華嚴經 義疏通講 · 冊11Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 11

Only When the Assembly Has Been Made Pure Can This Ground Be Asked For

When the eighth ground has been expounded, the sūtra does not go straight on to the ninth. It sets down first a long passage of offerings: the Tathāgata displays great spiritual penetration and shakes the ten directions; bodhisattvas leap up and stand in empty space; the Great Sovereign King and the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Others’ Emanations set out offerings with one mind; thousands of myriads of koṭis of goddesses play music and speak in praise. And in the verses of that praise sung by the music of the gods, half of what the ninth ground is going to say has already been let out: “If there are sentient beings whose minds are low and mean, then for them he expounds the practice of the śrāvakas” — expounding the three vehicles and the four according to the occasion; “his voice and his thought wholly quiesced, like the echo in a valley, which answers to everything” — answering, and yet with no mind in it; “just as a conjuror conjures up all manner of things” — displaying, and yet not attached. When the praise is done, the many musics “abide in silence”, and only then does Vimukticandra say his one sentence: “Now that the great assembly has become pure, may you expound the path of practice of the ninth ground!”

That short request is worth stopping over. The requests on the earlier grounds mostly praise Vajragarbha’s virtue or set forth the wish of the assembly; here one word alone is raised — pure. The great assembly has become pure, and therefore the ground can be asked for. Why must the assembly be pure before it may be expounded? Because what the ninth ground speaks of is the very business of expounding the Dharma: the accomplishing of an exposition lies half in the unobstructed knowledge of the one who expounds and half in the fitness of those who hear. The sūtra first washes the hearers clean with twenty-six lines of verse, and only then opens its mouth upon the ground of the master of the Dharma; and that sequence is itself a teaching. One misreading to guard against is to take the offerings and the praise for mere ceremony. They are not: they are the preparatory practice of the ninth ground, and to count ‘getting the hearers ready’ as part of the business of expounding the Dharma is precisely the eye of this ground. Brought down to oneself, this sentence is a reminder: before you wish to understand a hard teaching, ask whether your own mind is pure.

The Gate into the Ninth Ground: Not One Step Further, but a Change of Strength

Vajragarbha’s first passage is the cause of entering the ground. The bodhisattva “weighs and contemplates with measureless wisdom such as this” — “such as this” pointing to the wisdom heaped up over the eight grounds before; and out of that he seeks further the turn to the surpassing quiescent liberation, cultivates again the wisdom of a Tathāgata, enters the secret dharma of a Tathāgata, contemplates the nature of the inconceivable great wisdom, purifies the gates of the dhāraṇīs and the samādhis, is complete in vast spiritual penetration, enters the worlds of every difference, cultivates the powers, the fearlessnesses, and the dharmas not shared with others, turns the wheel of the Dharma in accord with the buddhas, and does not forsake the strength of the original vow of great compassion. Only when these ten things are all present does he “gain entry to the ninth ground of the bodhisattvas, the Excellent-Wisdom Ground”.

What is easily misread here is to read it as ‘working a little harder’. Vasubandhu, in the Shidi jing lun, states the boundary between the ninth ground and the eighth very plainly: on the eighth ground he only purifies the buddha-land and transforms sentient beings, whereas on the ninth, “by the strength of eloquence, he transforms sentient beings and accomplishes every aspect” — because he is able to transform, this ground surpasses that one. Put otherwise: what the eighth ground gains is the mastery that requires no effort; what the ninth ground gains is the ability to say it. To realize a thing oneself and to be able to bring others to realize it are two different matters; on the eighth ground he already goes without exerting strength, and only on the ninth does he begin to turn what he has realized without exerting strength into words that another can catch. So among the ten things by which the ground is entered, one end is “entering the secret dharma of a Tathāgata” (self-realization gone deeper), and the other end is “turning the wheel of the Dharma in accord with the buddhas” and “not forsaking the strength of the original vow of great compassion” (the transforming of others gone wider) — both ends drawn taut at once, and that is the gate of this ground.

The Ten Courses of Dharmas: One Who Expounds the Dharma Must First Tell ‘Dharma’ Apart

The first sentence of the exposition proper, once the ground has been entered, is the knowing “as they really are” of the courses of ten kinds of dharmas: good, bad, and indeterminate; with outflows and without outflows; worldly and world-transcending; conceivable and inconceivable; settled and unsettled; śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha; the practice of the bodhisattvas; the ground of a Tathāgata; the conditioned; the unconditioned.

Why is this said at the very outset? Because the first stock-in-trade of a master of the Dharma is being able to tell the classes of dharmas apart. Vasubandhu, explaining this passage, puts it with the utmost brevity: this is the “accomplishing of wisdom”, and it asks, “in dependence upon what dharmas does he expound the Dharma?”, and the answer is that “those dharmas are pure and defiled, not two” — both sides, the defiled and the pure, fall within the range of what he knows, and only then, within the pure dharmas, does he divide those with outflows from those without. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that a noble one knows only pure dharmas. Quite the contrary: one who expounds the Dharma must know as they really are even the bad, the indeterminate, the outflowing, the worldly, the inconceivable, and the unsettled, because the people he must deliver are steeped in just those dharmas. Brought down to the ground, this is the basic skill of one who expounds: which class of dharmas is the person before you now standing in? If you judge that wrongly, nothing you say will meet him.

The Eleven Dense Thickets: Sentient Beings Are Not One Noun but a Whole Wood

Then the angle shifts: not the dividing of dharmas, but the knowing of persons. The sūtra uses one very heavy simile — the dense thicket. The minds of sentient beings are a dense thicket; and their afflictions, their deeds, their faculties, their faith and understanding, their dispositions, their delights and desires, their latent tendencies, their taking of birth, the continuance of their habit-energies, and the differences of the three groups are each a dense thicket, eleven in all.

The two words “dense thicket” must first be made clear. What marks a wood is that it is close-grown, that it is tangled, that it is hard to get out of, and that from outside it looks like one single stretch, whereas once you walk in you find that no two trees are the same. Vasubandhu explains this as the “accomplishing of the entry into conduct” — the entry into conduct being the entering deep into the aspects of the conduct of the beings to be transformed; and he points out that the frame of this wood is “the shared dependence of the afflictions, deeds, and birth”: afflictions, deeds, and the taking of birth support one another, and the remaining items unfold around them. The misreading to guard against is to take “dense thicket” for a word of blame. It is not a scolding of sentient beings for being in disorder; it states a fact: the inside of a person is not one line but a whole tangled and rooted ecology, and whoever thinks to deliver a person with one sentence does not know a wood for a wood. Brought down to the ground, this passage counters the arrogance of ‘I understand people already’ — the bodhisattva of the ninth ground must know them aspect by aspect out to eighty-four thousand before he dares to say that he knows people.

The Ten Aspects of Mind: First See Clearly How a Single Mind Moves

The first of the eleven thickets is mind. The sūtra lists the ten aspects of mind: arising in a jumble, swift turning, breaking down and not breaking down, being without form or substance, being without bound or limit, purity, being stained and unstained, being bound and unbound, being made as a conjuring is made, and being born following the several destinies.

These ten aspects are set out in a sequence: first the movement of mind (arising all in a jumble, changing with speed), then the substance of mind (without form or substance, without bound or limit), then the two faces of mind, defiled and pure (the aspect of purity together with the aspect of being stained and unstained, being bound and not bound), and last the falsity and the flowing on of mind (made as a conjuring is made, taking birth following the six destinies). Vasubandhu, explaining this passage, says that the many aspects of mind are of eight kinds, the first being the “aspect of difference”, because mind, mentation, and consciousness have six differences. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is this: if it says “the aspect of purity” and also “the aspect of being stained and unstained”, is that not self-contradictory? It is not. One and the same mind can be pure in its nature and stained in its activity; and if one who expounds the Dharma acknowledges only one side, his remedy falls wide: speak only of purity and the person will not consent to change; speak only of stain and he will not dare to cultivate. Brought down to the ground, in looking at a person’s mind one must see both faces at once, and this is what decides whether an exposition can give hope and a place to start at the same time.

The Nine Aspects of the Afflictions: Why They Are So Hard to Uproot

For the aspects of the afflictions the sūtra lists: following along from far back, drawing forth without bound, being born together and not let go, lying dormant and rising up being of one sense, being and not being associated with the mind, abiding by taking birth according to the destinies, the differences of the three realms, the fault of craving, views, delusion, and conceit entering deep as arrows do, and the causes and conditions of the three kinds of deeds not being cut off — told in brief, on to eighty-four thousand.

Among these, the four words “lying dormant and rising up being of one sense” are the eye. Lying dormant and becoming active are two states of one and the same thing, not two things. People commonly suppose that when an affliction is not active it is gone; the sūtra says that it is only asleep. Vasubandhu opens the thicket of the afflictions with “three matters”: the first is “entering far”, far as the Summit of Existence; the second is “being hard to know”, hard to know in that it runs along with the practice by which measureless roots of goodness are cultivated and gathered. The misreading to guard against is to take the afflictions for occasional incidents. The sūtra says they “follow along from far back” and that “the causes and conditions of the three kinds of deeds are not cut off” — they are one long line that has never been broken. Brought down to the ground: the countering of the afflictions cannot be busy only when they are active; one must cultivate while they lie asleep. And this too is the foreshadowing of the later passage on the latent tendencies, that they are “drawn out only by the noble path”.

The Ten Aspects of Deeds: The Cause Perishes in an Instant, Yet the Fruit Is Not Lost

Among the aspects of deeds, the weightiest single clause is “the aspect of the intrinsic nature of the cause breaking down in an instant while the fruit is gathered in due sequence and not lost”. The sūtra lists together with it: good, bad, and indeterminate; manifest and not manifest; born together with the mind and not parting from it; having recompense and having no recompense; receiving the many recompenses of the black and the black and the rest; being measureless as a field is; the difference between the common man and the sage; receiving in the present, upon birth, and afterward; vehicle and not-vehicle, settled and unsettled.

Ask first a common doubt: if the cause that is a deed perishes in the very instant, upon what is the fruit preserved? The sūtra’s answer lies in that one clause — the intrinsic nature does break down in an instant, and yet “the fruit is gathered in due sequence and not lost”; and the verses gather it again as “though the cause breaks down, its recompense is gathered — all this he clearly knows”. This sets side by side in a single sentence two things that seem to be at odds: impermanence and the not-losing of deeds. There are two misunderstandings to clear away: one, that because things are impermanent one may default upon one’s deeds; two, that a deed requires some permanently abiding thing to store it if it is not to be lost. The sūtra takes neither side; it says only that the fruit is gathered up in due sequence. Look next at “manifest and not manifest” — some deeds show outwardly and some do not; and at “receiving in the present, upon birth, and afterward” — recompense is received in three times, this life, the next life, and later lives. Brought down to the ground: this passage lets one who expounds the Dharma speak to people of cause and fruit without falling into fatalism and without falling into annihilationism.

The Ten Aspects of the Faculties: Why the Same Sentence Profits One Man and Not Another

For the aspects of the faculties the sūtra lists: weak, middling, and surpassing; the difference and non-difference of the earlier limit and the later limit; superior, middling, and inferior; being born together with the afflictions and not parting from them; vehicle and not-vehicle, settled and unsettled; ripening to fullness and becoming pliant; turning and breaking down easily according to the net of the faculties; being ascendant and unable to be broken down; the difference between falling back and not falling back; following along at a distance and being born together and yet not being the same.

“Faculty” is the capacity to receive the Dharma. The sūtra sets side by side, in particular, “the aspect of turning and breaking down easily according to the net of the faculties” and “the aspect of being ascendant and unable to be broken down”: some people’s faculties are like a net, and a light touch breaks them; some people’s faculties have grown so ascendant that no one can break them. It lists also “the difference between falling back and not falling back”. The misreading to guard against is to take the character of the faculties for a label fixed by fate. The sūtra says plainly that the faculties have a process of “ripening to fullness and becoming pliant”, and that there is a difference between falling back and not falling back — the faculties do change, and expounding the Dharma is precisely the means of ripening them. Brought down to the ground: when one who expounds the Dharma meets a person who will not receive it, he does not conclude that the man has no faculty, but knows in which grade the man’s faculty now stands and what should be used to ripen it by degrees.

Faith and Understanding, Dispositions, Delights and Desires: Three Lines, Each in Three Grades

This passage of the sūtra is of the utmost brevity: “He knows also the faith and understanding of beings as weak, middling, and superior; their dispositions as weak, middling, and superior; their delights and desires as weak, middling, and superior — all told in brief on to eighty-four thousand kinds.”

Faith and understanding is conviction; disposition is habitual character; delights and desires are what one likes and longs for. These three stand alongside the faculties, and each is divided into the three grades of weak, middling, and superior. Why should they be listed separately? Because these three lines are where ‘whether he wants to listen, and what he can take in’ lies, which is not the same as the faculties, which are ‘whether he is able to receive’. A man whose faculties are keen but whose delights and desires are low and mean will not want a profound teaching even so; a man whose delights are high but whose power of understanding is weak cannot catch a profound teaching. The sūtra divides them into three grades just so that one who expounds the Dharma may fix the hearer’s position on all three axes at once. Brought down to the ground: this is the concrete content of the two words ‘discerning the occasion’ — not looking at people by feel, but looking at them axis by axis and grade by grade.

The Twelve Aspects of the Latent Tendencies: Concentration Can Only Press Them Down; Only the Noble Path Can Uproot Them

The passage on the latent tendencies is the longest, with twelve aspects: born together with the profound mind; born together with the mind; the difference between being and not being associated with the mind; following along from far back; never drawn out since the beginningless; at odds with all the meditative concentrations, the liberations, the samādhis, the samāpattis, and the spiritual penetrations; the bondage of taking birth in continuance within the three realms; causing boundless minds to arise in continuance; opening the gates of the several bases; being solid and hard to cure; the place of the ground being accomplished and not accomplished; being drawn out only by the noble path.

Vasubandhu explains the sense of the “fetter” (the latent tendency) as “the sense of following in pursuit and binding”, and asks, “where does it follow in pursuit? by what does it follow in pursuit?” — and that is exactly what the twelve aspects answer. Two of the clauses are the most crucial: one is “the aspect of being at odds with all the meditative concentrations, the liberations, the samādhis, the samāpattis, and the spiritual penetrations”, the other “the aspect of being drawn out only by the noble path”. The former says that the latent tendencies run counter to every realm of concentration and every penetration — however deep the concentration and however great the penetration, the latent tendencies remain; the latter says that what can uproot them is the noble path alone. The verses gather this sense up still more sharply: “the realms of concentration can only push them off and one still falls back — it is the cessation by the adamantine path that is final.” What concentration can do is only to “push” — to push the realm aside — and what is pushed aside will come back; for the final cutting off one must come to the adamantine path. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the very one that a practitioner falls into most easily: supposing that to be without affliction within concentration is to have cut off affliction. Here the sūtra shuts the matter. Brought down to the ground: this passage is the mirror that shows up every phantom for one who prides himself on the realms of concentration, and it is also the ground on which the bodhisattva of the ninth ground dares to say “only by the noble path”.

