the name ‘liberation of Samantabhadra’ arises from just this.

Bringing it to the ground: to admit that there is something one cannot at present possibly know is not discouragement; it is having seen one's own position clearly.

The Three Worlds and the Bodhisattva Practices Within a Single Pore

What follows displays separately the marks of what is hard to know, and all of it comes down upon the four graphs ‘each single pore.’ Chengguan judges, “it means that a single hair is already inexhaustible, how much more the vast working of many hairs and many bodies, since it is an endless and boundless Dharma gate.”

The scripture text first takes a simile: as men of much desire, men and women, come together and grow attached to one another and give rise to measureless deluded thoughts and imaginings; ‘so it is with me’ — taking the most defiled mark in the world as a figure for her never being sated in contemplating the bodhisattva's body.

What is seen falls into four layers. The first is the world of vessels: within each single pore, in thought after thought, she sees measureless and boundless vast worlds of every kind of abiding, adornment, and shape, with mountains, grounds, clouds, names, arisings of buddhas, sites of the Way, and assemblies of every kind, expounding sūtras of every kind and preaching consecrations, vehicles, skillful means, and purities of every kind. The second is the world of the knowledge of right awakening: within each single pore, in thought after thought, she constantly sees boundless seas of buddhas sitting at sites of the Way of every kind, displaying transformations, turning wheels of the Dharma, and preaching sūtras, constantly without break. The third is the world of beings: within each single pore she sees boundless seas of beings with dwelling places, shapes, deeds, and faculties of every kind. The fourth is the boundless gates of practice of the bodhisattvas of the three times: boundless vast vows, boundless differentiated grounds, boundless perfections, boundless matters of past ages, boundless gates of great kindness, boundless clouds of great compassion, boundless minds of great joy, and boundless skillful means for gathering in beings.

A misreading to be set aside: that the simile of the man of much desire is an unseemly figure. What the figure takes is only one point — that state of mind that cannot look enough and will not let go from thought to thought. The scripture text borrows the most defiled state of mind to speak of the purest contemplative practice, and this is the most perilous and also the most apt of the figures of this section; and the verse at the close, ‘though it was with a mind of love and attachment,’ turns upon the same axis.

Bringing it to the ground: practice is not exchanging that force for another; it is turning it around.

Where She Has Already Come She Does Not Come Again, What She Has Already Seen She Does Not See Again

The concluding passage says that through kalpas as many as the dust motes of a buddha-land she has in thought after thought thus contemplated each single pore of the bodhisattva — “the places I have already come to I do not come to again, and the places I have already seen I do not see again, and seeking its outer bound I could not in the end obtain it” — and on to seeing that prince Siddhārtha abiding within the palace surrounded by maidens. She says: by the power of this liberation, contemplating each single pore of the bodhisattva, I see in each the matters within the Dharma realm of the three times.

The clause ‘where she has already come she does not come again, what she has already seen she does not see again’ deserves close looking: it is not that she is unwilling to come again, but that there is simply no repeated place to come to again — since what a single hair contains is without bound, what is entered in thought after thought must be new.

And the last clause suddenly gathers upon ‘the prince Siddhārtha within the palace, surrounded by maidens’ — that is precisely the aspect of the Śākya before he left the household life, and it reflects exactly that stretch of palace causes and conditions in her own former life. The endless seeing comes back to the one scene closest to her.

A misreading to be set aside: that this is an exaggeration of spiritual power. What it says is in fact a very plain thing: if the objective realm contemplated is truly endless, then the contemplator never has an old road to walk.

Bringing it to the ground: if a road always feels to you like repetition, it is usually not that the road is narrow, but that the way of looking has grown old.

