華嚴經 品三十九 入法界品 · 彌勒菩薩（四）入樓閣·指示後友·禮辭（攝德成因相）Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Entering the Dharma Realm · Maitreya, Part Four: Entering the Storeyed Pavilion, Pointing Out the Next Friend, and Taking Leave (The Mark of Gathering Virtue and Accomplishing the Cause)

The Shape of the Whole Section: The Door Opens, and the Good Friend Says No More

Of the more than forty good friends before this, every one was asked, every one answered, and every one had a passage in which a Dharma gate was expounded. With Maitreya, what Sudhana asks for is not a Dharma but a door — “I only pray that the great sage will open the door of the storeyed pavilion and let me enter!” And Maitreya does not answer either; he only walks to the front of the storeyed pavilion, snaps his fingers once, and the door opens, and he calls him to come in.

A misreading must be set aside: this is not Maitreya sparing himself trouble, nor is it that Sudhana does not know how to ask. Of the six thousand two hundred and thirty-nine graphs of the scripture text of the whole section, four thousand and ninety-eight write of what was seen — the dependent recompense, the direct recompense, the companion bodhisattvas, the buddhas, the chief pavilion within the pavilion, the working of the furnishings of adornment, layer upon layer. That is to say: the way this particular good friend confers the Dharma is to let a person walk in and look for himself. When Chengguan outlines this passage he fastens it beneath “conferring the substance of the Dharma,” and says that Maitreya’s snap of the fingers is “first, with reference to the adding of power by conditions, causing him to go to the Dharma, lay words down, and meet the import — then the Dharma gate of the Buddha opens.” Before the door opens there must first be a laying down of words, and so the good friend’s not speaking is itself a part of the expounding of the Dharma.

Brought down to the ground: in reading this section, if one goes on waiting to read a dialogue, the first four thousand graphs and more will be read as stage scenery. In fact those are the main text.

Once He Had Entered, It Closed Again: Why the Door Must Shut After He Goes In

The scripture text has only four graphs — “once he had entered, it closed again” — and yet this is a place upon which three houses of the ancient worthies all set down words of their own.

Why must it shut? Chengguan glosses this, saying: “once he has realized and is joined with it, that which enters and that which is entered are both gone; the deluded is itself the true, and there is no longer any place of entering — and so it says that it closed again.” The door was opened for the sake of “entering”; once one has truly entered, the one entering and that which is entered are no longer two sides, and the matter of “entering” has no place left to rest in, and so the door of itself closes again. Fazang, in the Tanxuan ji, brings out upon the sixty-fascicle witness a further meaning, saying that “with one realization it is gained forever, without any falling back, and there is no coming out again — and so it says that it closed again”: what is shut is the way out, not the way in. Li Tongxuan then says that “knowledge has no within, no without, and no between; it has no going out and no coming in, no delusion and no realization — and this is called closing again.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking the shutting of the door to be a locking of Sudhana inside. Not one of the three houses reads it so. Brought down to the ground: at the moment when something is truly gained in practice, the feeling is usually not ‘I have come in,’ but rather that even the thought of ‘coming in’ can no longer be put to use.

Asaṃkhyeya: Why a Number Beyond Counting Is Used to Count a Whole Passage

The first passage upon entering the pavilion is the dependent recompense, and clause after clause is capped with an “asaṃkhyeya” — thirty-nine occurrences within this passage of the dependent recompense, and forty-one throughout the scripture text of this section. The ground, the palaces, the gate-towers, the windows, the stairways, the balustrades, the roads, the banners, the standards, the canopies, the necklaces, the half-moons, the silk ribbons, the jewelled nets, the jewelled bells, the censers, the jewelled mirrors, the jewelled lamps, the jewelled garments, the jewelled curtains, the jewelled seats, the images of maidens, the images of bodhisattvas, the flocks of birds, the lotuses of the four colors, the jewelled trees, the maṇi jewels — counted off one after another the whole way down.

Why write it so? Because “asaṃkhyeya” means precisely ‘beyond counting,’ and to count item by item with a number that is beyond counting is exactly to make the reader give up half way through the counting. Chengguan judges of this passage that “as for its being the same as empty space, it is because it answers to the nature of dharmas” — the pavilion is broad and vast and the same as empty space not because of its bulk, but because it appears in answer to the nature of dharmas. The nature of dharmas is without bound, and so the furnishings of adornment are without end.

A misreading to be set aside: taking this for a literary heaping-up. If it were a heaping-up, one clause of “measureless adornments” would have been enough, and there would be no need to go item by item. To go item by item and yet have every item be beyond counting is meant to make a person come to a halt within the contradiction between ‘item by item’ and “beyond counting.” Brought down to the ground: the right way to read this passage is not to remember what things there are, but to let oneself come to a stop at the place where the counting cannot be finished.

Seeing Many Within One and Seeing All Places Within One Place: The Gate of the Subtle and Minute, and the Gate of Mutual Presence

After the dependent recompense come two turning clauses. The first is “he saw further that within that storeyed pavilion there were measureless hundred-thousands of wondrous storeyed pavilions, each one of them adorned exactly as has been said above”; the second is “Sudhana the youth, within one place, saw all places, and all the many places too were seen in this same way.”

These two clauses are not the same. Chengguan distinguishes them very clearly, glossing them thus: “next, beneath ‘he saw further that within it,’ within the dependent there is a dependent. To see many within one is the gate of the subtle and minute, and also the gate of principal and companion. Afterward, beneath ‘Sudhana the youth,’ to see many within one place is the gate of mutual presence.” The former clause is pavilions within a pavilion — one small place containing measureless places, and this is the subtle and minute; the latter clause is that the one place that sees and all that is seen are present each within the other, and this is mutual presence. Fazang too, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, judges here that “this sets forth that one land is all lands, principal and companion complete.”

Brought down to the ground: these two clauses are the keyhole of the whole section. All the text that follows, of ‘seeing every sort of thing within each single thing,’ is to be read by way of what is set down here.

The Benefit Gained: Why It Is “Just as He Began to Bow His Head” That He Saw

Having seen the pavilion, Sudhana “gave rise to great gladness, exulted beyond measure, and became pliant in body and mind; he left behind all thoughts, cast off all obstructions, extinguished all confusions,” and then “he set his mind moving everywhere, saw everything everywhere, and everywhere set out his reverence; and just as he began to bow his head,” he saw his own body everywhere within all the storeyed pavilions.

Note these words, “just as he began.” Before his head has finished bowing, the pervading body has already appeared. Chengguan first divides the one gate of seeing the dependent recompense into “the seeing first and the benefit afterward”; but from “just as he began to bow his head” onward Chengguan has already assigned the text to the general heading of the second part, the seeing of the direct recompense, not to the “latter benefit” of the dependent — seeing his own body everywhere is the first matter of the seeing of the direct recompense, fastened upon “by the majestic and spiritual power of the bodhisattva Maitreya.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking this for a spiritual power that Sudhana cultivated out for himself. The scripture text says plainly that it is “by the majestic and spiritual power of the bodhisattva Maitreya.” Brought down to the ground: when a person truly sees something, he usually cannot say whether he saw it himself or was let to see it — and the two graphs “just as he began” in this passage write exactly that inability to say.

The First Layer of Seeing the Direct Recompense: What the First Bringing Forth of the Mind Looks Like in One Person

From “that is to say” onward begins the seeing of Maitreya’s former deeds. The first layer is the time of the first bringing forth of the mind: the name, the clan, the good friend, the roots of good, the life span, the kalpa, the buddha, the land, the practices, the vows, together with the assemblies of those tathāgatas, their life spans, and the length of time of drawing near and making offerings — “all of it he saw clearly and distinctly.”

Why must the former deeds be told beginning from the bringing forth of the mind? Because this is “the mark of gathering virtue and accomplishing the cause” — of the five aspects of this assembly that Chengguan judges, what Maitreya alone bears is “the gathering of virtue.” The virtue that is gathered must have a root, and the root is that first single thought. The scripture text does not write how great Maitreya’s merit and virtue are; it writes what his name was on the day he brought forth the mind, and whom he met.

Brought down to the ground: if a person’s history is told from the place of his accomplishment, one can only look up at it; told from the place of his bringing forth the mind, one can get inside it.

The Second Layer of Seeing the Direct Recompense: How the Name of the Kind One Came About

The second layer is “at times he saw Maitreya first attain the samādhi of the mind of kindness, and from then onward he was styled the Kind One.” This clause is the scripture text glossing its own name, and there is no need to seek outside for it. From the moment he realized the samādhi of the mind of kindness, this bodhisattva’s name has been kindness.

Within the same layer there are further: cultivating every sort of wondrous practice, bringing all the perfections to fullness, gaining forbearance, abiding upon a ground, accomplishing a pure land, guarding and upholding the right teaching of the tathāgatas and acting as a great master of the Dharma, gaining the forbearance of non-arising, on to “at a certain time, in a certain place, at the seat of a certain tathāgata receiving the prediction of unsurpassed awakening.” Chengguan outlines this as “seeing the time of his cultivating practice and gaining the Dharma,” while Fazang makes it “setting forth the time after the bringing forth of the mind, of cultivating practice and gaining the prediction” — the two houses differ in name and point at the same one layer.

What is listed within this one layer is not a repetition of one thing in many words; it is a sequence, and it should be read section by section — cultivating every sort of wondrous practice and bringing all the perfections to fullness is the gate of practice complete; gaining forbearance is being able to receive what is heard without going against it; abiding upon a ground is that the station he dwells in is settled; accomplishing a pure land is that beyond his own practice he is able to gather in a land; guarding and upholding the right teaching of the tathāgatas and acting as a great master of the Dharma is being able to shoulder the Dharma; gaining the forbearance of non-arising is resting unmoved in the principle that dharmas do not arise; and last comes the receiving, at a certain time, in a certain place, at the seat of a certain tathāgata receiving the prediction of unsurpassed awakening — what is recorded is a settled time, a settled place, a settled buddha, and not a word of praise. The first six are matters within the cause; the last is the term of the fruit that the Buddha foretells. Of the more than forty good friends, the former deeds of this one alone are seen section by section, and this is just because the station Maitreya bears is “the gathering of virtue” — virtue that is gathered must be seen to have been piled up one layer at a time.

Brought down to the ground: this one layer may be taken as a table of sequence — is the practice full, can one receive the Dharma, is the station settled, can one shoulder the Dharma. The sequence is not a set of names; it is the order in which to check.

A misreading to be set aside: taking “the Kind One” for an honorific, a title of address. What the scripture text says is that the name of a samādhi became the name of a person. Brought down to the ground: if a name comes from the place of what has been realized, then the name is a reminder and not a rank.