The Nine Aspects of the Taking of Birth: Deeds Are the Field, Craving the Water, Consciousness the Seed

For the aspects of the taking of birth the sūtra lists: taking birth according to deeds; the differences of the six destinies; the difference between having form and being formless; the difference between having perception and being without perception; deeds as the field, the water of craving moistening it, the darkness of ignorance covering it, and consciousness as the seed, so that the sprout of further existence is born; name-and-form born together and not parting; the seeking of delusion and craving continuing existence on; desiring to receive and desiring to be born and clinging with delight from time without beginning; falsely supposing oneself out of the three realms while still seeking greedily.

That one long clause in the middle is a whole simile drawn from farming: deeds are like a field, craving like the water that moistens the field, ignorance like the darkness that covers it, consciousness like a seed, and out of these there grows the sprout of further existence. This is of the same track of simile as the first ground’s contemplation of the common man, “within the field of the three realms the sprout of suffering is born again”; and on this ground it becomes one of the dense thickets that are known. The four requisites cannot lack even one — and this is a misunderstanding to be guarded against: the supposition that to cut off the round of birth one need only cut off deeds. The sūtra lists plainly the water of craving and the covering darkness of ignorance; cut off the water, and the seed too will not grow. The last clause, “the aspect of falsely supposing oneself out of the three realms while still seeking greedily”, is especially piercing: there are those who suppose that they are already out of the three realms, while what they do is still a greedy seeking. Brought down to the ground: this aspect warns the practitioner that the most dangerous cause of birth is supposing oneself already delivered.

The Ten Aspects of the Habit-Energies: The Active Is Cut Off, and the Aftertaste Remains

The habit-energies are listed in ten aspects: the difference between what is active and what is not; perfuming according to the destinies; perfuming according to the conduct of sentient beings; perfuming according to deeds and afflictions; perfuming as good, bad, and indeterminate; perfuming according to entry into further existence; perfuming in due sequence; perfuming by afflictions that are not cut off, that travel far, and that are not let go; perfuming by the real and the unreal; perfuming by seeing, hearing, and drawing near to śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and Tathāgatas.

Vasubandhu, explaining this passage, says plainly that the differences of the dense thicket of the conduct of the habit-energies are of ten kinds, the first being “the difference of the fruit as present and not present”, the second “the difference of the perfuming of the path” — answering one by one to the sūtra’s “aspect of the difference between what is active and what is not” and “aspect of perfuming according to the destinies”. The teaching point here is the word “perfuming”: a habit-energy is not one event but a continuing manner of being dyed. The last aspect deserves particular notice: “the aspect of perfuming by seeing, hearing, and drawing near to śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and Tathāgatas” — perfuming is not only bad; drawing near to noble ones is a perfuming too. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is to regard habit-energies wholesale as things to be removed; the sūtra shows plainly that good perfuming is among them as well. Brought down to the ground: since a person cannot but be perfumed, then let him choose what perfumes him — and this is the doctrinal ground, on this ground, of “drawing near to the good friend”.

The Three Groups: People Are Not Two Heaps, the Good and the Bad

The aspects of the three groups are listed in twelve clauses: right view and being fixed in rightness, wrong view and being fixed in wrongness, and being neither of the two and so unfixed, as one set; the five acts of immediate retribution and being fixed in wrongness, the five faculties and being fixed in rightness, and being neither of the two and so unfixed, as one set; the eight wrong factors and being fixed in wrongness, the right nature and being fixed in rightness, and doing neither of the two and being apart from both and so unfixed, as one set; deep attachment to wrong dharmas and being fixed in wrongness, practicing the noble path and being fixed in rightness, and casting off both and so unfixed, as one set. The four sets are of one and the same pattern: one clause fixed in rightness, one clause fixed in wrongness, one clause unfixed.

Why should the same matter be spoken of in four sets? Because the ground on which right and wrong are determined differs: now by view (right view or wrong view), now by deeds and faculties (the five acts of immediate retribution or the five faculties), now by path (the eight wrong factors or the right nature), now by practice (deep attachment to wrong dharmas or the practicing of the noble path). One and the same person need not fall into the same group upon different axes. The misreading to guard against is to use the three groups to paste labels upon people. The sūtra sets out “unfixed” four times over, precisely to make plain that most people fall among the unfixed — and it is with the unfixed that the expounding of the Dharma can do its work. Brought down to the ground: if one who expounds the Dharma sorts people into two heaps, there is nothing left for him to do; the teaching of the three groups is for finding out that great multitude who can be turned.

Called Abiding on the Excellent-Wisdom Ground: The Name of the Ground Is Gained from This Stretch of Wisdom

With the eleven thickets expounded, the sūtra concludes of itself: “Son of the Buddha! When a bodhisattva accords with wisdom such as this, it is called: abiding on the Excellent-Wisdom Ground; and having come to abide on this ground, he knows the differences in the several kinds of conduct of sentient beings, transforms and subdues them, and causes them to gain liberation.”

Note the build of the sentence: the name of the ground is not gained from spiritual penetration, nor gained from concentration, but gained from “according with wisdom such as this” — that is, from the whole stretch of wisdom that knows the aspects of the conduct of sentient beings. And upon the knowing there follows immediately “transforms and subdues them, and causes them to gain liberation” — the knowing is not for the sake of knowing but for the sake of delivering. This sentence gathers up the whole of the first half and begins the second half (the acting as a great master of the Dharma): only what is clearly known can be rightly expounded. Brought down to the ground: this sentence gives the two words “excellent wisdom” a definition from the sūtra’s own hand, more direct than any explanation in the treatises.

Well Able to Expound the Four Vehicles: To Whom One Says What

After the concluding sentence, the first thing the sūtra does is to expound the Dharma: he is “well able to expound the dharma of the śrāvaka vehicle, the dharma of the pratyekabuddha vehicle, the dharma of the bodhisattva vehicle, and the dharma of the ground of a Tathāgata”, and it makes plain why — “because in every place of practice his wisdom turns along with what is being practiced” — so that he can expound in accord with the faculties of sentient beings, their desires and understanding, the differences of what they practice, and the differences of the several groups, and in accord too with their taking of birth, their afflictions, their latent tendencies, their bonds, their deeds, and their habit-energies, causing them “each within the vehicle that is his own to gain liberation”.

This passage takes back item by item all the thickets known before: faculties, desires and understanding, the groups, the taking of birth, the afflictions, the latent tendencies, the bonds, deeds, and habit-energies are all names listed in the earlier text. So one sees that the great stretch before this was not a display of knowledge but the support upon which the expounding of the Dharma rests. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that a bodhisattva should expound only the Great Vehicle. The sūtra lists all four vehicles plainly and says “each within the vehicle that is his own to gain liberation” — to set a man upon the road he can walk at this moment is also to deliver him. Brought down to the ground: this is the scriptural attestation for ‘giving the medicine that fits the illness’, and the reason the prescription is written so exactly is that the illness has already been seen in eighty-four thousand aspects.

Acting as a Great Master of the Dharma: A Master of the Dharma Is Not a Title but a Kind of Conduct

“A bodhisattva abiding on this Excellent-Wisdom Ground acts as a great master of the Dharma, is complete in the conduct of a master of the Dharma, is well able to guard the Dharma-treasury of the Tathāgata, and with measureless skillful wisdom gives rise to the four unobstructed eloquences, expounding the Dharma in a bodhisattva’s words.”

Four clauses, four matters: acting as a great master of the Dharma (the station), being complete in the conduct of a master of the Dharma (the practice), guarding the Dharma-treasury of the Tathāgata (the charge), giving rise to the four unobstructed eloquences (the capacity). Vasubandhu, explaining this place, says that “the one who expounds and the one who holds are set forth in two clauses”, and says of one who abides within the deep and wondrous meaning of a great master of the Dharma that “there are twenty kinds of doing of the work of a master of the Dharma” — a master of the Dharma must be complete in conduct, not merely hold the name. The misreading to guard against is to understand “master of the Dharma” as meaning one who can talk. The sūtra puts “well able to guard the Dharma-treasury of the Tathāgata” before eloquence: only one who can guard is fit to expound. Brought down to the ground: this sentence lays down the sequence of the master of the Dharma — guarding first, expounding after; an eloquence that cannot guard the Dharma-treasury is not the eloquence of this ground.

The Four Unobstructed Knowledges: Constantly Turning Along with Them, Never for a Moment Letting Them Go

The four unobstructed knowledges are set out in one general clause: “This bodhisattva constantly turns along with the four unobstructed knowledges, and does not for a moment let go of them. Which are the four? They are: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas, the unobstructed knowledge of meaning, the unobstructed knowledge of language, and the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech.”

First let the four names be made clear: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas, unhindered with respect to the names, phrases, and syllables of the dharmas; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning, unhindered with respect to the meaning that the dharmas convey; the unobstructed knowledge of language, unhindered with respect to words and sounds; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech, unhindered with respect to the unbroken inexhaustibility of delighted speech. Fazang in the Tanxuan ji marks them as the four of “dharma, meaning, wording, and eloquence”, and says that by the unobstructedness in dharma one knows with mastery every name and phrase, that by the unobstructedness in meaning one penetrates with mastery every principle of meaning, that by the unobstructedness in wording one discerns with mastery every kind of speech, and that by the unobstructedness in eloquence one expounds with mastery throughout the ten directions as is fitting in each case — four in a well-ordered sequence: knowing dharma, penetrating meaning, forming speech, and expounding inexhaustibly. Vasubandhu for his part explains this as the “accomplishing of the karma of speech”, and explains “not broken down” as “because it does not move”. What must be noticed are the words “not for a moment let go”: they are not raised up when needed but constantly turn along with him. Brought down to the ground: eloquence upon this ground is not a technique but a part of the ground itself.

The Ten Gates of the Four Unobstructed Knowledges (1 · 2): The Own-Aspect and the Intrinsic Nature

The sūtra opens the four unobstructed knowledges by ten rounds of “again”. The first round: with the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas he knows the own-aspect of the dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of meaning he knows the aspect of difference of the dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of language he expounds without error; with the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech he expounds without exhaustion. The second round: with the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas he knows the intrinsic nature of the dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of meaning he knows the arising and ceasing of the dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of language he establishes all dharmas and proclaims them without break; with the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech he makes, according to what has been established, a boundless exposition that cannot be broken down.

Vasubandhu gives each of these ten rounds a name. The first round he names the “own-aspect”, and opens it into four: the own-aspect of the arising of dharmas, the own-aspect of difference, the own-aspect of the firmness of conception, and the own-aspect of the difference of those conceptions. The second round he names the “common aspect”, and opens it into the common aspect of all dharmas, the common aspect of all conditioned dharmas, the common aspect of all dharmas as designations, and the common aspect of designation upon designation. What is to be looked at here is the pattern: every round is a fourfold unity of ‘dharma knowing the substance, meaning knowing the differences, language being able to expound, delighted speech being able to go on inexhaustibly’, while the object that the ten rounds face widens step by step. The first round faces the own-aspect and the aspect of difference of the dharmas (the most basic discrimination); the second turns to intrinsic nature and to arising and ceasing (substance and change). The misreading to guard against is to take the ten rounds for ten different sets of knowledge; they are not — they are the same four knowledges working upon ten levels. Brought down to the ground: the way to read these ten rounds is to ask of each in turn, ‘which level of object is this round speaking of?’

The Ten Gates of the Four Unobstructed Knowledges (3 · 4): Time, and Dharma and Meaning

The third round: with the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas he knows the differences of present dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of meaning he knows the differences of past and future dharmas; with the unobstructed knowledge of language he expounds past, future, and present dharmas without error; with the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech he expounds boundless dharmas with full clarity within each single time — the object of this round being time. Vasubandhu names it the “aspect of conduct”, and opens it into the aspect of the conduct of arising, the aspect of the conduct of what has arisen and what has not yet arisen, the aspect of the conduct of things and designations, and the aspect of the conduct of the matter expounded. The fourth round: with the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas he knows the differences of dharma; with the unobstructed knowledge of meaning he knows the differences of meaning; with the unobstructed knowledge of language he expounds according to the speech-sounds of beings; with the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech he expounds according to what their minds delight in — the object of this round being dharma and meaning, speech-sounds and what the mind delights in; and Vasubandhu names it the “aspect of exposition”, opening it into the aspect of the exposition of the sūtras, the aspect of the exposition that explains them, the aspect of the exposition that accords, and the aspect of the exposition that resembles.

Set side by side, the two rounds are of much interest: the third takes the three times into itself, so that one who expounds the Dharma is not bounded by time; the fourth takes the hearer into itself, so that one who expounds the Dharma is not bounded by speech-sound. The two clauses “expounds according to their speech-sounds” and “expounds according to what their minds delight in” are precisely the foreshadowing of the later answering of all with a single sound. Brought down to the ground: discerning the occasion is not only the choosing of content but also the choosing of language and the choosing of the moment.

The Ten Gates of the Four Unobstructed Knowledges (5 · 6): The Four Knowledges and the Absence of Self-Conceit

The fifth round apportions four knowledges: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows differences as not at variance by the knowledge of dharma; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows differences as they really are by inferential knowledge; the unobstructed knowledge of language discerns and expounds by worldly knowledge; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech expounds with skill by the knowledge of the highest meaning. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of knowledge”, opening it into the knowledge that sees directly, inferential knowledge, the knowledge of the means of obtaining what is sought, and the knowledge that is obtained. The sixth round: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows the dharmas as of one aspect and not broken down; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows with skill the aggregates, elements, bases, truths, and dependent origination; the unobstructed knowledge of language expounds with beautiful and wondrous sounds and letters that all the world finds easy to understand; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech expounds with a boundless light of the Dharma that turns ever more surpassing. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of the absence of self-conceit”, opening it into the absence of self-conceit with respect to the truth of the highest meaning, the absence of self-conceit with respect to the worldly truth, the absence of self-conceit in expounding beautifully, and the absence of self-conceit in expounding what is unsurpassed.

The name of the sixth round, “absence of self-conceit”, is worth stopping over. To expound the Dharma without raising self-conceit rests upon knowing that “the dharmas are of one aspect and not broken down” — in the one who expounds, in what is expounded, and in the one who hears there is fundamentally nothing that can be seized upon as a self. And the clause “expounds with beautiful and wondrous sounds and letters that all the world finds easy to understand” counts ‘expounding so that people can understand’ as one part of the absence of self-conceit as well: to be willing to accommodate the hearer’s language is itself a lessening of self-conceit. Brought down to the ground: to judge whether an exposition of the Dharma has self-conceit in it, look at whether it means people to understand or means them to admire.

The Ten Gates of the Four Unobstructed Knowledges (7 · 8): The Vehicles and the Grounds

The seventh round: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows the nature of the One Vehicle as being the same throughout; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows the nature of the several vehicles as different; the unobstructed knowledge of language proclaims that all the vehicles are without difference; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech proclaims for each single vehicle boundless dharmas. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of the Lesser Vehicle and the Great Vehicle”, opening it into the aspect of contemplation, the aspect of nature, the aspect of liberation, and the aspect of mindfulness. The eighth round: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows all the practice of the bodhisattvas, the practice of wisdom, and the practice of dharma, entering into realization according to wisdom; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows the differences of meaning among the stations and divisions of the ten grounds; the unobstructed knowledge of language proclaims that the grounds and the path are of an aspect without difference; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech proclaims for each single ground boundless aspects of practice. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of the ground of the bodhisattvas”, opening it into the aspect of knowledge, the aspect of exposition, the aspect of the giving of skillful means, and the aspect of entering measureless gates.