Humbling Herself and Pointing to the Superior: She Says She Has Gained Only One (Chengguan's Outline)

At the last she says, “I have gained only this liberation of contemplating the sea of the samādhis of the bodhisattvas,” and then points to the superior: as for the bodhisattva mahāsattvas, they have brought to the end measureless seas of skillful means, for all beings display bodies according to their kinds and expound practices according to what they delight in, and within each single pore display boundless seas of forms and marks; they know that the nature of the dharmas has no-nature for its nature, that the nature of beings is the same as the mark of empty space and without discrimination, and that the Buddha's spiritual power is the same as suchness, and everywhere display boundless objective realms of liberation; and within a single thought can at ease enter the vast Dharma realm and sport within the Dharma gates of all the grounds — and how then could she know or expound their practice of merit and virtue.

A misreading to be set aside: that humbling oneself is a set phrase of this assembly. The humbling in this section connects with what came before — she has just said that the ten grounds do not know the liberation of Samantabhadra, and so ‘I have gained only this’ here is not courtesy but plain fact.

Bringing it to the ground: to say ‘I know only this one thing’ and to have every clause of it be true is far harder than to say ‘I know a little of everything.’

Pointing Out the Next Friend: The Questions Themselves Are the Next Stretch of Road (Chengguan's Outline)

She points Sudhana to go and see Māyā, the mother of the Buddha, and sets out clause by clause what he is to ask: how a bodhisattva cultivates the bodhisattva practices, is without defiled attachment within the worlds, makes offerings to the buddhas constantly without rest, does the bodhisattva's work never turning back, leaves all hindrances and enters the bodhisattva's liberation not by way of another, abides in the ways of all bodhisattvas, goes to the presence of all Tathāgatas, gathers in all the realms of beings, and to the end of the kalpas of the future cultivates the bodhisattva practices and raises the vow of the Great Vehicle, making the roots of goodness of all beings grow constantly without rest.

A misreading to be set aside: that pointing out the next friend is merely giving an address. What she gives is a whole set of questions; and the questions are the map of the next stretch of road.

Bringing it to the ground: what a good teacher hands you is often not an answer but the next question you ought to ask.

Verses Again at the Departure: Those Fifteen Verses the Prose Does Not Have (Chengguan's Outline)

After the pointing out, she speaks thirty-one verses more. Chengguan judges, “thirty-one verses divided into three: the first one displays in general that the bodhisattva benefits beings, versifying beyond its place the foregoing ‘he who sees does not see in vain,’ and giving rise to the benefit of the woman's defiled mind below,” “the next fifteen verses make clear the matters of a far-distant kalpa, which the prose does not have,” “the last fifteen verses rightly versify the causes and conditions of the virtuous woman in the prose,” and he explains why these fifteen verses must be supplied: “the prose speaks of the truly pure raising of the mind and discusses only the virtuous woman; here he gathers in her mixed goodness, and so relates the far-distant conditions, taking the coarse as a figure for the wondrous.”

The first verse displays in general: if any see the bodhisattva cultivating practices of every kind, and give rise to a good mind or a mind that is not good, the bodhisattva gathers them all in.

The next fifteen verses tell of the matters of the far-distant kalpa: in a past age past kalpas as many as the dust motes of a hundred lands there was a kalpa named Pure and a world named Light; within this kalpa sixty thousand myriad koṭis of buddhas arose in the world, and the last was titled Lamp of the Dharma Banner; after that buddha's nirvāṇa there was a king named Mountain of Knowledge who ruled Jambudvīpa without an enemy; the king had five hundred sons, upright and fine and able to be valorous, whom those who saw were glad to see; that king and his princes made offerings to the Buddha with minds of faith, upheld and guarded his treasury of the Dharma, and delighted to cultivate his Dharma; the crown prince was named Excellent Light, free of defilement and of many skillful means, his marks rounded and full and those who saw him never sated; five hundred koṭis of men together left the household life and studied the way, valorous and firm in vigor, upholding and guarding his Buddha's Dharma; the royal capital was named Tree of Knowledge with a thousand koṭis of cities surrounding it, and there was a grove named Quiescent Virtue adorned with the many jewels; Excellent Light dwelt within that grove and widely expounded the true Dharma, and by the power of eloquence and wisdom made the multitude pure; once, because of begging food, he entered that capital city, his walking and stopping utterly serene, with right knowing and a mind undistracted; within the city there was a householder titled Excellent Renown, and she at that time was his daughter, named Light of the Pure Sun; at that time she was within the city and met Excellent Light, and seeing his marks utterly dignified and fine, defiled attachment arose in her mind; he begged for food in order and came before her door, and love and attachment grew in her mind, and she loosed the necklace from her body and with its pearls put it into his bowl; though it was with a mind of love and attachment that she made offering to that son of the Buddha, for two hundred and fifty kalpas she did not fall into the three evil destinies; sometimes she was born in the house of a heavenly king, sometimes the daughter of a human king, and constantly saw that body of Excellent Light adorned with wondrous marks.