The Third Layer of Seeing the Direct Recompense: Ten Kinds of Body, One Body for One Cure

The third layer is the receiving of birth according to kind. The scripture text lists: a wheel-turning king exhorting them to abide in the ten good acts, a guardian of the world benefiting them, Śakra rebuking the five desires, a Yama deva king praising non-negligence, a Tuṣita deva king extolling the merit and virtue of a bodhisattva of one birth, a Nirmāṇarati deva king displaying the adornments of transformation, a Paranirmitavaśavartin deva king expounding the dharmas of all the buddhas, a Māra king declaring that all dharmas are impermanent, a Brahmā king declaring the joy and bliss of the meditative concentrations, an asura king entering the sea of great knowledge and penetrating that dharmas are like an illusion, and cutting off arrogance and the drunkenness of pride.

What is to be looked at is the matching. As a Māra king what he declares is “that all dharmas are impermanent”; as an asura king what he cuts off is “arrogance and the drunkenness of pride” — the body that appears answers to the sickness that is cured. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, judges this passage to be “seeing the bodies received in birth according to kind among his former births, of which there are thirteen kinds” — and those thirteen are the ten deva-king bodies listed above together with the three bodies of the three evil destinies, the realm of Yama, the hungry ghosts, and the animals. What the eighty-fascicle text lists is likewise ten bodies together with the three evil destinies, and its number is the same as the sixty’s; that this piece sets the three evil destinies apart in a passage of their own is this piece’s own division, and not a case of the parallel translation having three kinds fewer. Recorded without adjudication.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the receiving of birth according to kind to be for the sake of the convenience of expounding the Dharma. What this passage writes goes one layer further: the body that appears is itself the Dharma. Brought down to the ground: to cure a person’s arrogance, what is most effective is often not to speak of humility, but to stand in the position he honors and then to speak.

Seeing the Direct Recompense: The Three Matters Within the Three Evil Destinies

After the bodies received in birth according to kind, the scripture text brings out a separate passage upon the three evil destinies: within the realm of Yama sending forth great light and rescuing from the suffering of the hells, in the place of the hungry ghosts giving food and drink and relieving their hunger and thirst, in the destiny of the animals taming sentient beings by every sort of skillful means.

Three places and three matters, each answering to its own suffering: the suffering of the hells lies in darkness and oppression, and so light is sent forth; the suffering of the hungry ghosts lies in hunger and thirst, and so food is given; the suffering of the animals lies in stupidity and being made to labor, and so there is taming. The scripture text does not say “delivering all beings everywhere”; what it says is three concrete things.

Brought down to the ground: this passage is the plainest three clauses in the whole piece. The pavilion that is seen is beyond conceiving, and the thing that is done is giving people something to eat.

The Fourth Layer of Seeing the Direct Recompense: Sixteen Kinds of Assembly, One Passage to a Kind

The fourth layer is the expounding of the Dharma at the assemblies. The scripture text runs down in the sentence-form “at times he further saw him expound the Dharma for the assembly of …”: the deva kings who guard the world, the Trāyastriṃśa deva king, the Yama deva king, the Tuṣita deva king, the Nirmāṇarati deva king, the Paranirmitavaśavartin deva king, the great Brahmā king, the dragon kings, the yakṣa and rākṣasa kings, the gandharva and kiṃnara kings, the asura and dānava kings, the garuḍa and mahoraga kings, all the remaining humans and non-humans and the rest, the assembly of the śrāvakas, the assembly of the pratyekabuddhas, and it closes with “those bodhisattva hosts who range from the first bringing forth of the mind all the way to those bound to one more birth who have already received consecration” — sixteen passages in all (counting them one by one).

Chengguan outlines this passage as “seeing him expound the Dharma at the assemblies where he dwells, within which first is set forth the difference of the assemblies where he dwells, and afterward, beneath ‘at times he saw him praise and set forth the first ground,’ is displayed the Dharma that he declares” — first who is spoken to is written, and afterward what is spoken. This is a very clear sequence: once the capacity to be taught is settled, only then is the Dharma to be declared settled.

Brought down to the ground: one and the same bodhisattva expounds the Dharma to sixteen kinds of assembly, and the scripture text does not say what he said, only that he was there. The first thing in expounding the Dharma is to be present.

Seeing the Direct Recompense: The Ten Gates of Merit and Virtue That He Praised

The passage upon “the Dharma that he declares” lists ten gates: the merit and virtue of the first ground on to the tenth ground, bringing all the perfections to fullness, entering the gates of the forbearances, the gates of the great samādhis, the gates of the deep liberations, the realms of the meditative concentrations and samādhis and spiritual powers, the practices of the bodhisattvas, the great vows, together with bodhisattvas of the same practice praising and setting forth the matters of the crafts that sustain life in the world and of benefiting sentient beings, and together with bodhisattvas of one birth praising and setting forth the gate of the consecration of all the buddhas.

The order of the ten gates has its own reasoning, and each gate should be looked at in turn. The first, the merit and virtue of the first ground on to the tenth, is station — the station practised is set out first. The second, bringing all the perfections to fullness, is practice — what is cultivated within the station is the perfections. The third, entering the gates of forbearance, is the settled receiving of the Dharma, practice grown long and unmoved. The fourth, the gates of the great samādhis, and the fifth, the gates of the deep liberations, are concentration and release: the one a gate for settling the mind, the other a gate out of bondage. The sixth, the realms of the meditative concentrations and samādhis and spiritual powers, is the working that concentration gives rise to. The seventh, the practices of the bodhisattvas, gathers the first six into the single word practice. The eighth, the great vows, is what practice rests upon — practice without vows will in time fall back. The ninth, the crafts that sustain life in the world and the every sort of skillful means that benefits sentient beings, is the skill of making a living: the first eight gates are all dharmas that go beyond the world, and this one is a matter of the world, yet it stands side by side with the eight and is no appendage. The tenth, the gate of the consecration of all the buddhas, is the receiving of office at the station of fruit, and so the scripture says expressly that it is praised together with the bodhisattvas of one birth — those who can speak of this gate together must be of one station.

Of the ten gates, the ninth is the one most worth stopping over. It stands next to the tenth: on one side the handicraft of the marketplace, on the other the consecration of a buddha. That the scripture sets these two side by side and makes no distinction between them is one of the weightiest strokes in this section.

A misreading to be set aside: taking what the bodhisattva praises and sets forth to be only the deep dharmas. Brought down to the ground: to teach a craft clearly stands, within this list, on a level with praising and setting forth the merit and virtue of the ten grounds.

The Fifth Layer of Seeing the Direct Recompense: A Hundred Thousand Years of Walking Meditation and Recitation

The fifth layer Chengguan outlines as “seeing his practice and its working in general.” The scripture text writes it in the most ordinary way: “at times he saw Maitreya, over a hundred thousand years, walking in meditation, reciting, and copying out scripture rolls, seeking and contemplating with diligence and earnestness, expounding the Dharma for the multitude,” and only afterward comes the entering of the meditative concentrations and the four immeasurable minds, the entering of the universal bases and the liberations, the entering of samādhis and the displaying of spiritual transformations.

The sequence is worth looking at: first a hundred thousand years of walking meditation, reciting, and copying, and only afterward the meditative concentrations and the spiritual transformations. The scripture text has not put the spiritual transformations first.

Brought down to the ground: this layer is a counter-face to the whole section. After so much that is beyond conceiving has been looked at, what is written here is a person who copied out scriptures for a very long time.

Seeing the Companion Bodhisattvas: Clouds of Bodies from the Pores

The third gate is “seeing the companion bodhisattvas.” The scripture text writes that the bodhisattvas entered the samādhi of transformation and from every single pore sent forth clouds of bodies of every transformation: the deva hosts, the dragon hosts, the yakṣas on to the mahoragas, Śakra and Brahmā and the guardians of the world, wheel-turning sage kings, lesser kings, princes, great ministers, officials and their retinues, elders, householders, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, tathāgatas, and clouds of the bodies of all sentient beings.

Chengguan outlines this as “setting forth the seeing of the clouds of bodies of the companion bodhisattvas setting forth the Dharma, that is, the measureless retinue spoken of before” — the companion bodhisattvas are just Maitreya’s retinue of the same practice. The reason a gate must be set up for this passage is that all that was seen before is the virtue of Maitreya alone, while what is seen here are those who walk together with him.

Brought down to the ground: if a person’s virtue is truly accomplished, what can be seen is not only him, but also that company who follow after him.

Sending Forth Wondrous Sounds: How Many Are the Dharma Gates That Are Praised

The companion bodhisattvas send forth wondrous sounds, and the gates that they praise the scripture text leads in with “that is to say,” opening out three great lists: the gate of the merit and virtue of the mind of awakening; the gates of the merit and virtue of the dāna-pāramitā on to the perfection of knowledge; the means of gathering, the meditative concentrations, the immeasurable minds, the samādhis, the samāpattis, the spiritual powers, the clear knowledges, retention, eloquence, the truths, the knowledges, calming and contemplating, liberation, the conditions, the supports, and the gates of the expounding of the Dharma; and then with the stations of mindfulness, the right exertions, the bases of spiritual power, the faculties, the powers, the seven limbs of awakening, and the eight members of the noble path it gathers in the thirty-seven factors of awakening, and at the end comes to the vehicle of the śrāvakas, the vehicle of the pratyekabuddhas, the vehicle of the bodhisattvas, the grounds, the forbearances, the practices, and the vows.