The pattern shared by these two rounds is this: the unobstructedness in dharma sees their sameness and absence of difference, the unobstructedness in meaning sees their differences and their divisions, the unobstructedness in language proclaims their absence of difference, and the unobstructedness in delighted speech proclaims the boundlessness of each one. Only when sameness and difference are both held fast can the vehicles and the grounds be expounded at all. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that to speak of the One Vehicle one must wipe out the three, or that to speak of the ten grounds one must wipe out sameness. The sūtra wants both sides. Brought down to the ground: one who can really expound the Dharma can in a single breath both speak of the stairway and speak of there being nothing other than it beyond the stairway.

The Ten Gates of the Four Unobstructed Knowledges (9 · 10): The Ground of a Tathāgata and the Sustaining of the Dharma

The ninth round: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows that all the Tathāgatas accomplish right awakening within a single thought; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows the several times, the several places, and the like, each with its differences; the unobstructed knowledge of language proclaims the differences of the accomplishing of right awakening; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech proclaims for measureless kalpas within each single phrase of Dharma and does not exhaust it. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of the ground of a Tathāgata”, opening it into the aspect of the dharma-body, the aspect of the form-body, the aspect of right awakening, and the aspect of exposition. The tenth round: the unobstructed knowledge of dharmas knows all the Tathāgatas’ speech, powers, fearlessnesses, and dharmas of a buddha not shared with others, their great kindness and great compassion, their eloquence and skillful means, their turning of the wheel of the Dharma, and the wisdom of omniscience, all entered into realization according to wisdom; the unobstructed knowledge of meaning knows the sounds the Tathāgata sends forth in accord with the differences of the minds and conduct, the faculties, and the understanding of eighty-four thousand sentient beings; the unobstructed knowledge of language expounds with the differences of a Tathāgata’s sounds in accord with the conduct of all sentient beings; the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech expounds with the fullness of the pure practice of a Tathāgata’s wisdom in accord with the faith and understanding of sentient beings. Vasubandhu names this the “aspect of the doing of the sustaining”, opening it into the aspect of awakening, the aspect of difference, the aspect of exposition, and the aspect of the measurelessness of these.

At the tenth the rounds close upon the Tathāgata: the object known has been pushed all the way from the own-aspect of the dharmas to the fruit-virtues of a Tathāgata and his sustaining of the Dharma. In the ninth round, “accomplishing right awakening within a single thought” and “the several times, the several places, and the like, each with its differences” stand side by side, and this is that pattern of sameness and difference carried to its utmost. The tenth round takes up the eighty-four thousand once again: the sounds of a Tathāgata differ according to the minds and conduct of eighty-four thousand sentient beings — buckling together, head and tail, with the earlier “told in brief, on to eighty-four thousand” of the thickets of sentient beings. Eighty-four thousand aspects known, eighty-four thousand sounds expounded: this is the full breadth of the Excellent-Wisdom Ground. Brought down to the ground: read the ten rounds through and then look back at the name of the ground, and the two words “excellent wisdom” are no longer abstract.

The Ten Gates of Dhāraṇī: Only What Can Be Held Can Be Expounded Inexhaustibly

After the four unobstructed knowledges comes the all-holding: he gains the ten dhāraṇīs of meaning, dharma, wisdom, illumining light, excellent wisdom, many riches, awesome virtue, the unobstructed gate, what has no bound or limit, and the several meanings; “gates of dhāraṇī such as these, to the number of a million asaṃkhyeyas, are all made full in him”; and with a million asaṃkhyeyas of gates of skillful sound and eloquence he expounds the Dharma. Chengguan outlines these ten names as the “ten holdings”, and says that they are all “named from the work and function that they raise up” — every one of the names is taken from the work that it does.

Dhāraṇī in the old translation is “all-holding”, and its sense is the ability to hold without losing and to bar what should not arise. Why must the all-holding be spoken of after the four unobstructed knowledges? Because eloquence is empty unless there is something held. The misreading to guard against is to imagine a dhāraṇī as a secret spell. Here the sūtra lists the ten names itself — meaning, dharma, wisdom, illumining light, and the rest — all of them set up with respect to the receiving and holding of the Dharma, and none of them touching upon spells. Brought down to the ground: the power of expounding the Dharma stands upon two feet, one eloquence and one holding; with eloquence alone and no power to hold, what is spoken is forgotten as soon as it is spoken, and one telling is one telling and no more.

Hearing and Holding beyond the Great Śrāvakas: Measureless Gates of Dharma in the Space of a Single Bow

The sūtra then says something very concrete: this bodhisattva, in the presence of measureless buddhas, hears the Dharma by a million asaṃkhyeyas of gates of dhāraṇī, and “having heard it he does not lose it”, and expounds it for others through measureless gates of difference; moreover “when he first sees a buddha and bows his head in reverence, he gains at once in the presence of that buddha measureless gates of Dharma”, and those gates of Dharma so gained are “not what those great śrāvakas renowned for hearing much and holding it fast could receive in a hundred thousand kalpas”.

The contrast here is very sharp: even those among the śrāvakas famed as foremost in hearing much could not in a hundred thousand kalpas receive what this bodhisattva gains at a single bow of the head. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is to read this as a belittling of the śrāvakas. The sūtra is marking a difference in the measure of the all-holding — not who is diligent and who is not, but that the vessels that can hold are fundamentally of different size. Brought down to the ground: this passage explains why the bodhisattva of the ninth ground dares to act as a great master of the Dharma — his Dharma-treasury is not something scraped together but something that fills the moment the gate of holding is opened.

Sitting upon the Seat of the Dharma: Only the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas Who Have Received Consecration Excepted

“He sits upon the seat of the Dharma and expounds the Dharma; and for all the sentient beings that fill the great-thousand world-system he expounds according to the differences of what their minds delight in. Only the buddhas and the bodhisattvas who have received consecration are excepted; among all the rest of that assembly there is none whose awesome virtue and light can be compared with his.”

This sentence draws the standing of this ground within a Dharma assembly: apart from the buddhas and the bodhisattvas who have received consecration (those who, the ten grounds being near their fullness, receive the anointing of the station), there is none in the assembly whose awesome virtue and light can match him. Note “expounds according to the differences of what their minds delight in” — to sit upon the seat of the Dharma is not to make an announcement but to meet each person in turn. The misreading to guard against is to read “none can be compared with him” as a word of arrogance. It is a plain statement of standing, and the sūtra itself writes the “only … excepted” first, which is precisely not to hide and not to overstate. Brought down to the ground: the virtue of the seat of the Dharma lies in being able to expound to the delights of the minds of a whole great-thousand world-system, and not in the height of the seat.

The Ten Wishes of the Mind: How Far the Mastery in Expounding Goes

Then comes the most unbridled passage of this ground: seated upon the seat of the Dharma, if he wishes with a single sound to cause the great assembly all to gain understanding, they gain it at once; or with sounds of every kind to cause the great assembly all to be awakened; or to send forth a great light and expound the gates of Dharma; or that within every single pore upon his body the sound of the Dharma be sent forth; or that all things of whatever kind within the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system, having form or without form, send forth the wondrous words and sounds of the Dharma; or to send forth a single word and sound that reaches everywhere throughout the Dharma realm; or that all words and sounds become sounds of the Dharma, abiding constantly and not perishing; or that the flutes and pipes, bells, drums, and singing of all worlds, all the sounds of music, send forth the sounds of the Dharma; or that within a single letter all the differences of the phrases, words, and sounds of the Dharma be complete; or that of all the dust-motes within the gatherings of the four great elements — earth, water, fire, and wind — in unspeakably many measureless worlds, each single dust-mote send forth unspeakably many gates of Dharma. The last clause gathers it all up: “Everything he thus keeps in mind is accomplished according to his mind, and there is nothing that is not gained.”

The ten clauses go from the simple to the manifold: from a single sound and sounds of every kind (sound), to light (form), to pores, to the ten thousand things, to the Dharma realm (place), to abiding constantly and not perishing (time), to the sounds of music, a single letter, and a single dust-mote (the exceedingly many held within the exceedingly small). This passage is often read as a laying out of miracles; in truth it says one thing: the medium of the expounding of the Dharma has been utterly set free — wherever there is sound, form, shape, or dust-mote, there the sound of the Dharma may be. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is to suppose this an exaggeration. The sūtra’s point of landing is “everything he thus keeps in mind is accomplished according to his mind”, and what it says is that between the mind and the sound of the Dharma there is no longer any partition at all. Brought down to the ground: for one who truly expounds without obstruction, the ten thousand appearances of the world have all become his language.

Answering All with a Single Sound: The Hard Questions of the Three-Thousandfold World-System and on to Unspeakably Many Worlds

Then comes the most famous passage of all: suppose all the sentient beings of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system were to come before him, each raising hard questions with measureless words and sounds, and no one of those hard questions the same as another — the bodhisattva “within a single thought is able to receive them all, and still with a single sound explains for them all together, causing each of them, according to what his mind delights in, to gain gladness”; and on to the sentient beings of unspeakably many worlds questioning all at once within a single instant, it is likewise.

Fazang, in the Tanxuan ji, cites the Zhuangyan lun in explaining the name “excellent wisdom”, and it is just this sense that he takes: that within a single instant, when all the gods and men and the kinds unlike them within the three-thousandfold world-system ask with differing sounds and differing meanings, this bodhisattva is able with a single sound to answer all their questions and to cut off all their doubts everywhere, and is for this named excellent wisdom. So one sees that this passage is the direct scriptural attestation of the name of the ground. The misreading to guard against is to imagine the “single sound” as a common language. What the sūtra says is a “single sound” that yet “causes each, according to what his mind delights in”: one sound is sent forth, and each person hears what he should hear. Brought down to the ground: this is no miracle of philology but the necessary outcome of unobstructed knowledge — since what is known has already reached everywhere out to eighty-four thousand aspects, the sound sent forth answers to each of them of itself.

Everywhere Becoming a Support and Refuge for All

After the passage on the hard questions, the sūtra presses one layer further: “And on to the sentient beings that fill unspeakably unspeakably many worlds, the bodhisattva is able to expound the Dharma for them all in accord with what their minds delight in, in accord with their faculties, and in accord with their faith and understanding; and taking up the Buddha’s spiritual power he does the work of a buddha at large, and everywhere becomes a support and refuge for all.”

The three occurrences of “in accord with” hook back to the three axes of delights and desires, faculties, and faith and understanding set out earlier; and the four words “taking up the Buddha’s spiritual power” mark that the capacity of this ground does not stand up alone by its own strength. And the landing point is in the words “support and refuge”: the last thing in expounding the Dharma is not the answering of questions but the becoming of a place upon which sentient beings can lean. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is to regard the expounding of the Dharma as the passing on of information. What the sūtra speaks of is a place of reliance. Brought down to the ground: what makes a master of the Dharma a master of the Dharma is that a person can commit body and mind to the Dharma he transmits.

The Assemblies of Buddhas within a Single Hair-Tip: Receiving Them and Forgetting Nothing

A further step: suppose within a single hair-tip there were assemblies of buddhas as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many worlds, and within each assembly sentient beings as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many worlds, and each single being with dispositions and delights as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many worlds, and those buddhas each gave gates of Dharma according to those dispositions and delights; “as it is within a single hair-tip, so it is likewise in all places throughout the Dharma realm”. Measureless gates of Dharma such as these the bodhisattva “is able within a single thought to receive them all, and nothing is forgotten”.

The passage before spoke of ‘being able to expound’; this one speaks of ‘being able to hear it all’. The two complete one another: only one who can receive all that the whole Dharma realm expounds can expound what the whole Dharma realm needs. The sentence “as it is within a single hair-tip, so it is likewise in all places throughout the Dharma realm” is a text of the great appearing within the small; and when Li Tongxuan reads the symbolism of this ground and says “wisdom is layer upon layer without end”, it is upon this that he has his eye. The misreading to guard against is to read it as mere exaggeration of number — the weight of the sūtra falls upon “nothing is forgotten”, that is, upon the utmost of the all-holding. Brought down to the ground: this passage is the fruit of the ten gates of dhāraṇī and the enlargement of the earlier “having heard it he does not lose it”.

Diligent by Day and Night: No Other Thought at All

With the capacity for expounding told, the sūtra turns back to the bodhisattva’s own practice: “He is single-mindedly diligent by day and by night and has no other thought at all; he only enters the realm of the buddhas and draws near to the Tathāgatas, enters the profound liberation of the bodhisattvas, is constantly within samādhi, constantly sees the buddhas, and has never once forsaken them.” Within each single kalpa he sees measureless buddhas and on to measureless hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddhas, reveres, honors, attends upon, and makes offerings to them, asks and seeks instruction with hard questions of every kind in the presence of those buddhas, gains the dhāraṇī of the expounding of the Dharma, and his roots of goodness turn ever more to brightness and purity.

See where this passage stands: it comes immediately after the most magnificent mastery in expounding. The one who can answer with a single sound the questions of unspeakably many worlds spends his days “with no other thought at all”, drawing near to the Tathāgatas and asking hard questions. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that having come to this ground one is already self-sufficient. The sūtra says plainly that he still asks hard questions and still receives the Dharma. Brought down to the ground: the provisions of one who expounds the Dharma come from being taught without cease — and this passage is the fixed star for everyone whose work is the expounding of the Dharma.

The Simile of the Goldsmith’s Jeweled Crown: The Gold Has Now Been Made a Crown

“It is as with true gold: a skillful goldsmith takes it and makes of it a jeweled crown, and a wheel-turning sage king uses it to adorn his head, and among the four continents none of the many adornments of the lesser kings, the ministers, and the common people can be its equal. So it is with the roots of goodness of the bodhisattva of this ninth ground: none of the roots of goodness of any śrāvaka, any pratyekabuddha, or any bodhisattva of a lower ground can be their equal.”

On the first ground the goldsmith was spoken of as refining the gold, putting it into the fire again and again so that it grew brighter with every turn — at that time the gold was still in the fire. By this ground the goldsmith has made the gold into a jeweled crown, and it is worn upon the head of a wheel-turning king, and not one of the adornments of a whole realm can match it. The grade of the simile has turned from “refining” to “adorning”: the former speaks of purification, the latter of having become a vessel and taken an honored place. The misreading to guard against is to read “none can be their equal” as a boast that measures high against low; the point of the simile falls upon “use” — gold refined to this pitch can now be made a crown, and is now fit to adorn the head of a realm. Brought down to the ground: only roots of goodness cultivated to the point of being able to shoulder the charge of a master of the Dharma count as having become a vessel.

The Simile of the Radiance of the Great Brahmā Heaven King: What Is Illumined Is the Minds of Sentient Beings

“It is as with a great Brahmā heaven king, lord of two thousand worlds: he sends forth radiance from his body, and the deep and distant places within those two thousand worlds are all able to be illumined by it, and the darkness there is removed. So it is with all the roots of goodness of the bodhisattva of this ground: they are able to send forth radiance that illumines the minds of sentient beings, causing the darkness of the afflictions all to come to rest and be extinguished.”