The last fifteen verses rightly versify the prose: the kalpas that passed thereafter were again two hundred and fifty, and she was born in the house of Excellent Manifestation and named Furnished with Wondrous Virtue; at that time she saw the prince and a mind of honoring arose, and she vowed to be ranked among those who attend him and was favored with his pity and reception; she together with the prince looked upon the Buddha Body of the Surpassing Sun, and when the reverent offerings were done raised the intent of awakening; within that one kalpa there were sixty koṭis of Tathāgatas, and the last World-Honored One was named Vast Understanding; in his presence she gained the pure eye, penetrated the marks of the dharmas, saw everywhere the places of taking birth, and forever removed the inverted mind; she gained the liberation of contemplating the objective realm of the samādhis of the bodhisattva, and in a single thought entered the inconceivable seas of lands of the ten directions; she saw the many worlds pure and defiled in every kind of difference, and toward the pure did not covet and toward the defiled did not hate; she saw everywhere the Tathāgatas of the many worlds seated at the sites of the Way, all within a single thought sending forth measureless light; within a single thought she can enter everywhere unspeakably many assemblies and also know all the gates of samādhi they have gained; within a single thought she can wholly know their vast practices, the skillful means of the measureless grounds, and the seas of vows; she contemplates the bodhisattva's body and the practice of boundless kalpas, and the measure of each single pore, and seeks it and cannot obtain it; the lands within each single pore are numberless and unspeakably many, and the wheels of earth, water, fire, and wind are all of them within; establishings of every kind, shapes of every kind, substances and names of every kind, and boundless sorts of adornment; she sees the many seas of lands and unspeakably many worlds and the buddhas within them preaching the Dharma and converting beings; and the last verse still comes home to not knowing — she cannot penetrate the bodhisattva's body and the karmas of that body, nor know his mind and knowledge and the way he has walked through the kalpas.

A misreading to be set aside: that those fifteen verses are a branch grown outside the trunk. Chengguan says it plainly: the prose spoke only of that stretch of the virtuous woman's causes and conditions belonging to the ‘truly pure raising of the mind,’ and the verses must gather in the ‘mixed goodness’ as well — and so a farther stretch is related, and within that stretch the offering was made with a defiled mind. Taking the coarse as a figure for the wondrous means that even such a cause as that does not fall empty, how much less a pure cause.

Bringing it to the ground: a person's origins hold more than the stretch he is willing to tell. All of it counts.

The End of the Section: Verses and Prose Both Come Home to the Same “I Do Not Know”

The last verse of the thirty-one and the humbling at the end of the prose come home to one and the same clause — she cannot penetrate the bodhisattva's body, and does not know his mind and knowledge and the way he has walked. The prose says it once, and the verses say it again.

And at the very end of his whole outline Chengguan sets down: “sixth, the taking of leave, which may be understood. The marks of the practice assigned to the stations above are finished.” The forty-one friends of the assignment to the stations come to their end here.