The order of this list is worth noticing, and each heading should be looked at in turn. The first, the gate of the merit and virtue of the mind of awakening, is the head of everything: without it nothing below has anything to belong to. The second is the gate of the merit and virtue of the perfections: the scripture says “from the dāna-pāramitā on to the pāramitā of knowledge,” and what this gathers in is the ten perfections (giving, discipline, forbearance, effort, meditation, wisdom, skillful means, vows, power, knowledge), not the six; the six are the first six, and the last four are opened out after the grounds are entered — and since the scripture says “on to knowledge,” all ten are taken in. The third heading is one long list: the means of gathering are the dharmas that gather beings in; the meditative concentrations and the immeasurable minds are concentration and the four boundless states; the samādhis and the samāpattis are the particular marks of concentration; the spiritual powers and the clear knowledges are the working that concentration sends forth; retention and eloquence are the holding of the Dharma and the speaking of it; the truths and the knowledges are what is contemplated and what contemplates; calming and contemplating, are the two wheels of cultivation; liberation, is what is realized; the conditions and the supports are what things rest upon; and the gates of the expounding of the Dharma, is the vessel for transforming others — from concentration to wisdom, from holding to speaking, from realizing to transforming, the sequence is plain. The fourth heading gathers in the thirty-seven factors of awakening: the stations of mindfulness, the right exertions, the bases of spiritual power, the faculties, the powers, the seven limbs of awakening, the eightfold noble path — the four stations of mindfulness are what contemplation is fastened to, the four right exertions the power to cut off evil and cultivate good, the four bases of spiritual power the vow and practice that concentration accomplishes, the five faculties and five powers what has been born and cannot be broken, the seven limbs of awakening the wisdom that discerns dharmas, the eightfold noble path the whole road of practice; from contemplation to exertion, to concentration, to faculty and power, to awakening, to the path, the seven groups are one road of cultivation. The fifth, the vehicles of the śrāvakas, of the pratyekabuddhas and of the bodhisattvas, is the three vehicles — the praise leans to no one vehicle, and the dharmas of all three are within it. The sixth, the grounds, the forbearances, the practices and the vows, is the stations and the practices upon them — the grounds are the stations climbed to, the forbearances the principle rested in within a station, the practices what is cultivated upon a station, the vows what guides the practices; only station and practice and vow spoken together make a station whole. From the bringing forth of the mind, by way of the ten perfections, the concentrations and wisdoms, and the factors of awakening, on to the three vehicles and the stations — what this list sets out is a full table of contents of the teaching.

Brought down to the ground: the reason this list runs from the first heading to the last is to let a person know that of what is praised and set forth not one gate is left outside — the crafts that make a living, and the vows at the very end, are both within this one list.

Seeing the Buddhas: What Is Seen Is Not the Marks and Signs of the Buddhas

The fourth gate is seeing the buddhas. What the scripture text lists is not the marks and signs of the buddhas, but “the places where they had been born, their clans, the forms of their bodies, their spans of life, the kalpas of their lands, their names, the benefit of their expounding of the Dharma, the length or brevity of the abiding of their teaching,” on to the many differences among the assemblies at the place of the Way. Chengguan outlines this as “setting forth the seeing of the virtue with which the buddhas gather and transform beings.”

Why should these be looked at? Because what is being looked at is “the virtue of gathering and transforming” — where a buddha appears in the world, how long he abides, how long his teaching remains: these are the actual conditions of gathering and transforming.

Brought down to the ground: to come to know a buddha, first come to know the season he stands in and the people he transforms.

The Chief Pavilion Within the Pavilion: Within One Pavilion There Is a Most Surpassing Pavilion

The fifth gate is “seeing the chief pavilion within the pavilion.” Among the storeyed pavilions within the Adornment Treasury, one pavilion is separately seen, “high and broad and splendidly adorned, most surpassing and beyond compare,” within which are seen in full the hundred koṭis of sets of four continents of the three-thousandfold world and the hundred koṭis of Tuṣita heavens, and within each one of them Maitreya descending in spirit and being born, on to the distributing of his relics and the upholding of his teaching.

Chengguan outlines this as “seeing the chief pavilion within the pavilion, separately setting forth the one lifetime that the Kind One is to accomplish” — what this pavilion displays is not a matter of the past but the lifetime in which Maitreya is to become a buddha in time to come. All that was seen before is cause; this pavilion is fruit. The three witnesses differ in fullness here: for the surpassingness of the pavilion the eighty has “most surpassing and beyond compare,” the sixty “more excellent than those before,” and the forty takes in both senses with “high and broad and singularly fair, gathering in all the surpassing and wondrous adornments of all the pavilions, most surpassing and beyond compare with those before”; for what is contained, the eighty and the sixty raise two headings each and the forty three; and for the mark of his descending, the forty has separately the passage “within the lotus treasury,” which neither the eighty nor the sixty has.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the eight marks of accomplishing the Way to belong to Śākyamuni alone. Here the scripture text writes plainly that they are Maitreya’s. Brought down to the ground: within a pavilion at the station of cause, Sudhana sees his teacher’s station of fruit — and this looking is what is called “contemplating the fruit and knowing the cause,” which is exactly the four graphs Li Tongxuan uses to outline this whole passage.

Seeing His Own Body: The One Who Looks Is Also Within What Is Looked At

After the chief pavilion comes a turning clause: “at that time Sudhana saw his own body at the seats of all those tathāgatas; and he saw too all the assemblies there and all the buddha-deeds there, holding them in mind without forgetting and penetrating them without obstruction.”

This clause answers to the earlier “he saw his own body everywhere within all the many storeyed pavilions,” and goes one layer further: there the body pervaded the pavilions, here the body is at the seats of the buddhas, and moreover he can hold it in mind without forgetting. Chengguan outlines the benefit of this passage as “may be understood as it stands,” and brings out no separate gloss.

Brought down to the ground: what is called truly seeing is that the one who looks has also entered the picture and no longer stands outside it.

Hearing: The Near Hearing and the Far Hearing

The sixth gate is “seeing the working of the furnishings of adornment,” opened out into ten passages. The first passage is the hearing of the Dharma, and Chengguan opens it further into three: the near hearing, the far hearing, and the benefit gained.

The near hearing is that “within all the storeyed pavilions the jewelled nets, the bells and clappers, and all the musical instruments were all giving forth inconceivable subtle and wondrous sounds of Dharma,” and what is declared is seven matters: the bodhisattvas bringing forth the mind of awakening, cultivating the practice of the perfections, the vows, the grounds, reverencing and making offerings to the tathāgatas, adorning the buddha-lands, and the differences among the buddhas’ expounding of the Dharma. The far hearing is “he heard further that in a certain place there was a certain bodhisattva” — a string of “certains” one after another: a certain place, a certain Dharma gate, a certain good friend, a certain kalpa, a certain land, a certain tathāgata, a certain great assembly, a certain buddha.

Why must “certain” be used? Because this is hearing and not seeing. What is heard has structure but no settled name, and so item by item it is made “certain.” This is a manner of writing seldom seen in the whole scripture.

Brought down to the ground: what this passage writes is a state of listening to the Dharma — you have heard a complete story, and yet you cannot say whose story it is.

The Second Passage of the Far Hearing: Giving Up the Body to Seek the Dharma, and the Matters of Guarding the Dharma

Beneath the far hearing there is a further passage, and what is heard is of four kinds: a certain bodhisattva cultivating the six perfections; a certain bodhisattva who, for the sake of seeking the Dharma, cast away his royal position, precious jewels, wife and children and retinue, hands and feet and head and eyes, and spared nothing; a certain bodhisattva who guarded the right Dharma of the tathāgatas and acted as a great master of the Dharma, practised the giving of the Dharma far and wide, set up the banner of the Dharma and blew the conch of the Dharma and beat the drum of the Dharma and rained down the rain of the Dharma, built stūpas and made images, and gave all the furnishings of joy; and a certain tathāgata who within a certain kalpa accomplished right and perfect awakening, with such and such a land, assembly, and life span.

Three of the kinds are bodhisattvas and one is a tathāgata; three of the kinds are cause and one is fruit. And the second kind, “casting away hands and feet and head and eyes,” and the third kind, ‘setting up the banner of the Dharma and building stūpas and making images’ — the one gives up the body and the other sets up the work: the two faces of guarding the Dharma, and the scripture text writes both.

Brought down to the ground: upholding the right Dharma takes in both what can be laid down and what can be set up. This passage leans to neither side.

The Benefit Gained from Hearing the Dharma

After the far hearing comes the benefit gained: “he gained measureless gates of retention, gates of eloquence, meditative concentrations, forbearances, vows, perfections, spiritual powers, and clear knowledges, together with the liberations and the gates of samādhi.”

Note that what stands first among what is gained is “retention” and “eloquence.” Of a Dharma that has been heard, what is first gained lies in remembering and in speaking; only below these come the meditative concentrations, the forbearances, the vows, the perfections, the spiritual powers, the clear knowledges, the liberations, and the samādhis. This is of a piece with what was gained earlier on seeing the pavilion — “what he saw he did not forget, what he heard he could remember, what he pondered was not scattered.”

Brought down to the ground: when the Dharma comes in by the ear, the first fruit is not concentration, but being able to hold it and to say it.

The Nineteen Items That Appear Within the Jewelled Mirrors: Four Kinds of Place of the Way and Fifteen Kinds of World

The second passage is the working of the jewelled mirrors. What appears within the mirrors is first four kinds of place of the Way (of the buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas); next the four clauses upon a world’s being pure or impure (pure, impure, pure and yet not pure, not pure and yet pure); and next with or without a buddha, small and middling and great, like the net of Indra, turned face down, turned face up, level and flat, where the three evil destinies dwell, and filled with devas and humans. And within what appears there are further numberless hosts of great bodhisattvas, some walking and some sitting, giving rise to great compassion, composing treatises, receiving and upholding and copying and reciting, asking and answering, repenting at the three times, and dedicating and directing and making vows.

What is to be looked at is the two clauses “pure and yet not pure” and “not pure and yet pure.” Worlds are not of two kinds only, pure and impure; between them there are two more, mixed in ways that run in opposite orders. That the scripture text is willing to write these two clauses out is a refusal to reduce worlds to two.

Brought down to the ground: in judging a place to be good or bad, one is usually too quick. What this mirror throws back is four kinds and not two.

Jewelled Pillars, Jewelled Images, Necklaces: Three Small Passages

The third passage is the jewelled pillars sending forth great nets of light of the maṇi kings, of nine colors (blue, yellow, red, white, crystal, rock crystal, Śakra-blue, rainbow, and the gold of Jambūnada), gathered in at the end by “making the color of all lights whatsoever.” The fourth passage is the bearing of the maidens of the gold of Jambūnada and the images made of many jewels — holding clouds of flowers, clouds of garments, standards and banners, garlands and canopies, anointing incense and powdered incense, nets of maṇi jewels; some letting golden chains hang down, hanging up necklaces, lifting their arms and holding up furnishings of adornment, lowering their heads and letting maṇi crowns hang down, “their bodies bent in reverence and gazing up, their eyes never for a moment turning away.” The fifth passage is the necklaces of true pearls constantly giving forth scented water complete with the eight virtues, and the beryl necklaces shining with a hundred thousand lights all at once.

What these three passages write is vessels and things performing reverence. The images are not what is looked at, but what is gazing up; the necklaces are not what is worn, but what is giving forth scented water.

Brought down to the ground: the shortest and most moving thing in this passage is the four graphs “their eyes never for a moment turning away” — those are the eyes of the images, not of a person.