This simile buckles onto the passage of the fruit of recompense: the bodhisattva of this ground “mostly becomes a great Brahmā heaven king, lord of two thousand worlds”, so that the thing likened and the station of the fruit are one and the same. Note what is illumined: not the world, but “the minds of sentient beings”; and what darkness is removed: not the darkness of night, but “the darkness of the afflictions”. And the four words “the deep and distant places” are the most worth turning over — what the light must reach is precisely the farthest and most hidden place, just as what the expounding of the Dharma must arrive at is precisely the corner of a person’s heart that he is least willing to show. Brought down to the ground: this simile turns the virtue of expounding the Dharma from ‘speaking well’ into ‘reaching what is to be reached’.

The Preeminence of the Perfection of Power: What This Ground Rests Upon

“Among the ten perfections, in this bodhisattva the perfection of power is the most excellent; the remaining perfections are not that he does not cultivate them, but only that he does so as strength and measure allow.”

Among the ten perfections, what is ascendant upon this ground is power. Li Tongxuan judges the same, that this ground “takes the cultivation of the perfection of power as its principal and the other nine as its companions”. Why power and not wisdom? Because what has been lacking was never the view but the strength to carry the view into effect — to be able to hold eighty-four thousand gates of Dharma, to receive in a single thought the questions of the unspeakably many, to answer all with a single sound: what these rest upon is power. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that ‘the other perfections are not cultivated’. The sūtra says plainly “not that he does not cultivate them, but only as strength and measure allow”, and this is the standing rule of the ten grounds. Brought down to the ground: this sentence tells the reader that the weight of practice upon this ground lies in the raising up of a strength able to shoulder the charge.

Brief Exposition and Full Exposition: Measureless Kalpas Would Not Exhaust It

“Son of the Buddha! This is called: the brief exposition of the ninth ground of the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, the Excellent-Wisdom Ground; but were it to be expounded at length, measureless kalpas would not exhaust it.”

The concluding form ‘this is called the brief exposition of such a ground’ is present on all ten grounds (on the third ground the wording differs a little, reading “this is called the bodhisattva’s third ground, the Luminous”); the latter half, ‘were it expounded at length … it would not be exhausted’, belongs only to the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth. This conclusion falls with particular fitness upon the ninth ground: what this ground expounds is precisely the inexhaustibility of expounding, and when it comes to speak of this very ground it still says, “were it to be expounded at length, measureless kalpas would not exhaust it.” The misreading to guard against is to take it for a set phrase. It is a demonstration of what was said before — “with the unobstructed knowledge of delighted speech, within each single phrase of Dharma he proclaims for measureless kalpas and does not exhaust it” — the speaker bearing witness with his own person. Brought down to the ground: to finish reading this ground and feel that one has understood it already is exactly what this sentence guards against.

The Fruit of Pliancy: He Mostly Becomes a Great Brahmā Heaven King, Lord of Two Thousand Worlds

“A bodhisattva-mahāsattva abiding on this ground mostly becomes a great Brahmā heaven king, lord of two thousand worlds; he is good at governing, and with mastery he benefits sentient beings; he is able for all śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas to discern and expound the practice of the perfections; and in accord with the minds of sentient beings, there is none who can make him yield in any hard question at all.”

Every ground has its answering fruit of recompense in a royal station, and this ground’s is the great Brahmā heaven king, lord of two thousand worlds — which tallies with the simile of the Brahmā king’s radiance above. What is to be looked at is what this king does: not govern, but “discern and expound the practice of the perfections”, and further, “there is none who can make him yield in any hard question at all”. The station of recompense still takes the expounding of the Dharma for its work, and this is the mark of the Excellent-Wisdom Ground. Brought down to the ground: the station of recompense of a ground displays precisely the virtue of that ground.

The Four Means of Gathering, Never Apart from Mindfulness of the Buddha: In All He Does, the Mind Is Tied to the Buddha

“Giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside them — all the works he does, such as these, are never apart from mindfulness of the Buddha, and on to never apart from mindfulness of all modes and of the wisdom of omniscience.”

The four means of gathering are the four devices by which sentient beings are drawn in; the weight here does not lie upon the four means themselves but upon “never apart from mindfulness of the Buddha”. This clause is present upon every ground, and is a fixed form of the ten grounds. The misunderstanding to be cleared away is the supposition that a bodhisattva upon a high ground need no longer be mindful of the Buddha. The sūtra says the very opposite: the wider what he does, the less his mindfulness departs. Brought down to the ground: every act done for the good of beings, if it is parted from mindfulness of the Buddha and of the wisdom of omniscience, becomes a worldly good deed — and this sentence is the watershed.

The Ascendant Vow: To Be Foremost, To Be Most Excellent, To Be the Support

“And he thinks further in this way: ‘Among all sentient beings I should be the foremost, the most excellent, and on to being the place of support of the wisdom of omniscience.’”

The three terms advance layer by layer: to be foremost (to stand first and lead), to be most excellent (highest in virtue), and to be the place of support of the wisdom of omniscience (to become that to which beings entrust themselves). The misreading to guard against is to read “to be foremost and most excellent” as a mind bent on winning. Look where it lands: it comes at last to “the place of support” — the high station sought is sought so that people may have somewhere to lean. It is one and the same vow as the earlier “everywhere becomes a support and refuge for all”. Brought down to the ground: what a bodhisattva seeks in seeking to excel is the qualification to shoulder the charge.

Raising Up Diligent Vigor: The Number of the Samādhis and of the Retinue

“If this bodhisattva raises up diligent vigor, then within a single thought he gains samādhis as many as the dust-motes of a million asaṃkhyeyas of lands, and on to displaying bodhisattvas as his retinue as many as the dust-motes of a million asaṃkhyeyas of lands; and if by the excellent strength of a bodhisattva’s vows he displays them with mastery, it goes beyond even this number, so that on through a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of kalpas one could not reckon and know it.”

All ten grounds mark the measure of the ground by this same form: on the first ground it is “a hundred”, and upon this ground it is “the dust-motes of a million asaṃkhyeyas of lands”. And every ground has the same supplementary clause: if displayed by the strength of the vow, it goes beyond this number past all reckoning. Note what this supplementary clause does — it keeps the reader from taking the number for a ceiling. What the number marks is the ordinary portion gained by “raising up diligent vigor”, while the strength of the vow has no portion or limit. Brought down to the ground: every number that measures a ground is to be read together with this clause, and only so does one avoid the view that fixes a quantity.

The Verses in Repetition and Their Correspondence: What the Prose Has Said, the Verses Only Gather Up in Outline

The prose being finished, Vajragarbha, “wishing to declare this meaning over again, spoke in verse”, and the forty-eight lines of verse answer passage by passage to the prose without setting up any new sense. Chengguan judges these verses in repetition to be “verses upon the four parts above” — the first two verses upon the skillful means of the master of the Dharma, the next two upon the accomplishing of wisdom, the next seven upon the accomplishing of the entry into conduct, and thereafter by degrees upon the accomplishing of exposition, the fruit of the station, and the concluding praise.

Set them passage against passage. The first two verses sing the causes of entering the ground (contemplating well with the strength of measureless wisdom · the all-holdings and samādhis gained with mastery · powers, wisdom, fearlessnesses, and the dharmas not shared with others · entering the ninth ground by the strength of vows and the mind of compassion), answering to the ten things of the prose by which the ground is entered; next comes the verse on upholding the Dharma-treasury and knowing the ten courses of dharmas (abiding on this ground he upholds the Dharma-treasury, and knows the good, the bad, and the indeterminate … whether dharmas be settled or unsettled, all that the three vehicles do he is able to contemplate), answering to the ten courses of dharmas; next the verse on the many aspects of the minds of sentient beings (the many aspects of mind, its swift turning, its breaking down and not breaking down, its being without substance or resistance and without bound or limit, and aspects of every kind), answering to the ten aspects of mind; next the verses on the afflictions, deeds, the faculties, and faith and understanding, dispositions, and delights and desires (the afflictions are boundless and constantly keep company with him, lying dormant and rising up are of one sense and carry on through the destinies · the substance of deeds is of many kinds, each with its differences, and though the cause breaks down, its recompense is gathered — all this he clearly knows · the faculties are of many kinds, inferior, middling, and superior · and so it is too with faith and understanding, dispositions, and delights and desires, and of the eighty-four thousand kinds there is none he does not know), answering one by one to the nine aspects of the afflictions, the ten aspects of deeds, the ten aspects of the faculties, and the three grades of faith and understanding, dispositions, and delights and desires; next the verses on the thicket and the latent tendencies (the delusion and views of sentient beings constantly follow and bind them, the dense thicket from time without beginning has never been cut away … the realms of concentration can only push them off and one still falls back — it is the cessation by the adamantine path that is final), answering to the general statement of the thickets and to the twelve aspects of the latent tendencies — and here the words of the verse are sharper than the prose, saying outright as “the cessation by the adamantine path is final” what the prose said as “drawn out only by the noble path”; next the verses on the taking of birth, the habit-energies, and the three groups (the taking of birth in the six destinies has its several differences, deeds are the field, craving the moistening, ignorance the covering, consciousness is the seed and the sprout of name-and-form is born … delusion, deeds, and the habit-energies of mind give birth within the destinies … sentient beings are all of them within the three groups, some sunk in evil views, some walking the right path), answering to the nine aspects of the taking of birth, the ten aspects of the habit-energies, and the twelve aspects of the three groups.

From here the verses turn into the accomplishing of exposition: the verse on unobstructed eloquence expounding with differences as is fitting answers to the ten gates of the four unobstructed knowledges; the verse on the four similes of the seat of the Dharma (like a lion, like a bull-king and a king of jeweled mountains, like a dragon king spreading dense clouds and pouring down a rain of sweet dew) and on knowing well the nature of the Dharma and its deep meaning answers to the sitting upon the seat of the Dharma and expounding; the verse on a million asaṃkhyeyas of all-holdings, with the great sea receiving the many rains for its simile, answers to the ten gates of dhāraṇī; the verse on the samādhis being pure, on seeing many buddhas in a single thought and hearing the Dharma in the presence of each, answers to the diligence by day and night in seeing buddhas and hearing the Dharma; the verses on transforming the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system as clouds are spread wide, on the buddha-assemblies at a hair-tip and their gates of Dharma, and on vigor in hearing and holding as the earth holds all seeds, answer severally to the answering of all with a single sound, the assemblies of buddhas within a single hair-tip, and the accomplishing of the light of wisdom; the verse on the beings of the ten directions seated in the assembly and questioning, and a single sound answering all and satisfying them fully, answers to the hard questions of the three-thousandfold and on to unspeakably many worlds; the verse on being a king of the Dharma, teaching and drawing them on as the occasion asks, and by day and night seeing buddhas and entering the profound and quiescent wisdom and liberation, answers to the station of the master of the Dharma and to the diligence by day and night; the verse on making offerings to the buddhas so that his roots of goodness grow bright as the wondrous jeweled crown upon a king’s head, and on causing besides the afflictions of sentient beings to be extinguished as the radiance of the Brahmā king illumines everywhere, answers exactly to the two similes of the goldsmith’s jeweled crown and of the radiance of the great Brahmā heaven king, one verse gathering two similes; the verse on abiding here and mostly becoming a great Brahmā king who transforms sentient beings with the dharma of the three vehicles answers to the fruit of pliancy; the verse on the samādhis entered within a single thought being as the dust-motes of asaṃkhyeyas of buddha-fields, and on what is done by the strength of the vows going beyond this, answers to the number of the samādhis and the retinue and to the supplementary clause on the vow surpassing the number. The last verse concludes of itself: “This is the ninth ground, Excellent Wisdom, the place of practice of bodhisattvas of great wisdom, profound and subtle and hard to see; for the sons of the Buddha I have now expounded it.” — closing the depth of this ground with “hard to see”, and handing it back to the sons of the Buddha with “I have now expounded it”.

Read Against the Mirror of Consciousness-Only: The Unobstructed Understandings and Mastery in Expounding

This ground has, within the consciousness-only line, a definition that fits it exactly. The Cheng weishi lun, explaining the ninth of the ten grounds, says that upon it one “accomplishes the subtle and wondrous four unobstructed understandings”, and is able throughout the ten directions to expound the Dharma well — tying the name of the ground directly to the four unobstructed understandings, not a word apart from this chapter’s “gives rise to the four unobstructed eloquences” and “acts as a great master of the Dharma”. The Yuqie shidi lun, in the section on the abodes, explains the name of this ground by saying: because upon this ground the intent toward the benefit and ease of all sentient beings is pure, he attains a bodhisattva’s wisdom of unobstructed understanding, and by this is well able to proclaim the true Dharma, and therefore this ground is named Excellent Wisdom — and it says one thing more: that the precondition of unobstructed understanding is “purity of intent”, that is, that only when the mind for sentient beings has first been made pure is the eloquence a bodhisattva’s eloquence. The section on the determining of meanings likewise marks, in listing the ten grounds, “the ninth is named the Excellent-Wisdom Ground”; and the Jie shenmi jing marks the same name and says of this ground that “the body of coarse heaviness is vast as empty space, and the dharma-body is full”. The She dacheng lun, in listing the ten grounds, also gives “ninth, the Excellent-Wisdom Ground”; and both Chengguan and Fazang, in explaining the name of this ground, first cite the words of the She dacheng lun, “because he gains the most excellent unobstructed knowledge”, upon which Vasubandhu comments, “because it is by unobstructed understanding-knowledge that it is called wisdom, and this wisdom is wondrously excellent, it is named excellent wisdom”, and Asvabhāva comments, “that is to say, he gains the most excellent four unobstructed understandings; the knowledge of unobstructed understanding is the most surpassing among all knowledges. Knowledge is just wisdom, and so it is named excellent wisdom.”

The deeper bridge of consciousness-only upon this ground is Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun — the sentence-by-sentence explanation of this whole passage comes from his hand: the outline in four parts (the accomplishing of the skillful means of the master of the Dharma · the accomplishing of wisdom · the accomplishing of the entry into conduct · the accomplishing of exposition), the opening and combining of the several aspects of the thickets, and the four kinds opened out within each of the ten rounds of the four unobstructed knowledges, all come from this treatise; the outline in four parts is carried on by Chengguan, while the names of the ten aspects are not set up gate by gate in his commentary. Setting the two mirrors against each other, one can see this: what this chapter of the Avataṃsaka expounds is ‘how one bodhisattva becomes a person able to expound the Dharma’, while what the treatises of consciousness-only expound is ‘what this one has realized in the sequence of stations, and why his name is established as it is’. The one is a scene, the other a criterion; put together, the name “excellent wisdom” comes down to a real place.