A misreading to be set aside: that having walked to the fortieth and been assigned to the tenth ground, it ought to close upon an ‘I have understood.’ The scripture text closes instead upon an ‘I do not know’ — and this not-knowing is precisely the doorway into the mark that comes next (the gathering of conditions and entering the real, beginning with Māyā).

Bringing it to the ground: when a stretch of road has been walked to its end, if one can still say honestly what one does not know, then that stretch was not walked in vain.

Lineage

The text of this section opens three threads that run onward.

The first is the thread of the outlining by assignment to stations. Chengguan set up the five aspects in the sixth of the ten gates at the head of this assembly, and this section belongs to the end of the first mark; and when he set that mark up he first raised the two positions, matching and not matching, saying that they “both have their reason,” next set down his own judgment, “yet within the absence of graded stations the graded stations are not hindered, and to display the stations is the constant rule, so that to match them is likewise no fault,” and only then closed with “for now, following the ancient worthies, matching them as five aspects” — so that Chengguan judges outright that to match them is no fault, rather than setting out two positions and withholding his own. At the end of this section the commentary writes “the marks of the practice assigned to the stations above are finished,” and so the first mark is complete. For anyone who reads this assembly using the rod of the stations, these two places are the two ends of that rod — one where it is set up, one where it is gathered in.

The second is the thread of the glossing of the name. All four houses gloss it; only the outline passages in which they do so differ, and in reading one must keep clear who is speaking, and in which passage.

Chengguan's gloss does not stand within this friend's own outlined passage but within the heading of the former friend's “pointing out of the next friend”: he says, “as to the word Gopā, in this tongue it means Guardian of the Great Earth,” and explains why — at home she was guarded by her parents, and once she became his consort she took her name from her lord; and with respect to the Dharma, “it symbolizes that since the ten grounds are already complete, there is no ground she does not guard.”

Fazang, at the head of his glossing of this friend's name, examines the Indic witnesses and hands down “Guyi means, in the old rendering, Bright Woman,” and lists also “or the name Qiaobi, which in this tongue means Covering Obstruction” and “or the name Qupo, which in this tongue means Guardian of the Great Earth,” and taking the meaning of the jeweled woman of a king says “and further, since the realization of the Dharma is already full and the joy of the Dharma is fitting and pleasing, this is the sense of ‘wife.’”

Li Tongxuan's gloss too stands not within this friend's passage of true entering but within the former friend's pushing on from virtue: “this Gopā is also called Guyi, which in this tongue means Guardian of the Ground, the guarding of the ground of great kindness and great compassion within the bodhisattva practice.” And in the passage upon the Dharma Cloud Ground in the Chapter on the Ten Grounds he says: “Gopā means, in this tongue, Guardian of the Ground. It makes clear that at this Dharma Cloud Ground the power of the vow and knowledge and compassion are all already full, and she only constantly guards the mind-ground of all beings, taking that as the substance of the ground, and therefore is named the spirit who guards the ground” — what is guarded is not land but the mind-ground of all beings, and that mind-ground is taken as the substance of the Dharma Cloud Ground. Beyond this he does not enter by way of glossing the name, but sets up his account by way of symbolizing the Dharma, judging that she “symbolizes the penetrating through of the great compassionate practice of the ten grounds,” and citing the four clauses of the ancients — gaining the real without realizing it, knowing the real while practicing the conventional, dwelling amid the bonds without defilement, and great compassion in shared work — and then setting up ten gates of his own to praise her virtue, concluding “with these ten dharmas I praise Gopā's practice of the practice of Samantabhadra.”

Zhiyan, at the head of his glossing of this friend's name, says “tenth, Guyi, whose name in this quarter is Bright Woman, that is, the station of the bodhisattva of the ten grounds,” and points directly to what she symbolizes: “this Bright Woman symbolizes that the practice of kindness and compassion is ultimate.” He also records that the prince had three consorts and that Guyi was the third of them, differing from Fazang and Chengguan, who both take Guyi as the first — upon one and the same matter the order the three houses record does not agree. Recorded without judgment.