The Forms Within the Lotus Flowers, and the Tathāgata Seated

The sixth passage is the lotus flowers appearing again. The lotuses of the four colors each give birth to measureless flowers, some as large as a hand, some as long as a forearm, some as broad across as a chariot wheel, and within each single flower are displayed the forms of men, women, boys, girls, Śakra, Brahmā, the guardians of the world, devas, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas, who “joined their palms together and bowed their bodies in reverence.” After this there stands one clause on its own: “he also saw the Tathāgata sitting cross-legged, adorning his body with the thirty-two marks.”

Before, all the forms of sentient beings are performing reverence; the last clause is that the one who is revered is sitting there. The scripture text has not written the Tathāgata into the flowers, but has begun a separate clause.

Brought down to the ground: after a long passage of reverence, the one who is revered takes only a single sentence, and does not move.

The Jewelled Ground and the Jewelled Trees: From Whole Body to Half Body

The seventh passage is the pure ground of beryl, within the space of every single step appearing the forms of worlds, the forms of bodhisattvas, the forms of tathāgatas, and the forms of the adornments of the storeyed pavilions. The eighth passage is the “half-body forms and images” within the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits of the jewelled trees — half-body images of buddhas, bodhisattvas, devas, dragons, and yakṣas, on to the guardians of the world, wheel-turning sage kings, lesser kings, princes, great ministers and officers, and the four assemblies; some taking up flower garlands and necklaces and furnishings of adornment, some bending their bodies and joining their palms in reverence, some praising, and some entering samādhi; their bodies adorned with the marks and signs, sending forth lights of eight colors (gold, silver, coral, tuṣāra, Śakra-blue, the Vairocana jewel, all the many jewels, and the campaka flower).

The two graphs “half-body” are the eye of this passage. What appears upon the ground is the whole image; what appears within the trees is the half body. Chengguan glosses only one term in this passage — “as for tuṣāra, it means here frost and ice” — and Li Tongxuan glosses it alike as “it is like the color of frost and ice in this land.” What the two houses gloss is the same.

Brought down to the ground: what appears is whole in some cases and half in others, according to the thing it depends upon, and no evenness is forced. That the scripture text is willing to write it so is a refusal to write the realm too tidily.

The Half-Moons and the Four Walls: The Last Two Passages Close Upon the Former Deeds

The ninth passage is the half-moon images sending forth asaṃkhyeya sorts of light of suns, moons, and constellations, shining everywhere throughout the ten directions. The tenth passage is that within each single jewel of the four walls that encircle it round about there appear the matters of Maitreya’s cultivating the bodhisattva path in kalpas past — giving his head and eyes, his hands and feet, his lips and tongue, his teeth, his ears and nose, his blood and flesh, his skin, his bones and marrow, on down to his nails and hair; his wives and concubines, his sons and daughters, his cities and towns, his villages, his lands and his royal position, given away entirely according to what was needed; those in prison caused to be released, those in bonds set free, those with sickness healed, those on a wrong path shown the right road; at times acting as a ferryman, a horse king, a great seer, a wheel-turning king, a king of physicians; at times being filial to father and mother and drawing near to good friends; at times acting as a śrāvaka, a pratyekabuddha, a bodhisattva, a tathāgata; at times acting as a master of the Dharma, carrying out the teaching of the Buddha, setting up caityas of the Buddha and making images of the Buddha. And at the end he further sees Maitreya serving the good friends, drawing near to them and making offerings and receiving and carrying out their teaching, on to abiding upon the ground of consecration.

Chengguan outlines this passage as “the walls displaying the former deeds, within which first is seen the Kind One cultivating practice and gathering beings in according to kind, and afterward, beneath ‘he saw further,’ he beholds the friends he served exhorting and instructing Sudhana.” Of the working of the ten passages of the furnishings of adornment, the last passage falls back upon the former deeds, and falls upon ‘the friends he served’ — Maitreya too learned by following good friends.

A misreading to be set aside: taking all that was seen before to be Maitreya’s virtue, while this passage is his teachers. Brought down to the ground: Sudhana has looked at adornments the whole way, and what he sees at the last is that his teacher too, in his day, was doing what he himself is doing now.

The Good Friends Admonish Him: Who Speaks This Sentence

At the end of the former deeds upon the four walls there appears the one speaker in the whole section who is not Maitreya alone by name: “then the good friends said to Sudhana: ‘Welcome, youth! You are looking upon the inconceivable deeds of this bodhisattva — do not grow weary and turn away.’”

“The good friends” is plural, and points to those good friends seen before whom Maitreya had once served. This sentence is not spoken by Maitreya.

Why must a sentence of “do not grow weary and turn away” be inserted here? Because what has been seen is by now very long: the ten passages of furnishings of adornment and the five layers of the direct recompense before them, set out one after another. It should be seen clearly that these are words of exhortation from the good friends, and not the scripture telling that Sudhana has grown weary — what the scripture records is “do not give rise to,” exhorting him not to let weariness arise, and it does not say that he has.

Brought down to the ground: this is the one homely sentence in the whole section that is spoken to Sudhana — it is normal not to be able to finish looking, and one should not stop looking because one cannot finish.

Setting Forth the Mark of the Seeing in General: Five Questions

The separate setting forth of what was seen being finished, the scripture text gathers it in generally: “because he had gained the power of mindfulness that does not forget or lose, because he had gained the pure eye that sees the ten directions, because he had gained the unobstructed knowledge that contemplates well, because he had gained the sovereign knowledge of the bodhisattvas, because he had gained the vast understanding of the bodhisattvas who have already entered the ground of knowledge.”

Chengguan reads these five clauses as the answers to five questions, saying: “that is: by what power is he able to see? with what eye does he see? with what knowledge does he see? upon what station does he see? in what place does he see? — as the scripture assigns them.” The five clauses are matched to the five questions thus: the power of mindfulness that does not forget or lose answers “what power”; the pure eye that sees the ten directions answers “what eye”; the unobstructed knowledge that contemplates well and the sovereign knowledge of the bodhisattvas together answer “what knowledge” — the one the unobstructedness of contemplating, the other the sovereignty of using; the vast understanding of those who have already entered the ground of knowledge answers “what station.” As for “in what place,” it does not stand within these five clauses ending in “because,” for the scripture brings out a separate clause after the five to answer it plainly — “within each single thing in every storeyed pavilion.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking these five clauses for a formulaic listing of merits. Chengguan’s way of reading gives them a structure — this is a ‘list of the conditions for being able to see.’ Brought down to the ground: when one cannot see, one can take these five questions and ask oneself, one by one, which of them is lacking.

The Ten Similes: Why Ten Are Needed

After the mark of the seeing come the ten similes: the dream, the mark of karma at the end of life, possession by a ghost, possession by a dragon, the Brahmā palace, a monk in the concentration of the universal bases, the city of the gandharvas in empty space, the palace of the yakṣas, the great sea, and the illusionist.

Why ten? Chengguan sets up the question himself and answers it himself: “the reason there are ten similes is that what is likened differs. Yet there are two intents: the first likens the difference of the causes and conditions of being able to see; the second likens the difference of the marks of the realms that are seen.” One simile bears two matters at once, and so ten are needed.

Following the first intent, the ten similes each display one kind of power of being able to see: the first likens in general that seeing and what is seen are both like a dream; the second likens the power of one’s own cause (because it follows one’s own karma); the third and fourth liken the power of conditions (possession by a ghost, possession by a dragon, and yet “in possession by a ghost self and other are not the same, while in possession by a dragon self and other are of one substance”); the fifth likens the power of the dependent recompense of a friend; the sixth is the power of concentration; the seventh likens the power of the emptiness of nature; the eighth likens the power of the sovereignty of the Dharma realm; the ninth likens the power of the non-duality of knowledge and concentration (“because it is the samādhi of the ocean-seal of great knowledge”); the tenth is the power of the sovereignty of illusory knowledge.

Of the third and fourth similes, the three witnesses take the possession by a dragon in different directions: the eighty has “within a short while he says of himself that days and months and years have passed,” taking the short for the long; the sixty has “seven days, half a month, a year, a hundred years, he calls a moment,” taking the long for the short; and the forty agrees with the eighty. The one simile runs both ways, and the round fusion of thought and kalpa, which the ancient worthies judge it to liken, leans to neither side. The questioning and answering around the ten similes is set differently by the three witnesses too: the sixty has Maitreya ask ‘have you seen?’ and Sudhana answer ‘I have seen’ before the ten similes; the eighty has before them only the good friends’ one sentence, ‘do not grow weary,’ and the questioning waits until he comes out of concentration; the forty has Maitreya put thirteen questions in a row after he comes out of concentration, and Sudhana answers ‘yes, I have seen,’ ascribing it to the three powers of the good friend’s sustaining, of mindfulness and of majesty.

Brought down to the ground: the ten similes are not ten ways of putting it; they are the ten conditions of one single matter.

The Second Round of the Ten Similes: The Marks of What Is Seen

The same ten similes, matched once more from another angle. Chengguan judges by the second intent: the simile of karma appearing at the end of life “likens that what is seen answers hiddenly”; the simile of possession by a non-human “likens that what is seen can be spoken”; the simile of the long stay in the dragon palace “likens the round fusion of thought and kalpa”; the simile of the Brahmā palace displaying broadly “likens that one and many are unobstructed”; the simile of the realm of the concentration of the universal bases “likens that what is seen is clear and evident”; the simile of the city of the gandharvas resting upon space “likens that phenomena and principle are unobstructed”; the simile of different seeing in one and the same place “likens the sovereignty of the hidden and the manifest”; the simile of the sea displaying the three-thousandfold world “likens the sudden appearing of far and near”; the simile of illusion displaying a multitude “likens that what is seen is unobstructed whether pure or mixed.”

Note that the simile of the dream is the “general” one in both rounds. In each round the first is general and the other nine are particular: the nine of the first round are each matched to a kind of power of being able to see, and the nine of the second to a kind of mark of what is seen, so that each of the nine has its own particular matching and does not bear only one meaning. What is singular in the dream is not that it alone bears the two meanings, but that in both rounds it stands in the place of the general — “it likens in general that seeing and what is seen are all like the matters of a dream” — and so both rounds begin with it.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the ten similes for ten parallel comparisons of which a few taken at random would be enough. The two intents are each matched to a round, and if one is missing then one meaning has nothing to be fastened to. This too is the sense of what the Yanyi chao says — that without making this gloss one would feel that “the text of the scripture is prolix and not needed.” Brought down to the ground: in reading the ten similes one should read across once and then read down once.

The Joining of the Ten Similes: Why Three of the Similes Have No Joining Clause

Of the ten similes, the first six all have the joining clause “so it is also with Sudhana the youth”; the seventh, eighth, and ninth have none, and only at the tenth, the simile of the illusionist, is there a joining of them all at once.