Lineage

The text of this ground is carried on by two lines in later times. On the side of consciousness-only: Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun, fascicle eleven, explains this ground sentence by sentence and sets up the outline in four parts and the ten aspects of the four unobstructed knowledges, and is the root of all later explanations of the meaning of the Excellent-Wisdom Ground; and the explanations of the name of the Excellent-Wisdom Ground in the Cheng weishi lun, the She dacheng lun, the Yuqie shidi lun, and the Jie shenmi jing are all attached to the unobstructed understandings and to mastery in expounding the Dharma, and are of one succession with the text of this chapter. On the side of the Huayan school: Chengguan sets up the reason for the coming of this ground upon the Yuqie — that although upon the preceding ground effort has been let go within the markless abiding and mastery over marks has been gained, the strength of expounding the Dharma is not yet full, and therefore this ground comes; and in explaining the name he gathers nine houses and lists them, while the Yanyi chao further marks the source and fascicle of each one by one — this is the track of collating and reconciling. Fazang’s Tanxuan ji judges by “upon this ground he first realizes the knowledge of unobstructed understanding not obtained before, and therefore it is named excellent wisdom”, and cites the Zhuangyan lun’s text on answering all with a single sound as the authority for the name of the ground — this is the track of demonstration. Li Tongxuan for his part reads it by the symbolism of the sequence of stations: the practice of this ground is the same as the ninth abode among the ten abodes, that of the prince of the Dharma-king, and it is the same as the ninth position among the five positions, the station of the master of the Dharma, and because he knows the many dharmas well it is named excellent wisdom; and he further takes the Lumbinī grove and the deity Wondrous Virtue Complete whom Sudhana visited as symbols of the virtue of this ground — wisdom setting up the teaching as a wood does, spreading wide and covering with shade, layer upon layer without end, the wondrous wisdom of the station of the master of the Dharma being complete; and he sets up of himself a long outline in seven passages (the verses of praise and request · entering the ninth ground in cultivation · the expounding of the Dharma by the four unobstructed knowledges · the gates of the million koṭis of all-holdings · the expounding of the Dharma and the hard questions by a single sound · seeing buddhas, making offerings, and receiving the station · the verses in repetition) — this is the track of symbolism. The three tracks run side by side, each with its own authority; here what they say is recorded, and no judgment is made as to which stands higher.

A Ground That Begins from the Praise of Others

Among the ten grounds, this one alone begins from the praise of others. The first nine grounds having been expounded, the hosts of the gods of the Pure Abodes, the bodhisattvas beyond conceiving, the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment with his hosts of gods, and the measureless goddesses — four kinds of great assembly together — make offerings in the sky: scattering incense, scattering robes, striking up music. Why just here? Because the ninth ground has exhausted “mastery in expounding the Dharma”, and what is now to be expounded is the utmost of the ten grounds, where both the expounder and the Dharma expounded have come to the edge of language; and so the sūtra first uses a great offering to hold the scene open. One misreading must be guarded against: this is not ceremonial extravagance. The reason the gods “leapt up in gladness of mind in empty space” is given by the sūtra itself — “having heard of the many surpassing practices within that ground”. The cause of the gladness is that they had understood the nine grounds before; it is not that they had seen a display. Brought down to the person reading: to come to the tenth ground and see first a gladness is itself a reminder — what is about to be expounded is worth setting your mind straight for once before you read it.

The Verses of the Goddesses: The Body Sits at Ease in One Place and Appears Everywhere

The praise of the goddesses runs to nine verses, and what they speak of is in truth only one thing: how the body of the Buddha and the wisdom of the Buddha can be at once one and all. The sūtra says, “the body of the Buddha sits at ease within a single land, and yet within all the worlds his body appears”; the light sent out from a single pore is such that, though a land be ground to dust-motes and the dust-motes still be counted, the number of this light cannot be measured; and what sentient beings see is each unlike the other — some see the turning of the wheel of the Dharma, some see the journeying through buddha-fields, some see the abiding in stillness unmoving, some see the dwelling in Tuṣita, the entering of the womb, the coming forth from the womb, the leaving of the household, the accomplishing of the path, the expounding of the Dharma, nirvāṇa. Here the easiest misreading is to make of it ‘the Buddha has many bodies divided off from him’. The sūtra blocks that itself with the simile of the conjuror: the conjuror understands the art of conjuring and makes many things in the midst of a crowd — what is made is many, and the conjuror only one. Then, going a step deeper, the sūtra gives the reason why: “the Buddha abides within the deep and true nature of dharmas, still and quenched and without marks, the same as empty space; and yet within the first and true meaning he displays all manner of things that are done.” The substance is without marks, the function is of every kind, and yet “having marks and being without marks are not different at all”. And so the exhortation to practice in the last verse can be set down: to gain the wisdom of a Tathāgata one must first “part from every false discrimination”, penetrating being and non-being alike into equality. That this verse stands at the head of the tenth ground is no accident: all the bodily transformations of the bodhisattva expounded below are to be read by this one sentence, or else they become a parade of marvels.

Why Vimukticandra Asks about ‘Entering the Tenth Ground from the Ninth’

The goddesses having finished their praise, the great assembly “were still in body and mind and at ease together, gazing up at the Tathāgata and abiding in silence”; and only when the bodhisattva Vimukticandra saw that the assemblies had all become still did he make his request to Vajragarbha. There is something exact in this sequence: Chengguan judges the sixteen verses of praise and request of this ground to be thirteen of praise and three of request, and points out that within the request “the first one gathers up the silent request of thought, and the latter two are the spoken request of the foremost one” — first the request of thought made in the silence of the whole assembly, and only then the voice of the one at the head. The misreading is to take Vimukticandra for a curious questioner. What he asks is “all the merits and the many aspects of practice by which one enters the tenth ground from the ninth, and the matters of spiritual penetration and transformation as well” — three things: how one comes in, what virtue and practice there are once one is in, and those transformations. These three questions exactly frame the skeleton of the whole long prose passage that follows. Brought down to the reader: if the reading below begins to feel dense, count these three questions over again, and you will know where in it you are.

Here the First Nine Grounds All Become Skillful Means

In his first passage Vajragarbha does not speak of the tenth ground; he first counts over the nine before it: from the first ground to the ninth, having observed and awakened to things with measureless wisdom, being good at pondering and cultivating, good at fully completing the pure and white dharmas, gathering boundless dharmas that aid the path, increasing great merit and wisdom, practicing great compassion broadly, knowing the differences among worlds, entering the thicket of the realm of sentient beings, entering the place where a Tathāgata walks, according with the still and quenched practice of a Tathāgata, constantly observing the powers, fearlessnesses, and exclusive dharmas of a Tathāgata — and only then does he say, “this is called: gaining the station of consecration of all modes and of the wisdom of omniscience”. Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun gives this passage a name, “the part of the skillful means that make the ground full”, and judges the wisdom of good selection within it to have seven aspects; Chengguan carries this on, saying that this part “gathers what was cultivated on the first nine grounds into a whole and makes of it the skillful means, because it fills this ground”. The misreading to be guarded against is to suppose that the tenth ground sets up a separate hearth of its own. Just the opposite: everything cultivated on the first nine grounds is here taken up whole into the skillful means of one thing — entering the station of consecration. Here is where it comes down to the ground: at the end of practice one does not change to another road; it is that every step already walked arrives at once.

The Fullness of the Samādhis: Why One Must Enter Concentration before Receiving the Station

Having gained the station of consecration, one is not at once consecrated; the sūtra first lists ten samādhis: parting from defilement, entering the differences of the Dharma realm, adorning the seat of the way, the flower-radiance of all modes, the treasury of the sea, the seal of the sea, the vastness of the realm of empty space, observing the own-nature of all dharmas, knowing the mental conduct of all sentient beings, all buddhas appearing before him — and samādhis such as these, a million asaṃkhyeya of them, all appear before him, and “whether he is entering them or rising from them, he has them at his command”. Vasubandhu explains this as “the part of the fullness of the samādhis”, and says that the samādhi of parting from defilement parts from the defilement of the afflictions, and that the nine samādhis under it part from eight kinds of defilement; Chengguan carries the treatise on and explains, saying that the general name of parting from defilement is given because this is the ground where obstruction is exhausted, and so it takes this name in particular. The misreading is to take the samādhis for the ornament of the consecration. The sequence of the sūtra is hard: the last samādhi is named “receiving the surpassing station of omniscience” — the station comes out of the concentration. Brought down to the ground: what is called a ‘station’ is not a title but a certain steadiness of mind that arrives first, so that the station has something to be set upon.

The Great Jeweled Lotus: The Seat Is Both Fruit and Exposition

The samādhi appearing before him, a great jeweled lotus flower is suddenly born. The sūtra describes it in the finest detail: its measure equal to a million three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems, adorned with many wondrous jewels set among one another, surpassing the realms of all the world, born from roots of goodness that transcend the world, “accomplished by the many practices that know the conjuring-like nature of dharmas”, constantly sending out light that illumines the Dharma realm everywhere, not something the places of the gods can possess; beryl and maṇi for its stalk, the king of sandalwood for its calyx, carnelian for its filaments, Jambū-river gold for its petals, covered over with a net of jewels, and having as its retinue lotus flowers as many as the dust-motes of ten three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems. Vasubandhu explains this seat as having ten aspects — the aspect of its birth, of its measure, of its excellence, of the ground, of its cause, of its accomplishment, of the first meaning, of its merit, of its substance, and of the completeness of its adornments — matching each aspect to the text of the sūtra. The most important sentence here is “it arises from roots of goodness that transcend the world, and is accomplished by the many practices that know the conjuring-like nature of dharmas”: the seat is not a reward dropped from the sky, but has grown out of the bodhisattva’s own undefiled roots of goodness and his contemplation of the conjuring-like. The misreading is precisely to read it as display. Brought down to the ground: what sort of seat a person can take is the shape grown by his own earlier practice.

The Sending Out of Light: Before Consecration, the Suffering of Beings Is Extinguished Once Over

He takes his seat upon the flower, and light and the sounds of speech fill the Dharma realm of the ten directions, all the worlds quake, the evil destinies are put to rest, the lands are adorned and pure, and sentient beings gain ease and joy. Then comes the most moving passage: the bodhisattva sends out light from the several parts of his body — from beneath his two feet illumining the great hells, from the wheel-marks of his two knees illumining the destinies of animals, from within the wheel of the navel illumining the realms of King Yama, from his left and right flanks illumining the human destinies, from within his two hands illumining the palaces of the gods and the asuras, from above his two shoulders illumining the śrāvakas, from his neck and back illumining the pratyekabuddhas, from his face illumining the bodhisattvas from the first arising of the mind to the ninth ground, from between his two brows illumining the consecrated bodhisattvas and making the palaces of Māra not appear, and from above the crown of his head sending out rays as many as the dust-motes of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system to illumine everywhere the seats of the way of the buddhas of the ten directions, circling ten times to the right and becoming a net of “blazing light” that makes offerings to the buddhas. Notice the direction: the light is sent out from below upward, the hells first and the buddhas after. The misreading is to read it as a performance of spiritual power. The sūtra gives its own measure: this one offering, set against all the offerings of the other bodhisattvas from the first arising of the mind to the ninth ground, is such that theirs “do not amount to one part in a hundred”. Brought down to the ground: when a person has reached the highest place, his first motion is to turn back and light up the lowest.

Consecration: The Station Is Not Won by Oneself

The light having made its offerings to the buddhas, it circles the seats of the way of the ten directions ten times and enters in beneath the feet of the tathāgatas; and the buddhas and bodhisattvas thereby know that “within such and such a world, such and such a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is able to carry out vast practice such as this and has arrived at the station of consecration”. The bodhisattvas of the ten directions up to the ninth ground come and encircle him, and each gains ten thousand samādhis; the already consecrated bodhisattvas of the ten directions send out from the diamond-adorned mark of virtue upon their breasts the light “able to destroy the enemy Māra”, which comes and enters the breast of this bodhisattva and makes his wisdom and power increase a hundred thousandfold. And only then comes the matter itself: all the buddhas of the ten directions send out from between their brows the light of “increasing omniscience and spiritual penetration”, and after illumining the Dharma realm everywhere it enters in through the crown of the head of this great bodhisattva. Vasubandhu judges this part to be “the part of gaining the station”, and sets up six items within it — what sort of seat, what measure of body, what retinue, what marks, whence he comes forth, and what station he gains. The misreading is to take “receiving the station” for a title the bodhisattva has cultivated for himself. The direction of the motions in the sūtra is quite clear: the light beneath the feet is sent out by him; the light upon the crown of his head is entered in by the buddhas. Brought down to the ground: in practice there is a stretch one walks oneself, and the last step is conferred.

The Simile of the Wheel-Turning King’s Consecration and the Four Words ‘Fallen within the Number of the Buddhas’

The sūtra thereupon uses the single most important simile of the whole chapter: the prince of a wheel-turning sage king, his mother the chief queen and his bodily marks complete; the king has him sit upon a seat of the white elephant treasure and of wondrous gold, raises the curtained net, sets up banners and pennants, burns incense and scatters flowers, has music played, takes the water of the four great seas and puts it in a golden vase, and with his own hand consecrates the crown of the prince’s head — and at this it is named receiving the station of the king, “falling within the number of the consecrated kṣatriya kings”, whereupon he can carry out fully the way of the ten good deeds and gains too the name of wheel-turning sage king. When the sūtra joins the simile to its sense it says: because the buddhas consecrate the crown of his head with the water of wisdom he is named as receiving consecration, and because he is complete in the ten kinds of power of a Tathāgata he “falls within the number of the buddhas”. These four words are to be read exactly: it is “falls within the number of the buddhas”, not “is a buddha”. The prince, having received consecration, is already listed within the number of kings, but the wheel-turning king is still there. Chengguan judges this ground to be “without anything above it when set against what went before, and lesser when set against a buddha” — unsurpassed with respect to the first nine grounds, and still the lesser with respect to a buddha. The misreading lies just here: read the tenth ground as buddhahood, and the whole long passage that follows, “then what of the power of spiritual penetration of a buddha”, falls empty. Brought down to the ground: the modesty of the last stretch of practice is not politeness but fact — one has entered the number, one has not taken the seat.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (1): Knowing as It Really Is Every ‘Aggregation’

After the consecration the sūtra begins to lay out the measure of what is known upon this ground, which Vasubandhu names “the part of entering the great exhaustion”, and which Chengguan explains as “the practice of the fullness of the ground: looked at against the grounds before, their practice is already exhausted, and now the ground is full besides, so that it is the utmost of exhaustion”. The first item is knowing the “aggregations”: the aggregation of the desire realm, of the form realm, of the formless realm, of the worlds, of the Dharma realm, of the conditioned realm, of the unconditioned realm, of the realm of sentient beings, of the realm of consciousness, of the realm of empty space, of the realm of nirvāṇa; and further, knowing the aggregation of the many views and the conduct of the afflictions, of the forming and breaking down of worlds, of the practice of the śrāvakas, of the practice of the pratyekabuddhas, of the practice of the bodhisattvas, of the powers, fearlessnesses, form-body and dharma-body of a Tathāgata, of all modes and the wisdom of omniscience, of the display of gaining awakening and turning the wheel of the Dharma, and of the wisdom that enters into the discriminating and deciding of all dharmas. “Aggregation” means being gathered together, being brought into standing. The misreading is to take it for a list of knowledge. The sūtra draws it shut with great speed at the end: “to state the essential point: it is that with omniscience he knows every aggregation.” It is not a matter of memorizing item by item; it is one wisdom that can see how every thing whatever is gathered into being. Brought down to the ground: to know aggregation is to know causes and conditions — to know how each single thing has come to be; and this one piece of knowledge, carried to its utmost, is the wisdom of a buddha.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (2): Transformation, Sustaining, Subtle Wisdom, and the Secret Places