The approaches of the four houses each differ: one glosses within the heading of the former friend's pointing out and comes home to “there is no ground she does not guard”; one examines the Indic witnesses and obtains four accounts; one glosses in two places, the former friend's pushing on from virtue and the Chapter on the Ten Grounds, and comes home to “guarding the mind-ground of beings”; one takes “Bright Woman” as directly symbolizing that the practice of kindness and compassion is ultimate. Recorded without judgment.

The third is the thread of the matching of the order of stations. Li Tongxuan takes this section as the end of the ten grounds and fastens it to the doorway of the eleventh ground, saying “this Gopā is the end of the way of the ten grounds, where the world-transcending knowledge is full, and it is meant to bring the bodhisattvas who have reached the way of the ten grounds into the gate of the practice of Samantabhadra of the eleventh ground,” and at the end of his fascicle judges the matching of her perfection, saying “this is the good friend of the Dharma Cloud Ground, having the perfection of knowledge as principal and the remaining nine as companions,” and saying that what she counters is “the countering, within knowledge, of the hindrance of not being at ease in the practice furnished with great kindness.” Within Chengguan's own outlined passage no such matching of the ten perfections appears. Further, as to the dividing of the former life, Chengguan makes ten passages while Fazang makes fifteen; as to the judging of the numbers of verses in the several passages, Chengguan upon the eighty-fascicle witness has ten verses, twelve verses, ten verses, twelve verses, thirty-one verses, ten verses, fourteen verses, ten verses, and thirty-one verses, while Fazang upon the sixty-fascicle witness has thirteen verses, eleven verses, twenty-four verses, and seven and a half verses — the witnesses the two houses rely upon differing, the numbers they judge differ as well. As to the number of the buddhas in between, both houses have ‘briefly listing forty,’ while the base text counted one by one gives forty-eight names. All these divergent glosses are the established teachings of the ancient worthies, and are recorded without judgment.

At the end of this section Zhiyan sets up a question and answer besides, aimed squarely at the rod of the stations. He asks: if one takes the texts above and below, the Dharma practice of Samantabhadra seems to be ultimately gained already from the station of the ten faiths and understandings onward; yet by the text of this section the force of the practice of Samantabhadra seems hard to accomplish, and to be gained only upon reaching the ten grounds — how is this? He answers himself: “the substance of the practice of Samantabhadra truly cannot be gained in reliance upon a station. Why? Because it belongs to the dharma of nature-origination.” The substance of the practice of Samantabhadra was never a thing to be gained by way of the order of stations, for it belongs to the dharma of nature-origination; and if one argues by the stations of faith and understanding in the three vehicles, then from the first station of faith and understanding on up to the ten grounds none is ultimate, that being a way of speaking that “grasps by the marks of the stations,” while in the thought-moments between them the universal dharma is already complete. So with Zhiyan the rod of the stations and the dharma of nature-origination are spoken of apart: the rod may measure, but what it measures is not the thing itself.

Having walked down through forty good friends, this one first confers a Dharma gate — “I have already accomplished the liberation gate of contemplating the sea of the samādhis of all bodhisattvas” — sets up its name, and answers as to its working; and only then does she answer the question ‘how long have you practiced’ by telling ‘how I came to be here.’ And within those origins there is a dream, a marriage, love and attachment, and a necklace in a begging bowl — not one of which looks like practice. The scripture text does not here say that those things are practice; what it says is that of those who see the bodhisattva cultivating practices of every kind, “whether they give rise to a good mind or a mind that is not good, the bodhisattva gathers them all in” — the one who gathers in is the bodhisattva, and those gathered in include even those who raise a mind that is not good. Chengguan puts this layer as “gathering in her mixed goodness.” That one portion of offering within the defilement does not fall empty either.