The Yanyi chao states this matter most clearly, glossing it thus: “yet among the ten similes, the first six have their joining, the seventh, eighth, and ninth have none. In the tenth, that of illusion, they are joined all at once, joined backward from the last.” And it is a “joining backward” — the four clauses of the last passage of the scripture text, “because of the majestic and spiritual power of the bodhisattva Maitreya” joining the illusionist, “and because of the power of inconceivable illusory knowledge” joining the great sea, “because he was able by illusory knowledge to know the dharmas” joining the yakṣas and humans not seeing one another, and “because he had gained the sovereign power of the bodhisattvas” joining the city of the gandharvas resting upon space — going back over them one by one from the last toward the first.

The three witnesses also differ as to whether the joining clause is there: for the simile of the city of the gandharvas the eighty has no joining, while the sixty and the forty both have one — the sixty reads “so it is also with Sudhana the youth: within the tower he sees all dharmas without any obstruction,” and the forty likewise carries it on with “so it is also with Sudhana the youth.” Thus “the first six have their joining, the seventh, eighth, and ninth have none” is the shape of the text in the eighty, and not the case in all three witnesses.

Brought down to the ground: read forward, this passage will feel as though three joining clauses are missing; read backward, they match. The seam of the scripture text is not upon the surface of the words but within the order.

The Second Snap of the Fingers: Wherein It Differs from the First

After the ten similes, “the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Maitreya gathered in his spiritual power, entered within the storeyed pavilion, snapped his fingers so that a sound came forth,” and told Sudhana to rise. This is the second snap of the fingers in the whole section.

What is the difference between the two? Chengguan glosses this, saying: “as for its being a snap of the fingers again — before, the import gained was what is called laying words down; here the import gained is to make him not linger in the still.” The first snap of the fingers is to make a person lay speech down and enter; the second snap is to make a person not stop within the still. The Yanyi chao says it more directly: “the former takes concentration as the gate, this takes function as the gate; the moving and the still being not two, this is truly entering the Dharma realm.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking the coming out of samādhi to mean that the realm has come to an end. The two snaps of the fingers are a pair; without the latter, the entering of the former becomes a lingering. Brought down to the ground: one who can get in but cannot get out has not yet counted as having gone in.

Such Is the Nature of Dharmas: The Mark That Appears Is from Conditions and Without Nature

The one who comes out of samādhi is Sudhana — the scripture says plainly “Sudhana heard the sound of the snapping fingers and rose from samādhi”; Maitreya is the one who gathers in his spiritual power, enters the pavilion, snaps his fingers, and speaks. The first sentence of what Maitreya speaks is upon the substance and the mark: “good man! Rise. Such is the nature of dharmas: this is the mark that appears through the gathering together of causes and conditions by the knowledge with which the bodhisattvas know the dharmas. Such a self-nature as this is like an illusion, like a dream, like a shadow, like a reflection — none of it is brought to accomplishment.”

Chengguan divides this into the setting up and the glossing, and says that the mark that is seen is “born of conditions by the knowledge of the Dharma, and being born of conditions it is without self-nature,” while “as for ‘none of it is brought to accomplishment,’ this concludes the sense above: because from conditions and without nature, phenomena are not brought to accomplishment; because without nature and from conditions, principle is not brought to accomplishment.”

The Yanyi chao goes one layer further, pointing out that here there are two pairs, belonging to the meanings of two houses: “the first pair is with reference to the other-dependent, that is, the intent of the three treatises. Being born of conditions it is without nature; being without nature it is from conditions. From ‘because it does not keep to its own nature’ onward, the second pair is distinguished with reference to the truly real nature, that is, the meaning of the Dharma-nature house, of suchness unchanging and yet following conditions.” And the clause “it is also that the nature possesses them of itself” the Chao glosses as “the virtues of the nature, as many as the sands, are complete from the very first, and are not newly made now — and so it says they are not brought to accomplishment.”

Brought down to the ground: the four graphs “none of it is brought to accomplishment” are most easily read as a denial. Read as Chengguan and the Chao read them, what they say is that these are complete from the very first, and so need not be newly made — it is not that they are not there, but that they need not be brought about.

Teacher and Student Push Toward Each Other: Both Question and Answer Push Toward the Other Side

After coming out of samādhi, Maitreya says “you abide in the inconceivable sovereign liberation of the bodhisattvas,” and Sudhana answers, “this is the majestic and spiritual power by which the good friend sustains me and holds me in mind.”

Upon this going and returning Chengguan puts his finger with the greatest deftness: “with reference to the asking, it is his own realization, and it is pushed back to the cause, and so he says he abides in the inconceivable. Within the answer there is humility and reverence, and it is pushed back to the condition, and so he says it is the power of the good friend. Teacher and student push toward each other, contrary to the ordinary feeling of people.” The teacher pushes the credit back to what the student himself has realized, and the student pushes the credit back to the teacher’s sustaining — both sides push toward the other, contrary to the ordinary feeling of people.

Brought down to the ground: this sentence needs no explaining. Whoever has truly taught a person, and truly been taught, will know it of himself on reading here.

The Name of the Dharma Gate: Fourteen Graphs to Be Read in Three Parts

Sudhana asks the name, and Maitreya answers, “the Adornment Treasury of the Knowledge of Unforgetting Mindfulness That Enters All the Realms of the Three Times.”

These fourteen graphs Chengguan glosses in three parts: “as for all the realms of the three times, that is the realm here entered and seen. As for the knowledge of unforgetting mindfulness, that is the knowledge that is able to enter and able to make appear.” The reason the realm and the knowledge are able to answer to each other is that “because the three times are one suchness, thought and kalpa are in round fusion; within any one time the realms of the three limits appear, and the knowledge enters the three times and understands that dharmas are empty and still, and being joined hiddenly with suchness, within a single thought there is nothing it does not see.”

“Adornment treasury” then has two meanings: “first, because it is adorned by the nature of dharmas, within one adornment are contained and given birth endless furnishings of adornment, as many pavilions are seen within one pavilion. Second, because unobstructed knowledge is joined with the round-fused realm, and to adorn the Tathāgata-womb is that it possesses all dharmas from the first.” The Yanyi chao remarks upon the shallowness and depth of these two meanings: “the former meaning is with reference to principle fusing phenomena, and is already the unobstructedness of phenomenon with phenomenon; the latter sets forth further the mutual fusing of mind and realm.”

After Maitreya has answered the name there is one further clause: “within this gate of liberation there are gates of liberation unspeakably unspeakable in number, which the bodhisattva of one birth is able to gain.” Within one Dharma gate are contained Dharma gates beyond the telling.

This name too differs among the three witnesses: the forty is wholly the same as the eighty, while the sixty has “the Dharma gate of the Adornment Treasury of Right Mindfulness and Reflection That Enters the Knowledge of the Three Times” — without the passages “all the realms” and “unforgetting mindfulness,” putting “right mindfulness and reflection” in their place, and adding the two graphs for “Dharma gate” at the end of the name. Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, glosses the name in three parts: “because it gathers in the earlier and later limits, it says entering the knowledge of the three times”; “as for right mindfulness and reflection, it displays that the knowledge which is able to see is clear and not upside down”; “as for the adornment treasury, it sets forth that the realm which is seen is furnished with virtue and holds all within it” — beside Chengguan’s three parts of realm, knowledge, and treasury upon the eighty, the opening and closing differ while what is pointed at meets.

Brought down to the ground: this name is itself a set of instructions — the realm that is entered, the knowledge that enters, and the treasury that is contained: three matters written into one name.

Where Have the Adornments Gone: A Question and an Answer of Only Twelve Graphs

Sudhana asks: “where have these adornments gone?” Maitreya answers: “they have gone to the place they came from.”

This is the shortest question and answer of the whole section — eight graphs asked, four graphs answered. Chengguan explains it thus: “within the answer, because they come by flowing from root to branch, and go by gathering branch back into root, the going is not other than the coming, and so he draws it to the coming and answers both at once.” What is asked is the place of going, and what is answered is the place of coming — because the place of going and the place of coming are one and the same place, one sentence answers both questions.

A misreading to be set aside: taking this for a Chan-style evasion. Chengguan’s way of reading is not an evasion but an answering of both at once. Brought down to the ground: when one asks where a thing has gone, the answer often lies in where it came from.

Where Do They Come From: Because Cut-Off and Lasting Are Both Left Behind, There Is No Arising and Ceasing

Sudhana presses further: “where do they come from?” Maitreya answers: “they come from within the wisdom and spiritual power of the bodhisattvas, and they abide in dependence upon the wisdom and spiritual power of the bodhisattvas; they have no place to go and no place to abide, they are not a gathering together and they are not lasting, being far removed from everything.”

Here Chengguan sets down the tightest piece of reasoning in the section: “because they come from conditions they are not a gathering together; because when the conditions fall away they cease, they are not lasting. If there were first a settled place of coming, one would fall into the fault of the lasting; if there were first something and now nothing, this would be cut-off annihilation. Since the cut-off and the lasting are both left behind, how could there be the marks of arising and ceasing, of identity and difference? — and so it says, far removed from everything.” If there were first one settled place of coming, one falls into the lasting; if there were first something and now nothing, one falls into the cut off. Falling to neither side, the marks of arising and ceasing and of identity and difference of themselves have nowhere to be set up.

Brought down to the ground: “far removed from everything” does not mean pushing everything away; it is the way of putting it that remains after neither the cut-off nor the lasting can stand.

The Simile of the Dragon’s Rain and the Simile of the Illusionist: Two Similes Bearing Two Matters Between Them

Within the answer two similes are set up. The first is the dragon king sending down rain — “it does not come forth from his body and does not come forth from his mind, there is no piling up of it, and yet it is not that it cannot be seen; only because of the power of the dragon king’s mindful intent does it pour down in a great flood and spread throughout the world beneath the sky.” The second is the illusionist making illusory matters — “they come from nowhere and go nowhere; and though there is no coming and going, because of the power of illusion they can be clearly seen.”

The two similes do not repeat each other. Chengguan judges: “first the simile of the dragon king sending down rain, which likens in particular the coming that is without coming,” and “afterward the simile of the illusionist displaying illusion, which likens both coming and going, so that there is neither coming nor going.” The dragon’s rain speaks only of the side of “coming,” while the illusionist speaks of both coming and going. Within the joining clause, the sentence “they do not abide within, and they do not abide without,” Chengguan also assigns to two powers: “as for not abiding within, it is because of the power of the bodhisattva. As for not abiding without, it is because of the power of one’s own good. Since the causes and conditions within and without take each other away, both within and without are gone.”

Brought down to the ground: of the seeing of that whole spread of adornment, half is the teacher’s power and half is one’s own roots of good — the two take each other away, and so it cannot be said whose it is.