Then come three sets. The first is knowing “transformation”: the transformation of the deeds of sentient beings, of the afflictions, of the views, of the worlds, of the Dharma realm, of the śrāvakas, of the pratyekabuddhas, of the bodhisattvas, of the tathāgatas, of all that is discriminated and undiscriminated — whatever is brought forth by transformation, he knows it for a transformation. The second is knowing “sustaining”: the sustaining of the Buddha, of the Dharma, of the Saṅgha, of deeds, of the afflictions, of time, of vows, of offerings, of practice, of kalpas, of wisdom — whatever is able to sustain and hold up a stretch of existence, he knows why it is able to sustain. The third is entering the subtle wisdoms and the secret places of a Tathāgata: the ten subtle wisdoms of cultivation, the ending of life, taking birth, leaving the household, displaying spiritual penetrations, accomplishing perfect awakening, turning the wheel of the Dharma, abiding in the life-span, parinirvāṇa, and the teaching’s abiding; and the ten secrets of body, speech, mind, deliberating upon the time when a thing is to be said and when not, conferring a prediction upon a bodhisattva, gathering in sentient beings, the various vehicles, the differences in the faculties and conduct of all sentient beings, what is done by deeds, and the practice of gaining awakening. The misreading is to read “secret” as concealment. The usage of the sūtra is this: that a buddha acts so and sentient beings cannot see why is what is named secret; and the bodhisattva of the tenth ground “knows all such things as these as they really are”, so that the secret is not the unsayable but the hard to fathom. Brought down to the ground: what is called the unfathomable intent of a buddha becomes, at this ground, a text that can be read.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (3): Kalpa Enters Kalpa, Wisdom Enters Place

Further down come two harder sets. The first is the wisdom of entering kalpas: one kalpa entering asaṃkhyeya kalpas, asaṃkhyeya kalpas entering one kalpa, numbered kalpas entering numberless kalpas, a single thought entering a kalpa, a kalpa entering a single thought, a kalpa entering a non-kalpa, kalpas with a buddha entering kalpas without a buddha, past and future kalpas entering the present kalpa, long kalpas entering short kalpas, short kalpas entering long kalpas. The second is the wisdom of entering places: the wisdom of entering the path of a hair, of entering a dust-mote, of entering the perfect awakening of the body that is a land, of the bodies of sentient beings, of the minds of sentient beings, of the conduct of sentient beings, of the perfect awakening that accords with every place, of entering the display of conduct that pervades, of conduct that goes with the grain, of conduct that goes against the grain, and even the wisdom of entering the display of the wisdom of the śrāvakas, the wisdom of the pratyekabuddhas, the practice of the bodhisattvas, and the practice of the tathāgatas. The misreading is to read “a single thought entering a kalpa” as an illusion of time. What the sūtra sets down is “entering” — not that long and short exchange places, but that he can come and go within them at will. The closing sentence says it plainly: “all the wisdom that all the buddhas have is vast and measureless, and the bodhisattva of this ground is able to enter into all of it.” Brought down to the ground: at this ground time and space are no longer walls but doors.

The Ten Gates of Liberation: One Gate Opens and the Rest Open with It

After the part of the great exhaustion the sūtra lists ten liberations: the liberation beyond conceiving, without obstruction, of pure observation, of universal illumination, of the Tathāgata-womb, of according with the unobstructed wheel, of penetrating the three times, of the treasury of the Dharma realm, of the wheel of light, and of the realm in which nothing is left over; “with these ten at their head there are measureless hundreds of thousands of asaṃkhyeya gates of liberation, all of them gained within this tenth ground”, and even measureless gates of samādhi, of dhāraṇī, and of spiritual penetration are “all of them accomplished”. The misreading to be guarded against is to take the ten liberations for ten abilities. The construction of the sūtra is “with these ten at their head” — ten is instance, not the whole of a list. Brought down to the ground: to cultivate to a certain point is not to have learned ten more things, but for everything learned one by one before to open through at once, so that the countless doors that follow open together.

The Explanation of the Name (1): The Name Dharma Cloud Lies First in ‘Being Able to Receive’

Only here does the sūtra formally explain the name of the ground, and the first sense of the explanation is unexpected — it is not being able to rain but being able to bear. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground “penetrates wisdom such as this, accords with measureless awakening, and accomplishes the power of skillful recollection”, and that all the great Dharma-radiance, great Dharma-illumination, and great Dharma-rain of the measureless buddhas of the ten directions he is “able in a single thought to settle, to receive, to gather, and to hold”. Then comes the simile of the dragon king Sāgara: of the great rain the dragon king pours down, apart from the great sea alone all other places cannot settle, receive, gather, or hold it; and so it is with the great Dharma-rain of the secret treasury of a Tathāgata — apart from the bodhisattva of the tenth ground alone, other sentient beings, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and even the bodhisattvas up to the ninth ground cannot settle, receive, gather, or hold it. And turning it about to the sea: the rain of one dragon king it can receive, and the rain of two, of three, of measureless dragon kings poured down at once it can receive as well — “why is this? because it is a vessel measureless and vast.” The misreading is to read Dharma Cloud as the bodhisattva expounding the Dharma. What the sūtra sets up first is the measure of the vessel. Brought down to the ground: whether one can catch a great Dharma when it comes does not depend on whether one wants it, but on how large a vessel one is.

The Explanation of the Name (2): How Much Dharma Is Received in a Single Thought

Vimukticandra then presses a very good question: in a single thought, at how many tathāgatas can the bodhisattva of this ground settle, receive, gather, and hold the great Dharma-rain? Vajragarbha answers: it is not something counting can know, and I shall speak a simile for you — suppose in each of the ten directions there were worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten unspeakable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-fields, and each and every sentient being within them had gained the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining, and were all attendants of a buddha, and foremost in learning among the śrāvakas, like the monk Great Victory in the presence of the Buddha upon the Diamond Lotus; and that moreover the Dharma received by one being would not be received again by the rest. Vimukticandra answers for himself: “that number is exceedingly great, measureless and boundless.” Only then does Vajragarbha draw in the net: what this bodhisattva settles, receives, gathers, and holds in the presence of a single buddha in a single thought — the great Dharma-radiance, great Dharma-illumination, great Dharma-rain, and the Dharma-treasury of the three times — is such that the Dharma heard and retained by all those many beings, set against it, “does not amount to one part in a hundred”; and it is not one buddha only, but the buddhas as many as the dust-motes of the ten directions and beyond them measureless and boundless, in the presence of each and every one of whom he is able to settle, receive, gather, and hold. The misreading is to take this passage for hyperbole. It is a measuring: first the imaginable amount is heaped to its utmost, and then it is said that this does not come to one part in a hundred. Brought down to the ground: as to the measure of the Dharma of a buddha, the human imagination is always the side that underestimates.

The Explanation of the Name (3): Only after Being Able to Receive Does One Speak of Being Able to Rain

Only in the last two turns of the explanation of the name does the raining come round. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground, by the power of his own vows, “raises up the cloud of great compassion, rolls the thunder of the great Dharma, takes spiritual penetration, clear knowing, and fearlessness for his lightning, and merit and wisdom for his dense banks of cloud”, displays bodies of every kind, going to and fro, and in a single thought pervades lands as many as the dust-motes of the ten directions, expounding the great Dharma and crushing the enemy Māra; and further, according with what the minds of sentient beings delight in, he “pours down the rain of sweet dew and extinguishes all the dust and flame of the many delusions”; and further, within one world he displays the deeds of a buddha from the descent from Tuṣita to nirvāṇa, and within two, three, and even dust-mote-many lands it is so as well. And so four times the sūtra says, “and this is why this ground is named: Dharma Cloud.” Chengguan divides the part of the explanation of the name into three turns: first, being able to receive the great Dharma cloud-rain of a Tathāgata; second, from “by the power of his own vows” onward, making clear the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion; third, from “in a single thought” onward, making clear the pouring of rain that gives birth to goodness — and the first two occurrences of “and this is why this ground is named: Dharma Cloud” both belong to the first turn. This structure must be seen clearly: being able to receive comes first, and the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion and gives birth to goodness comes after, and only the two together make up the one word ‘cloud’. Li Tongxuan, in explaining the name of this ground, takes precisely the side of the raining — saying that this bodhisattva has ascended to the station of a Dharma-king, his wisdom full and his practice complete, and with the cloud of great kindness and compassion pours down the rain of Dharma everywhere upon the sea of birth and death, watering the mind-fields of all sentient beings and making the sprout of awakening arise. Chengguan for his part gathers the explanations of the several houses and brings them all back to three senses: holding virtue with wisdom, cutting off obstructions throughout, and realizing the dharma-body throughout. Brought down to the ground: only when one can catch it can there be talk of giving it out — and this is the sequence for everyone who transmits the Dharma.

The Power of Spiritual Penetration (1): Setting a World within a Single Dust-Mote

After the explanation of the name comes the part of the power of spiritual penetration. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground is “clear and penetrating in wisdom and has mastery of spiritual penetration”, and following upon his thought can make all manner of turns: a narrow world into a vast one and a vast into a narrow, a defiled world into a pure and a pure into a defiled, and worlds abiding in disorder, in due sequence, upside down, and upright, all of them able to be made into one another; he can set within a single dust-mote a world together with Sumeru and all its mountains and rivers, and yet “the appearance of the dust-mote remains as it was and the world is not diminished”; and even set within a single dust-mote two, three, and unspeakably many worlds, and yet “the substance and appearance of that dust-mote remain as they were, while the worlds within it are all plainly made to appear”. He can display within a single world the adornments of two worlds and even of unspeakably many; he can set the sentient beings of unspeakably many worlds within one world and the beings of one world within unspeakably many, and yet “does not disturb or harm the sentient beings at all”; he can display within a single pore all the adornments of the realms of the buddhas. The misreading is to take it for a trick of shrinking and enlarging. After each of these turnings the sūtra keeps appending an ‘and yet’ — “and yet the substance and appearance of that dust-mote remain as they were”, “and yet does not disturb or harm the sentient beings at all”, “and yet does not let sentient beings have any thought of fright” — what changes is the relation, not the thing itself. Brought down to the ground: what the Avataṃsaka speaks of as one being all comes to rest, in the text of the sūtra, upon just these words ‘and yet’.

The Power of Spiritual Penetration (2): The Heads and Tongues within a Single Body

Within the same passage there is something stranger still: in a single thought he displays bodies as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many worlds, and each body displays hands as many as those dust-motes, and each hand holds flower-caskets, incense-boxes, garlands and canopies, and banners and pennants as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, pervading the ten directions and making offerings to the buddhas; and each body displays heads as many as those dust-motes again, and each head sends forth tongues as many as those dust-motes again, which in thought after thought pervade the ten directions and praise the merits of the buddhas. He makes his body appear pervading the three times, and within that body there are measureless buddhas and the adornments of buddha-lands, and there is nothing of the forming and breaking down of worlds that is not made to appear; from a single pore of his own body he blows forth all the winds and yet does not vex sentient beings; he takes boundless worlds for one great sea, and within the sea a great lotus flower appears, and within it he displays the great tree of awakening and even the accomplishing of the knowledge of all modes; with his mouth he blows out breath and can quake measureless worlds of the ten directions and yet not let sentient beings be frightened; he displays the disasters of wind, of fire, and of water; upon his own body he displays the body of a buddha, upon the body of a buddha his own body, upon the body of a buddha his own land, upon his own land the body of a buddha. The misreading is to read it as a catalogue of transformations. It is in truth demonstrating one thing: that these pairs of relations — body and land, self and buddha — can already exchange their places. Brought down to the ground: what is called mastery is that even the hardest of divisions, ‘which is me and which is the buddha’, can be loosened.

The Doubt of the Assembly: Then What of the Buddha

Hearing this far, the bodhisattvas in the assembly together with the gods, dragons, and the eight kinds of being, the four world-guarding kings, Śakra, Brahmā, the gods of the Pure Abodes, and the sons of the gods of Maheśvara and the rest, all at once gave rise to one thought: “if the wisdom and power of spiritual penetration of a bodhisattva can be such as this, then what of the Buddha?” This question is put exceedingly well and is also exceedingly dangerous — well, because it is a solid doubt; dangerous, because if it is not cut off, all that was said before becomes a usurping of the Buddha by a bodhisattva. Vimukticandra at once asks Vajragarbha on the assembly’s behalf that he “display a little of the adornments of the spiritual power of a bodhisattva”. Vajragarbha thereupon enters “the samādhi of the substance-nature of all buddha-lands”: when he enters it, the bodhisattvas and the whole great assembly all see their own bodies within the body of Vajragarbha, and within it see all the adornments of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system, which a koṭi of kalpas could not tell to the end; and they see too a tree of awakening the girth of whose trunk is a hundred thousand three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems and whose height is a million of them, and beneath the tree upon a lion seat a buddha named King of the Penetration of Omniscience. The display over, he causes the assemblies each to be in their own place again, and the great assembly, gaining what they had never had, abides in silence, gazing up. The misreading is to take this for an answer to that doubt. It is in truth only an enlarging of the doubt — if within the body of a bodhisattva there is already a buddha, then what of the Buddha? Brought down to the ground: the true answer is still to come, and the sūtra first lets the question be asked all the way to the bottom.

The Name of the Samādhi and Its Realm: A Bodhisattva of the Ninth Ground Cannot Know It

Vimukticandra asks the name of this samādhi, and Vajragarbha answers, “the substance-nature of all buddha-lands”; he asks again what its realm is, and the answer is that if a bodhisattva cultivates this samādhi, then following upon what he thinks in his mind he can make appear within his body buddha-fields as many as the dust-motes of worlds as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, and beyond that number measureless and boundless. Then the sūtra gives a sentence of very great weight: a bodhisattva abiding on the Dharma-Cloud Ground gains measureless hundreds of thousands of great samādhis such as these, and therefore his body and the deeds of his body, his speech and the deeds of his speech, his mind and the deeds of his mind, “cannot be fathomed”; he has mastery of spiritual penetration and plays within all the gates of liberation; and as for what is done by his transformations, by his spiritual power, and by his light, “to state it briefly, even to the raising of a foot and the setting down of a foot”, all such things as he does “are not known even by a bodhisattva who is a prince of the Dharma-king abiding on the Excellent-Wisdom Ground”. The misreading is to see the ninth ground and the tenth as differing in amount. What the sūtra raises is the smallest of motions — the raising and setting down of a foot — and even this the ninth ground cannot fathom. Brought down to the ground: between ground and ground it is not a matter of cultivating a little more, but of a change into a dimension one cannot see.

One Clod of Earth: Between Wisdom and Wisdom There Can Be No Measuring

Vimukticandra thereupon puts the doubt of the assembly formally: “if the realm of spiritual penetration of a bodhisattva is such as this, then what of the power of spiritual penetration of a buddha?” Vajragarbha’s answer is the sharpest passage in the whole chapter. First a simile put as a counter-question: as if someone were to take one clod of earth from the four continents and then ask, “is the earth of the great ground of the boundless worlds the greater, or is this clod the greater” — your question is of just this kind; the wisdom of a Tathāgata is boundless and without equal, how could it be brought and measured against that of a bodhisattva? Then a step back: as with taking a little earth from the four continents, the rest being measureless, so with the wisdom of spiritual penetration of this Dharma-Cloud Ground, even measureless kalpas could speak of but a small part of it — how much more the ground of a Tathāgata. And last a matter cited as proof: suppose in each of the ten directions there were buddha-lands as many as the dust-motes of the boundless worlds, and each land filled with bodhisattvas of this tenth ground, as thick as a grove of sugarcane, bamboo, reeds, rice, and hemp; the wisdom born of the practice those bodhisattvas cultivated through hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, set against the realm of wisdom of a single Tathāgata, “does not amount to one part in a hundred, and even the utterly minute part of an upaniṣad could not reach it”. The misreading is to read this as a belittling of the bodhisattva. What it belittles is the act of measuring itself. Brought down to the ground: at a certain level, difference can no longer be spoken of in multiples, and one can only say that it is beyond comparing.