Where Does the Great Sage Come From: The Three Answers Are the Three Bodies

Sudhana’s third question: “where does the great sage come from?” Maitreya’s answer has three layers.

The first layer is the ten pairs beneath “the bodhisattvas are without coming and without going, and in just this way they come”: without going forth and without abiding, without place and without attachment, neither perishing nor being born, neither abiding nor shifting, neither moving nor rising, without longing and without clinging, without karma and without recompense, without arising and without ceasing, neither cut off nor lasting. The second layer is the nine places beneath “he comes from the place of great compassion”: great compassion, great kindness, pure precepts, great vows, spiritual power, the unshaken, neither taking up nor casting away, wisdom and skillful means, and displaying transformations, all nine clauses closing with “because,” while the two graphs for “because he wishes” stand only in the first two — “because he wishes to tame sentient beings” and “because he wishes to rescue and guard sentient beings” — the seven below them each having wording of their own, as “because he receives birth according to what they delight in” and “because he is upheld by the power of his vows of old.” The third layer is “I come here from Malādi, the country where I was born.”

Chengguan judges these three layers to be the three bodies: “first, with reference to substance, the true dharma-body is the coming that is without coming, and the coming is itself without coming; the text has ten pairs, to be pondered. Second, beneath ‘good man, the bodhisattva from great compassion,’ with reference to mark, the true recompense comes from within the myriad practices, just as in the Jingming one comes from the place of the Way of the myriad practices. Third, beneath ‘you ask me,’ with reference to function, he appears in transformation and comes to where the capacities are ripe. These three are the dharma-body, the recompense body, and the transformation body; they are also substance, mark, and function; they are also principle, practice, and phenomena.” And he adds one further layer: “the first is principle alone, the last is phenomena alone, and the middle one has both principle and phenomena.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking the earlier layer to be high and the later to be low. What Chengguan speaks of is three bodies, not three grades. Brought down to the ground: asked where a person comes from, one may answer that there is no coming and no going, one may answer that he comes from kindness and compassion, and one may answer that he comes from such and such a village — and all three are true words.

Malādi and Gopāla: The Meanings of Two Names

Within the third layer there appear three proper names: the country of Malādi, the village of Fangshe, and Gopāla.

Chengguan glosses the names one by one: “as for Malādi, in full it is Malayadeśa. As for Malaya, it means here ‘garland-giving,’ and it is the name of a mountain. Deśa means ‘within,’ that is, because that mountain lies within this country”; “as for Gopāla: go is earth, and pāla means guarding, that is, because he guards the earth and the ground of the mind.” Further on there is also a “village of Kuṭa,” which Chengguan glosses as “it means here ‘storeyed pavilion,’ because within this village there are many storeyed pavilions, or because the pavilion of the Kind One is within it.” And the scripture text itself renders it as “Fangshe” — and the Yanyi chao makes this matter plain: “as for the Shu’s ‘the village of Kuṭa means here storeyed pavilion,’ this is one meaning; some say small houses, and some say many households. Hence the scripture above renders it of itself as ‘the village of Fangshe,’ and the Shu now takes one meaning only.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking the scripture text and the commentary to be at odds. The Chao says it clearly: one name has many meanings, and the commentary takes one of them. Brought down to the ground: for one and the same place-name, the one who translated the scripture took “Fangshe” and the one who made the commentary took “storeyed pavilion” — and Maitreya’s great storeyed pavilion stands within this very village, so that each of the two renderings has its own reason.

The Ten Clauses of the Bodhisattva’s Place of Birth: The Upper Clause Is Practice, the Lower Clause Is Household

Sudhana asks “what is the bodhisattva’s place of birth,” and Maitreya answers with ten kinds: the mind of awakening, the deep mind, the grounds, great vows, great compassion, contemplating as is right, the great vehicle, teaching sentient beings, wisdom and skillful means, and cultivating all dharmas.

All ten clauses are of one and the same sentence-form, and the sentence-form is itself the doctrine. Chengguan points it out: “now, in the first there are ten, and in every one the upper clause is the practice that is able to give birth, and the lower clause is the household into which one is born.” The upper clause is the practice that is cultivated and the lower clause is the household into which one is born, and the ten run thus: bring forth the mind of awakening and one is born into the household of the bodhisattvas; have the deep mind and one is born into the household of good friends; gain the grounds and one is born into the household of the perfections; bring forth great vows and one is born into the household of wondrous practice; have great compassion and one is born into the household of the four means of gathering; contemplate as is right and one is born into the household of the prajñā-pāramitā; practise the great vehicle and one is born into the household of skillfulness in means; teach sentient beings and one is born into the household of the buddhas; possess wisdom and skillful means and one is born into the household of the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas; cultivate all dharmas and one is born into the household of all the tathāgatas of the past, the present, and the future. Of the ten, the first three are matters of one’s own cause, the middle four the dharmas relied upon, and the last three the transforming of others and the gathering up of all — the household one is born into rises step by step, and so does the practice cultivated.

In the Shu Chengguan glosses only five of the clauses, and of the rest says “the remainder may be pondered and taken as a pattern.” The Yanyi chao makes up the remainder: what the Shu glosses is what is hard to see, while the other five are easy to understand, and so it merely takes them as a pattern; and it lists the outline of the ten clauses as the cause of practice, the condition of practice, the mark of practice, supporting practice with vows, transforming others, contemplating principle, following both phenomena and principle, benefiting beings, abiding in the fruit, and complying with what is above. The Chao also makes up the reason for each: for the fourth, supporting practice with vows, “if one brings forth great vows one gives birth to wondrous practice”; for the fifth, transforming others, “if one has the mind of compassion one practises the four means of gathering”; for the sixth, contemplating principle, “if one contemplates wondrous principle one accomplishes wisdom”; for the seventh, following both phenomena and principle, “if one moves in both phenomena and principle this is called the great vehicle, that is, skillfulness in means”; for the eighth, benefiting beings, the Shu’s own “teaching sentient beings is the awakening of others”; for the ninth, abiding in the fruit, “when the expedient and the real flow together one realizes the forbearance of non-arising”; and for the tenth, complying with what is above, “cultivating the myriad practices in full and joining the household of the buddhas of the three times.”

Chengguan sets down one further turning clause: “moreover, the upper clause too runs through to that which is born” — the upper and lower clauses may be turned about, and the bringing forth of the mind of awakening may also be spoken of as the household into which one is born. But this turning about has a limit: the Yanyi chao lays it down plainly — “thus the first seven may be taken in the two ways, while the last three must follow the former gloss” — the first seven clauses may be turned upper for lower, while the last three can only be read by the former gloss (the upper clause the practice that is able to give birth, the lower the household into which one is born), and may not be read the other way. And so the Shu first sets up the upper clause as the practice that is able to give birth, and only afterward turns it about as a pattern.

Brought down to the ground: these ten clauses may be taken as a list for examining oneself. To know which household one is now born into, look at which practice one is now cultivating.

The Twenty Clauses of the Retinue: Why Wisdom Is the Mother and Skillful Means the Father

After the place of birth comes the retinue that is the condition of birth, twenty clauses: wisdom as mother, skillfulness in means as father, dāna as wet-nurse, śīla as foster-mother, kṣānti as the furnishings of adornment, vīrya as the one who rears him, dhyāna as the one who washes him, good friends as the master who instructs him, the limbs of awakening as his companions, good dharmas as his retinue, the bodhisattvas as his brothers, the mind of awakening as his household, cultivating as is right as the rule of his household, the grounds as the dwelling place of his household, the forbearances as his clan, great vows as the teaching of his household, bringing all practices to fullness as compliance with the rule of his household, exhorting others to bring forth the great vehicle as the carrying on of the family occupation, the consecrated bodhisattva bound to one more birth as the crown prince, and the accomplishing of awakening as that which is able to purify the clan.

Upon the pair of mother and father Chengguan brings out three meanings: “first, because true knowing is empty and still and is quiet together with the shade, while expedient knowledge flows and moves and ripples together with the sun. Second, because the true giving birth to the dharma-body is indeed by wisdom, and if there were no skillful means one would mostly share the lot of the two vehicles, so that the accomplishing of the seed of a bodhisattva is by skillful means. Third, because understanding within and relieving without are as father and mother.” The second meaning is the most to the point: with wisdom only and no skillful means, one mostly falls away to the two vehicles; what accomplishes the seed of a bodhisattva is skillful means. Below this Chengguan points out only two clauses — “dāna assists with merit, śīla guards and protects” — and the rest are inferred as a pattern. As to the dividing of the twenty clauses, Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, makes three passages of them — “the first seven set forth the bearing and rearing, the next four are for growth and increase, and the remaining nine are for the establishing, together with the crown prince” — and following that division each item may be looked at.

The first seven clauses are matters of bearing and rearing: wisdom as mother and skillfulness in means as father are that by which one is born; dāna as wet-nurse and śīla as foster-mother are the rearing of what has been born; kṣānti as the furnishings of adornment, vīrya as the one who rears him, dhyāna as the one who washes him — adornment is what makes a child fair to look upon, rearing is what makes him grow, washing is what makes him clean, and all three are the actual matters of bringing up a child, which the scripture borrows to match with these three perfections. Why is forbearance the adornment? One who bears patiently keeps his countenance unchanged, and that is where a practitioner is fairest to look upon; why is effort the rearer? Roots of goodness grow only by diligence; why is dhyāna the washer? Concentration clears the mind as water carries off grime. The next four clauses are the conditions of growth and increase: good friends as the master who instructs, the limbs of awakening as companions, good dharmas as retinue, the bodhisattvas as brothers — these come about through teachers and friends without, and not by one person alone. The last nine clauses are matters of establishing: the mind of awakening as household, cultivating as is right as the rule of the household, the grounds as its dwelling place (the stations in which this household dwells), the forbearances as its clan (what this household, of one blood, rests in), great vows as its teaching (the root by which this household teaches its children), bringing all practices to fullness as compliance with its rule, exhorting others to bring forth the great vehicle as the carrying on of the family occupation, the consecrated bodhisattva bound to one more birth as the crown prince, and the accomplishing of awakening as that which is able to purify the clan — first a household, then a rule, a dwelling place, a clan, a teaching for it, compliance and carrying on, and at the last a crown prince and a purified clan. A household from nothing to its full standing: the twenty clauses have set it out.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the matching of mother and father to be an ingenuity of rhetoric. Chengguan’s second meaning speaks of an actual fork in the road. Brought down to the ground: wisdom lets a person get out, skillful means lets a person come back; lacking the latter half, the road will go astray.

Passing Beyond the Ground of Ordinary Beings and Being Born into an Honored Household: Eleven Clauses of Cause and Effect

After the retinue comes the weighing that displays his surpassingness, in two layers. First the surpassingness of the household is spoken of in general — “passing beyond the ground of ordinary beings, entering the station of the bodhisattvas, being born into the household of the tathāgatas, abiding in the lineage of the buddhas, being able to cultivate all practices, not cutting off the three jewels” — on to being reverenced and praised by the devas, humans, māras, Brahmās, śramaṇas, and brahmins of every world. Afterward the surpassingness of his knowledge is set forth in particular, that is, the eleven clauses of cause and effect (six opening with ‘knows,’ the rest with ‘penetrates,’ ‘by,’ ‘gains’ and the like): because he knows that all dharmas are like a shadow-image he has no loathing or contempt for the worlds; because he knows that they are like a transformation he has no attachment to the destinies of existence; because he knows that they are without a self his mind does not grow weary in teaching sentient beings; because his very substance is great kindness and compassion he does not feel it a labor to gather sentient beings in; because he penetrates that birth-and-death is like a dream he passes through all the kalpas without dread; because he knows that the aggregates are all like an illusion he displays the receiving of birth without grief or weariness; because he knows that the elements and the sense-fields are the same as the Dharma realm there is no destroying of them within the realms of objects; because he knows that all thoughts are like a heat-haze he enters the destinies without giving rise to upside-down confusion; because he penetrates that all dharmas are like an illusion he enters the realm of the māras without giving rise to attachment; because he knows the dharma-body all afflictions cannot deceive him; because he has gained sovereign mastery he penetrates without obstruction within all the destinies.

These eleven clauses are not eleven similes. Only six are fastened to a simile — like a shadow-image, like a transformation, like a dream, the aggregates like an illusion, like a heat-haze, all dharmas like an illusion; the other five are fastened to no simile and bring out five other matters: knowing that dharmas are without a self is no-self; having great kindness and compassion for one’s very substance is substance; knowing that the elements and sense-fields are the same as the Dharma realm is their sameness with the Dharma realm; knowing the dharma-body is the dharma-body; having gained sovereign mastery is sovereignty. The opening words are likewise not of one form: six clauses begin with the graph for knowing, and the other five begin severally with “by,” “penetrating,” “knowing fully,” “reaching through,” and “gaining.”

Each clause should be looked at in turn: knowing dharmas to be like a shadow-image, therefore toward the worlds no loathing or contempt — a shadow-image has of itself no high or low, and so what one faces in the world has nothing to be despised. Knowing them like a transformation, therefore toward the destinies of existence no attachment — what is transformed cannot be grasped. Knowing them without a self, therefore in teaching sentient beings a mind that does not grow weary — with no self there is no reckoning of one who delivers and one delivered, and so no weariness. Having great kindness and compassion for one’s very substance, therefore in gathering beings in not feeling it a labor — this clause is fastened not to a simile but to substance: kindness and compassion being the substance, labor is no longer a question. Penetrating that birth-and-death is like a dream, therefore through all the kalpas without dread — a long kalpa within a dream cannot harm a person. Knowing fully that the aggregates are like an illusion, therefore in displaying the receiving of birth without grief or weariness — an illusory body may be taken up and laid down. Knowing that the elements and sense-fields are the same as the Dharma realm, therefore within the realms of objects no destroying — being one and the same Dharma realm, there is nothing that could be destroyed. Knowing that all thoughts are like a heat-haze, therefore entering the destinies without upside-down confusion — a heat-haze cannot be drunk, and so one is not deceived by it. Reaching through that all dharmas are like an illusion, therefore entering the realm of the māras without giving rise to attachment. Knowing the dharma-body, therefore all afflictions cannot deceive him — this clause too is fastened to no simile: the dharma-body once manifest, the deceit of the afflictions has nowhere to work. Having gained sovereign mastery, therefore within all the destinies penetrating without obstruction — this clause has neither a simile nor a dharma known, but speaks directly of the sovereignty gained. Of the eleven, six take a simile for their cause and five take a virtue for their cause; the causes differ, and the fruit in every one is a single absence of obstruction.

Brought down to the ground: these eleven clauses are not eleven states of mind; they are eleven pairs of cause and effect. If the place of obstruction is still there, what one turns back to look at is the cause in the first half of the clause — mostly a knowing, but also a substance of compassion or a mastery gained.

My Body Is Born Everywhere Throughout the Whole Dharma Realm: This Passage Is Maitreya Speaking of Himself

After the eleven clauses, Maitreya speaks of himself: “my body is born everywhere throughout the whole Dharma realm: equal to the differing forms and marks of all sentient beings, equal to the distinct words and sounds of all sentient beings, equal to the every sort of name of all sentient beings, equal to the bearing that all sentient beings delight in, according with the world in teaching and taming; equal to all pure sentient beings in displaying the receiving of birth, equal to all ordinary sentient beings in the work they do, equal to the thoughts of all sentient beings, equal to the vows of all bodhisattvas — and so my body appears filling the Dharma realm.”

Chengguan outlines this as “separately setting forth the place of birth of the Kind One,” and divides it: “the text has ten clauses, the first clause general, the next eight particular, and the last one the conclusion.” The Yanyi chao cross-reads one clause, saying that this passage is “also the same as the measureless three wheels of the chapter of Manifestation.”

Note the graph “equal” here. It is not “surpassing” all sentient beings but “equal to” all sentient beings — forms and marks, words and sounds, names, bearing, and on to the work that ordinary beings do, all of them equal.

Brought down to the ground: a bodhisattva who is to become a buddha in time to come, telling of his own body, uses the graph “equal.” That one graph is harder than any adornment.

Why He Was Born into a Brahmin Household, and Why He Is to Be Born in the Tuṣita Heaven

Below this Maitreya sets forth the causes and conditions himself, first the present birth: for the sake of teaching and delivering those who cultivated the same practices with him of old and have now lost the mind of awakening, for the sake of teaching his father and mother and kin, and for the sake of teaching the brahmins and causing them to leave behind the arrogance of clan — and so he was born in the Jambudvīpa realm, in the country of Malādi, in the village of Kuṭa, into a brahmin household.

Afterward the birth to come: because he would accord with the minds of sentient beings, because he would ripen the deva hosts of the same practice in the Tuṣita Heaven, because he would display the adornments of the transformations of the merit and knowledge of a bodhisattva and pass beyond the realm of desire, cause them to cast off the joys of desire, cause them to know that the conditioned is impermanent, cause them to know that the flourishing of the devas must surely decline, because he would display the Dharma gate of great knowledge at the time of his descending and being born, because he would talk together with the bodhisattvas of one birth, because he would gather in and teach those of the same practice, and because he would teach those sent by Śākya the Tathāgata “and cause them all to awaken as a lotus flower opens” — and so “he shall die here and be born in the Tuṣita Heaven.”

Upon the words “as a lotus flower” Chengguan brings out three meanings: “first, Śākya sows the seed, and that flower opens; second, the cause of old contains the fruit as a flower not yet open, and when the cause is gone and the fruit appears it is as when a lotus flower opens; third, the perfuming of hearing contains what is real as a lotus not yet open, and when the real is seen and words are gone it is therefore said to be awakening.” And he cites the Zhi lun as a general proof of the first meaning.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the bodhisattva’s receiving of birth to be a being dragged by karma. In this passage there are more than ten “because he would … ,” and every clause is for the sake of people. Brought down to the ground: he was born into a brahmin household because those he was to deliver were exactly that company who set most store by clan.

You and Mañjuśrī Shall Both See Me: Three Meanings

Maitreya gives the prediction: “good man! When my vows are brought to fullness, when I have accomplished all-knowledge and gained awakening, you and Mañjuśrī shall both be able to see me.”

Upon the two graphs “both see” Chengguan brings out three meanings: “first, because they will help in the transforming together; second, because Sudhana stands for practice and Mañjuśrī for faith and knowledge, and at the time of accomplishing right awakening both will realize this; third, because Mañjuśrī is an ancient buddha, Sudhana a buddha to come, and the Kind One a present buddha, and the three times are round-fused and vastly all of one measure — and so it says they both see.” The third meaning is the weightiest: Mañjuśrī is the buddha of the past, Sudhana the buddha to come, the Kind One the buddha of the present, and the three times see one another at one and the same moment. Li Tongxuan sets down words upon this same clause, and his are more direct: “the causes of the three times being brought to fullness and knowledge being without ancient or modern, the buddhas of the three times see one another at one time, of one and the same wisdom.”

Fazang, in the Huayan wujiao zhang, judges three stations — the station of seeing and hearing, the station of understanding and practice, and the station of realizing the ocean of fruit — and for the third, the “station of realizing the ocean of fruit,” he directly cites as proof the clause of the sixty-fascicle witness that he quotes, saying that “this is with reference to cause and fruit being divided into two stations, before and after. Therefore the former station is only cause. Because the round fruit lies in the latter station, it says he shall see me.”

Brought down to the ground: from one clause of prediction the ancient worthies read out the three times seated together. This is the farthest-reaching sentence in the section.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: He Has Already Seen Mañjuśrī, So Why Must He Go Back

After the prediction comes the pointing out of the next friend. Maitreya would have Sudhana go and ask Mañjuśrī seven matters: how does a bodhisattva study the practice of the bodhisattvas, how does he enter the gate of the practice of Samantabhadra, how is it accomplished, how is it made vast, how is it made to accord, how is it made pure, how is it brought to fullness.

Here a question arises: Sudhana first brought forth the mind at Mañjuśrī’s very place, and now, having visited as far as the fifty-second station (counting Mañjuśrī at the first meeting, and Śrīsaṃbhava and Śrīmatī as one station), why must he turn back? Chengguan sets up the question himself and answers it himself: “first the intent of the questioning: Mañjuśrī has already been seen, why exhort him to go? The intent of the gloss: because that one’s virtue is deep and vast, and the bond of old is weighty.” And the root meaning of the exhortation to go Chengguan breaks open in a single clause: “as for making him go to Mañjuśrī, it is because the station of cause is about to reach its utmost, and he is made to shine back upon the source of the mind.” The station of cause is nearly at its end, and so he is to turn back and shine a light upon that first single thought.

A misreading to be set aside: taking the visiting of friends to be a going straight forward, finished when the road is walked out. Brought down to the ground: what is to be done upon reaching the last step is to go back and look at the first step.

Mañjuśrī’s Virtue: The Vastness of His Practice and the Depth of the Bond

The glossing of the ground of the exhortation divides in two: first setting forth the vastness of his practice, afterward displaying the depth of the bond.