No Different from the Three Kinds of Deed of a Tathāgata, and Still Serving and Making Offerings

The doubt cut off, the sūtra turns back to settle the place of this bodhisattva, and speaks with great measure: he “abides within wisdom such as this and is no different from a Tathāgata in the deeds of body, of speech, and of mind” — the three kinds of deed are already no different from a Tathāgata’s; and yet he “does not cast away the power of the bodhisattva samādhis”, but for numberless kalpas serves and makes offerings to all the buddhas, in each kalpa making offerings with implements of every kind; sustained by the spiritual power of all the buddhas, the light of his wisdom becomes more surpassing still, and every difficult question within the Dharma realm he is good at resolving, so that “for hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas there is none who can make him yield”. The misreading is to seize upon the one sentence ‘no different from a Tathāgata in the three kinds of deed’ and say that this ground is buddhahood. The sūtra immediately presses it down with two similes: a goldsmith makes adornments of the finest true gold and sets great maṇi jewels among them, and the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment wears them upon himself, so that the adornments of the other gods and humans cannot compare — and just so stands the bodhisattva of this ground with respect to those of the first ground up to the ninth; the light of Maheśvara, king of the gods, makes the bodies and minds of sentient beings cool and clear, and no other light can compare — and just so the light of wisdom of this ground can bring sentient beings even to enter the wisdom of omniscience, which the light of wisdom of the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and even the bodhisattvas of the ninth ground cannot do. What both similes compare is ‘surpassing those below’, not ‘being equal to the fruit of buddhahood’. Brought down to the ground: the highest modesty is to be still making offerings.

The Preeminence of the Perfection of Knowledge: The Ten Perfections Matched to the Last of the Ten Grounds

After the two similes the sūtra says that the buddhas, the world-honored ones, expound for him further the wisdom of the three times, the wisdom of the differences of the Dharma realm, the wisdom that pervades all the worlds, the wisdom that illumines all the worlds, and the wisdom that thinks upon all sentient beings with loving-kindness, and to state the essential point expound for him even the gaining of the wisdom of omniscience; and it judges to which of the ten perfections this ground belongs: “among the ten perfections, the perfection of knowledge is the most preeminent; and it is not that the other perfections are not cultivated.” From the preeminence of the perfection of giving on the first ground all the way to the preeminence of the perfection of knowledge here, the matching of the ten perfections to the ten grounds is at this point complete. The misreading is to confound the “perfection of knowledge” with the prajñā among the six perfections: prajñā is the wisdom that illumines and sees emptiness of nature, while the perfection of knowledge is subsequently attained discrimination, the wisdom that has mastery amid the differences of all dharmas — which is why this ground can “resolve well every difficult question within the Dharma realm”. Li Tongxuan, explaining the gate of practice of this ground, says just this: “what is cultivated on this ground has the perfection of knowledge for its lord and the other nine for its companions.” Brought down to the ground: what becomes preeminent at the last is neither the power of concentration nor spiritual penetration, but the ability to say a thing clearly — because there is Dharma to be expounded.

The Fruit of Pliancy: For the Most Part He Becomes Maheśvara, King of the Gods

By the common pattern of the ten grounds, the practice of the ground having been expounded, the fruit of the station is expounded. The bodhisattva of this ground “for the most part becomes Maheśvara, king of the gods, having mastery with respect to the Dharma”, able to confer upon sentient beings, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and all bodhisattvas the practice of the perfections, and there is none who can make him yield with any difficult question within the Dharma realm; giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside — all deeds such as these that he does “are not apart from mindfulness of the Buddha, and even not apart from mindfulness of being complete in all modes and in the wisdom of omniscience”; and he vows further to be, among all sentient beings, the head and the foremost, and even the support of the wisdom of omniscience; and if he applies diligence and vigor, in a single thought he gains samādhis as many as the dust-motes of ten unspeakable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-fields, and even displays bodhisattvas as many as those dust-motes as his retinue; and if he displays with mastery by the power of surpassing vows, he goes beyond that number, in cultivation, adornment, faithful understanding, what is done, body, speech, light, faculties, transformations, sounds, and the places of his practice, so that hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas could not count and know them. The misreading is to be startled at his ‘becoming a king of the gods’. From the king of Jambudvīpa on the first ground to Maheśvara, king of the gods, on this one, the royal station rises all the way; and yet the fixed sentence on every ground is the same — not apart from mindfulness of the Buddha. Brought down to the ground: the higher the seat, the more closely the thread that ties one to the Buddha must be watched.

Lake Anavatapta: From the Mind of Awakening to the Sea of Omniscience

The aspects of practice of the ten grounds appearing in due sequence, one is then able to proceed into the wisdom of omniscience. The sūtra draws this together with a clean simile: as the four great rivers flow out from Lake Anavatapta and their waters reach throughout Jambudvīpa, neither drying up but increasing the more, and flow on until they enter the sea and make it full; so it is too with the bodhisattva — “out from the mind of awakening flows the water of roots of goodness and of great vows, and with the four means of gathering he fills sentient beings, without ever coming to an end but increasing the more, and flows on until he enters the sea of omniscience and makes it full.” The matching of this simile must be set straight: the lake is the mind of awakening, the four rivers are the four means of gathering, the Jambudvīpa the waters reach is sentient beings, and the sea they enter is omniscience. The misreading is to take the entering of the sea for the end of practice. What the sūtra says is “makes it full” — the water enters the sea, and the sea is thereby made full. Brought down to the ground: benefiting others is not an expenditure of one’s practice but its wellspring; the water flows out all the way, and what fills the sea of wisdom at the last is that same water.

The Ten Mountain Kings: Standing within One and the Same Sea, Gaining Their Names by Difference

The part of the images of the grounds at the end of the chapter is outlined by Chengguan as the four similes of lake, mountain, sea, and jewel gathering up the ten grounds; the Lake Anavatapta of the preceding section is the first, and this section is the second, the ten mountain kings. The sūtra says that the ten grounds of a bodhisattva “have their differences by reason of the wisdom of a buddha, as by reason of the great earth there are the ten mountain kings”: the snow mountain gathers the many medicinal herbs, and the first ground gathers the scriptures, arts, writings and hymns, and spells of the world; the fragrance mountain gathers all fragrances, and the second ground gathers the practice of the precepts and deportment; the Vaidharī mountain is made purely of jewels, and the third ground gathers the meditative concentrations, spiritual penetrations, liberations, samādhis, and samāpattis; the divine sages’ mountain has the sages of the five penetrations dwelling in it, and the fourth ground gathers the surpassing wisdom within all paths; the Yugandhara mountain has the yakṣas and great spirits dwelling in it, and the fifth ground gathers the spiritual penetrations that are masterful and as one wishes; the horse-ear mountain has all fruits, and the sixth ground gathers the principle of dependent origination and the fruits realized by the śrāvakas; the Nimindhara mountain has the mighty dragon spirits dwelling in it, and the seventh ground gathers skillful means and wisdom and the fruits realized by the pratyekabuddhas; the Cakravāḍa mountain has the hosts of those who have mastery dwelling in it, and the eighth ground gathers the practice of a bodhisattva’s mastery and the differences among the worlds; the Ketu mountain has the asura kings of great majestic virtue dwelling in it, and the ninth ground gathers the wisdom and practice concerning the arising and ceasing of the world; the Sumeru mountain has the gods of great majestic virtue dwelling in it, and the tenth ground gathers the powers, fearlessnesses, exclusive dharmas, and all the deeds of a buddha. And then comes the weightiest sentence in the whole chapter: “these ten jeweled mountain kings stand within one and the same great sea, and yet gain their names each according to its difference; so it is too with the ten grounds of a bodhisattva: they stand within one and the same omniscience, and yet gain their names each according to its difference.” The misreading is to read the ten grounds as ten steps of a stair with the wisdom of a buddha above the stair. Chengguan, joining this simile to its sense, puts it through to the bottom: as when the sea is formed it does not lose its ten aspects, and apart from the ten aspects there is no sea, so apart from the ten grounds there is no wisdom of a buddha — and therefore the ten grounds are themselves the sea of wisdom. Brought down to the ground: the ordering of stages and complete interfusion are not two things — the ten grounds are not outside the wisdom of a buddha, just as the ten mountains are not outside the sea.

The Ten Aspects of the Great Sea: The Name Grows from the Aspects and Cannot Be Shifted or Taken Away

The third simile takes the ten aspects of the great sea: growing deeper by degrees, not holding a corpse, the other waters that flow in losing their former names, being everywhere of one taste, having measureless precious jewels, none being able to reach its bottom, being vast and measureless, being where the great of body dwell, its tides not passing their bounds, receiving the great rains everywhere without overflowing — and by these ten aspects it gains the name of great sea, and it “cannot be shifted or taken away”. Matched to the ten grounds: the Joyful Ground gives birth to great vows and enters deeper by degrees, the Stainless Ground does not hold the corpse of any breaking of the precepts, the Luminous Ground casts away the false names of the world, the Flaming-Wisdom Ground is of one taste with the merits of a buddha, the Hard-to-Conquer Ground gives birth to the many precious jewels of skillful means and spiritual penetration, the Manifest Ground observes the deep principle of arising by conditions, the Far-Reaching Ground observes well with vast awakened understanding, the Immovable Ground displays vast adornments, the Excellent-Wisdom Ground gains deep liberation and moves within the world knowing as it really is and not passing the bounds, and the Dharma-Cloud Ground can receive the great Dharma-radiance rain of all the buddha-tathāgatas and never have enough of it. The misreading is to read “cannot be shifted or taken away” as ‘cannot be changed’. Chengguan explains it in two senses: first, that as fruit its name of the depth and breadth of a sea cannot be taken from it; second, that as cause the fitness of its practice cannot be taken from it — for if the aspect of the cause were taken away, the fruit too would not stand. Brought down to the ground: a name that has grown out of actual aspects can neither be seized away nor handed over — so it is with the names of the ten grounds, and so it is with the standing of a person who practices.

The Ten Natures of the Maṇi Jewel: From Coming Out of the Sea to Raining Jewels at the King’s Wish

The fourth simile is the great maṇi jewel with ten natures that surpass the many jewels: coming out from the great sea, being worked by a skilled craftsman, round and complete without flaw, pure and parted from defilement, clear and translucent within and without, skillfully bored through, strung upon a thread of jewels, set upon a high banner of beryl, sending out all manner of light everywhere, and able to rain the many jeweled things following upon the mind of the king so as to fill the wishes of sentient beings. Matched to the ten things by which a bodhisattva surpasses the many sages: raising up the mind of omniscience, keeping the precepts and the ascetic practices with right conduct clear and pure, meditative concentrations and samādhis round and complete without flaw, conduct on the path clear and white and parted from defilement, skillful means and spiritual penetration clear and translucent within and without, the wisdom of dependent origination skillfully able to bore through, being strung upon a thread of skillful means and wisdom, being set upon the high banner of mastery, observing the conduct of sentient beings and sending out the light of hearing and retaining, and receiving the consecration of the wisdom of a buddha, falling within the number of the buddhas, and doing the deeds of a buddha widely for sentient beings. The misreading is to read the simile of the jewel as being only about ‘adornment’. Chengguan points out that what the simile takes is the “coming out” — it is chosen out from the sea and so is taken up, just as on the first ground one observes with the wisdom that knows as it really is and so comes out of the sea of the afflictions; and the last item, “raining jewels following upon the mind of the king”, is a not-begrudging, a raining of jewels at will without stint. Brought down to the ground: the end-point of the ten grounds is not that the jewel is fine to look at, but that this jewel now hangs high enough, sends out light, and is willing to rain its treasure upon others.

The Benefit of the Grounds: To Hear This Dharma-Gate Is a Merit Equal to All That Omniscience Gathers

The four similes of lake, mountain, sea, and jewel having been fully spoken, the sūtra comes back to the person listening: “as for this chapter, the Dharma-gate of the practice of a bodhisattva that gathers the merits of all modes and of omniscience: if sentient beings do not plant roots of goodness, it cannot be heard by them.” Vimukticandra asks how much merit is gained from hearing this Dharma-gate, and Vajragarbha answers: as with the merit gathered by omniscience, so it is with the merit of hearing this Dharma-gate. Why? Because there is none who, without hearing this Dharma-gate of merit, is able to have faith and understanding, to receive and keep it, and to read and recite it — how much less to be vigorous and cultivate as it is expounded; and therefore one must gain the hearing of this Dharma-gate that gathers the merits of omniscience before one can have faith and understanding, receive, keep, and cultivate it, and thereafter arrive at the ground of omniscience. The misreading is to read “hearing” as having heard it with the ears. Chengguan explains that hearing here has two senses: first, hearing in the ordinary drifting way, which is for the sake of a distant benefit; second, the true hearing that does not grasp at the mark of hearing and in which beginning and end are fully interfused — and it is of the latter that it is said that “having heard, one is equal to a buddha”. Brought down to the ground: this passage is the chapter speaking to its reader — what you are reading at this moment is that very Dharma-gate which “cannot be heard by one who has not planted roots of goodness”.

The Quaking of the Earth and the Witness from Other Quarters: The Words and the Meaning Neither Added to nor Taken From

The exposition being finished, by the spiritual power of the Buddha and because the Dharma is so of itself, in each of the ten directions worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten koṭis of buddha-fields quake with the six kinds of quaking in eighteen aspects: moving, moving throughout, moving throughout alike; rising, rising throughout, rising throughout alike; surging, surging throughout, surging throughout alike; shaking, shaking throughout, shaking throughout alike; roaring, roaring throughout, roaring throughout alike; striking, striking throughout, striking throughout alike; heavenly flowers, garlands, and robes rain down with the adornments of the jewels of the gods, banners, pennants, and silken canopies; the music of the heavens is played and with one voice praises the merits of the ground of omniscience; and as this Dharma is expounded in the palace of the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment in this world, so it is in all the worlds of the ten directions. And bodhisattvas as many as the dust-motes of ten koṭis of buddha-fields come from beyond the worlds of the ten directions, saying, “Excellent, excellent, Vajragarbha! Well have you expounded this Dharma”, and telling of themselves: we are all alike named Vajragarbha; the worlds in which we dwell, though each differing, are all named Diamond Virtue, and the names of our buddhas are all Diamond Banner; in our own worlds we all expound this Dharma borne by the majestic spiritual power of a Tathāgata, and the assemblies are all alike, and “the words and the meaning of the sentences have nothing added and nothing taken away from what is expounded here”. Li Tongxuan explains this passage saying: their calling him excellent makes clear that the Dharma expounded tallies and does not differ; their being of the same name makes clear that the wisdom of the treasury of the Dharma is the same. The misreading is to read it as an auspicious portent. It is a proof: one and the same Dharma, expounded in measureless worlds by those of the same name, with the words and sentences neither added to nor taken from. Brought down to the ground: the true Dharma is nobody’s original invention; wherever it is expounded it is just that.