The passage setting forth the vastness of his practice runs from “Mañjuśrī the youth: his practice is vast, his vows are without bound, and he gives birth to all the merit and virtue of the bodhisattvas without ever resting” onward — constantly the mother of the buddhas, constantly the teacher of the bodhisattvas, teaching and ripening all sentient beings, his name heard everywhere throughout the ten directions, constantly the master of the expounding of the Dharma, praised by all the tathāgatas, abiding in deep knowledge, able to see all dharmas as they really are, penetrating all the realms of liberation, and having brought to the utmost all the practices that Samantabhadra practises. Chengguan fastens each clause to what it governs: “as for giving birth to the merit and virtue of the bodhisattvas, he governs the Dharma gate of faith and nourishes all that is good. As for being therefore the mother of the buddhas, he governs the gate of wisdom, abides in deep knowledge, and sees the reality of dharmas. As for being the teacher of the bodhisattvas, he possesses skillful knowledge, penetrates liberation, and brings the practice of Samantabhadra to the utmost.”

The passage displaying the depth of the bond runs from “Mañjuśrī the youth is your good friend” onward — causing you to be born into the household of the tathāgatas, to grow and nourish roots of good, to raise up the dharmas that aid the path, to meet true good friends, to cultivate every merit and virtue, to enter all the nets of vows, to abide in all the great vows, speaking for you the secret dharmas and displaying the practices hard to conceive, and closing with “of old was born together with you and practised together with you.” Chengguan outlines this as “displaying that the bond with him is deep and has already brought much benefit.”

Brought down to the ground: the vastness of the practice says how great this good friend is, and the depth of the bond says how long he has been with you. In exhorting a person to go back and see a teacher, both these matters must be spoken.

The Concluding Exhortation: All That You Have Gained Along the Road Is His Power

The last division is the concluding exhortation with its restatement, in three parts: first the concluding exhortation, “you should go on to the place of Mañjuśrī and not grow weary and turn away”; next the questioning and glossing, “why is this”; and last the concluding of his virtue as ultimate.

For the part of the questioning and glossing Chengguan frames the intent of its question and answer: “first the intent of the questioning is to say: how is it known for certain that the two meanings above are present? Afterward the intent of the gloss is to say: the benefit already accomplished is all his power, and hence it is known that his virtue is deep and the bond weighty.” How is it known that Mañjuśrī’s virtue is deep and the bond weighty? Look at what you yourself have gained along the whole road — “all the good friends you saw before, the practice of the bodhisattvas you heard, the gates of liberation you entered, the great vows you brought to fullness — all of these are the majestic and spiritual power of Mañjuśrī.”

The last clause, “and Mañjuśrī has come to the utmost in every place,” Chengguan fastens to the beginning and end of faith and knowledge: “the former seeing is the head of faith, the latter seeing is the end of knowledge — and so it says, ultimate in everything.”

Brought down to the ground: what the fifty and more teachers along the road gave, looked back upon, was given by one and the same person. Were this sentence spoken at the setting out, it could not be understood; spoken here, it carries weight.

Cherishing His Virtue and Taking Leave: This Passage Is Only One Sentence

The last passage is the taking of leave: “then Sudhana the youth bowed to his feet, circled him measureless times, gazed up at him with earnest longing, and took his leave and departed.”

Chengguan outlines this alone as “cherishing his virtue and taking leave,” and brings out no separate gloss. And here the forty-fascicle witness has four graphs more, “his heart cherishing longing,” answering exactly to the name of the outline; the sixty is the plainest, and has no clause of “gazed up at him with earnest longing.”

A misreading to be set aside: taking this for a formula. The three witnesses differ in fullness and plainness, and yet the four graphs “gazed up at him with earnest longing” are in both the eighty and the forty — at the moment of parting he is still looking. Brought down to the ground: to look back while going away — the “cherishing his virtue” of this passage lies just here, and nothing need be added to it.

Lineage

For the text of this section, three lines are opened out below it.

The first is the line of the station of realizing the fruit. Fazang, in the Huayan wujiao zhang, judges three stations, the station of seeing and hearing, the station of understanding and practice, and the station of realizing the ocean of fruit, and for the third station he directly cites as proof the clause of the sixty-fascicle witness that he quotes, “when I accomplish right awakening in time to come, you shall see me” (in the base text of this section, “good man! When my vows are brought to fullness, when I have accomplished all-knowledge and gained awakening, you and Mañjuśrī shall both be able to see me”), and judges that “this is with reference to cause and fruit being divided into two stations, before and after. Therefore the former station is only cause. Because the round fruit lies in the latter station, it says he shall see me” — and the reason this section is called “the mark of gathering virtue and accomplishing the cause,” and where the cause it accomplishes and the fruit it stands in lie, Fazang here judges most plainly.

The second is the line of the outlines of the several houses, each with its own track, recorded without adjudication. For the fourfold great outline, Chengguan makes it conferring the substance of the Dharma · displaying the name of the Dharma · tracing to its source the root of the cause of the adornment · examining the nature and marks of the direct recompense, while Fazang makes it conferring the substance of the Dharma · displaying the name of the Dharma · distinguishing the place of coming · setting forth the place of birth: the first two divisions are the same in name and the last two differ in name. For the opening and closing of what is seen, Chengguan opens six (dependent recompense · direct recompense · companion bodhisattvas · buddhas · the chief pavilion within the pavilion · the working of the furnishings of adornment), Fazang opens five (dependent recompense · direct recompense · buddhas · sounds of Dharma · giving birth), Zhiyan, beneath the three divisions of “the direct entering of concentration,” sets up the one division of “seeing the pure land” and opens it further into five (seeing the marks of adornment, that is, the realm of faith · gaining benefit and paying reverence · the appearing of his own body · the appearing of the marks of the dharmas of cause and fruit · the appearing of differences), the six Dharma gates of bell · mirror · pillar · pearl necklace · tree · half-moon standing as headings beneath “the appearing of differences” and not upon the same layer as the gates of “what is seen” in Chengguan and Fazang, and Li Tongxuan does not set up outlines division by division but matches three passages to the scripture-measures of “eight or nine sheets of scripture,” “nine and a half lines of scripture,” and “four sheets of scripture,” opening out four questions. For the number of the similes, Chengguan sets up ten similes and matches a round to each of the two intents of the causes and conditions of being able to see and the marks of the realms that are seen, while Zhiyan, beneath “likening and praising the unobstructedness of the seeing,” makes seven similes and opens the last of them into three. For what the snapping of the fingers stands for, Chengguan judges the former and latter snaps to be the difference between taking concentration as the gate and taking function as the gate, while Li Tongxuan judges the snapping of the fingers to be “the meaning of removing dust.” These divergent interpretations are all settled sayings of the ancient worthies.

Each of the four houses has besides its own closing passage, and these too should be recorded. Chengguan’s Yanyi chao, beneath the scripture’s one clause “because I would teach those sent here by Śākya the Tathāgata,” takes up the text of the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng Doushuai and the Mile xiasheng jing in Kumārajīva’s rendering, brings out the occasions of the ascent and of the descent, and closes with “this scripture makes plain precisely that Śākya sent them here” — those Maitreya transforms are the ones Śākya sent. Fazang’s Tanxuan ji, at the end of this passage, brings out one by one the five sounds of Dharma, the six gates of the giving birth, the ten similes of the questioning and answering that settles the seeing, the three-part gloss of the name of the Dharma gate, the place of coming, the place of birth, the three parts of the twenty clauses of the retinue that is the condition of birth, and the rendering of the name Kuṭāgāra; upon the clause “you and Mañjuśrī shall both be able to see me,” he brings out three meanings — first, that when Maitreya becomes a buddha he too will teach this Avataṃsaka, and then too there will be the Dharma taught by Mañjuśrī and Sudhana; second, that when Maitreya becomes a buddha, Sudhana and Mañjuśrī will both come to help him spread the teaching; third, as standing for a dharma: Sudhana in this life is a body that cultivates the cause and has not accomplished the fruit, and so does not go to the Buddha — not that he does not seek him, but the fruit is set apart from the cause, and so it is said that he shall see him; and he closes “because this is the station of fullness, there is no pushing upward and the rest. Here ends the good friend of the mark of gathering virtue and accomplishing the cause.” — Maitreya’s station being full, he does not push the seeker on to yet another friend above. Li Tongxuan’s Lun, in its closing passage, glosses the two names Malādi and Gopāla — the land Malādi is named for the virtue of the sage, standing for a sage whose knowledge and virtue rise above the world with none surpassing; Gopāla “meaning here the guarding of the white dharmas of the ground of the mind,” whom the Kind One causes to enter the Buddha’s Dharma — glosses the village of Kuṭa as “meaning here many households,” and the brahmin household as “birth within a pure lineage,” sets forth that Maitreya’s receiving of birth and displaying of it is not a case of “the buddhas being born here and perishing there,” and closes with “and so Sudhana is made to go back and see Mañjuśrī, setting forth that the fruit does not shift the cause.” Zhiyan’s Souxuan ji, in its closing passage, divides the place of birth in two — “first, distinguishing the place of birth that is the substance of the practice of the cause,” and “setting forth the place of birth in which the transformation body appears and comes” — counts the retinue as “nineteen clauses separately setting forth the practice of the retinue” (Chengguan makes it twenty), and divides the place of birth of the transformation body into three, among humans, in the heavens, and descending among humans, “all of them being the final birth.” The four houses stop at different points, and all of them close upon Maitreya’s life to come; this is recorded without adjudication.

The third is the line of the assigning of stations. The matching of the good friends of this assembly to stations — that a certain friend is assigned to a certain station — is not the scripture text judging of itself; Chengguan follows the ancient worthies in matching them. What this section is fastened to, “the mark of gathering virtue and accomplishing the cause,” is the third of these five aspects, and in reading it one should take it as an outline of the ancient worthies and not as a judgment the scripture text makes of itself.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

Upon the two sayings of matching the stations and of not matching them, Chengguan judges explicitly, among the ten gates of the last assembly: “both have their reason. That is: since each single station is endowed with many Dharma gateways, how could an ordinary mind be barred from studying and seeking the dharma of good friends? — and so not to match them has its reason. Yet within the absence of sequence of stations the sequence of stations is not obstructed, and to display the stations is the ordinary rule, so that to match them is also without fault.” Both sayings he allows, and because displaying the stations is the ordinary rule, to match them is also without fault — this is Chengguan’s judgment, and not a leaving of the matter open.

Of the text of this one section, four thousand graphs and more are looking and two thousand and more are asking. Only when the looking is done can the eight graphs “where have these adornments gone” be asked — and the sequence of this section lies wholly in that one graph ‘only.’