The Verses in Repetition (1): Walking the Ten Grounds Once More

Vajragarbha observes the assemblies of the ten directions, and wishing to praise the raising of the mind of the wisdom of omniscience, to display the realms of a bodhisattva, to purify the power of a bodhisattva’s practice, to expound the path that gathers in the knowledge of all modes, to destroy the defilements of all the world, to bestow omniscience, to display the adornments of wisdom beyond conceiving, to show forth all the merits of the bodhisattvas, and to cause the meaning of the grounds to be opened out more fully still — borne by the spiritual power of the Buddha, he speaks in verse. Chengguan, taking the eighty-fascicle text, judges these verses to be forty-two and divides them into three: the first verse is general praise and exhortation to listen, the last verse is the concluding statement that it cannot be exhausted, and the middle is the proper repetition divided into eight. The first verse, “his mind is still and quenched and constantly well tamed, level and unobstructed like empty space, parted from the many defilements and abiding upon the path”, is the general praise. Then thirteen verses repeat the part of the skillful means that make the ground full: the first three are the general repetition of the merit of good selection cultivated alike upon the first nine grounds — cultivating good things through hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas, making offerings to measureless buddhas, diligently keeping the precepts with gentleness and forbearance, shame, merit, and wisdom complete, setting the will upon the wisdom of a buddha and cultivating a vast understanding, making offerings to the buddhas of the three times, knowing all dharmas to be level and equal — all of them brought back to “for the benefit of sentient beings he raises up the great mind”; and then one verse to each ground: the first, “forever parted from the many evils and constantly bearing gladness”; the second, “precepts and much learning are complete in him and his mindfulness is upon sentient beings”; the third, “he observes the fire of the three poisons in the world”; the Flaming-Wisdom Ground, “all within the three kinds of existence is impermanent, like an arrow shot into the body, its pain fierce and burning”; the Hard-to-Conquer Ground, “recollection and wisdom being complete in him he gains the wisdom of the path”; the Manifest Ground, “with wisdom and skillful means he observes well”; the seventh, “he does not grasp at a self and parts from being and non-being; the nature of dharmas is from the first still and quenched and yet turns along with conditions”; the Immovable Ground, “though he has realized the still and quenched he is diligent in cultivation still”; the Excellent-Wisdom Ground, “the buddhas urge him to rise up out of the still and quenched”; and it closes into the tenth ground with “with subtle and wondrous wisdom he observes sentient beings, observing the thickets of their mental conduct, deeds, and delusions” and “cultivating in due sequence he is complete in the many good things, and up to the ninth ground he gathers merit and wisdom, and constantly seeking the highest dharma of the buddhas he thereupon gains the water of a buddha’s wisdom to consecrate the crown of his head”. The misreading is to take the verses in repetition for an abridged retelling. What the verses do here is to press the nine grounds into a single line, so that the place of the tenth ground can be seen. Brought down to the ground: reading this far and looking back, the nine grounds before are a road, and this set of verses is the map of that road.

The Verses in Repetition (2): Verses on the Samādhis, the Station, and the Great Exhaustion

Then one verse repeats the part of the samādhis: “he gains numberless samādhis and is good too at knowing their workings; the last samādhi is named receiving the station, and he abides in a vast realm and is constantly unmoving.” Five and a half verses repeat the part of gaining the station: the great jeweled lotus flower suddenly appears and the measure of his body is fitted to it, and the sons of the Buddha encircle him and observe together; he sends out hundreds of thousands of koṭis of great rays of light that extinguish the suffering of beings, and again from above the crown of his head sends out light that enters everywhere the Dharma gatherings of the buddhas of the ten directions, abides in the sky and becomes a net of light, and having made offerings to the buddhas enters in through their feet; the buddhas all know that “this son of the Buddha has now ascended to the station of consecration”; the bodhisattvas of the ten directions come and observe, the great being receiving consecration spreads out his light, and from between the brows of the buddhas light comes forth and enters in through the crown of his head; the worlds of the ten directions all quake and the suffering of the hells is extinguished, and “at this time the buddhas confer upon him the station, as a wheel-turning king does upon his first son”; and it closes by properly settling the name of the ground with “if one is granted consecration by the buddhas, this is called ascending to the Dharma-Cloud Ground”. Then three and a half verses repeat the part of the great exhaustion: the three realms of desire, form, and the formless, the Dharma realm, the worlds, the realm of sentient beings, the numbered, the numberless, and empty space, “all such things as these he penetrates entirely”; the great and majestic power of all the workings of transformation, the subtle wisdom of the sustaining of the buddhas, the secrets, the numbers of the kalpas, the paths of a hair and the rest, “all of it he is able to observe as it really is”; taking birth, forsaking the household, accomplishing the right path, turning the wondrous wheel of the Dharma, entering nirvāṇa, and even the dharma of still and quenched liberation, “together with what has not yet been expounded — all of it he is able to know”. The misreading is to feel that the verses are vaguer than the long prose. The verses in fact compress the four sets of what is known in the prose into three and a half verses, and the last line, “together with what has not yet been expounded — all of it he is able to know”, is an added stroke that the prose does not have. Brought down to the ground: what is known does not stop at what is expounded — this is the sentence the verses supply to the prose.

The Verses in Repetition (3): Verses on the Explanation of the Name and on Spiritual Penetration, with the Fruit of the Station

Three verses repeat the part of the explanation of the name: “the bodhisattva abiding on this Dharma-Cloud Ground is complete in the power of recollection and holds the dharma of the buddhas; as the great sea receives the rain of the dragon king, so it is too with this ground’s receiving of the Dharma” — the receiving first; “the measureless sentient beings of the ten directions all gain the hearing and retaining and keep the dharma of the buddhas; the Dharma that he hears in the presence of a single buddha surpasses that number of theirs and is without limit” — the measure of the receiving; “by the majestic spiritual power of his wisdom and vows of former times, in a single thought he pervades the lands of the ten directions and pours down the rain of sweet dew that extinguishes the afflictions — and this is why the Buddha says that this ground is named Dharma Cloud” — the being able to rain. Matching Chengguan’s three turns to these: the first two verses both repeat the first turn of being able to receive (one on being able to receive, one on the measure of receiving), and the third verse, “pours down the rain of sweet dew that extinguishes the afflictions”, repeats the second turn of the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion; the third turn, the pouring of rain that gives birth to goodness, has no verse. Two verses repeat the part of the power of spiritual penetration, with and without anything above it: “his spiritual penetrations displayed fill the ten directions, going beyond the realms of humans, gods, and the world”, so that “the wisdom and thinking of the world must surely be confounded”; and “the merit of the wisdom in a single raising of his foot is not known even by a bodhisattva of the ninth ground — how much less by all sentient beings, and by the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas”. Four and a half verses repeat the fruit of the station: making offerings throughout the lands of the ten directions; the buddhas expounding for him again the unobstructed wisdom of the Dharma realm of the three times; the light of wisdom of this ground being like the light of the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment removing the darkness of the world; “abiding upon this ground he for the most part becomes king of the three realms and is well able to expound the dharma of the three vehicles”; and closing with “this ground I have now stated briefly; if one wished to state it at length it could not be exhausted”. The misreading is to take the verses for an abridgement of the prose and skip them. Here the divisions of the verses and of the prose tally exactly, and can be used precisely to check whether one has read anything past. Brought down to the ground: the verses are the table of contents the sūtra has supplied for itself.

The Verses in Repetition (4): The Verses on the Three Similes of Mountain, Sea, and Jewel, and the Conclusion That It Cannot Be Exhausted

The last seven and a half verses repeat the part of the images of the grounds. Three and a half on the simile of the mountains: “the grounds such as these within the wisdom of a buddha stand lofty as the ten mountain kings”, and then the arts and learning of the first ground like the snow mountain gathering the many herbs, the precepts and learning of the second like the fragrance mountain, the third like the Vaidharī putting forth wondrous flowers, the jewels of the path of the Flaming-Wisdom Ground like the sages’ mountain, the spiritual penetrations of the fifth like the Yugandhara, the sixth like the horse-ear complete with fruits, the great wisdom of the seventh like the Nimindhara, the mastery of the eighth like the encircling ring, the ninth like the Ketu gathering the unobstructed, the tenth like Sumeru complete with the many virtues. Two verses on the simile of the sea: the first ground has vows for its head, the second the precepts, the third merit, the fourth singleness, the fifth subtlety, the sixth depth, the seventh vast wisdom, the eighth adornment, the ninth the pondering of subtle and wondrous meaning going beyond every path of the world, and “the tenth the receiving and keeping of the dharma of the buddhas — a sea of practice such as this is never dried up”. Two verses on the simile of the jewel: the ten practices go beyond the world, with the raising of the mind first, the precepts second, meditative concentration third, purity of conduct fourth, accomplishment fifth, arising by conditions sixth, the boring through seventh, “the eighth being set upon the diamond banner, the ninth the observing of the thickets of sentient beings, the tenth consecration following upon the mind of the king — jewels of merit such as these grow pure by degrees”. And the last verse is the conclusion that it cannot be exhausted: “though the lands of the ten directions be ground to dust-motes, their number may still be known in a single thought; though empty space be measured with the tip of a hair, its measure may still be known — but the dharma of this ground, though told for koṭis of kalpas, cannot be exhausted.” The misreading is to suppose that the verses have repeated all four similes of the part of the images; in fact only the three of mountain, sea, and jewel are repeated. Chengguan has already recorded it: the simile of Lake Anavatapta and the part of the benefit of the grounds are, for brevity of text, not repeated in verse. Brought down to the ground: the last verse states two impossible things as possible — that the ground to dust may be counted and empty space measured — only to set off the third, which is truly impossible: that the dharma of this ground cannot be told to the end.

Reading in the Mirror of Consciousness-Only: The Great Cloud of Dharma-Wisdom Holding the Water of the Many Virtues

The explanation of the name of this ground within the consciousness-only lineage is exceedingly well ordered, and it and this chapter are the inside and outside of one another. Vasubandhu composed the Shidi jing lun explaining this chapter passage by passage, and judged this ground into eight parts, from which the very bones of the outline of this ground come. The Cheng weishi lun, explaining the name of the tenth ground, says: the Dharma-Cloud Ground is so called because the great cloud of Dharma-wisdom holds the water of the many virtues, screens the coarse and heavy that is like empty space, and fills up the dharma-body. The She dacheng lun sets the question, “why is the tenth ground named Dharma Cloud”, and answers that it is because one gains the wisdom that takes all dharmas as its object at once and holds within itself all the gates of dhāraṇī and gates of samādhi, and because, like a great cloud able to cover the vast obstruction that is like empty space, it is also able to fill up the dharma-body — and these three senses are just those that Chengguan and Fazang alike carry on: holding water, covering space, and filling up the dharma-body. The Yuqie shidi lun names this ground the abode of the bodhisattva of the highest and full accomplishment, and says that this bodhisattva “is himself like a great cloud that has not yet manifested the perfect awakening of unsurpassed awakening”, and that were he to manifest that awakening he could rain for measureless sentient beings the incomparable and subtle rain of Dharma, quell the dust of the afflictions, and cause the crops of their roots of goodness to grow and ripen. This may be read against the text of this chapter: the sūtra speaks of being able to receive by the rain of the dragon king Sāgara, and the consciousness-only treatises speak of being able to hold by “holding the water of the many virtues”; the sūtra speaks of being able to rain by the cloud of great compassion pouring the rain of sweet dew, and the Yuqie says that the great cloud has not yet manifested perfect awakening and that only upon manifesting it can it rain greatly. Only when the two mirrors shine together is the name Dharma Cloud complete: holding and not yet raining is this ground; raining and moistening everywhere is the ground of a buddha — which is why the sūtra says “falls within the number of the buddhas” and does not say ‘has become a buddha’. The She dacheng lun further sets up for each of the ten grounds one kind of obstruction of ignorance to be countered, and the tenth ground answers to “the sense of the support of mastery over deeds, and the sense of the support of mastery in the gates of dhāraṇī and the gates of samādhi” — which corresponds sentence for sentence with what this chapter expounds of the mastery of spiritual penetration and of the measureless gates of dhāraṇī and of samādhi all being accomplished on this ground.

Lineage

This ground is the gathering up of the whole chapter of the ten grounds, and therefore what it carries forward is also the widest. On the side of the Huayan house: the joint explanation of the ten mountain kings “standing within one and the same great sea and gaining their names by difference” together with the ten aspects of the great sea becomes the most direct scriptural ground for the ordering of stages not obstructing complete interfusion — Chengguan’s one sentence, “apart from the ten grounds there is no wisdom of a buddha, and therefore the ten grounds are themselves the sea of wisdom”, comes out of just this text; and within the part of the power of spiritual penetration, the setting of a world within a single dust-mote while the appearance of the dust-mote remains as it was, the displaying within a single pore of all the realms of the buddhas, and the making of one’s own body appear upon the body of a buddha and of the body of a buddha upon one’s own, are the root of the later senses of the ten mysterious gates — the mastery of the broad and the narrow, the mutual containing of one and many, and the full clarity of host and companion. In the section explaining the name of the ground, three tracks of the ancient worthies run side by side: Chengguan gathers nine explanations and brings them all back to the three senses of holding virtue with wisdom, cutting off obstructions throughout, and realizing the dharma-body throughout, and judges the obstruction departed from to be “the obstruction of not yet having gained mastery among dharmas”; Fazang, following the She dacheng lun and the consciousness-only treatises, sets up three senses, and cites further Paramārtha’s explanation of the three suchnesses in the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, upon which same explanation Chengguan expressly judges that “it seems not to be the intent of the sūtra” — the two masters taking and rejecting in contrary ways, and each judgment is recorded. Li Tongxuan brings out another track, explaining the name by the cloud of great kindness and compassion pouring down the rain of Dharma, and matching to this ground the woman of the Śākya clan Gopā whom Sudhana visits, taking the sense of her name as “the ground of guarding”, and making clear that on this ground the power of vows and the wisdom and compassion are already full and that he constantly guards the mind-ground of sentient beings. In the outlining of the verses in repetition the three houses also differ: Chengguan, taking the eighty-fascicle text, judges forty-two verses divided into eight; Fazang, taking the sixty-fascicle text, judges ninety verses divided into nine; Li Tongxuan judges eighty-three lines of verse as a general praise of the ten grounds — the base numbers themselves differing, the outlines cannot be matched to one another, and they are recorded together without adjudication. On the side of the consciousness-only axis: Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun is the passage-by-passage explanation of this ground; the Cheng weishi lun on the names of the ten grounds, the She dacheng lun on the ten grounds countering ten obstructions, and the Yuqie shidi lun on the abode of the bodhisattva of the highest and full accomplishment all take their stand upon the text of this ground. The text of one ground carries above it the practice of the nine grounds from the first onward, and opens below upon the meeting with the fruit of buddhahood; and therefore the sūtra sets its own limit with the four words “falls within the number of the buddhas”.